Page 39 of His Curvy Obsession

I swallow hard, imagining a fourth name drawn on the concrete, one year from now. Will it be a girl or a boy?

Rebecca looks up at me, her eyes wary. I come to her, pulling her up to me and embracing her tightly.

“It’s positive?” She whispers against my chest.

“It’s positive,” I reply, kissing her on the head. “Should we tell Loren?”

“Not yet,” she says. “I want to be sure…”

“Those lines are solid pink, Beck,” I say.

“I won’t believe it until I see a heartbeat on the screen,” she says, shaking her head. “I just…I don’t want to…”

I smooth her hair down and kiss her again. I know what she means. She doesn’t want to get her hopes up. With the many warnings and caveats that the doctor gave us alongside her diagnosis, we both know that a positive pregnancy test is only the beginning. The beginning of an adventure, one that holds excitement but also some frightening unknowns.

I know that it’s an adventure we’ll have together, though. And whatever comes next, I’ll be ready to weather the storm with her, to be the rock that she needs to make it through to the other side.

That’s my duty.

Rebecca

“He’s like me.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I say, frowning at my husband. We’re standing outside the door of Luke’s preschool classroom.

The parent-teacher conference went well. Luke knows his letters, his numbers…and the names and characteristics of every single Star Wars character, even the ones from the spin-offs.

I’m a proud mom today.

Eric holds our son outside of the classroom. Luke looks like he’s about to fall asleep any second now, his head of thick brown hair laying on my husband’s shoulder. I love to see them like this. Eric is an incredible father, better than I could have even imagined.

Warm, kind, always ready with a hug or a band-aid whenever needed. Not a robot in the least. He’s also protective and, believe it or not, the big worrier out of the two of us.

A frown creases his brow as we walk out of the school and to our car.

“It’s not a bad thing,” he says at last. “Just…I know what I went through at his age. I don’t want him to deal with all of that.”

“Things are better now than they were when you were growing up,” I remind him. “It’s not treated like a bad thing anymore. It’s a gift, really. Every child is unique. And that’s okay.”

Eric nods but he doesn’t seem convinced.

“He’s happy,” I say to him. “Happy and smart, too.”

“I never questioned that,” he replies quietly. “He’s smart as hell. Terrifyingly smart, actually.”

I grin.

“But I want him to have friends,” he continues. “I want him to be able to bond with people…”

“The teacher says he has friends,” I remind him. “He plays with Julio at recess, remember? With the dinosaurs?”

Eric nods.

“He’s a little quiet in class,” I continue with a shrug. “A little introverted. That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“And the eye contact?”

I open the car door and take Luke from Eric’s arms. His eyes flutter open as I get him settled in the booster seat, buckling him in. Rather than looking at us, Luke takes interest in the leaves falling from a nearby tree blowing in the wind, a slight smile on his sleepy face.

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