Page 64 of The Christmas Keepsake
The words hit me like a physical force. “Pregnant?But-but… How? Well, I know how, of course. Mickey and I have been… well.” I looked away. “But after the stillbirth, I thought…”
A whirlwind of emotions swept through me. Terror was the first. After losing our first baby, the thought of going through that again was almost unbearable. What if something goes wrong? What if my body can’t handle it?
But right on the heels of that fear was a glimmer of excitement. A baby. My rainbow baby. My eyes dropped to the beaded safety pin in my hand and then the tears broke out.
“Nan?” Dr. Webber’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Are you okay?”
“Yes?” My voice shook as I sniffled, closing my fingers around the safety pin. “I-I’m just surprised.”
Dr. Webber sat on a stool in front of me. “I know this must be overwhelming, especially after what happened before. But, Nan, this pregnancy looks good. Strong. We’ll monitor you closely, of course, but there’s every reason to be hopeful.”
Hopeful. The word echoed in my mind as I left the doctor’s office. Hopeful. I placed a hand on my still-flat stomach, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that there was a new life growing inside me.
As I drove home my thoughts grew louder. The worries, fear, everything grew louder. How was I going to tell Mickey? How would this pregnancy affect the play?
As I pulled into our driveway, though, a sense of calm settled over me. Yes, I was scared. Yes, this was unexpected but it was also wonderful.
Mickey was in the backyard, stringing lights on thebig pine tree out back. His face lit up. As he walked toward me, he held out his arms. “Nannie! You okay? How did it go at the doctor’s? Let’s get you to bed. You need to rest.”
“Mickey, I… I’m not sick. I’m pregnant,” I blurted out, the words tumbling from my lips.
The string of lights slipped out of Mickey’s hands. Uncertainty flashed in his eyes, as if maybe he thought I was joking or he’d heard me wrong. But then his face broke into the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen.
“We’re… we’re having a baby?”
“We’re having a baby.” I nodded, laughing and crying at the same time.
In an instant, Mickey swept me up into his arms. Then he set me down gently, as if I might break. “A baby,” he said again, his voice full of awe. Narrowing his eyes, he looked at me. “I’m not afraid, Nannie. Scratch that. I’m terrified, but I’m not going to give in to the fear. I’m going to lean into the joy, and whatever happens, from here until the end of time, I’m going to stand with you.”
I pulled back and looked up at him. “The play.”
“It’ll go on, Nannie. Even if you use a barf bag between scenes.” He laughed, running a hand through his hair. “You know the show will always go on, and I support that. I’ll make sure that always happens because whatever is important to you is important to me.” His gaze seemed to drop to the rainbow-colored safety pin that I had attached to my jacket. Lifting a finger, he traced the beads. “What’s that?”
“A sign, I think. A good sign.” I nodded to myself. “The show will go on and this baby will join the cast.”
Chapter Twenty
You are enough. You are so enough. It’s unbelievable how enough you are.
—Sierra Boggess
There was a growing restlessness in Hollis’s chest.
Whenever things felt too good to be true, he typically found himself worried that he’d suddenly wake one day and realize it was just a dream. It didn’t take a psychologist to understand why.
When something good happened, he was wired to think that he’d get double the disappointment as his penance for the momentary joy. Sometimes triple. He’d tried to work through this belief system. If he worked hard, he was rewarded with success.
Even though Hollis had turned down Pop’s offer, he’d been chewing on the prospect in the back of his mind. He wanted nothing more than to continue maintaining the trees and running Pop’s business during Christmases to come. During the off seasons, he could foster and train dogs. There was so much he could do with a property of this magnitude. Pop’s offer was everything he could possibly hope for, and more.
Well, there was one more thing that would make his life next toperfect. Mallory. He’d always assumed she was out of his league, but here they were, and the attraction was mutual. They liked the same things, got along well, and could talk for hours and never run out of things to discuss. Every time he saw her, she got prettier in his eyes. Even at the end of rehearsal, when she had her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. Actually, that was when she was the prettiest.
When Hollis had imagined what love would be and feel like, this was exactly what he’d envisioned. His thoughts stumbled over themselves, coming to a sudden stop.Love?
Hollis scratched the back of his head, feeling that restless energy grow inside him again. The problem with allowing yourself to have feelings like love was that the more you cared about someone, the harder it hit when they decided they no longer cared.
Hollis’s very first memory was of watching the taillights of his father’s truck drive away, leaving Hollis at the boys home when he was six years old. The taillights were bright at first, and then they dimmed and burned out. Hollis remembered seeing a firefly flash in the distance. In a split second, his heart lifted with the tiniest glimmer of hope, because he thought his father had changed his mind and was coming back for him. For that moment, he thought his father had decided that Hollis was, in fact, a good boy, worthy of his love.
The fireflies lit up and went out, lit up and went out, and Hollis had the painful realization that it was just his imagination playing cruel tricks. His heart doing the same.
