“Not really.”
“You need to regain your strength, mom. You’re never going to do that if you don’t eat something.”
“It’s not my fault nothing sounds good.” Molly sighed and let her head fall back into the pillows. She closed her eyes. “But I’ll try to think of something, okay?”
Sasha patted her mom’s hand. “That’s all I ask.”
They sat for a while in silence. There was a TV in the room, but Molly kept the volume muted. She thought it was rude to watch it with the sound on when there was another person on the other side of a thin curtain. Still, the subtitles were on, and they chuckled together every time one of the cast members ofCheersmade a quippy remark. After a while, Molly took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it. “Sweetie, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
Sasha gulped.
She knows. Just like the nurse, she figured it out on her own. Oh god, she’s going to kill me.
“A–are you sure you want to talk about it right now?” Sasha said through a forced smile. “You seem like you could use some rest. Can’t it wait until we’re back home?”
Molly shook her head. “No, it can’t wait. I’ve waited long enough. And if this whole appendicitis debacle has shown me anything, it’s that life is short and you never have as much time as you think you do.”
“Mom, you’re kind of scaring me...”
“I’m not trying to scare you, honey, but just listen to me, okay? First, I want to say that I know you’re pregnant.”
Sasha drew back in shock. “You do?”
Molly laughed, then coughed, then laughed again. “Yes, of course I do. We share a computer, remember? I logged in the other day, and you had left a page open about ‘early pregnancy symptoms.’ And then you were freaking out over getting a doctor’s appointment. I may not have graduated high school, but I’m not an idiot. I know how to put these sorts of things together.”
“Right.” Sasha shifted in her seat a little. “So… are you going to kill me or what?”
“Do I look like I’m in a position to do anything to you?” Molly joked. This made Sasha smile. She never actually thoughther mom would do anything to hurt her, but sometimes a scolding from a disappointed parent felt eerily like a slap to the face.
“But you are mad at me… right? Just making sure they didn’t do something irreversible to your personality while you were under the knife.”
“I was mad at first,” Molly said. “But honestly, I don’t have the energy for an emotion like anger right now.”
Lucky me.
“But being in this hospital room for the past week, I’ve had a lot of time to think about my own life choices, and it’d be a little hypocritical of me to be mad at you for getting pregnant when I got pregnant with you unexpectedly twenty years ago.”
“That’s a very good point.” Sasha laughed under her breath. “One that I was actually going to bring up when I thought this conversation would surely turn into a fight.”
“Yes, well…” Her mom grew quiet, contemplative for a moment, staring out the single window in the room. It allowed some sunlight in, which was nice, but the view left much to be desired. All they could really see was the brick outside of the building next door and maybe the occasional pigeon. “There are some things I’d like to know, questions I want you to answer, but mostly I just want to make sure that you’re okay.”
Sasha didn’t answer right away. She knew if she opened her mouth right then, she’d definitely get choked up. Eventually, she nodded.
“Do you want to have this baby?”
Again, Sasha nodded.
“Alright. Then I support your decision,” Molly said. “Does the father know?”
“No,” Sasha said, finally finding her words. “It’s just some guy who was passing through town with a couple of my oldfriends from high school. Trust me, he’s not the type who would want to be informed.”
Molly sighed. “Are you sure about that? Because these things have a tendency to come back and bite you in the ass.”
“Really? I thought you would’ve had the opposite opinion.” Sasha frowned. “I mean, you told dad about me, and he bailed, right?”
Molly looked down at her hands. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“How so?” This was the first Sasha was hearing of mitigating circumstances. As far as her mother and grandmother had always told her, Sasha’s dad was just some cheating deadbeat who didn’t want anything to do with Sasha.
