Kelly took to her feet—generously and helpfully assisted by her husband's hands on her butt. She batted at his hands with a comically cat-like hiss. "Hands to yourself, you dirty old man."
Tom just lounged back on one elbow, idly plucking at blades of grass. "Nope."
Kelly crossed to Rune, looking from her to me. "It's not something we felt was important, Rune. You may not have been planned, but you were welcomed with joy."
“I was scared shitless," Tom offered. "Definitely didn't feel ready to be a parent."
Kelly rolled her eyes. "You were barely taking care of yourself at that point, Tommy."
He nodded. "You ain't lyin', baby girl. I was a fucking disaster."
Rune shook her head. "I feel like you're shaking my worldview right now. What are you even talking about?"
Kelly took her daughter's hands. "I'm saying, this situation you're in is sort of like history repeating itself, honey. Your father and I had only been together for six months when I came up pregnant. Your father was living in a frat house with like ten other guys, and each of them was more of an animalistic, irresponsible man-child than the last, regardless of which order you put them in."
Rune looked to her dad for confirmation, and he nodded. "Don't look at me—she ain’t wrong. I owned, like, three outfits, no underwear, worked part time, was failing all my classes, and spent pretty much every spare moment I had in the gym."
Rune frowned at her mother. "Then…what did you see in him?"
Kelly cackled at this. "Who he was, sweetheart, that's what. I saw his kind heart. I saw how he treated the people in his life." She glanced at him over her shoulder, a tender smile on her lips. "One of their roommates had Downs. His parents lived close and checked on him every day, but Tommy was his best friend. He took such amazing care of him, Rune. It was so sweet to watch. That, as much as anything, was what convinced me that there was a lot more to him than met the eye."
"And you liked what met the eye, eyyy, baby?" Tom quipped.
She rolled her eyes again. "Yes, I did. But if I hadn't been willing to look past you dressing like a hobo, being broke, and prioritizing lifting over your education, it wouldn't have mattered."
"I prefer the term vagabond to hobo,” Tom muttered. "And the lifting ended up paying the bills, if you care to recall."
“The point is,” Kelly said, loudly, "I wasn't even sure I was in love with him when I found out I was pregnant with his child. And like you, honey, my first instinct was to run. You get that from me, I’m afraid."
"Had to chase her fine ass from California to Rhode Island," Tom added. "She didn't make it easy. Still doesn’t, come to think of it."
"Hush, you grumpy old bear." Kelly framed her daughter's face in her hands. "I wasn't ready. I was scared. I thought everything I'd worked for my entire life—getting my degree, my research, my career—was over. I didn't want to be a mother. Not yet, at least.”
"Sounds familiar," Rune muttered.
"Right? That's my point." Kelly smiled, kissing each of Rune's eyes tenderly. "I'm not going to lie and say it was easy. It wasn't. I told you already, your father and I almost didn't make it, those first few years. Having a kid while being barely more than kids ourselves, your father trying to make a go of it on the strongman competition circuit while I studied? It was really, really hard, and we wouldn't have made it without your father's parents taking care of you while I was in class." She paused, sighing. "But we did make it. We committed to each other and to you. We worked at it. We forgave each other constantly."
"You forgave me constantly, you mean," Tom said. "Your mother was a saint, those early years. I never cheated, but anything else I could've done to lose her, I did."
Kelly smiled at him. "You were trying, honey. And I saw it. You worked yourself to the bone taking care of us." She turned back to Rune. "We made it, baby. And I've had a pretty decent career, I think. I know you're facing a scary prospect. I get it—that's why I'm telling you this. I know exactly how you're feeling. And what I’m telling you is that you can do this. You just have to decide what you want and what's important to you."
"Guess that's what I need to figure out," Rune said.
She patted Rune's cheek. "Go talk. But Rune?" She held her eyes. "You have to be honest with yourself, okay? You're a lot like me, and I have a tendency to twist myself in circles trying to avoid the truth when I don't want to admit it."
Rune sighed. "Yeah, I do that a lot.” She looked from one parent to the other. "Any other secrets I should know about?"
Tom shrugged. "Nothing comes to mind."
Kelly glanced at him, then at Rune, her face clouding. "I had a late-term miscarriage when you were two. The doctors told me it was too risky for me to get pregnant again, so I got my tubes tied and your father got a vasectomy. That's why we never had any more kids."
Tom's face shuttered. "That's not a secret, just hard to talk about. And you being conceived out of wedlock wasn’t a secret either, just not relevant until now."
"Wedlock, Thomas?" Kelly asked. "Really? It's not the Middle Ages."
Rune kissed her mom's cheek. "Thanks for sharing that with me, Mom. It…it does help to know. If you can do it, maybe I can, too."
"There's no doubt in my mind, honey," Kelly said.
