Forever, Plus One

by Sophie Love

  “What’s that?” Emily asked, feigned curiosity in her tone.

  “I think we should all go down to the beach for the Fourth of July celebration. We can collect shells and eat cotton candy. Bailey said there’s a face painter there too. Do you want your face painted?”

  Emily smiled, comforted by her sweet daughter. She squeezed her. “I’d love to.”

  Chantelle didn’t need any more encouragement. She tugged Emily’s hand and began leading her toward the door. Emily laughed and shook her head. Daniel followed, looking as equally touched and amused as Emily felt.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The beach was crowded with families, groups of young people dressed in patriotic colors, and hordes of children. It was gloriously sunny and everyone ran around in high spirits. It seemed to Emily that everywhere she looked there was another woman pushing a newborn in a stroller or cradling one in their arms.

  Stalls lined the perimeter of the beach, mainly geared up for the children. There was a Frisbee-making stall where Chantelle got to squirt red, white, and blue paint into a spinning machine. She also visited the face painter, who gave her a sparkly red star on her cheek, and the lady in the temporary tattoo stall where she chose a red bow for her forearm.

  “Look, an ice cream truck!” Chantelle cried excitedly.

  She dragged her parents over and spent a dollar on a cherry-flavored sno-cone. Emily got herself a creamy vanilla cone and Daniel a mint chocolate chip one. Then they sat on a picnic bench and ate happily.

  “I wish there was always ice cream and stalls on the beach,” Chantelle said. “Not just on the Fourth of July.”

  “We’d probably spend more time here if there was,” Emily said, surprised herself that they rarely used the beach when it was just across the street from them.

  Emily noticed her friend Yvonne approaching with her daughter, Bailey, who was Chantelle’s best friend. Chantelle leapt up and hugged Bailey and then proceeded to show off her tattoo and face paint proudly.

  “Did you hear about baby Robin?” Yvonne asked, hugging Emily.

  “I did. It’s so exciting! I’m thrilled for them.”

  Emily felt her own secret on the tip of her tongue. How easy it would be to let her friend know she was also expecting. But she managed to hold it in.

  “This is great, isn’t it?” Yvonne said, looking around at the fun beach event. “They should put this on every year. It’s better for the kids than a parade.”

  “I’ll send a petition to Mayor Hansen,” Emily joked. “No more parades. Beach parties only from now on, thank you very much.”

  Everyone laughed.

  Yvonne joined them for an ice cream, then they were shortly followed by more parents from school. Everyone was buzzing about the news of Suzanna and Wesley’s new baby, the excitement palpable in the air. It gave the already buoyant celebrations an even more exuberant atmosphere.

  It seemed to Emily like everyone she’d ever met in Sunset Harbor had congregated on the beach for the day. As she looked around, Emily was surprised by just how many people they now knew. Chantelle’s circle of friends seemed to grow day by day, and with it the number of parents that Emily and Daniel got to become friends with. The thought pleased her immensely.

  The children got to work building a sandcastle, giving the adults some downtime to sit and chat about actual grown-up things. But Emily couldn’t help find her mind wandering to Suzanna’s baby news, and her attention drawn to the table next to her, where there was a group of four young moms with babies of various ages shrieking in a variety of pitches and levels of distress.

  Emily watched on as the mothers attempted to find out what was the matter with their children, from checking on their diaper situations to giving them pacifiers, rocking them, winding them, rattling toys in their faces. All the while the infants shrieked and wailed. It all looked very stressful. Emily couldn’t believe she would be one of those mothers soon. The thought started to panic her. Did she have that kind of patience? What if she had a child that always cried, that was never soothed? How would she cope?

  “Emily, what’s wrong?” Daniel asked, concerned.

  Emily tore her gaze from the table of new mothers and looked at Daniel, her expression panic-stricken. She hoped none of the others at the table had noticed her freak-out. She still wasn’t quite ready to reveal to her friends that she was pregnant. She wanted some kind of acknowledgment from her father before she revealed it to the rest of the world.

