Page 98 of Pregnant By the Playboy

“I wasn’t ready.”

“When will you be ready?”

“I don’t know.”

He sighs. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

“I know you are. I know you don’t want to hurt me.”

“Of course not. I would never.”

He doesn’t take back what he said about my father, though.

“Do you want to keep dating?” he asks. “Or is this over?”

I pretend I don’t hear how his voice is shaking. “I’m not sure. Give me a week, okay? I’ll see you at the ultrasound on Friday, and I’m sure I’ll have figured everything out by then.”

At least, I hope I will.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll help you home now?”

“No, I’ll stay here for a while.”

“I’ll make sure there’s a car waiting for you where we entered the park.”

I want to protest, but I don’t have the energy. It’s Saturday morning, and I’ve already had a proposal, but no coffee.

I sit there for another ten minutes after he leaves, keeping my mind as blank as I can. Then I get up and head back, under the fluttering blossoms.

* * *

I don’t go home. I have the car take me straight to my mom’s.

When Larry opens the door, I throw my arms around him. He’s the closest thing I have to a father now. He hugs me back, somewhat awkwardly—this isn’t the sort of relationship we have, and maybe that’s my fault, maybe I haven’t tried hard enough with him and his children. I was so used to it being just me and my mom, but I have more family now.

After a few seconds, he calls for my mother, and she comes up from the basement.

“Marissa!” she says. “What happened? Is the baby okay?”

“Baby is fine,” I say, relieved this much is true. “Vince proposed to me again.”

She doesn’t need to ask what happened. It doesn’t take strong powers of observation to see that I am not happily presenting a ring.

I know she would have liked us to be together, but she doesn’t tell me that I’m an idiot for rejecting a rich, well-connected, handsome man who’s good to me.

For some reason, I think of Pearl’s mom, who definitely would have said that, who would have been horrified if Pearl had gotten pregnant outside of marriage. Pearl’s mother has been dead for over a decade, and yes, they had a complicated relationship, but my friend would have given anything for her mother to be a nuisance when planning her wedding, when pregnant with her two children.

Why is life so complicated?

My mom hugs me for a long time, the one person who’s always, always been there for me, even when I screamed at her for singing lullabies to me. Even when I told her that Dad would have let me go to the mall. Even when I was fifteen and asked her why the fuck she’d wanted Cheetos, because if she hadn’t, he would still be here. Every now and then, I said something truly awful, as I bet most teenagers do, and she still loved me.

And now I know, with startling clarity, that I shouldn’t worry about loving my child. That I will love them no matter what. That I learned from her, and it will be okay.

I know sometimes mothers have trouble bonding with their babies. You’re expected to feel an immediate, everlasting bond when they put the baby on your chest, but not everyone experiences that, and I can’t say exactly what will happen in those first couple months. Maybe it will take some time, but I know I will come to love my child.

Vince, though. He’ll be there, of course, teaching our baby about coding and rocket science and singing to them in Cantonese even if he doesn’t understand the words.

I sniffle into my mother’s shirt, and she says something eminently sensible.