After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Author:Taylor Jenkins Reid
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Atria Books

After work on Monday, I’m at the Farmers Market at the Grove when my phone starts to ring. I put down the gourmet jam I’m looking at and dig into my purse to try to find my phone.

It’s Charlie.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey, do you have a minute?”

I walk away from the stand and find a place to sit. “I’ve got nothing but time,” I say. I say this to be kind, but also, I actually have nothing but time. Being single leaves you a lot of time to spare. “What’s up?”

“I’m going to come home for Christmas,” he says.

“That’s great! We are all going to Mom’s, and I think there is talk of Bill joining us. And Grandma is coming. Not sure about Uncle Fletcher, but I would assume so. So it will be nice to have it with—”

Charlie cuts me off. “Listen, I need your help with something.”

“OK . . .”

“I have some news to tell everyone, and I’m not sure how to do it. And so I was wondering what you thought first.”

“OK,” I say. This is a novel feeling, Charlie caring what I think. But I’m also cautiously terrified. If Charlie is seeking out my advice, if he doesn’t think he can handle it himself, then this has got to be big, right? It’s got to be bad.

“You’re sitting down? Or I mean, you have time to talk?”

“Oh, my God, Charlie, what is it?”

He breathes in, and then he says it. “I’m going to be a dad.”

“You’re going to see Dad?” How does he even know where Dad is? Did Dad call him?

“No, Lauren. I’m having a baby. I’m going to be a dad.”

There are people walking past me, shoppers haggling over tomatoes and avocados, kids calling for their mothers. There are cars whizzing by in the distance. Butchers selling various cuts of meat to women on their way home from work. But I can’t hear any of that. I just hear my own breathing. All I can hear is my own deafening silence. What do I say? I decide to go with, “OK, and how do you feel about that?”

Charlie’s voice starts to brighten. “I think it’s great, honestly. I think it’s the best news I’ve gotten in my entire life.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I’m twenty-five years old. I have a job I don’t care about. I live across the country from my family. My friends are . . . whatever. But what am I doing? What have I done that’s so great? I keep moving from place to place, thinking I’m going on these adventures, and nothing ever comes of it. And then I happen to meet Natalie, and two months later, I get a call saying that I’m . . . This is good. I really think this is good. I can be a father to someone.”

This is surreal. “And how is it going to work with this Natalie person?” I’m sticking to logistical questions, because I’m out of my league, emotionally.

“Well, that’s part of what makes this complicated but possibly really fortuitous.

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