Just a Positive Pregnancy Test - London Casey Page 0,31
a cup of coffee.
“You know, the whole caffeine thing…,” I said.
“There’s worse that could be done,” she said. “Drink a cup of coffee and enjoy life.”
I smiled. “Good advice.”
Olivia sat across from me.
We both sat in silence.
“Lucy?” I asked.
Olivia pointed up.
Meaning she was upstairs.
I nodded.
I sipped the coffee.
Then my eyes finally filled with tears.
My chin quivered like I was a little girl again and Tyler or Crosby broke my favorite doll. (For the record, when we were kids, it was always Crosby who did that stuff.)
“Go ahead,” Olivia whispered. “Let it out, Mila.”
She reached across the table and put her hand on mine.
I put my coffee cup down and that was it…
The tears streamed down my cheeks.
So freely.
I began to weep.
Like, actually weep.
That deep kind of cry that came from your stomach.
“Oh, Mila,” Olivia said. She squeezed my hand. “You have to cry when you need to.”
“I don’t even know what this is!” I called out.
I pointed to my face with my left hand as though I had never experienced tears before.
“I know what it is,” she said.
That’s when I ripped my hand away and stood up.
I wiped my cheeks.
“You know what it is?” I asked. “You have this all figured out? Is that what it is? You know everything about me. You know everything about Silas. I’m so sorry I don’t have the perfect life that you and Tyler do.”
I gasped and covered my mouth.
I shut my eyes.
After a few seconds, I took a breath.
“Olivia, I am so sorry about that.”
“Mila, sit down,” Olivia said.
I sat down.
“It’s okay,” Olivia said. “Last night there was a commercial that came on. It was a little girl on a skateboard drinking some kind of juice. The commercial was for the juice. But I saw the little girl. On a quiet sidewalk. The houses. The trees. I bawled my eyes out.”
“You did?”
“Then the night before, Tyler and I were in the kitchen. He was cleaning everything up from dinner. He bumped into me. He turned and barely touched me. When he did, he kind of jumped back quick. He said whoa. To him, he wanted to make sure the baby and I were okay. He’s so paranoid, it’s cute yet annoying. To me, I thought he meant I was… big.”
“Olivia,” I said.
“I lost it on him. I gave him statistics.”
“Statistics?”
“Oh, yeah,” Olivia said, nodding. “I’ve got a whole brain full.” She pointed to her head. “I have all kinds of information up here. About height, size, weight… girths… it’s…”
“You’re afraid of getting too big?”
Olivia nodded.
“You’re supposed to get big, Olivia.”
“Hey, don’t judge,” she said. “We’re both in this, Mila. We both have our issues.”
“It’s not us. It’s these damn hormones.”
“Ha! Caught you!”
I turned my head and Lucy stood with her hands on her hips.
Wearing a bright pink shirt with a black unicorn on it.
In jeans that were ripped in the knees.
Her hair messy.
Looking like a little badass.
Staring right at me.
“You said a bad word,” Lucy said.
I groaned and stood up.
I took a dollar out of my pocket and turned.
There was the rooster - the cock - cookie jar looking at me.
I lifted the lid and whistled.
“Wow, there’s a lot of money in here,” I said.
“Well, that’s what happens when your family curses like a bunch of drunk sailors!” Lucy yelled.
I stuffed the dollar into the cookie jar and looked at Lucy. “Where did you hear that?”
“Zeke and Thomas,” Olivia said.
“Wonderful,” I said.
“Hey, Aunt Mila, you really have a baby in your belly?” Lucy asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“And Silas put the baby there?”
I glanced at Olivia for a little backup.
“Yes, Lucy,” Olivia said. “We talked about this already.”
“Yeah,” Lucy said. She climbed up on a chair. “Hey, what are hormones?”
I snorted and laughed. “Oh, Lucy. Go be a kid.”
“These are things I want to know. I’m curious.”
“Let’s get ice cream and not talk about hormones.”
“What are they?”
Her eyes were big and bright.
“Hormones… are… things,” I said. “Inside you. They make you feel things. Happy, sad, that kind of stuff. It’s hard to explain. Olivia and I are pregnant. So our bodies are making extra hormones. For us and for the babies. It’s kind of a tricky thing.”
I looked at Olivia.
She gave me a thumbs up.
Lucy nodded. “Hmmm… are they like bugs?”
“Bugs?”
“Yeah,” Lucy said. “The hormones. Are they like bugs? Like ants or spiders or something?”
“I don’t think so. I really don’t want spiders inside me, do you?”
“Ew, no, I hate spiders. How can a creature have eight legs and eight eyes? That’s disgusting.”