Page 36 of Entirely Yours
Mom chimes in with, “It only takes once—you should know that, Rebecca!”
I peek between my fingers and see Ben holding his hand out to Gabe who is pulling his wallet out of his back pocket.
“What the fuck is that?” I point between them.
Ben shrugs. “I was right.”
Looking over at Mom, she’s beaming. “And what isthat?” I wave a hand in her general direction. She clasps her hands together under her chin, her eyes shining in the overhead light. “Are you… crying?”
“This is so exciting, Julien!” Mom wails. “I get to be a grandma!”
“You are a grandma!” Bex scolds, making the smallest smile appear on my face.
Dad looks like he’s trying to contain himself, after all, he is the more levelheaded of my two parents. “How are you feeling about everything?”
His voice cuts through the chaos, soothing me so that I feel like I can give him an honest answer.
“I’m terrified,” I reply. “But… I’m also really fucking happy.”
“Good man,” Dad says, his grin matching mine now.
In fact, when I look around the table I see that everyone looks as excited as I feel. And that’s when I know that we—me, Thea, Chloe, and this baby—are going to be perfectly fine.
Later that night, I call Thea to check in. She sounds groggy when she answers.
“Did I wake you?” I ask. I’m sitting in my back garden, the damn cat curled up on my lap, looking up at the sky. I’ve always been in awe of the vastness of the universe, the stars that connect everyone in this huge, but also incredibly small, world.
“I dozed off on the couch,” she replies. “How did it go? Did you tell your family?”
“Yeah.” I scratch behind the cat’s ears—the feel of its purring body grounding me. “They were thrilled.”
“Thrilled?” Thea’s surprise makes me laugh.
“Yes, Thea. My family… as chaotic as they may be, they love hard. I’ve never seen them hesitate when it comes to whether or not to accept someone new into the fold.”
“But they don’t even know me,” she whispers. “What if they realize I’m some wicked witch of the west?”
“They know me, Thea. They trust me and I trust you,” I confess. “How did Hank take the news?”
She’s quiet for a while, so I wait. I can hear her breathing, so I match my breath with hers. She’ll talk when she’s ready, so I don’t push.
“It was weird,” she finally starts. “With Chloe’s pregnancy, I think he went into fix-it mode. He never liked Chloe’s dad… plus the whole ending of my career thing—it was a shock. This time he nodded and said, ‘I like Jules.’ And that was it. The entire time we ate dinner, I kept staring at him, waiting for him to say something else about it. Eventually he told me to cut it out, so I did.”
“We’re going to be okay, Thea.”
“I might need you to tell me that a few more times before the baby gets here,” she replies.
“I can remind you every day, if that’s what you need.”
“That would be nice,” she sighs. “November, I think. If I’m doing the math correctly.”
“November seems like a good month.”
“Yeah,” she says around a yawn. “It does, doesn’t it?”
“Go to bed, Thea. I’ll check on you tomorrow, okay? Remind you that we’ll be okay.”
We say our goodbyes and hang up. I spend a few more minutes outside, enjoying the cold night air. November seems so far away, but I vow right then and there to continue to show up for Thea. Not to rush her, to give her the space she needs, to show her that this can work. That we can build a family.