  “Babies,” she whispered under her breath.

  She looked over her shoulder and Daniel followed her gaze. When she turned back to him he was smiling.

  “It’s not funny,” she stammered. “Look how stressed they all are. They look overwhelmed.”

  Daniel carried on smiling. “Emily, it’s going to be okay. Honestly. Babies cry. Parents make mistakes.”

  “But I don’t know if I can do that,” Emily replied. She could hear her voice becoming more shrill.

  “Of course you can,” Daniel said simply.

  “I won’t be able to keep my composure if my baby is screaming like that in public!”

  Daniel rubbed her arm. “Yes, you will,” he reassured her. “You’re going to be an amazing mom. You already are.” He gestured to where Chantelle was laughing with her friends on the beach beside the huge, elaborate sandcastle they’d constructed together.

  Emily wanted to be reassured by Daniel’s words but she herself wasn’t so sure. Chantelle had come to them fully formed, a child with interests. They could play with her, reason with her, have conversations with her. They’d never had to change her diaper or feed her in the middle of the night. They’d never had to deal with her spit-up or colic. It was all that stuff that seemed suddenly daunting to Emily. Daniel may have faith in her ability to cope with it all.

  But Emily wasn’t certain she had faith in herself.

  *

  Emily’s anxiety didn’t abate that day. Even while watching the inn’s firework display on the porch with all the staff and guests, all she could think about was her appointment with Doctor Arkwright tomorrow. They were due to find out the gender. She should be excited, but instead she was filled with worry. What if it was a boy? Boys were supposed to be rambunctious and accident prone. But then again baby girls were supposed to cry more and express greater anxiety. Then a thought of utter horror struck her. What if she was having twins?

  Emily couldn’t stop herself from mulling these thoughts over and over in her mind, speculating what her life would be like once the baby arrived.

  “Did you know that Mommy gets to see the baby tomorrow?” Daniel asked Chantelle.

  It was as if he’d read Emily’s mind. She leaned against the porch post, her arms tightening around her for comfort. Behind them, the sky exploded with blue sparkles.

  “How?” Chantelle asked, perplexed.

  “There’s a machine,” Daniel explained. “It can look inside the body, a bit like an X-ray. The doctor will tell us whether you’re having a brother or sister.”

  He touched Emily’s stomach as he spoke. As though in response her heart fluttered with anxiety. She felt on the periphery of their conversation rather than a part of it.

  “I want a sister,” Chantelle said. “What about you, Daddy?”

  “Well, I already have the best daughter in the world,” he said, ruffling her hair. “So I think I’d prefer it to be a boy.”

  They both looked up at Emily then, expectantly. She shifted from one foot to the other feeling suddenly put on the spot.

  “What about you, Mommy?” Chantelle asked when Emily stayed quiet.

  “I don’t mind either way,” Emily said. “As long as it’s healthy. And not twins.”

  Chantelle’s eyes widened. “Twins? I hadn’t thought of that!”

  Daniel shook his head and laughed. “It won’t be twins.”

  He stroked Emily’s arm tenderly but it didn’t help resolve her worry. She always felt like they were at odds with one another. When D
aniel wanted kids, she didn’t. Whenever she felt excited about the baby, he seemed stressed. And now they’d switched again. He was relaxed about finding out the baby’s sex in their appointment tomorrow whereas it had prompted an anxiety attack in her. She wished they could get into sync with one another.

  An enormous boom sounded in the sky, followed by fizzling sparkly lights. Like Daniel and Chantelle, the gathered guests made appreciative noises, their eyes turned to the sky, their expressions joyful. Emily wanted to enjoy this moment, to put her fears to rest. She took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself.

  “Why don’t we do a gender reveal party?” Daniel suddenly suggested.

  Chantelle tore her eyes away from the display momentarily in order to exclaim, “Party!”

  Emily was shocked. She frowned in Daniel’s direction.

