Two days later, Erin said goodbye to her mother as she prepared to head back to Tallowood to start packing up Gran’s things.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?’
‘I don’t think so, Mum. I don’t think I can face that.’
Over the last few days her mother had revealed the plans she had for the charity empire she’d been steadily building over the years. Erin knew she had been doing a lot of work, but she hadn’t truly appreciated just what she had accomplished. Erin now understood how selling Tallowood would help make a real difference to some of her projects. It was hard to protest selling off the place of her childhood memories when the money could be invested into things that would make a difference to so many lives.
‘Okay. Well, I’ll be storing your gran’s things, so you can go through them later when you feel up to it.’
‘Thanks, Mum. I love you,’ she said, holding her mother’s hand through the driver’s window.
‘I love you too,’ she replied, squeezing her hand. ‘Everything will work out, just trust in the universe.’
Erin watched her mother drive away and shook her head. Trust in the universe? Sure, why not, she may as well. The universe couldn’t do any worse a job of stuffing up her life than she had already done herself.
At her first ultrasound appointment the day before, Erin had been so happy her mother was there to share the experience with her. While she lay on the bed waiting for the technician to get started, Erin stared at the screen. She was about to see her baby for the very first time. As she watched an image appear it took a moment for her to work out what she was seeing. ‘Is that . . . ?’
‘That’s your baby,’ said the technician, smiling at Erin before returning to her keyboard and busily taking measurements on the screen.
Her mother held Erin’s hand tightly in both of hers, but she couldn’t drag her eyes away from the image on the screen. Her baby.
She didn’t realise she was crying until the technician reached over and handed her a tissue. ‘Everything is perfect.’
‘Can you tell what sex it is yet?’ Erin asked, dropping her mother’s hand and blowing her nose quickly.
‘Not yet, it’s a bit too early, but they will be able to tell you at the next ultrasound appointment.’
She’d walked from the radiologist’s in a daze. This whole time she’d had so much else on her mind that she’d hardly thought about who she had inside her. She wasn’t just pregnant—she was having a baby. A baby she’d been trying to have for so long she’d given up hope it was going to happen. But it had. She placed a hand across her abdomen and closed her eyes. Here’s the deal. You keep hanging in there, little one, and I promise I’ll do my best not to stuff up our future.
She opened her eyes and smiled at her mother, who was also dabbing a tissue at her eyes.