Page 20 of April is for Asher

“Well, that was really only part of it. Her dad, while married to her mom, he was just never around. He didn't do family dinners and was never there when she needed him.

From what I understand, he was never a parent that was at the dance recitals or school plays or sports events. He wasn't even at her high school graduation. He never showed up, even when he always promised to, and she would get her hopes up time and time again.

That type of childhood trauma really does follow someone, and now she's getting ready to have her own child. And the last thing she wants is for her child to experience the same type of hurt that she did.

“Of course, she is struggling with that because this was not how she had planned to have a family.” Luna says.

“You absolutely had a legitimate reason for not being there today. If it wasn’t for all the crazy hormones, she would probably completely understand. But hormones during pregnancy make women do crazy things. In our brains, the most rational decisions just don’t make sense to us.

“So what it sounds like is she’s having all these doubts. Then the first time you go and are not where you said you would be, she’s instantly equating that to her dad,” Kinley says, and Luna agrees.

“Why didn’t she tell me all of this?” I ask, thinking out loud.

“Because this isn’t stuff you talk about to someone that you’re just sleeping with. Or someone that you have an arrangement for just sex,” Luna says, giving me a pointed look.

CHAPTER11

JENNA

My sisterand I are out for dinner, taking a break from all the moving. She and her husband, my new brother-in-law, have been troopers about helping me get moved from Whitefish to Billings.

Yesterday morning, we were able to get the keys and move everything into the house. Now, they’re staying for a couple days to help me unpack.

After visiting a baby store this morning, we got the crib and a dresser for the baby. Thankfully, my brother-in-law is at the house, putting them together. While he was doing that, he insisted we go to lunch, so I wasn’t tempted to help. His exact words.

“All right, it’s just us. Now you’re going to have to tell me what is going on. You look like someone stole your puppy and broke your favorite toy,” my sister says. She doesn’t waste a minute and asks as soon as our butts are in the chair at the restaurant.

Until now, all my sister knows is that my place became available early, and that I was taking advantage of the opportunity to get in right away. She never questioned it because she didn’t have a reason why she should. So, under her probing stare, I break down and let it all out.

“We had the ultrasound the other day to find out if it was a boy or a girl and he didn’t even show up. We’ve been living together for a couple weeks and things had changed. I was starting to believe he truly wanted to be around, not just for the kid, but for me. At that point, I thought maybe there was something more to our relationship. Then he didn’t even bother to show up for one of the biggest appointments of the pregnancy.”

My sister is younger than me, and her being sick, she doesn’t quite remember everything with our dad the way I do. But it seemed like after that he was around even less than he was before.

After asking Mom about it, I remember she said that there were a lot of hospital bills from my sister’s care, and that he was working overtime to help pay them off. For a long time, I believed her. But now I’m not so sure. My dad had a good job with great health insurance.

“Did you talk to Asher? What was his reasoning?”

Huffing, I roll my eyes, pulling up his voicemail and play it for my sister.

“What’s this second voicemail from him?” she plays it as well.

“Okay, this cannot be the only thing that drove you to essentially run away because this is a very legitimate reason for missing that appointment and you know it.”

“He was coming on too strong. First, he is going to buy a townhouse in Billings so that he could be there with our kid on the weekends. Then he had already bought top of the line car seats for each of our cars for the baby and kept making all these plans. He wanted me to be more in his life. While I was there with him, we had an arrangement. It was just a sex to scratch an itch, but I let myself believe that it could be more. Then he wasn’t there for our child’s biggest appointment. Just like…” I can’t bring myself to finish the rest of the sentence, but of course, my sister has been hanging on to every word.

“Just like, who?” She narrows her eyes at me and I know that she already knows who I’m about to say, but she’s going to make me say it anyway.

“Just like Dad.”

Saying those words brings back so many memories that I would rather keep locked away.

“Do you like him?” my sister asks,

“No, no, he’s all wrong for me.”

“How is he all wrong for you?”

“Come on, Haley. He’s a veterinarian and I’m allergic to cats. No way I can be with a vet. I can’t even stand to be around one of the basic animals they treat.“

---