Graham wraps one arm around my waist as he settles down on his side beside me in bed. His breathing is still rapid. When he presses his lips against my ear briefly he has to stop to continue catching his breath. Then he stammers a throaty, "I love you," and squeezes me so tightly that it hurts. I wiggle under his arms and he loosens his grasp. "Sorry," he whispers.
I close my eyes and smile to myself. A different kind of satisfaction rolls over me than the one that did a few minutes ago, this one is more subtle but no less rewarding. I feel powerful, sexy, and strong in these moments in a way I never did before…before Graham.
My husband grows very still, and I know he's falling asleep. The eerie dawn light shining through the window tells me that he can't, so I move away a little. I feel the arm that had been over my waist fall limply behind me.
How can he fall asleep that fast?
I look at Graham lying so peacefully next to me, and I still can't believe he's my husband. It's been two years, but it still seems unreal. Oh, I wanted to marry him. I knew he wanted to marry me, but wanting and doing are very different matters. Graham broke almost every rule about marriage his family ever made by marrying a girl like me. My family consists of six children, and my father makes little money. That alone seems irresponsible to someone like my mother-in-law, Marilyn. She doesn't understand that people can't control everything. She thinks she can, but she's wrong.
After my youngest brother, Ben, was born my parents lost two babies. They were simply too small to survive. One lived only a few hours, but I got to hold him. The other one lived a week. She was tiny, and Mama and I held her as much as we could to keep her warm. My brothers helped too, but one morning when we woke up she was gone. Mrs. Everdeen told me at the funeral that germs probably got into my baby sister's blood. She said that small babies like her just can't fight that off. Then she patted my arm and assured me that there was nothing I could have done to save her.
Mama told me after I was engaged that the midwife had said after my sister died that my brothers and I are the toughest kids in the district. "None of 'em should have lived, Maisy, and you've got six here with you still. I don't know how," Mama quoted the midwife proudly. "You'll give Graham some good strong children, Becki. Graham being able to feed you better than your father could ever feed me will only make them stronger. Maybe that'll make up for what we can't give Graham."
She meant money or anything else of economic value. Mama felt guilty that I couldn't contribute a penny to setting up housekeeping or the little toasting celebration Graham and I had. My father said not to worry because the Mellarks were more able to provide such things, but my mother still cried the night before the toasting and told Graham how sorry she was that we were such a burden.
"There are too many of us, and you shouldn't have to feel burdened on your wedding day," she told him.
"Adding a few layers to a cake is nothing compared to the gift you're giving me," Graham reassured her before turning to me sadly. My mother understood Graham was talking about me, and she hugged him. I don't think she believed the part about Graham thinking that our family is not burdensome though. She didn't even know that Graham gave up his claim on the bakery for me. If she had known then she probably wouldn't have let me marry him.
Graham stirs a little in his sleep which draws my attention back to him. He's so striking to me with his blonde hair and pale skin. It seems silly because I've grown up with merchant boys in my school sitting right beside me my whole life. Oh course, I never saw any like this. I like to touch the red blotches that appear on Graham's neck and chest when we're alone together. I'm sure I have the same reactions as Graham but my tan skin prevents the red hues from showing through.
I reach my hand up to his face and note again how we contrast so beautifully. We aren't that different, but the differences still intrigue me. I kiss his soft lips, and he stirs again.
"Graham," I whisper. "You have to go to the bakery. Get up."
He groans. "I want to stay here with you."
"You can't, baby, you have to go to work now or your mother…"
"I know. I know," he murmurs. The mention of his mother motivates him, and he throws his legs over the side of the bed.
My mother-in-law insisted that Graham work the very next day after the toasting, and she's never given him even a day off since we've been married.
"No need to give you more time to make little tan babies," she said spitefully when that lack of a "honeymoon" was mentioned at our toasting. Even men in the mines get a week. My father-in-law, Owen, glared at her. Graham winced and squeezed my hand tightly. Fortunately, nobody else heard.
