Page 8 of His Valentine

“Morning, sweetie,” she says. “Now come in and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” I step inside and shed my coat and shoes. I point to a potted jade plant sitting on a nearby side table. “Does this one need watering, too?”

She nods. “It does. They all do, actually.”

As we carry the rest of her plants into her bathroom and set them into the bathtub, my mom tells me about her week. She updates me about the latest plot twist in the cozy mystery series she’s been binge-reading, then recounts her latest run-in with her neighbor, Gene. She’s lived next to Gene for over five years now and the two of them are constantly getting into little arguments with each other. Fortunately, it’s never turned into anything huge.

I lean against the bathroom wall and watch my mom as she waters the houseplants that are now crowded together in her bathtub. I think about the fact that I do the same thing when I water my own houseplants. Even the motions of my mom’s hands as she waters the plants feels identical to my own.

I’ve always been close to my mom. But I became especially close to her when I was a teenager, because of the handful of years when it was just the two of us in the house. My parents divorced when I was little, and my two siblings are both older than me. Once my brother and sister both moved out, it was just Mom and me.

Five months ago, when I found out I was pregnant, my mom was the first person I told. She was nothing but compassionate. She simply wrapped her arms around me and held me until I stopped crying.

Since then, she’s continued to be incredibly supportive. Still, I’m nervous about telling her about running into Magnus again. As well as I know my mom, I can’t imagine what her reaction is going to be—it’s not like we’ve ever been in this situation before.

“Mom…” I say.

She’s just turned off the shower head. The houseplants are gleaming with drops of water on their leaves.

“Yes, sweetie?” she says, still bending over the tub.

“I ran into Magnus.”

She freezes. Slowly, she straightens up and turns around. “You did? When?”

“Yesterday evening.”

A scoff escapes her mouth. “On Valentine’s Day.”

“I know.” Baby girl moves inside of my stomach and I rest my hand on my bump. “But it turns out he didn’t ghost me after all.”

I explain everything to my mom—how he’d tried to get in touch with me first but hadn’t been able to find me, how he hadn’t ever seen my message when I tried to get ahold of him. As I tell her all of it, and then tell her about our conversation last night over dinner, the anger that my mom has felt toward Magnus on my behalf slowly vanishes from her expression.

“He wants to be involved,” she says, soaking it all in.

“Not just involved, Mom. He wants the two of us to be together.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

I swallow. “I’m still figuring that out. I feltsomany different emotions when I saw Magnus again, and I think it’s going to take a bit more time to work through them. I mean, I’m not angry at him anymore, now that I know the truth. But it’s still a lot to process.”

“Of course it is, sweetie. No one expects you to know exactly what you want just like that. Not when it comes to something this significant.” She steps forward to lovingly cup my chin with her hand. “Come on. Let’s have some tea.”

Out in the kitchen, my mom prepares tea while we keep talking about Magnus. All the thoughts that have been reeling through my head since last night come spilling out of my mouth: what if he’s only acting this way because I’m pregnant? Is hereallyas amazing of a guy as it seems like he is? Am I crazy for kind of loving the fact that he told me he wanted a houseful of babies with me?

“You’re not crazy,” my mom says firmly. “Sweetheart, it’s obvious you two have a real connection.”

“But what if he asks me to marry him?”

“If you want to marry him, you’ll say yes and marry him. And if you don’t, you won’t.”

I sigh. Deep down, Idolove the idea of having a family with Magnus, not just some arrangement where he’s involved in our child’s life. But the thing is—and I can’t say this to my mom—I don’t think I could ever marry Magnus because it’s too much of a risk.

I know first-hand what divorce does to a family. And I can’t do that to my little girl.

Chapter Four

Magnus