I pause and wonder if it’s hard for me to be around kids. As a teacher, I enjoyed it, and when I found out I was pregnant, instead of being scared because I was alone, I was elated. Dad was the one who was scared. How was I going to do it on my own? I’d assured him that all I needed was right here in Whittier. I stood tall and poked him in the chest and said, I’m going to be an amazing mom. His eyes had gone soft, then, and he’d surrounded me with his arms. I never doubted that, Claire bear.

More than anything, I wanted that baby. Wanted to be a mother. I touch my stomach, remembering how I used to imagine what it would be like to hold her. From my notes I discover that I spoke to Tate yesterday, told him about the baby, and he wasn’t even surprised. I rub my temples, a headache flirting around the edges of my eyes, shock that Tate is here and already knows, and my mind slips backward to graduation, his hotel room.

I have a job and an apartment, I told him. Come back with me. We had been lying naked in bed, his body wound around behind mine, warm and strong, my head cradled in his arms. He felt the same but different too—sturdier, older. Being with him had been like coming home after a long trip, familiar and new, intoxicating in all the right ways. But his words were a slap in the face:

I’m m . . . m-arried, Claire.

You’re what? His admission stripped me down, made me feel more naked than my own bare skin. What’s her name?

Maria.

He wanted someone else, not me. Didn’t love me enough. Just like Mom. I’d clutched at my chest, a painful pressure building inside that threatened to overtake me. I had to get out of there, away from him, away from this feeling that I was never good enough. So I fled, ignoring his calls, erasing him from my mind as much as was possible. I didn’t need Tate. I didn’t need Mom. Everyone and everything I needed was right in Whittier.

Then I discovered I was pregnant.

And instead of making me scared or nervous, the news was sunshine, igniting all that could be good in my life. I could do this. Maybe I was even meant for this. I would love this baby the way a child is supposed to be loved.

I stare at my colored tabs, notebooks, calendars, reminders and slump forward, weighted down by the ugliness of my reality. What kind of life could I have given a baby, anyway? So I wipe my face, sip cold coffee, and return to my notes.