“Please, I’m your mother.” Jasmine planted her hands on her hips and cocked her head at Kyra. “I know you better than you know yourself. You’re not OK, and I want to give you my full attention.”
One of the ways Jasmine had kept her business running as long as she had, aside from her delicious baked goods of course, was keeping strict regular hours. Everyone in town knew when the bakery was open. Even during slow hours, she’d hang out, munching on her own products and watching the door incase someone came around. So this early close was kind of unprecedented.
“What’s going on, baby girl?”
At those words, Kyra lost her composure completely and threw herself into her mother’s arms. “Oh, Mom, I don’t know what to do! I think I made a huge mistake, and I’m so scared that there’s no way to make it right.”
Jasmine squeezed her daughter tightly. “Is this about the new job?”
At first, Kyra shook her head. Then she thought a little more about it and nodded. “It’s… I may have had a… little thing with my boss.” Jasmine put her at arm’s length immediately to look right into her daughter’s eyes. “I didn’t mean to!” Kyra assured her before her mother could say anything. “It just kind of happened. There was flooding. We were trapped together, our clothes were wet, and the lights went out. And neither of us had planned on anything happening, so?—”
“Say no more,” Jasmine said, her eyes glittering with understanding. “Have you taken a test yet?”
So she already understood. Jasmine had always been incredible at reading people. It was something her daughter had inherited from her. All Kyra could manage was a nod.
“And the results?”
Kyra chewed her lip before murmuring, “Positive. I took it this afternoon. I bought more because I didn’t believe it.” She pulled the unopened test out of her purse. “I thought maybe I’d done it wrong.”
The look of sympathy on her mother’s face told Kyra how ridiculous her denial was. Even her mother knew how unlikely it was that she had done it wrong. Kyra was a direction follower to her core. She always had been.
“Let’s sit down and talk. I’ll make us some hot chocolate. No caffeine, just in case.”
“I think we may be pastjust in caseat this point,” Kyra sniffled.
Her mother winked at her. “Let’s do denial for a bit longer, OK? For now, we don’t know for sure. So, let’s talk about what we’ll do if it turns out to be true.”
Kyra nodded and sat at a table while her mother went back to prepare their hot chocolate. When Jasmine returned, she was carrying not only hot chocolate but a plate of sugar cookies as well.
“These were your favorite when you were little,” Jasmine said, setting the plate in the middle of the table. “I assume you lost your breakfast this morning.”
“Yeah,” Kyra began, eyes widening at how well her mother knew her. “How did you know?”
Jasmine sat down across from her and took a cookie off the plate. “Morning sickness was particularly bad for me when I was pregnant with you.” She smiled and took a bite of the cookie in her hand.
That was a believable answer that Kyra didn’t want to believe. It was one more sign that she really was pregnant. “Mom, what do I do?”
“Does the father know?” Jasmine asked.
Kyra shook her head.
“That’s going to be step one then,” Jasmine said. “You have to let him know. His response may affect your decision.” She shrugged. “Or maybe it won’t. I don’t know, but he has a right to know either way.”
From the moment she saw the results of the first test she took, Kyra had known she would need to tell Adam, and she’d been dreading it more than anything. “I… don’t know what to say.”
“It’ll come to you when you’re face-to-face with him.” Jasmine sipped her hot chocolate and gestured for Kyra to do the same. “Eat something, honey. You’re going to have to eventually. It’ll help you think more clearly.”
She was right, of course. Kyra sipped her hot chocolate and nibbled the edges of one of the sugar cookies. Then she admitted, “I’m afraid I may have messed up my whole life, Mom. I didn’t plan this, but now that it’s happened, I’m not sure what to do.”
Jasmine smiled. “I assume you want to keep the baby, but you’re scared to do it alone.”
“How do you do that?” Kyra asked. “You guess everything before I even say it.”
“I know you too well.” Jasmine sat back and folded her hands on the table. “You’ve always wanted to be a mother, and you’ve been afraid you were running out of time.”
“You know I didn’t do this on purpose, right? I don’t have any kind of a plan.”
“Of course you don’t, but neither did I when you were born. And look how beautifully things worked out.”
