Taylor spent the next two and a half weeks in some swing state between apologetic and ecstatic. Joe couldn't read her, gosh, she could barely read herself. Was she excited for this baby? Was she terrified? Did she even have a plan?
After the initial incident in the bathroom, Joe wrapped Taylor in a hug, shushing her and assuring her it was okay between half choked laughter. "You're going to be fine," he whispered into her hair, stroking it away from her face as she clung to him. "We're gonna get this figured out. No matter what comes of it, okay?" He pulled away to meet her puffy, tear filled eyes.
"I'm sorry, I don't know why—I don't, I don't know why I'm crying about it," Taylor gasped between sobs. "I g-guess I just, never, really considered it, y-you know? But it'll be okay. I can, I can just, I can just plan around it and rework my songwriting times and s-s-studio days—" she wiped furiously at her tears with the heel of her palms. The cold of her marble bathroom floor was seeping into her feet and she felt the need to move, to go anywhere. Anywhere but right here where her embarrassment ran down her face in streams and she was a vulnerable, open mess in front of two people she loved more than anything.
"Hey, you're gonna breathe, okay, love?" Joe looked her in the eyes, ducking his head to meet her eyes. "There we go, that's right. In, out. Okay."
They made their way to the adjacent bedroom, with its plush rugs and canopy over the bed. A pile of unfolded laundry lay heaped at the end, the dresser covered with different earrings from the different press events she'd been doing. The cat beds were nestled by the door to the closet. He pulled back the curtains, revealing a quickly fading sunset over the sprawling streets of New York.
"I have to keep..." Taylor hesitated. "I should—but the media, gosh, I can't publicize this yet. I can't."
"And you don't have to."
Andrea sat in the small rocker at the end of their bed, ready and waiting for anything her daughter might need. She hadn't said a word.
"I don't want this baby," Taylor said abruptly. "That—that solves the media problem, right? And everything else will keep going. I can write, and record, and—that's it, I'm not keeping this baby."
"Is that what you want?"
"Yes. No. Yes. I—I don't—I'm not sure." Taylor held her face in her hands as Joe softly rubbed her back. The tears had started again, mostly of their own volition. "I can't—I just—I don't—how do I work with all this? How do I make this work? Mom?" Her voice was thready, crackly and thick with emotion. "Mom?"
Andrea came over to sit on the other side of her. "I don't get to make this decision for you, Taylor. You know that. But I'm here for whatever you decide, baby, I always have been. I know you. I trust you."
She really had been, Taylor recalled, at all the Christmas tree farm events, to getting her CD to every record label in Nashville, to being at her award shows and concerts and TV appearances. The one thing she could rely on through it all. Her mom, her parents. Even as she sat there trying to think up a moment where her mom hadn't been present, she found she couldn't find any.
"What about you?" She turned to Joe, squeezing his hand.
"Love, I'm beyond excited. I want this with you. But only if you want it, too. I can't force you to do something you don't want to do."
She collapsed against the bed, utterly spent. "I can't decide tonight, I think i just need to sleep. I'm gonna sleep."
And with that, she grabbed her pajamas from the dresser and disappeared, yet again, into the bathroom.
—-
Joe slept, but she stayed awake as was her habit. When she couldn't process, she couldn't sleep. Her mother had gone home, and Joe was snoring away, pressed up against her, and she was biting her nails down to the quick.
Why was this decision so fucking difficult? It should be a yes or a no question, really, but some part of her knew that wasn't the case and never would be. She'd always pictured herself as a mother. The fans had pictured her as a mother—any picture of her interacting with her friend's children quickly went viral, as did any video of her doing a charity event at a children's hospital. The results were resoundingly unanimous—Taylor Swift Was in Fact Mother Material. There was no way she couldn't be.
So when the sun rose the next morning, she shook Joe awake, looked into his bleary, sleep-ridden eyes, and said, "You're going to be a father."
Despite confirming the fact out loud, it still weighed on her mind, and she flip flopped back and forth relentlessly. Even at the first check up, she was close to tears as the doctors announced that she was in fact, eight weeks pregnant, and did she want to hear the heartbeat and it took one look in Joe's eyes to say yes please.
And then the sound of the heartbeat filled the room, and oh, boy was she in for it now. Goddamn the stupid blue blob on the screen having a heartbeat. She smiled through tears and flipped thru the ultrasound pictures all the way home.
Joe was a rock as always through the worst bouts of morning sickness, always there with a warm cup of tea and a reassuring back rub even as Taylor looked pallid and gaunt, even as her insides turned and twisted unforgivingly. And when the bump finally showed, he was there, talking to it quietly, laying in Taylor's lap, positively over the moon. He'd found her before, curled up in the bathtub, sobbing hysterically.
"I want to be a mom," Taylor hiccuped miserably. "But—but I'm not going to be a good mom, I can't be a good mom with how my life is, all the cameras and the noise and the paps. I can't—" it took her hours to be convinced, and even longer for her to come back to bed.
The public had been kept on the hush hush for the most part, much in the same way they'd been kept about her relationship with Joe, but when the bump began showing, the ruse had to become more elaborate. The upside was it was cold—so coats and scarves were not considered unreasonably out of season. Sometimes Taylor stood in front of the mirror, examining the little swell of her belly, talking, poking at the baby's little feet and hands where they poked against her. She willed herself to take a breath. She could do this. She could totally do this.
Then came the preparation—there was a nursery to be painted and furnished, and checkups that Taylor had to attend, and classes to prepare herself for birth. The paparazzi were increasingly curious, the tabloids getting increasingly ridiculous and desperate for any shred of her life to hang onto. But in Taylor's world, it was just her family and Joe, who was practically family at that point anyway.
After a particularly exasperating day out, Taylor returned to find Joe taking breathing lessons. His brow furrowed with concentration, holding a pile of stuffed blanket in place of her, and he was deeply absorbed with everything the instructor said in the video.
"You'd think you were the one giving birth!" She laughed, startling him as she hung up her coat and her bag and pulled the curtains by the door closed. Gosh, it was nice to have someone to come home to.
He flushed red. "I j-just wanted to, to make sure we were ready for it together. So I can help you when, you know, the baby arrives."
She kissed him on the forehead as she passed the couch. "I know. It's endearing. Keep doing it." She eyed him and mimicked the breathing until she couldn't anymore, breaking into laughter.
"Did the baby give you hell today?"
"Actually, no, they were rather tolerable today. It wasn't them that was the problem. All these big name execs are trying to push for a new album and then a tour to promote it. I can't focus on it right now. Not with little one on the way. It's why I started my own label. For my time."
She settled into the couch next to him with a frustrated huff, and he threw the blanket on her lap. "You're the queen," he said, "You call the shots." She rolled her eyes at him, leaning back against the cushions.
"My liege," he smirked, leaning forward to engulf her belly with his arms. "We did that." His tone was almost incredulous, as he placed an ear against her body.
That earned him a solid wallop with the baby's foot, and Taylor couldn't help but chuckle. "Who do you think they get their fighting spirit from?"
"Oh, that's definitely you."
