The picture of the baby was taped to the front of the refrigerator in Rachel’s house. She smiled as Craig placed a kiss on his fingers and then pressed it to the picture when he opened the door for milk.
He’d moved into her house the following weekend after she’d told him about the baby. And to Rachel, it had been absolute bliss for the following six weeks, minus any morning sickness.
After she’d gone to the doctor to confirm her pregnancy, her body had decided to give her the full experience. She’d been sick two or three times a day since then. All she could hope was that after two months it would go away, but so far, it had stuck around.
“Alex wants to have a barbecue in his backyard this weekend,” Craig said as he stirred the milk into his coffee. “I told him I was sure we could be there, but I’d check with you since graduation was on Friday morning and you were expected there.”
Rachel let out a groan. What was she going to do if she had to get sick right in the middle of graduation?
“We can make it.”
Craig had worked out a rental agreement with Alex and Bruce, until he decided exactly what he wanted to do with the house. There was nothing but time, he’d told them, but she knew he had a sentimental attachment to the house in North Denver, and she’d have to consider that maybe that’s where he’d want to land when the baby was born. But for now, he seemed content sharing her bed in the house where she and her dogs once were the only occupants.
Craig turned and leaned against the counter. “You don’t look well. Maybe you should call in.”
Rachel laughed. “Billions of women have had babies and gone to work. I’m fine.” She ran her hand over her flat stomach. “She just doesn’t like me.”
“She? Is that this week’s term? Last week it was he. The week before it was it.”
“Keeping it real, Turner.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” he smiled as he moved to her. Leaning down, he kissed Rachel on the lips and pressed his hand to her stomach. “I didn’t realize I could love someone I’ve never met this much.”
Didn’t she know it?
Twenty minutes after Craig had left, Rachel carried her bag out to the car and climbed inside. She had to sit for a moment and take a collection of how she was feeling. There had been more than one occasion where she’d had to get out of the car, run back in the house, and get sick.
The school was buzzing, as it often did during spring. The halls were sans seniors who would graduate in the morning, and didn’t it always humor her that the juniors instantly got an ego?
There were cookies in the office, next to the coffee pot, and the copy machine. They called to her, and she decided to take a couple and she’d pay for it later. This was supposed to be a thrilling time where she got to eat everything she wanted and didn’t have to worry about it.
As she turned to walk into her office, she spotted the wife of their principal walking toward her. She too was in county administration with Catherine, and when Rachel saw the smile on her face, she knew she’d spoken to her.
“Ms. Diaz, you have a glow about you,” she said as she pulled her in for a hug.
“Do I?”
Corinne Thompson, dressed in a blue suit which accentuated her dark eyes, smiled wide. “Catherine says you’re getting married and expecting a baby. There is no better reason to glow than that, I say.”
“I appreciate it.” She placed her hands on her stomach. “We’re just getting started. Eight weeks.”
“At least you won’t be huge in the summer. I had our son mid-July. That was tough, but worth it.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” she said and then added, “or him.”
“Babies are such gifts. I’m very happy for you.”
“Thank you,” Rachel said as she grinned back at the woman.
“We’ll see you at graduation tomorrow?”
“Yes, I’ll be there.”
Rachel watched as the woman moved to another office, then she walked into her own office and closed the door so that no one could see her eat the cookies she’d taken.
As she sat down at her desk, her cell phone rang and her mother’s smiling face came up on the screen.
“Hello, Mama.”
“How are you feeling?” her mother asked, her voice as chipper as a bird’s song.
“It’s moment to moment,” Rachel said breaking off a piece of one of the cookies.
“I was like that with you. I think it’s a girl. I was sick, then I wasn’t, then I was,” she continued. “With Hal and Theo, nothing.”
Rachel laughed as her mother went on and talked about the neighbors and her dinner with a friend.
It was hard to believe that Rachel had been nervous telling her mother about her pregnancy. She’d taken to the news of her marrying Craig Turner better than Rachel had thought, but the news of the baby, that had sent her mother over the moon.
They missed her father, everyone did, but the new beginnings happening all around her seemed to have taken the sting out of it a bit.
She took the bite of the cookie and tried to enjoy it, but the wave of sickness was wavering in her belly again.
“C’mon, little one. Let me have a moment here,” she said with her hands over her stomach.
She jumped when her office door burst open and the principal hurried in. “We’re having an emergency meeting in the conference room now.”
“What’s going on?” Rachel pushed back from her desk and took just a moment to steady herself.
“Miguel White escaped from the juvenile detention center. We’re on alert.”