Learning to be a baker's wife has been much harder than I thought it would be, especially since my mother-in-law despises me. Even though I'm essentially free help, she won't allow me to work in the bakery most of the time. So my husband brings me there when she leaves for a few hours. That's when Peeta, my father-in-law, and Graham give me crash courses in everything from baking bread to frosting cakes to filling éclairs with cream for the mayor's fancy parties. They try to encourage me, but I'm awful at every baking task give me.
The one job I'm good for is helping my father-in-law, Owen with the books and paying the taxes. Marilyn apparently does not like me knowing about the bakery's finances, but Owen tells her he needs somebody to help because his eyesight is getting poor and everyone else stays too busy baking.
One day as we finished the quarterly taxes Owen told me, "Becki, there's much more to running a bakery to frosting cookies. You are an asset to us. Someday my wife will see that."
Graham dresses in tan pants and a white shirt, his standard attire for the bakery. I watch him.
"Come by the bakery around noon. Peeta said Mama's got a meeting with the mayor's wife about the food they plan to serve to the Capitol people who come in for the reaping. Those Capitol people always want something unusual that requires us to special order ingredients, so Mama has to plan well in advance. Anyway, the meeting will take a few hours, and Peeta said he'd work with you on your baking."
I nod.
Graham rummages through the closet for something. Then he pulls out a pad of paper. I think it's drawing paper.
"Oh, and don't forget that it's Peeta's birthday. It will mean a lot to him if you remember," Graham adds.
Peeta's birthday, I think. That means it's April 15th. I remember because my birthday is October 15th, exactly six months from his.
All of a sudden my heart sinks, and I bet if I looked in the mirror my face would be as pale as some of the merchant kids always looked.
April 15th. I'm late. About…two weeks late.
I sit down on the bed, trying to calm my nerves. I'd been late many times before when I was younger. I'd even gone a few months without having a cycle before in the winter when there was little to eat at home. But since I'd been married, that had never happened.
"You okay?" Graham says as he slips his bakery keys into his pants pocket.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"You sure? You look kind of scared."
"Yes, I'm sure. I'm fine. See you at noon."
/
I pulled the money out of the glass jar we keep under the bed. We keep the money for emergencies, and if thinking I might be pregnant isn't an emergency for us then I don't know what is. Still, knowing whether or not I'm pregnant for sure doesn't ultimately matter. I could wait a few more weeks to see what happens, then go see the midwife or Mrs. Everdeen if nothing happens. But I need to know now. Waiting another hour seems too long, much less several weeks.
We don't feel ready for a baby, but birth control costs too much. Some months I wonder how we even feed ourselves. Even buying this relatively inexpensive test seems like a waste of money because we should save our money for only the most basic necessities. But I have to know if I'm carrying a baby. I need to know.
Graham has been trying to keep me from getting pregnant all along, but he's not very good at it. Several times he's completely failed to get out before…well, before it happens. He told me how sorry he was, and he even cried one of the times. I know he's afraid of what would happen if I got pregnant. He doesn't want our baby to be hungry, and he doesn't want his own mother to be angry with us. I'm afraid too. What if my mother is mistaken, and I can't produce a strong and healthy baby that will survive what we face every day? It would break Graham's heart to lose a child.
Missy Clay is working behind the counter when I arrive at the apothecary. She's the daughter of the owner and two years older than me. She shakes her head as she hands me my change.
"You people really ought to be more careful," she says with a sneer.
"So Graham is 'you people' to you now?" I ask.
"Pretty much."
"Oh, I'll make sure to tell him that."
"Good. He should know," Missy says raising her eyebrows. "If he'd kept his promises and married Susan this wouldn't be happening."
It's my turn to shake my head.
"Don't say that," I tell her. "You don't know what you are talking about."
"I know he dumped her for you. That's enough."
The anger building in me starts to rival the fear because I know my husband did right by Susan, but I can't tell Missy about all that without betraying Susan's trust. Graham would never want that.
I leave the apothecary, the door slamming behind me.
