Page 35 of One Last Summer
I mimed unraveling a scroll as she watched me with an amused look on her face. It was one I recognized from our youth, her lips almost smiling, eyes squinting, as she decided whether or not to go along with whatever ridiculous idea I’d thrown her way.
I pretended to lick my finger, bringing it down the imaginary page in front of me.
“Okay, number one. Does Regan know?” The actual list of things Sam and I hadn’t discussed was longer than just her pregnancy and my current existential crisis. I knew she and her ex-wife had ended things on good terms, but beyond that, I was clueless.
“Yeah, that was one of our harder conversations post-divorce, I think because we’d talked so much about having kids when we were together,” she said with a grimace as she tugged open a fresh container of coffee. “But she’s supportive. She even bought the car seat off my baby registry.”
A baby registry. Another thing I’d missed during Sam’s pregnancy, another opportunity to show up, when instead I’d stayed away. The realization left me uneasy once again.
“Are you excited? Scared? Nervous?” I asked.
“Hmm,” she said, her eyes shifting in serious thought as she began puttering around the room, opening and closing cabinets. “I’m all of it. Sometimes I feel just one thing—happy, terrified, totally chill about it. And other times I feel, like, every one of those emotions all at once.”
“Totally,” I said with a nod of my head, urging her to continue. Sam had the mind and heart of a writer, and she always chose her words carefully, even when she was just talking.
She stopped in front of a cabinet, turning to look at me. “I’ll be at work, or out to dinner with friends, and then realize my entire life is about to change. And I’m like, ‘What the fuck have I done?’”
“I can’t even imagine,” I said, eyes wide. “I would be shitting my pants.”
Sam chortled at this, before growing quiet. “I know it’s super clichéd, but I think the thing I am most freaked out about is the actual pain of labor. It’s like the one thing out of all of this that I truly have zero control over. I just have this fear that I won’t be able to handle it.”
“I read something once about visualization during labor,” I said. “You do this deep breathing thing, and imagine your body opening up like a flower or something like that.”
“Hypnotherapy,” she said, already a step ahead of me. “My mom got me, like, five books on it. I’m not sure it’s my thing.”
“Well, you just haven’t done it with me,” I said confidently. “Screw flowers, I’d have you visualizing good stuff.”
I sat up a little straighter, hands nestled on my thighs, and closed my eyes. “Like this. Inhale: bagels.”
I sucked a deep breath into my belly, my chest expanding before letting the air go. “And now, exhale: cashmere sweatpants.”
I peeled my eyes open, expecting her to be laughing at me. But instead, she stood there with her hands on her belly, eyes shut, focused.
The sight of her sent my heart spinning with love.
“Well done, Mom,” I said as she blinked her eyes open, her smile relaxed. “See? You’re gonna be great.”
“You’re a good labor partner,” she said as she turned and teetered on her tiptoes for a moment, arms deep in some shelf as an idea took shape in my head. She let out a proud “aha!” as she turned back around and placed two white ceramic mugs on the counter.
“I could be there,” I blurted out. “Like, for real.”
“Oh, Clara.” Sam’s face was kind, like a teacher handing you a test back with an F at the top. “You’re so sweet. But I’m sure you’ve got stuff going on. And I have a doula. I’ll be fine, it’s just nerves.”
“Well, the offer stands,” I said firmly, even though I hadn’t given much thought to how I’d actually hightail it to Vermont, much less explain it to Amaya. And frankly, I didn’t care. If Sam needed me there, I’d go.
“Anyway,” she continued, bustling around the island, mugs in hand, “when I’m not panicking about contractions, I feel very certain about becoming a mom.”
“That all makes sense,” I agreed, hopping down off my perch to follow her across the kitchen. “You’ve always been someone who knows exactly what they want to do.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” she said with a shrug, scooping heaps of ground coffee into the giant, restaurant-style coffee maker. “I went back and forth on it for so long. And then I realized that at some point you just have to decide, you know?”
I nodded as Sam pressed some buttons and the coffee maker switched on with a chugging sound, like a train begrudgingly leaving the station.
“Your turn,” she said as she leaned against the counter directly across from me. “Tell me the hard stuff. Give me all the post–breakup ugly details.”
“Um, well.” I took a deep breath, and then let it all out tumble out. “We sold our place, and I moved into this shitty corporate apartment with no soul, which is awful but also maybe appropriate because—if I’m really being honest—that is kind of how I feel these days.”
I ran a hand through my hair, scratching nervously at the nape of my neck. Sam didn’t say anything, only watched, giving me the space to keep going.
