“Oh…” Amy said, wrinkling her nose. Her voice softened. “You didn’t want this to happen?”
“I did,” Emily said. “I changed my mind a couple of weeks later. I just needed some time to let it sink in. But I must have already been pregnant by then so I wonder if it was just the hormones changing my mind subliminally. And I think the damage was done by that point, for Daniel, I mean. He seemed glad when I told him I’d changed my mind again but I wonder whether he kept hold of a bit of resentment.”
“The pregnancy isn’t quite as happy a surprise for him as it is for you?” Amy asked.
Emily shrugged. She became aware of all the fears she’d been bottling up. “I was the more reticent but now that it’s here it feels so perfect and right. But Daniel just seems stressed. Like there’s something he’s not telling me. I was wondering if it was something to do with how much he missed out on Chantelle’s start in life. But he’s being typical Daniel about it. Not saying a word. Leaving me to speculate.”
Amy patted Emily’s hand. “I’m sorry, Em. That sounds hard. And you could do without that kind of stress right now.”
Emily smiled at her friend. “I actually feel a ton better now I’ve talked to you about it. It’s so nice having you here.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “So, Harry. Do you think this is the real deal?”
Amy blushed as the conversation turned, once again, toward her blossoming romance with Harry.
“It’s going really well,” she confessed. “We’re so different yet somehow so completely compatible.”
Emily grinned. “I always had a feeling you needed a younger man.”
“Oh, don’t remind me,” Amy said, rolling her eyes. “He’s only five years younger than me but it feels like a whole generation. I’ll mention some pop song that I liked in high school and he’ll tell me he remembers it from when he was ten! I mean he’s still closer to his twenties than his forties.”
“I don’t think thirty-six should be counted as being close to your forties,” Emily said, remembering her own classification as an older mother and the slight risk it posed her. She always felt a little sensitive when people brought up aging, even if accidentally.
“Fine,” Amy said. “But thirty-one sounds like a baby to me! I don’t like to think about it. Me hitting the big four-oh so much sooner than him.”