If Only I Had Told Her

by Laura Nowlin

the things the others say about their traumas sound like the things I feel about Finny’s death, like we carry an indelible mark on us. I don’t speak, but I listen.

“I’ll keep the window open a minute until the cigarette smell gets out of my clothes.”

“No, you don’t have to,” I say as it occurs to me that maybe she needs to go overboard to protect my child for her sake, because of what she went through. “But thank you.”

“I recently found out that my, uh, baby’s daddy’s father put a bunch of money in his name before he died, so like, legally, the money should be the baby’s. To get it, I’d either have to deal with him or sue him, and part of me doesn’t want to do anything about it.”

“Yeah, I got dreams and shit. I want to be a writer,” I say. “I mean, I am a writer. I wrote a novel, and I’ve started editing it, and when I finish, I’m going to look for an agent, then a publisher.”

The Hip Mama Survival Guide?”

“Most of the time, this baby doesn’t even feel real,”

“But when it does, then it hurts, because I can’t

think about this baby without thinking about Finny and how he died and how someday, s...

“Being scared for the kid is a big part of the job.” “How do you live with it?” I’m asking about so many things. “I don’t know,” Brittaney says. “I guess the reason I don’t break down scared that something will happen to CiCi is because if I did, who would be her mama?

I’m the only mother she’s got.

“Clean, fed, loved,”

All you can do is teach ’em to brush their teeth and love themselves.”

“If there is something wrong with your baby, then your baby is lucky to have you for their mama, because you’ll love it anyway and do whatever you can for her. Your kid is lucky to have a mama who cares, so no matter what, they’re already ahead of the game.”

“I’m right about it being a girl. You’ll see.”

“I’m doing this alone,” I say. “Because this is my decision.”

And there it is, that familiar smile that I know better than my own, greeting me.

“And that’s why we’re here. So thank you for this.”

“I’m incapable of expressing how much I regret not knowing and appreciating Phineas when I had the chance.”

Not happy to see me, just happy, thriving. He’d

“Perhaps she thought her son was the only good that was going to come from me. I knew when I saw the name on the court papers that Angelina was being poetic, not malicious.”

“he loved that stupid fucking car.”

“At least I did one thing right,”

The gentle concern on his face almost melts my resolve to continue to hold him to the fire. “I know there’s still so much to talk about, but can I ask you how you’re feeling? Is everything going okay with the…”

“No. Somehow I’d known the hurt was too

Phineas. I think she thought of him as an amusing anecdote from my playboy days. But when she saw us together, it became real to her.”

She went out of her way to word things so it was understood that she and Stella and I were the real family.

But the marriage was already half-dead, and I was envisioning losing my second child by trying to reconnect with my first, and I—”

We both know how he abandoned Finny again. We both know he didn’t attend graduation or reach out all summer. We both know how the story ends.

“I don’t want to feel like I’m selling my child to you,”

The money is yours and the baby’s, even if you choose to never see me after this.”

All I ask is that today, you stay for this lunch and tell me about my son.” “Tell you about Finny?”

Sylvia Whitehouse

“I hope you know she hopes the same for you.”

“She is incredibly mature beyond her years,”

“She told me that she understood what I meant about looking back and knowing I was lying to myself about

Phineas, because when she looked back, she always knew she was standing i...

“Phineas always said that you were an amazing writer.”

Together we build another inheritance for Phineas’s child.

But one day, the craving hit me. My body was demanding the colored sugar powder.

My body needed it for the baby; that’s what it was telling me. Perhaps it was the baby telling me it needed it.

my body was telling me to give the baby a treat.

That’s why it’s important that I finish this last blue packet before the technician comes; it’s my way of sharing Finny’s gift with our baby.

“Oh honey. I’ve seen a few your age with their third on the way.

“The way I see it, it doesn’t matter how old you are when you have your kids or how many you have, just as long as you can take care of them.

That’s the keepsake right there.”

Finny, I tell him. That’s our baby. I swallow the lump in my throat as if I were actually saying the words to him. We really did make a baby.

I’ve been feeling our baby move, Finny.

The Mothers are still crying a bit, but it’s mostly happy whispering now.

but I’m free to let myself feel how much I wish Finny was the one supporting me today.