Snow in Texas

Twenty-Seven: Colin. Jenny. Ava.

Twenty-Seven

Colin

They agreed to keep the news to themselves for a while. The next day, Jenny went to the doctor and was informed, with a smile, that she was indeed pregnant, and everything seemed very normal and healthy so far. She walked into Colin's arms that night, snuggled her face into his chest and sighed deeply. "Well," she said. "It's happening."

Colin had thought accepting it as reality was the scariest part. But then he realized they were going to have to tell Candy.

And that was the scariest part.

"Question," he said, when they were in bed. "After we tell your brother, am I going to be capable of having any more kids in the future?"

He'd expected Jenny to laugh. Instead, she said, "I dunno."

Not reassuring.

Which was how Colin felt now as he walked up to the uncle-to-be in the common room the next morning – very not reassured.

Candy was having breakfast at the bar, a cup of coffee, morning cigarette, watching the local news on the TV mounted on the back wall.

"Haven't seen you around much," he said without glancing toward Colin. "Take it things are patched up with you and your boss lady."

Since he couldn't be seen anyway, Colin made a snarly face before he dropped onto the next stool. "Yeah."

"Good. You need your head on straight. You and me've got errands to run later."

Somehow, that didn't sound fun at all.

~*~

Jenny

It was her day off, and normally she would have spent the day reading, writing in her journal, window shopping online for more boots she didn't need and couldn't afford. But today, she was restless.

She swore she felt the tiny life inside her already, a presence, this new weight in her womb, despite its lack of physical size. She closed her eyes, pressed her hand to her stomach, and imagined she could sense the blood and nutrients going to it, her baby. A moment in which life seemed impossible, fragile, and so very raw. There was a human growing in there, and that was too massive to comprehend all at once.

She sighed and reclined back against her headboard. She hadn't made the bed yet, hadn't dressed or put on her makeup. She kept thinking about Colin, the way he'd been last night.

She'd thrown herself wholeheartedly into the sex, to keep her spinning thoughts at bay. And then after, Colin had been the one to become contemplative, his hand settling on her stomach in a way that was a silent question.

Jenny had smiled and moved his palm lower. "You're too high. It's down here."

"Yeah? What's it look like?"

"Like nothing, yet." She'd dampened her lips, hesitant to ask her next question. "Are you...are you excited about it?"

He'd exhaled through his nose and it had ruffled her hair. "I don't really know what I am," he said, honestly, quietly.

That was okay, because she didn't know either.

Well, that wasn't true. She was a little bit nervous. Okay, a lot bit nervous. She herself was no doubt going to be an emotional wreck of a mother. But what about Colin? Was she staring down the barrel of eventual abandonment? Or was he going to step up? Be a good dad...like his brother.

His brother.

If there was ever an authority on Lécuyer genetics, she lived in Knoxville, Tennessee.