if it came to that? Would I want to give up my goals of working in marketing?
If women want to give up their careers for family, that’s a fine choice. But it has to be a choice. I feel both backed into a corner with no choices and at the same time, like I’m not being chosen.
My goals, which have driven me for years, seem oddly insignificant now in light of Ella and Gavin. My life in Austin empty compared to being around Gavin’s family, and even Patty and Nancy like two honorary grandmothers. But I can’t see myself quitting all that I’ve worked for either.
He hasn’t asked you to give anything up for him. And he might never ask, since it sounds like he doesn’t want to get married again.
The panic I felt last night before texting Sam returns with a vengeance. I was wrong to listen to her. If my head had kept a tight rein on my heart, it wouldn’t feel like it’s breaking in my chest right now.
My knees are jiggling under the table and my hands have formed fists when the door bursts open. Ella, looking every bit like the child she should be, darts in carrying a brown and white baby goat in her arms. Norah is just behind her with a bottle in hand and a giant smile plastered on her face. Patty and Nancy trail in behind her so that the kitchen is full of sound and laughter and warmth.
Yet I’m still cold where I sit.
“It’s a baby,” Ella gushes, her voice high with excitement. She glances at me, but then she stops just before Gavin, who’s closer to the door. “Look, Daddy. A baby goat and I get to feed it.”
Ella doesn’t seem to notice that she called Gavin Daddy. It clearly just slipped out. But she’s the only one unaffected.
Norah presses the fingertips of her free hand to one eye, then the other, like that’s going to hold back the flood of tears escaping. Thayden busies himself with the papers on the table, organizing them back into folders, but I see his nose twitching. I have employed the strongest poker face I have because I cannot allow anyone in this room to see how invested I am in Gavin and this girl. Especially when I don’t know what place I even have in their future.
I can’t see Gavin’s expression, but slowly, he opens his arms, and for the first time, Ella crawls into his lap. I can only see the view from the side, but that’s more than enough. It’s almost too much.
Norah hands Ella the bottle. The baby goat shuffles and squirms, eager to get its lips around the bottle.
“The mama’s dry,” Norah says. “Sometimes it just happens. They don’t have what they need to take care of their babies.”
I see her words for what they are. She’s trying to make the room lighter somehow, trying to keep Ella from taking note of how the air in the room has shifted with the one word. But it’s had the opposite effect on me. Maybe they shouldn’t, but the words strike a weird chord in my chest, a melancholy one.
The low note reverberates, a growing whisper of panic rising into a shout in my mind as Gavin brushes Ella’s hair away from her face in the most tender of moves.
I don’t have what I need to take care of this child. I don’t have what Gavin needs in a partner. Not that it sounds like he wants one. But if he did, I’m ill-equipped, unprepared, and unqualified for the role of mother figure, and therefore for relationship material. Way too young for all this. It’s way too early in my career to give it up.
Fear tightens its grip around my chest and I’m stiff with it, afraid that if I move, I’ll break into a million tiny pieces.
Conversation continues to flow around me like water, and I realize that Thayden has packed up his briefcase, hugged Norah, and taken a plastic container with what looks to be homemade cookies.
“Great to see you again, Zoey,” he says, and I swear, it’s like he’s the only one in the room who still sees me because everyone is so focused on Gavin and Ella.
“Gavin, I’ll be in touch soon. Thank you, as always, for your hospitality, Norah.”
As Thayden makes his way out the back door, I see my chance for escape.
Calm down, Zoey. Just chill. This is stupid. Childish.