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‘Do youon the arrabs it instinctively, and I folddrawn-out sigh, he puts the TV on mute

Now maybe we can finally have a conversation, except I don’t knohat to say besides what I already have Kev’s gaze keeps flicking toward the screen Doesn’t he realize how i to have a baby Another one

‘How can you be pregnant?’ he finally demands This probably wasn’t the best ti, pain-filled day, one spent in front of the TV, and then a tense phone call fro up but Kev didn’t tell rowl, and I knew it couldn’t be great news

But I think I’ and we need to talk I hadn’t paid attention to the signs that now suddenly seem obvious The sore breasts, the tiredness, the nausea, the nasty taste inI looked in the mirror and saw ed through hty alarm bell I had to tell Kevin

It had to be when the girls were in bed, because the last thing I need is Lucy de about, or A she learned on the playground a feeeks ago – in terms I would never use or want her to hear I also needed to tell Kev before he took his pain meds, since he’s out for the count about twenty h maybe this conversation won’t even take twenty minutes What else is there to say?

‘I think you kno it happened The usual way’ I sluht I worked the night shift, cleaning an office building in Newark until three in theup for the girls, seeing theht of another baby, another need,in me churn with fear because I don’t kno I can do it

This is the thought that keeps blaring through me like a car horn, paled to nant: I can’t have this baby We can’t afford it, not the space, not the time, and of course not the money I need to start work full-tiarten We can’t make it without that money I can’t have this baby But I can’t see any way not to

‘But…’ Kev narrows his eyes His hair is rumpled, his face unshaven He doesn’t see the point any more, and I understand why He’s been out of work for two years and nine months Lucy doesn’t even remember when Daddy had a job When life was noret

cut off on a regular basis, when et rejected at Stop & Shop and I fued pins while the cashier looked on in either pity or impatience When Kevin wasn’t sprawled in that chair every hour of the day, staring bleary-eyed at the TV, the life sucked out of him This is Lucy’s normal, and I hate that

As for a baby… ‘It’s not like we do it that often,’ Kevin gruroan What is this, a tenth grade sex-ed lesson? Or did heout behind the storage sheds; two shy quiet kids who broke the rules for each other? And look how that went Pregnant at seventeen, Kev a year older, married three months later, happy for a while, and here we are

I reainst the concrete block of the shed wall,so excited, so happy, like anything was possible as long as I had hih high school, keeping et noticed, and he was the same We lit each other up, like we had candles inside Fireworks I can’t remember the last ti tio

‘It only takes one ti for a smile ‘Remember?’ Emma was a one-time baby, both of us too shy and uncertain to atteain until ere , a hurried half hour in Kev’s basehter in the dark, e lust

As for more recently… not so different, really A drunken fu to feel just a little bit of that connection again And now this

‘Yeah, I know, but…’ Kev shakes his head again, etting angry Because since the accident, I never knohen Kevin is going to get angry He can be so sweet so to E his ar me

Then all of a sudden he’ll lash out, pushing the book or ga dark and quiet, which usuallythrough the roo

I try to be patient I do I take deep breaths, I keep my voice mild, I let it all roll over me But this? A baby? This is h I hate that it’s a problem in the first place It’s a baby Our baby, already curled up insidehard I’m not seventeen anymore, tearful and uncertain, except that’s how I feel a little bit, inside Like I’ to be there for me For us For this baby