Page 83 of Amore
“Then why was he here?” She looked in the direction where Clark was.
“He said he was going to the craft store.”
“The craft store?”
“Baby, go back and have a good time with your friend. I took care of it.”
She hesitated for a moment and then turned and went back to her seat. Were things ever going to be normal? Frankie didn’t live in a normal world. Every time she went out in public, someone was there to take her picture, but would there ever be a time we weren’t looking over our shoulders? Clark’s trial wasn’t for a few months, but once he was convicted, would that be the end, or would there be more stalkers?
One thing was certain. I needed to secure our new house, especially since we were bringing a child into our crazy world.
* * *
My cell phonewoke me from a deep sleep. Frankie groaned and rolled away from me. Reaching for my phone, I squinted as the bright screen blinded me, but the name on the screen had me jolting straight up.
“Dad?”
“Hey, son. Just wanted to give you a call and let you know Lucy is in labor.”
“Oh, wow. Okay.”
“What is it?” Frankie mumbled.
“Lucy is having her baby.”
We had yet to tell my parents Frankie was pregnant. The only person who knew was Tori. We found out Frankie needed to be at least eight weeks along before she could go to the doctor to confirm she was pregnant, so we felt it was okay to wait to tell people.
Frankie sat up in bed. “Yay!”
“I better get back into the delivery room, but I just wanted to let you know,” Dad said.
“Yeah. Thank you.”
We hung up, and I turned to Frankie. “I’m going to be an uncle today.”
“Should we go?” Frankie asked.
“Go to Kansas again?”
“Yeah. I’d love to see the baby.”
“I mean, if you want.”
She reached over and placed her hand on my leg, which was still under the covers. “This is Lucy, and bringing a baby into this world is a big deal. Let’s go and surprise her because I know she’d want her brother there.”
“Okay, if you want, we can go.”
“Plus”—she straddled me—“we can tell them our news.”
“Yeah?”
Frankie brought her lips to mine, only to pull back and scurry off of me, racing to the bathroom. In the weeks since we took the pregnancy test, her morning sickness hadn’t gone away. It was more of an all-day sickness. I felt bad as I listened to her heave because there was nothing I could do to stop her morning sickness. I could only help ease it.
Walking to the kitchen, I put water in the tea kettle and started making her ginger tea. That seemed to help temporarily. She was also sucking on Jolly Ranchers all day because that seemed to help, too.
By the time she came out of the bathroom, the water had started to boil. I poured her a cup of the hot water with the ginger tea bag and slid it to her as she sat at the breakfast bar.
“Let me call Emily to get us a plane and book us a place to stay.”
