Читать книгу Heartbeat - Elizabeth Scott - Страница 15

10

I wake up in the middle of the night and I can’t fall back to sleep because I remember the day Mom came home with the official news that she was pregnant. Dan was with her and he was smiling so hard I thought his face must hurt. I’d never seen anyone so happy.

Mom didn’t look like Dan did, and when he ran up to the nursery to get the sketches he’d been doing, she sat down at the kitchen table.

“Hey,” I said. “So what’s it like to be knocked up?”

“Scary,” she said, and then bit her lip. “I just...I’m not young like I was with you, Emma. It was easy then. I never thought about what could happen. How I might lose you.”

“Where am I going?”

“You know what I mean,” she said. “Being pregnant is risky. And it’s really risky for me.”

“Yeah, but you’re disgustingly healthy. That clot didn’t even slow you down even though you were supposed to rest. It’s like when Dan and I got the flu. What did you get? Nothing. Not even a cough.”

“You two were the worst,” she said. “Couldn’t even have a fever at the same time, but what can I say? I love you.”

“What’s that?” Dan said, coming into the room.

“The flu,” Mom said. “Remember?”

“How could I forget?” Dan said. “Emma and I suffered, and you never even coughed.”

“That’s what I said!” I said and Dan grinned at me. I looked over at Mom. She was staring at the kitchen table, but she wasn’t looking at it. It was like she was looking at something far away.

“Mom?”

“Hey,” she said, blinking and looking at me. “I spy a family.”

“Yeah, you do. Three, soon to be four.” I grinned at her.

She blinked again. “I think I’d better go sit down. I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Oh honey,” Dan said. “You’re already sitting down.”

“I mean somewhere...I just...” Mom trailed off.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Dan said.

“Promise?” Mom said, and her voice was shaking a little.

“Promise,” Dan said and kissed her.

I smiled and said, “You guys,” like I always had, like I thought I always would and the thing is, Mom was scared.

She was scared and I didn’t see it. Not like I should have. I just thought it was the idea of the baby or the fact that she was over forty or maybe even giving birth itself, which sure didn’t sound like fun to me.

But now I think Mom knew. I think that somehow, she knew that something was going to happen to us. That something was going to break our family.

I grit my teeth and close my eyes. I don’t want to think about this anymore.

I stare at Olivia’s dark ceiling and remember Caleb Harrison looking at me. Asking me what my problem was, and then staring at me and Mom and her stomach and then Dan and me.

I think about what I saw in his eyes before I looked away.

Anger.

And, weirdly, understanding.