“No. I want to talk about it. I think it will actually do me good.” His hand pushed through his hair as the waitress dropped off his drink. He picked it up and took only a sip this time.
“When Kate told me she was pregnant, I was stunned. We were always careful. None of that really matters now. The fact was we were going to have a baby. We had both gotten our acceptance letters for the University of Montana. As soon as she told me about the baby, I asked her to marry me and she said yes.”
“What in the hell where you going to do? Go to college with an infant?”
Ava kicked me under the table. I needed to keep my emotions in check.
Jackson took in a deep breath and pushed it out. “That’s what we were trying to figure out. We thought we had it all figured out. She was going to tell your family and I’d tell mine. She was due in March and she figured she would go to school up until she had the baby. She had talked to the principle who agreed to let her homeschool after she had the baby to finish her degree.”
Holy shit. The fucking principle of the high school knew our sister was pregnant?
“She knew Kate was pregnant?”
Jackson shook his head. “No. Kate told her that her father was going out of the country and taking the family.”
I pulled my head back in disbelief. “And she believed it?”
Jackson smiled. “I don’t think she did. I think she put two and two together, but never said anything.”
“Okay, so then what were you going to do?”
He looked at Ava. “Wait. Your name.”
“What about it?” Ava asked.
Jackson smiled. “Ava. That was one of the names Kate had picked out if the baby was a girl.”
My head turned to look at Ava. Her face turned white. “W-what?” I could see her chest moving up and down.
“Yeah, she met someone who worked at the movie theater who had that name, and I remember she wrote it down with the other baby names. I think I still have the list at home in a box of things I saved.”
Ava reached for my hand. Jesus. Maybe my sister was in that damn house. I’m never sleeping there again.
Jackson saw the reaction of what he had just said on Ava’s face. She had been trying to keep it in, but a single tear slipped and rolled down her face. “Sorry, Ava, your name just clicked.”
She wiped a tear away. “S-okay.”
“Anyway, I thought we had it somewhat planned. We knew it would be hard, but I was pretty sure we could do it. I was going to take a full load one year; Kate would take a couple classes since we’d have the baby. Then we’d switch the next year. I’d take a light class load and she would take more.” He looked away and I saw the tears building in his eyes.
“Then everything changed. Two days before she … before she died, she called and asked me to meet her at your family house in Helena. She said she wanted to spend the night with me and we had something important to talk about.”
His voice cracked and he took a few moments to get his emotions in check.
Ava reached for his hand and held it. “It’s okay, Jackson. Take your time; I know this has to be hard.”
He nodded. All I could think about was what Kate was about to tell Jackson. You could almost still feel the pain pouring off of him.
“Kate told her parents she was spending the night with a friend or something. We had the house to ourselves.” He smiled as a tear rolled down his face. “She made us dinner and then we went for a walk and I dared to let myself believe that someday we’d be a family and walking our own—”
He closed his eyes. When he opened them he smiled.
Ava and I exchanged looks as Jackson cleared his throat.
“Anyway, after we had … well … spent some time together,” Jackson looked at me and then looked away. “She told me she had gotten a job offer. I remember laughing and thinking it was probably working for your family’s ranch. When she showed me the contract, I was so happy for her. I felt like I was going to burst at the seams I was so damn happy. Then she told me she would have to move to France. At first I thought she was kidding, but I could see the look in her eyes. I remember getting angry. I told her I couldn’t believe she was going to just up and leave me. Take our child and move to another country. I said some pretty hurtful things to her … things that haunt me every fucking night in my dreams.”
I couldn’t imagine what Jackson must have been going through. If Ava told me she was pregnant and leaving for France, I’d blow a fucking gasket too.
Ava held onto Jackson’s hand as she said, “Jackson, you can’t beat yourself up over all of that. Never mind the fact that y’all were so young in the first place.”