“That’s not how things work. We both took part in it, and goodwillcome of it. Some of my best memories are of my dad. It’ll be cool to give that to someone else.”
That was the first time he’d mentioned his dad. For a second, I thought over every single detail he’d given me about his family. That was when I knew what to say. “I bet your dad was a good person.”
“He wa—wait, how did you know to use the wordwas?”
There I went again, pushing. I told him I would keep it in check, but it was too tempting. “You tried to hide it, but you did lose someone. People usually do that when it was someone very important to them. And you mention your mom all the time, but not your dad.”
“Yeah, well. It sucked. But I’ll try my best not to die in an electrical fire.”
“That would be nice,” I said. I thought about what that must have been like and quickly decided I needed to change the topic or else I’d feel emotions I was sure he wouldn’t want to deal with. “Though, you might have your work cut out for you with my house, considering it just had an electrical problem.”
“No, all that work was done well. I’m not worried about it.” He said it with complete confidence.
“You would have told me if you were worried, wouldn’t you?”
“I would have fixed it if I was. There is no way I’m letting anything ...” He trailed off, but I knew where he was going with it.
“You don’t want anything like that ever happening again. I get it.”
His eyes met mine and he swallowed.
I was continuing to push things and I knew it. I decided to give him a reprieve from all of my questions and went back to eating. As I finished up my food, I promised myself that I wouldn’t go any further. This was enough.
But it was addicting to be able to get a read on him. I likedknowing more about the person I was spending time with, and hehadopened up, if only slightly.
I was about to start dishes when my phone rang. Pulling it out, I saw it was my OB-GYN’s office. It was late in the day, but they usually called after office hours with lab results. They had when my PCOS results came back too.
But I knew that whenever they called, something was wrong. My office had a policy of not reaching out when everything was normal.
So that meant something with mypregnancywasn’t normal.
My heart stuttered in my chest as I looked back at Dean.
“I-I need to take this.” I didn’t care if my voice was shaky. All I could think about was what could be said to me on this phone call. “Hello?” I answered as I walked into the kitchen.
“Hi, is this Grace Day?”
“This is she.”
“I’m calling about some lab results from a few days ago. Can you discuss those?”
I had to take a breath before answering. “Yes, of course.”
“You failed your first glucose screening, meaning we need you in for another, more in-depth test. When can you come in?”
“I—what?” I asked. My mind ground to a halt is I tried to process all the words she just said to me.
“Your lab results, they’re?—”
“No, I heard that.” I honestly didn’t want to hear it again. I curled in tighter on myself, as if this would somehow protect me from this unexpected news. “I’m sorry, I’m just shocked about it. The baby is okay, right?”
“The baby is probably fine. It’s pretty common,” she said, and I could imagine her shrugging. She seemed so unbothered, and yet, to me, this was terrifying. My heart rate had already kicked up, and I was scared that by me not knowing that I was pregnant for so long, I had somehow messed this up.
“Of course. I can come in to the office for that test tomorrow.”
She offered up a time and I took it without hesitation. When she hung up, I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to remain calm. Dean was out there. I didn’t want to worry him.
“What was that about?”