“Youcan.”
“No. I can't. I'm sorry.”
“You know I'm going to keep asking.”
“I know.” She gave a small smile. She also knew that there was a pretty high likelihood that one of those times she was going to say yes. From the look on Luke’s face, he knew that too.
February 17th
6:15 A.M.
This was so not how she had envisioned her life turning out.
Twenty-seven years old and a working single mother. Megan wasn't even completely sure who Timmy’s father was. It wasn't that she slept around, but at the time she had just broken up with her boyfriend of almost three years, and she’d gone on a bit of a binge, hitting nightclubs and bars every night for a couple of weeks.
Then she found out she was pregnant.
She wasn't even sure of the names of most of the men she’d had sex with during her drunken pity party, so the prospect of having someone who could co-parent with her was never even an option. Even if she had known who the father was, she didn’t care about any of those men, she would never have wanted to enter into a relationship with them, but it would have been nice to have someone help her with her son.
But she didn’t know who the father was so the parenting responsibilities fell on her and her alone.
She loved her son.
More than anything on the face of the planet.
But she was tired.
So tired.
Without a daddy in the picture, nighttime feedings were all up to her, and to support herself and her son she had to work long hours as a nurse. Some days she was so exhausted that she could barely force herself out of bed.
To keep her little family running, Megan worked six days a week, and even on her day off she didn’t get time to rest. Instead, she tried to make the most of time with her little boy. Because as tired as she was, and as much as she wished she wasn't a single mom, she adored that baby. He was the light of her life, and she would do anything for him.
Between work and Timmy, she hadn’t been able to spend time with her friends in months. She longed for a quiet relaxing day where she could take a nice long bubble bath, then a nap, and then dinner with her girlfriends. But to do that, she would need to hire a babysitter, and the cost of that would ruin any relaxation she would get out of a day off.
Her parents had made it perfectly clear that they did not support her having a child out of wedlock. They had only met Timmy for the first time at Christmas and seen him only once or twice since. Her mother told her that if she wanted to disgrace the family by having a child who she didn’t even know who the father was, he was her responsibility and hers alone.
That had hurt.
She wanted her parents to love her son as much as they loved their other grandchildren. While her sister was supportive of her, she lived on the other side of the country, so she wasn't around to babysit or help out.
Most of her friends were still single, and since Timmy had a nanny rather than attend daycare, she didn’t have any mom friends yet.
Some days she felt so alone.
This should be such a happy time of her life, watching her little guy grow almost before her eyes, learning new things every day, but she had no one to share them with. She wanted to enjoy watching him reach new milestones, but every time she took photos and videos of him smiling, gurgling, babbling, cutting his first tooth, or rolling over, she wanted to turn to someone and gush about how her baby had to be the smartest, cutest one ever.
But there was no one to tell.
No one to get excited with her.
It was in those moments she wished she had attempted to track down the men she had slept with who might have gotten her pregnant and run DNA tests to find out who Timmy’s father was. Even if she’d had to share custody with them and sometimes send off her little boy to spend time at his father’s house, there would be someone around who was as thrilled to watch the little boy grow up as she was.
But there was no daddy.
There wasn't even a prospect of bringing a daddy into the picture.
She was alone.