  “Really?” she asked, the surprise audible in her tone. She couldn’t help but feel like gender parties were a little on the twee side, the sort of thing her New York City friends would do in order to show off and get more attention. She hated all forms of attention. The wedding had been plenty for her. And for the suggestion to have come from Daniel—who was usually very logical and practical about things—made it even more surprising.

  She thought about his reasoning for a moment and wondered if this was spurred on, once again, by how much he’d missed out on with Chantelle. Maybe he wanted to make sure he got to experience everything this time, from the gender parties to the baby shower. It just felt so strange.

  “You don’t think it’s a good idea?” Daniel asked in response to her prolonged silence.

  “It’s not that,” Emily said with a shrug. “It just feels a bit … showy. Extravagant.”

  There was a pause in the explosion of fireworks and Chantelle turned then, looking up at Emily, bemused. “You love parties,” she stated. “We both do.”

  “I know, I know,” Emily replied, rubbing her forehead. She couldn’t quite put into words her reticence so decided it would probably be better to just relent. It was a two against one situation anyway so she was going to lose either way. “We’ll do a gender reveal if it’s what you both want.”

  “Yay!” Chantelle exclaimed. “How do we do it?”

  Daniel explained. “What we do is get Doctor Arkwright to put the gender in an envelope without telling us. Then we can give it to Karen to bake into a cake—pink for a girl, blue for a boy. Then when we cut open the cake we’ll be surprised along with everyone else.”

  Emily chewed her lip. “That would mean Karen finds out before other people.”

  “That’s okay, isn’t it?” Daniel said. “Karen is your friend.”

  “Yes, but wouldn’t it be a bit strange? Her knowing before us? Especially when no one even knows I’m pregnant yet! What if she accidentally told someone else? I’d feel more comfortable if it were made by someone who didn’t know us at all.”

  “You are peculiar,” Daniel said, planting a kiss on her forehead. “But we can go to another bakery and get it done there if you prefer.”

  Emily nodded, a little relieved. She tried to analyze where her reticence was coming from and realized that it wasn’t really that she didn’t want Karen finding out the gender first, but that she didn’t feel ready yet to let people know she was pregnant at all.

  “Are we having the party tomorrow then?” Chantelle asked. “After the doctor?”

  Emily felt her face blanch. “That means everyone will know I’m pregnant… The whole town. My staff. All our friends.”

  Chantelle’s eyes sparkled at the realization that the time had finally come to spill the Morey family secret. But then a new emotion passed through them, one that Emily recognized to be grief.

  “But Papa Roy…” Chantelle said quietly. “We still don’t know if he knows. It wouldn’t be right to tell anyone before him, would it?”

  Emily rubbed her back gently. She realized that she felt the same way, that that had been why she’d felt such anxiety about revealing the news. She felt Daniel’s hand touch her arm gently.

  “We can wait a little longer if you want,” he said. “There’s no rush.”

  Emily paused for a moment and thought it through. But she had to accept that she couldn’t put off telling people forever. She couldn’t put her life on hold because of her father again.

  “I think it’s time we stopped waiting,” she said.

  “Then it’s tomorrow?” Daniel asked.

  “Tomorrow,” Emily confirmed.

  Chantelle nodded too, then her slightly sad expression was replaced by a mischievous smile that appeared on her lips.

  “I don’t think you should tell anyone what the party is for,” she said. “It should be a baby reveal. Then a surprise gender reveal. That way it’s extra surprising.”

  Emily smiled too. “I love that idea.” She looked at Daniel. “What do you say?”

  His eyes twinkled with the same mischief as his daughter. Then he nodded.

  “Let’s do it.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Emily found herself more nervous than ever as she, Daniel, and Chantelle entered Doctor Arkwright’s office.

  “Lie down here for me,” Doctor Arkwright said.

  Emily got onto the table and pulled her top up so that Doctor Arkwright could apply the cool jelly substance. Then she used the ultrasound machine’s wand, moving it around Emily’s stomach. With bated breath, Emily watched the monitor.

