Page 86 of Ripped & Shipped
After dinner we move into the living room. Dad offers everyone coffee or tea. He never does that. Then again, it’s not like we’re all here together that often. We should do this more. I look over at Mom. She’s got a faint smile on her face. It’s not full. The underlying pain of her chronic depression seeps through like a stain. But she’s smiling, and that’s something.
Shannon clears her throat.
“Mom. Dad. We have something to tell you.”
Dad’s perched on the armrest of the big chair Mom’s seated in. His arm is around her shoulder and I notice how his hand makes gentle strokes of comfort on her upper arm. Duke and Shannon are on the couch, and I’m in this wingback that feels too small for me, but I’m making do.
“What is it, hunny?” Mom’s brow creases.
I wonder if her default setting will ever be anything more positive than worry and dread.
“It’s good news,” Duke adds in a soft voice that makes me remember why he’s one of my closest friends, and truthfully the only man I’d want married to my sister.
“Oh?” Dad asks, hopefully. “You hear that, dear. It’s good news.”
Shannon smiles over at me. I bob my head, encouraging her to go on and say it.
“Well. Duke and I. Well, we’re pregnant!”
Mom’s eyes go wide.
Dad’s smile breaks out as if Warren Buffett just walked into our home to hang out and talk investment strategies.
A slow smile makes its way across Mom’s face.
“I’m going to be a grandma?”
“You are,” Shannon says. “It’s still early. We don’t know the gender yet.”
“And we don’t care,” Duke says easily. “Girl or boy, we’re going to love this kid. We already do.”
“Oh my goodness,” Mom says. “This really is good news. Oh, Shannon. You made me so happy!”
Mom stands up and walks over to Shannon, and Shannon stands so Mom can wrap her into a hug.
“My baby’s having a baby,” Mom whispers into Shannon’s hair.
“And me. I’m having a baby too,” Duke says from his seated position on the couch.
“Well, of course you are,” Mom says, completely avoiding the obvious need for an anatomy lesson.
Dad walks over to Duke and shakes his hand. “Well done, son. We’re so happy for you both.”
I sit behind everyone in my wingback chair, feeling like a kid on the bench during the homecoming game. It’s all good. I’m just glad to be here. This isn’t my moment. It’s theirs. And they chose to share it with me, or at least allowed me to witness it. It will be a long, long time before I forget the smile I just saw on my mom’s face.
The oddest thought passes through my mind.
I mean, it’sodd.
I wish Ella Mae were here.
Of course, she couldn’t be. And that’s the worst of it. Even if it turned out she’d want to be, it would be a long shot to picture the scene unraveling before me comfortably including Ella Mae in the room.
Then I have an even odder thought. What if sometime in the distant future, Ella Mae and I were the main focus. I almost chuckle at the thought of Ella Mae sitting on that same couch, her hand encased in mine, her other hand on her pregnant belly. I picture her saying, “We’re pregnant.”
Yeah. That would go over like a turd in a punchbowl.
Dad interrupts my bizarre daydream with an announcement. “This calls for a celebration! Let’s all go get ice cream!”
