The smallest of bumps.
Something that I wouldn’t have thought twice about feeling forty-eight hours ago.
We’d never gotten to this point with our Julep.
She’d never been big enough to feel before her life had been stolen from her.
No one at the table paid enough attention to us to notice the life-changing moment we were sharing, all too busy on a conversation about snowmobiles, riding motorcycles, and the summer months coming up to notice our awe.
She leaned forward and whispered into my ear, “I’ve been feeling those little gas bubble sensations for a while, but this is the first time I’ve ever felt her move from the outside.”
I was irrationally angry all of a sudden, pissed beyond all belief that this had been stolen from us once before by my own mother.
She saw it in my eyes, too. The shame. The regret.
“We can’t ever make it right,” she whispered. “But we can move on. Build a life with our new little girl.” She bit her lip, whispering quietly, “I have a name.”
My brows rose. “What is it?”
“Margery.”
The breath left my lungs.
The blow was oh so sweet. Well placed and sweet.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
“Do you think she’ll like it?”
I knew she would.
“She will love it,” I croaked, my heart aching in both agony and happiness. “Nettie…”
She looked more seriously at me. “What?”
“Grams isn’t going to make it much longer,” I admitted. “I…”
I didn’t want to finish my sentence.
But she finished it for me.
“I know,” she whispered. “You don’t know if she’ll live to see her namesake.”
Grams, also known as Margery Anderson Windsor, was my stepfather’s mother. She was the sweetest, sassiest, most hardass lady I’d ever met in my life. She loved fiercely, never let go of something that was hers to take care of, and had been lying to my face for years.
I loved the hell out of her for it.
I had never wanted Nettie to lose her.
And apparently, she hadn’t.
Apparently she and Nettie had a relationship that neither one of them had shared with me.
I was okay with that, though.
I would’ve never wanted to take Nettie away from Grams, and neither would I have wanted to take Grams away from Nettie.
I just wished we hadn’t wasted so much time.