/
I wait for the test to show me if my life is about to change.
One little line on a white square, that's all it will take to turn my world upside down.
Someday I want children, and I know Graham does too. It's just that we don't know who is going to own the bakery. Peeta's mother says it will never support both Peeta and Graham if they both have families. Having seen the books I think she might be right. As punishment for marrying me, Graham's mother took away any claim Graham had on inheriting the bakery. She's promised to give Peeta the bakery if he marries someone she finds acceptable. I'm sure Peeta will marry well. He's very popular. He can marry anyone. He says that he'll always want Graham to have half a share of the bakery's profits no matter what they are, but I fear that when he has his own family the pressure to take care of them will cause him to forget about his adolescent promises.
I can't bear to think of Graham in the mines. He'll die of black lung like my father is slowly doing right now. Frankly, I can't bear to think of Peeta there either! We have to find a way to make the bakery profitable enough to support us all. Part of that is making sure we at least try to plan how many mouths we have to feed and when. My eyes start to fill with tears, but even through them I can see a fuzzy blue line in that ominous white square. Lowering my face into my open hands, I start to sob.
/
It's a quarter after twelve when I arrive at the bakery. Normally I would have been watching for Marilyn to leave so I could get inside as soon as possible and learn as much as I could, but today walking to the bakery at all is a challenge. My eyes are swollen from crying for several hours. I look around to make sure nobody is watching and then touch my belly just for a moment.
"I'm sorry. It's not your fault. Everything will be okay."
The baby must be tiny right now, so tiny.
As soon as I walk into the bakery Peeta makes eye contact. I'm late. He's probably been wondering why. There's no hope of hiding my emotions from perceptive Peeta. His eyebrows go up immediately and he walks over to me before I've even finished tying my apron.
"What's wrong. Is it your father?"
"No, my father is the same. Nothing's wrong."
Peeta shakes his head just a little.
"No, there's something wrong. What is it? You don't have to learn this stuff today, you know. You can go back home if that's what you need to do."
"Actually, I think I should talk to Graham."
Peeta lifts his worried looking face and says, "Oh. Well, he's in the storeroom downstairs."
I walk back outside because you can't get to the storeroom from inside the house. I descend the stairs quickly, more and more desperate to find Graham with every step. When I do he's got a bag of sugar thrown over his shoulder. I run to him and crash into his other shoulder, trapping his free arm against his chest. He's forced back a little, and he clumsily drops the bag of sugar. We both look down, and I'm relieved to see the bag didn't burst open.
"What is it?" he asks softly.
I close my eyes and stiffen.
"Are you okay, Becki?"
I hesitate.
"I'm pregnant," I say as the first tears start to fall.
Graham slowly pulls his arm out from between us and wraps it around my shoulder and back. There's a long pause during which I cry softly.
"Then why are you crying? Don't you want the baby?" He finally asks.
"I do. I really do. I even started talking to her like she can already hear me while I was walking over here," I sob, "but your mother will hate us even more now!"
"You started talking to her? You mean the baby?" Graham clarifies, a goofy smile tugging at the sides of his mouth.
"Yes," I confess again.
"That's funny," Graham says. "What did you say?"
"That it wasn't her fault."
The smile fades from Graham's face.
"Listen, Becki. My mother? She acted like she hated me half the time before I even met you. She treats Peeta just as badly as she treats me, if not worse. Nothing has changed, and I don't think it ever will. We definitely shouldn't live our lives to please her."
"What about this whole thing with the bakery. Won't Peeta be mad at us and think we are 'irresponsible?'" I ask.
"Peeta? Peeta will be happy for us. He'll worry, but…Peeta worries anyway."
I press my face into Graham's shoulder, and I can hear his heart beating rapidly. Is he lying? Scared? Happy? I can't tell.
"So, you're not upset?" I ask Graham cautiously.
"No, I'm not upset. I'm happy." He smiles, and then he kisses my forehead. "You'll be a wonderful mother, Becki Mellark. I've always known that."