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“I’m sorry we quarreled.” She walks in and sits on the edge of the bed. "I just gained so much weight with you and Grayson, I worry that you’ll be like me.”

I look her up and down. “Mother, you’re as thin as you ever were.”

She points at me. “Only because I work at it. Unfortunately, us Merricks have to stay away from carbs and work out to keep our figures. You know your grandmother struggled with her weight all her life.”

I only remember Grandma as rotund and happy, but I just nod. “I’ll be careful.”

I do want to be more careful about what I put in my body now that I’m carrying a child, but I’ve been so nauseous and yet hungry at the same time. I wish I could talk to my mother about it, get her advice.

My heart aches.

I wish she would just understand me.

“Mother?”

She turns to me. “What is it, Mere?”

I swallow hard. “One day, when I have kids… What’s it like? Being pregnant?”

She laughs softly, patting my knee. “You’ve got plenty of time to worry about that.”

“I’m just curious. I want to know… what to expect.”

She sighs. “Well, it isn’t easy. It seems to be, for some women, but unfortunately, I wasn’t one of them. Your grandmother had difficult pregnancies, too, so it runs in our family. I gained fifty-five pounds with Grayson, and forty with you.” She pauses. “Of course, I was thin as a rail when I got pregnant with your brother.”

“How old were you?”

She winces. “Nineteen. Far too young.”

I bite my lip. At least I’m a lot older than nineteen. “Did you have morning sickness?”

She snorted. “With Grayson? No, not at all. With you? Call it all-day sickness. I could barely keep down water and crackers, the first five months.”

“You had a more difficult time with me?”

She nods. “I was higher risk–gestational diabetes. You were a big baby, you know, eight pounds and five ounces.”

I never thought about it, but my mother had natural labor with both of us, which means she pushed out all eight pounds and five ounces of me. It makes me wince.

Mother smiles. “It was all worth it in the end. It will be for you, too, when you decide to start a family.”

It wasn’t really a decision I made. It just... happened.

I’m scared, Mother.

That’s what I want to say. I’m scared that she and Dad will disown me. Scared that Grayson will hate both me and Logan. Scared that I won’t be a good mother or that Logan will leave me again.

There’s just so much to be scared about.

“I was made aware of something while I was in Aspen.”

I blink at her dropping that sudden bombshell.

“You were?”

“I met with a friend that knows the sheriff and she told me about your little job.”

I curse inwardly.