“Why?” The wrinkle in his eyebrows suggests he’s seriously asking.
I gesture to my belly. “Uh.”
His frown deepens. “You can still go to school as a mom.”
My mom almost did it.
The comment is on the tip of my tongue, but I bite the words back.
“I should probably get used to being a mom before adding an entire advanced degree program into the mix.” That’s not even mentioning so many other factors like where exactly I’d go to school given that I now live here.
“This is it,” I say a few minutes later, pointing toward rows of vendors behind their wooden stands, selling everything from fruits and vegetables to handmade jewelry, paintings, and clothing.
Travis parks on a nearby street and we walk over to the market, his hand at the small of my back. At this point, whenwalking side-by-side, it feels unnatural for his handnotto be there.
At the back of my mind, I wonder when that happened.
“I couldn’t imagine having triplets,” I say to get my mind off of how much I like having him touch me.
“For me, it was great,” he says, grinning. “I had my own built-in best friends. Then Chloe came along and completed our family.”
My heart lurches inside of my chest.
“I always wondered what it would be like to have siblings,” I confess
“It can be a pain in the ass sometimes, though.” He chuckles.“Chloe was particularly fond of stealing my clothes.”
“No way.”
“Yeah,” he confirms. “She said boys’ clothes were cooler even though my parents had no problem buying whatever clothes she wanted.”
“I don’t like sharing clothes,” I confess. “Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t have any sisters.” It was meant to be a joke, but my heart squeezes.
The truth is, since the accident, I wondered how my life would’ve been different if I had a brother or sister to share my pain with. Would I have felt less alone?
“Do you want our son or daughter to have siblings?”
Travis’ question stops me cold. I turn to look at him.
His intent gaze lingers on me. I can’t say the answer that immediately comes to mind.
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
He squeezes my hand.
“Either way, our child will never be alone. I have a shit ton of cousins in addition to my sisters and brother. My entire family is pretty close.”
Assurance I didn’t know I needed washes over me.
“Is there anything in particular you wanted at the market?” he asks
“I need some produce, and I wanted to look around for a bit. The market only gets this big on Mondays.”
After purchasing some tomatoes and fresh basil, I point to another stand.
“They have baby clothes.” I laugh at how cute the little knitted shoes are. “Tell me these aren’t the cutest things you’ve ever seen.” I hold up a pair of white, wool booties with bows on them.
“We’ll take them,” Travis says to the vendor.
