Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
She seemed at ease with my mom, and they kept up a running conversation as they made cabbage rolls. My ears perked up when my mom started brazenly asking Gracen about the pregnancy and those first few precious years that we all missed out on.
I wanted to be angry and waited for that flash and sizzle of rage over the reminder of what was stolen from me, but I ended up being quite shaken over what I’d heard.
For the first time, I realized I didn’t just miss out on all the fun and wondrous stuff of having a new baby. I missed all the hard shit too, which means that Gracen shouldered it all.
“How was the delivery?” my mom had asked as they stood shoulder to shoulder at the counter while they stuffed spiced meat and rice into cabbage leaves.
“It was fine,” Gracen had told her in a quiet voice, perhaps maybe a little guarded. “I was right in the middle of one of my advanced nursing management classes when I went into labor.”
“You were still in school?” my mom asked in amazement.
“It was about five days before my due date and there hadn’t been anything that prevented me from still going to school,” Gracen had replied. I stopped watching the movie and focused my gaze on them. “The thing that sucked was that I was an hour and a half from the hospital in Wilkie. I had no choice but to go to the hospital near the college. It was all kind of…urgent.”
My mom froze as she stared at Gracen. “You were by yourself.”
Gracen just shrugged and rolled another cabbage leaf. “My parents got there as soon as they could.”
Jesus, that had gutted me hearing that.
Hurt worse to hear how accepting of that Gracen seemed to be, and if I have her pegged right, I bet she felt it was probably her penance to go through part of that by herself.
I’d forced my eyes back to the TV but kept listening with a rolling stomach. I shamelessly eavesdropped and learned how Gracen took a week off from school after Lilly came home from the hospital. How she went right back to school so she could get that degree, functioning only on maybe three hours of sleep each night if she was lucky. She kept a brutal schedule, leaving her parents’ house in Wilkie at 6 A.M. to travel an hour and a half to school. That meant she should have been up by 5 A.M. to get ready, but in reality she was up at 3 A.M., because that’s when Lilly usually got hungry for a feeding. Gracen refused to let her parents feed Lilly at night with pumped breast milk, claiming that it was not just her responsibility but her joy. She would get out of classes usually by 3 P.M. and make it back home in time for dinner. Then she devoted her time to Lilly while she was awake, and studying when she was asleep. She usually got to bed by midnight, only to get up and do it all over again the next day.
I’d been fucking astounded.
I was also ashamed to realize that even had I been in Gracen’s life during the pregnancy, I would have been gone during a lot of that as an NHL player. She would have been alone regardless, but I could have at least hired someone to help her out. I could have at least had her with me so that I could have taken the burden some of the time when I wasn’t traveling.
After my shower, I head into the kitchen, where I find my parents eating breakfast with Lilly at the long table that separates it from the living area. Gracen is in the kitchen washing a pan that she’d obviously used to make the large plate of scrambled eggs in the center of the table sitting next to a plate of bacon.
“Morning,” I say as I walk in.
I get smiles from my parents, a sort of grin from Lilly, who has her mouth stuffed full of food, and Gracen just keeps her back to me as she scrubs the pan. It’s not a snub at me directly, but I bet she doesn’t return my greeting because she figures I was only offering it to those people at the table.
Those who are in my good graces and didn’t cheat me out of something important.
I walk into the kitchen and grab a coffee cup from the cupboard to the right of the sink. My shoulder is just inches from her and I lean a little left to give her a bump. “Good morning.”
She startles and shoots me a tentative smile. “Morning. Get a plate and eat while it’s hot.”
“Did you eat yet?” I ask her.
“No, I wanted to get this stuff washed up.”