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was more than a friend to my mother. He was more than just a boyfriend, as she tried to tell me five years ago. She had planned to marry him. She admitted it to me a few months ago when we had “ the Talk. ”
    Of course I already knew the basics–I ’ d learned all of that when Trey came along–but she felt compelled to talk to me about other things that we hadn ’ t talked about before. Peer pressure. Disease. Protection and pregnancy, specifically an unplanned one. I could tell when we got to the last topic that it struck a particular chord with Mom.

    “ I hope you feel comfortable enough talking to me, Livvy. You ’ re getting older, and you ’ ll be allowed to date next year. Your father and I know the risks today, and see all the kids around, doing what kids today do. We encourage you to wait to have sex, Liv, but if you ever get to that point, I want to make sure you protect yourself. Talk to us; talk to Anna or Kelly or your cousins if you feel weird talking to us. You ’ re far too young to have a child, and I just want you to know, no matter what anyone tells you, it only takes one time without protection to get pregnant. ”
    “ Carissa ’ s had sex, ” I ’ d told her about one of the girls in my school. She wasn ’ t a close friend, but we were in many classes together, and she wasn ’ t afraid to talk about sex with us. “ She doesn ’ t always use protection. She says that guys don ’ t like it. But she ’ s never gotten pregnant. She says there are ways to avoid it, even without condoms. ”
    My mom groaned at my response. “ I ’ ve heard that before, Liv. I ’ m sure it happens more often than you think. I know . ” The way she said it, I knew she must have knowledge of her own.
    “ But you always said you and Dad had been trying for years, and it took you that long to get pregnant. ”
    “ Your dad and I had to overcome a lot to have Trey. I was told I couldn ’ t get pregnant again, even before we were married. ” I ’ d picked up on the word again immediately, and I knew she had planted that word on purpose.
    “ Dad got you pregnant before you were married? ” I was shocked. My dad was never one to be careless about anything. Ever .
    Mom sort of frowned, unsure of her answer. What she told me next was what turned the whole world I knew into a place I wasn ’ t sure I wanted to be in. “ It was Nate ’ s baby. ”
    “ You had a baby with him? ”
    “ No, sweetie. I miscarried shortly after the wreck that killed him. There were complications from the accident and the miscarriage that made it so difficult to conceive a child with Dad. ”
    “ Oh. ” My mind was racing with possibilities. “ Would you have kept the baby? Or given it up for adoption? ”
    “ We were going to raise the baby together, ” she said. “ I had decided that night that if he asked me to marry him again, I ’ d say yes. ”
    “ He proposed to you? ”
    “ In haste, Livvy, yes. When he found out I was carrying his child. I thought he was being stupid. Reactionary. I was angry and embarrassed about the whole thing at first. ”
    “ Angry that you were going to have a baby? ”
    “ A little, yeah, ” she said. “ We ’ d just started dating. It was too soon for a baby, for marriage, for any of it. ”
    I started to daydream immediately about my mom and Nate together, as parents. My parents. It wasn ’ t such a stretch now. They could have been parents together. They would have been.
    I think she continued to talk to me, but my mind carried me far out of the room that night. From all I ’ d been told of Nate over the years, he was some untouchable idol to me. Like a rock star. His paintings fascinated me from a very young age, and the stories Granna would tell me about him only added to the ideal image I had of him. She would never tell me stories about the time he dated my mother, though, and Mom never really spoke of that time, either; never casually, anyway. I felt like it was a taboo