Jack opened the car door for me, but didn’t start the truck when he got into his seat. I looked at him. He was still in a trance from when we first heard the baby’s heartbeat. I could tell the moment struck him as much as it did me, leaving both of us to realize we were going to be parents to a baby, tothisbaby.
“How are you feeling, Mags?” They were the first words he spoke to me since we were in the exam room.
Apprehension slid through my gut like a cobra waiting to strike. The pounding reminder that I had no one to look up to as a mother. “I feel like I am going to be a terrible mother.”
His brows rose. “Why?”
“Because I–” my voice choked on a sob. I had never really laid this out to Jack before. In fact, I had never gone into depth about what happened with my parents to anyone. “I wasn’t good enough for my own mother to stay. If I wasn’t enough to keep her around, what does that say about my future role as a mom? Who do I ask about swollen ankles and mood swings that aren’t my doctor? Most women, they get to ask their mothers about pregnancy. What kind of symptoms they had, how they handled certain situations. But me? I don’t have a mom to talk to about any of that.”
“Maggie…” Jack’s voice dropped in volume, his tone sweet and solicitous. “What she did—leaving your family—that’s not a reflection on you.”
I dipped my chin, finding the way his calloused fingers dusted mine across the console much more inviting than the feelings this conversation elicited. “I know I wasn’t the reason she left. She made sure my dad knew he was the problem. But it’s been thirteen years. I haven’t gotten so much as a phone call or a letter.”
Despite how much I tried not to let my mother’s absence affect me growing up, it created a massive hole in my heart. It separated me from the other kids. My dad had to pick me up from school when I got my first period because I thought I was dying. Then he took me to the feminine aisle of CVS and told me to pick something out while he went to get me a tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. I never did learn how to use a tampon.
Jack lifted my chin with his fingers. Meeting his gaze while I felt this vulnerable made the butterflies in my stomach turn to angry wasps, dying to escape. “Then she lost out on getting toknow the most incredible woman I know. You are extraordinary, Maggie Hennicke.”
I wanted to look anywhere but him, but those chestnut irises kept me locked exactly where I was. He was more than reassuring me. He wascomplimentingme. In my defenseless moment of vulnerability, he looked in my eyes with dripping honesty and told me I wasextraordinary. And used his last name in place of my own when he knew no one was looking.
“And, you know…” he glanced sideways before coming right back to me. “I know a little bit how that feels.”
God. His own mother. She hadn’t been returning his calls. Jack and his father hadn’t heard from her in months. My heart ached for him, feeling the same pain. The same doubt that he was worth abandoning. That snake in my gut turned into a big, heavy rock.
“Jack…”
“It’s okay.” His assuredness from a moment ago disintegrated as soon as the subject switched to him.
“It’s not.”
A beat passed before he spoke. “What if she isn’t answering on purpose?” he grimaced. “What if nothing happened to her, and she just doesn’t want to talk to us anymore?”
The parallel of our situations danced around us in a sad melody. Two broken kids sitting in a pickup truck, confiding in each other about our absent mothers, whispering about them softly enough that, if no one heard us, maybe it wouldn’t be true that we were both abandoned out of unworthiness.
“Then she lost the opportunity to know the worthiest man I know.” I tried to reassure him with his own words.
Jack’s eyes flashed with devastation, and for a moment, it felt like we could really bond over this. Connect in a way we never had before.
But just for a moment, because when it was over, he leaned back from both of us, a car horn sounded on the other side of the parking lot. Any trace of emotion left his face.
“Let’s hope,” was all he said.
And just like that, it felt like nothing ever happened.
Chapter eighteen
Maggie
“What do you mean we’re going to a party? You couldn’t have given me any less notice, andnoneof my clothes fit me right. I’m going to look like a whale,” I complained. I had just gotten home from a long day of lessons and turning out the school ponies. Then I helped Jack’s part-time helper, Ramón, finish up the barn behind our cozy cabin, and was finally relaxing with a glass of sparkling water in a wine glass when Jack dropped this bomb on me. Being eighteen weeks pregnant on top of that had me desperate for a few quiet hours and a twelve-hour nap.
“Relax, we don’t have to stay long. Everyone is getting settled in for the season, and there are a lot of new people we have to meet.” He shrugged when I raised my eyebrows at him.
“And convince them we’re married,” I muttered.
Jack took a few steps toward me, but still held a safe distance between us. At least our height difference was pronounced due to my low seat on the kitchen barstool. His eyes met mine, and despite my desperate need to keep us at a distance, I let them lock me in. “That shouldn’t be too hard, should it, wife?” Hebrushed a hair behind my ear, and I resisted the urge to lean into his touch. “We can fake it like nobody can.”
His words shouldn’t have stung. I didn’t want them to. But I was beginning to hate that word.
Fake.
