She thought for a moment. “What was your first reaction? When I told you?”

I stared at her. “You want the truth?”

“Always.”

“My first reaction was I couldn’t believe we’d been so careless,” I said. “Not that I felt bad about it or anything like that. But that it never occurred to either one of us to use or even mention any kind of protection. We were like two high school kids who hadn’t had the sex talk.”

“I never got the sex talk,” she said, a small smile flitting across her face. “My parents were too embarrassed to bring it up.”

“Mine, too,” I said. “So maybe that explains it.”

She laughed. I wasn’t trying to be funny, though. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t care or wasn’t taking it seriously. But that had honestly been my first reaction.

“My next reaction was wow,” I said. “We’re pregnant.”

She nodded slowly. “We.”

I took a step so I was out of the doorway and back in the bedroom. “Yeah. I thought of it as we. I was stunned. I mean, it was one time. I couldn’t believe we’d…done it perfectly for the first time in sixteen years.”

She laughed and shook her head.

“I’m really not trying to be funny,” I said. “But you told me and it hit me like a bag of cement. It was the last thing I was expecting you to say. And then you told me I didn’t have to worry about it, that you weren’t telling me so I’d be involved or whatever the hell you said. So I assumed you didn’t give a shit about my opinion.”

The smile faded and she nodded again. “I was caught off guard, too. But I knew. I’d felt like crap and I knew what the test was going to tell me before I even took it. So I was angry at…I don’t know. Everything. And I didn’t want you to think that it was your responsibility or whatever. But I obviously had to tell you.”

“Which brings us back to where we started,” I said. “So you want my opinion?”

She hesitated, ran a hand through her hair again. “Yes.”

“I think having a baby right now would be about the worst thing anyone could think of doing, given all the circumstances,” I said. “Our unsettled relationship, Elizabeth’s coming home, all the shit we’re still going to have to deal with. Having a baby seems like dropping a match in a house filled with kerosene. For us, anyway.”

Her mouth tightened into a firm line, but she didn’t say anything.

“But I also know that we’d talked about having a second child for years. And that our marriage blew up because some motherfucker took our daughter from us,” I said. “And we thought we lost her. We got her back, but we thought we lost her. Every single child is a gift. Every single one. And the fact that we conceived one in the middle of all of this…” My voice trailed off for a moment, but I cleared my throat and continued. “Maybe that was a message that we were getting a second chance at a bunch of things. You know I don’t believe in all that religious rhetoric or think anyone should tell a woman whether or not she can have an abortion. Fuck all of those people and their soapboxes. But do I think we should have this baby?” I nodded my head. “Yeah. Strike the fucking match. Bring it on.”

Lauren watched me for a moment, then laid her hands flat on her thighs, her legs stretched out in front of her. “Wow. Okay.”

“You said you wanted to know where I stood,” I said, leaning up against the wall. “And I swear, Lauren. If you disagree and don’t want to, I won’t fight you for a single second. I’ll do anything you need me to do.”

She chewed on her upper lip for a second. “I didn’t know you’d feel so strongly.”

“I’m just being honest.”

She nodded, a small smile creeping onto her face. “Thank you. For being honest. For being you and cutting to the chase.” She paused and I watched her as she fingered the comforter beneath her. “And I guess we’ll be having a baby.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

She smoothed the fabric beneath her fingers. “Not for a second have I not wanted to have it,” she said. “For exactly the reasons you said. Second chances. Gifts. All of that. I’ve thought about those things all week, staying awake at night, working them all through my head. And I agree with you. On all of it. I want to have the baby.”

I smiled. “Okay.”

“Okay.” She shook her head like she couldn’t believe it. “I guess we’re going to have a baby.”

THIRTEEN

I slept in Lauren’s room.

Not in a sexual or romantic way, but after we’d both admitted that we wanted to have the baby, I’d gone to the bed and hugged her. I’d wrapped my arms around her and she’d snuggled in to me and we’d both fallen asleep. I woke in the middle of the night, the seeds of panic blossoming as I wondered if Elizabeth was still in her bed. In her room. In our house. I’d slid out from Lauren and padded soundlessly up the stairs. She was in bed, curled up on her side, the covers pulled to her chin. I could have gone to the guest room then. But I didn’t. I made my way back down the stairs and crawled into bed and pulled Lauren toward my chest. She sighed and scooted against me and I drifted back to sleep.

It wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable, being in bed with her. The way I saw it, we were continuing our roller coaster ride of a relationship. We may have come to an agreement about the baby, but that didn’t mean we’d figured out anything about ourselves.

Elizabeth was up early, already in her running clothes, when I came out of Lauren’s bedroom. If she wondered why I’d slept there instead of upstairs, she didn’t ask, just mumbled a good morning and sipped her orange juice. I grabbed the keys and we were out the door after I downed my own small glass of juice.

The morning fog was still clinging to the cool air, the sidewalks and street damp from the moisture. It was thick enough that it felt like dry ice was swirling around us as we stretched for a few minutes on the beach. I could hear the waves lapping against the shore, but we were far enough up the sand that I couldn’t see it.

“You sleep okay?” I asked, twisting to loosen up my back.

She leaned down and reached for her calf. “Yeah.”

“Getting used to the bed?”

She stood and adjusted the band around her ponytail. “It’s fine.”

“I talked to your mom about Minnesota,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed and she continued fiddling with the band. “She told me.”

“I may have changed her mind,” I said. “Sort of.”

She toed the sand. “Sort of?”

“She’s willing to consider letting you go to Minnesota,” I said. “Provided she goes with you.”

She rolled her eyes, shook her head and took the first few tentative steps into our run. “Great.”

I didn’t say anything and we took off. We ran easily at first, mainly because it was hard to see through the fog. But as it burned off, we picked up the pace, our feet pounding the sand. The sun eventually poked through the fog, sending beams of light across the sand and forty five minutes later, when we came to a halt back where we started, we were both sweating pretty good.

We walked slowly, letting our breath come back and our legs recover.

“I take it you aren’t interested in a joint trip back to Minnesota then,” I said.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Hey, Elizabeth?”

“What?”

“I get this is all tough for you. I really do and I’m trying to navigate all of this and help with what you’re asking for. But I’m really done with the indifferent teenager act, so you might want to consider dropping that crap right about now.”

The color in her cheeks deepened. “Sorry.”

It was the first time I’d spoken to her like a real parent since she’d been home. It came out naturally, because I really was irritated with her demeanor. But I also had an immediate pang of guilt, as if my scolding her was going to make her hate me or run away.

“I understand why you’d want to go back to Minnesota,” I said. “But you also need to understand that your mom and I aren’t comfortable sending you back alone. We spent a long time without you, we don’t know the Corzines and we just don’t want to be away from you. There’s a lot of moving parts here. But I do get why you want to go back. And I think having her go with you might be a pretty good compromise. I think it’s the best we can offer you right now.”