this modern love

Was it March, already?

Whitney couldn't decide if time was going slowly or quickly. Well, as far as the pregnancy was progressing. She was finally showing.

Funny, her mother-in-law was a bit testy. Whitney had to listen to her stories how she never showed with Kal.

"Well, I was younger then." His mother had told her. "Younger than you."

Naturally, Whitney couldn't quite grasp just what Kal's mom was getting at.

"Does she think I'm fat?" Whitney must have had this conversation a dozen times with Kal. Possibly, to the point he was sick of having the conversation.

"Look, its not about you, anymore." Kal had finally had enough. "OK, what I'm trying to say. It depends a lot on you..about the baby, but you take care of yourself which means, taking care of the baby. And you are doing everything right. You don't smoke. No caffeine. You exercise. You look great."

Of course, she knew what he worried about. Money.

"Well, I'm just-" Whitney felt his Mom was worrying her for nothing. "Why is she doing this to me? Its not like I have my family coming over to visit, you know."

"All right, I'll talk to her." Kal acted as if that was all he could do. "She does care about you. She does."

Whitney supposed so and perhaps it was all about being alone in this. All this times she felt as if she'd taken her life out on a limb. A high cliff, perhaps, but she could always keep going higher no matter what because she had found love and a part of her felt invincible until now.

Now, she was seeing she wasn't nearly as happy as she should have been. And it was all starting to irritate her. That she had done something wrong. Even so, if she'd never left the village back home, she knew she'd be just as stuck. But with someone her parents would have been happy with. It was far more old fashioned than anyone would like to believe. She had to keep remembering how miserable she'd be if she were there instead of here. Only, it didn't do much good. She wanted her mother. Not Kal's mom.

It felt like an ocean of misery swallowing her up. Wasn't like she could catch the next flight out and be there at her mum's door-step.

"You should talk to her." It was the only comfort Charlotte could give her.

"I'm just being a baby about this." Whitney knew she had to snap out of it. "She'll yell at me for not calling." Whitney cringed at the thought of her mother's high pitched voice.

"Well, you won't know unless you try." Charlotte just smiled.

Whitney was crying before she ever dialed her mum's number just to find that it had been disconnected. This of course, left her at the kitchen table in more tears. She'd waited too late. She just knew. But Charlotte asked for her to say the number aloud and punched in the numbers for her. At last, the phone call went through.

And when she heard her mother's voice, Whitney melted as if she might be the most ungrateful daughter in the world. It was a relief even if her mother jabbered about so many people Whitney didn't even know. It was good too to hear her own mother's stories of when she was pregnant with Whitney.

"You know, my water broke on the bus." She told her. She'd been a maid at some prominent folk's place. She'd left at five in the evening when she always did, and she had no way of calling her father when it happened. But she'd politely ridden the bus all the way to the hospital, as if she might need a trip to the shops. "I had you in my arms in less than an hour."

Whitney smiled. She made it sound so painless. Maybe everything was better in her life than she really knew.