  Chantelle seemed to buzz with excitement.

  “Okay, so that’s the heartbeat there,” Doctor Arkwright said, pointing at a small flickering black blob on the screen. “Baby is lying at the top here, so if I just angle this way.” She moved the machine across Emily’s stomach. All at once, the unmistakable shape of a baby came into view. “There we go,” Doctor Arkwright finished. “That’s the spine. Head.”

  Chantelle squealed with delight. Daniel’s eyes opened wider. Emily thought she saw tears welling in them. She herself felt overwhelmed with emotion.

  “Now, you’re all going to want to close your eyes now,” Doctor Arkwright said. “So I can have a peek and see what the sex is.”

  Emily averted her gaze from the monitor, her heart fluttering as Doctor Arkwright moved the machine around. In her mind’s eye she could still see the monitor, the image of her baby, their baby. It was unreal. Amazing. She felt a surge of joy rush through her.

  “Okay, all done,” Doctor Arkwright said. “I’ll write it down and put it in a sealed envelope. Along with the sonogram picture because I don’t want you guessing by looking too closely.”

  She chuckled and scribbled something down on a piece of paper. Then she slipped it in an envelope, sealed it shut, and handed it to Chantelle.

  “I think it will be safest with you,” she said, smiling.

  Chantelle took the envelope, looking proud and important as she clutched it in her hands. Emily smiled at her happily, feeling content and excited.

  She sat up and wiped her belly clean.

  “Next stop, the cake shop,” she said.

  Suddenly, the idea of a reveal party seemed like the most exciting thing in the world. It was just a shame her father wasn’t going to be there—not even through FaceTime—to enjoy the moment with them. The thought saddened her. It was just another moment he had missed out on in her life. But she was determined to not let it spoil her happiness.

  *

  After dropping the instructions for the cake to the baker in the next town over, the family returned home and began planning the party. Chantelle, of course, took command, and Emily was very happy to let her. It pleased her to see the child getting so involved in everything. That Chantelle gave her blessing to the baby meant the world to Emily.

  “How do we know what colors to decorate?” Chantelle said, as they sat together at the kitchen table to plan. Her notebook was spread open in front of her, her trusty pink sparkly pen in her hand.

  “We could go for neutral colors,” Daniel said. “White. Green. That sort of thi
ng.”

  Chantelle looked horrified. “A green gender reveal? You’re not having an alien!”

  Emily laughed. “We’ll have to split it, half and half. How about we have pink and blue balloons, then everyone can pop the ones we don’t need once we find out?”

  “And we could have pink and blue streamers, but only pop the colors we need,” Chantelle added, looking really excited. “That way, once we find out, the decorations will change to the right ones.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Daniel said. “How about paper chains across the ceiling too? We could make blue ones and pink ones and have a person in each corner of the room so that when the gender is revealed, they pull on the correct chain and stick it in the corner.”

  “I love this idea,” Emily said, imagining in her mind the room suddenly turning blue around her, or pink.

  They went into the living room and Chantelle created a sign that said SORRY - THIS ROOM IS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE FOR GUESTS. They then got to work, making long paper chains that could stretch across the length of the large living room. Daniel fixed them into place in the corners of the room, and they decided that the four volunteers who would fix them in place should be Keiran, Yvonne, Suzanna, and Wesley. Then Chantelle and Emily drove to the store to collect confetti launchers and matching confetti, and thousands of balloons.

  Back at the inn, Chantelle ordered the confetti launches by color, and placed them on silver platters in the living room. Each guest would be given one of each color, and when the cake was cut, revealing the gender, they were to pop the correct one. Meanwhile, Daniel got to work pumping up the balloons. It would be up to their young guests to stomp on the color they no longer needed once the reveal was made.

  Once everything was done, Emily looked around at their creation. She felt a swell of excitement. This was the first time it felt really real. She’d seen her baby and soon she would discover its gender. Then she’d be able to start buying clothes and toys, decorating the nursery more. She’d be able to think about names!