That spring was the happiest I'd ever been, despite all the chaos and struggle just to put food on the table each night. We worked hard all day on the farm and fixing up the house, but all of it was spent with people I loved, including my children. We'd settled into a tentative schedule of dinner at their house three nights a week, just me, Raph, and the kids, and they seemed to accept that I'd leave at the end and sleep in the camper.
Daryl accepted it as well, though I suspected he wasn't thrilled that so many evenings were just the five of us in a kind of shadow of our old family unit. I hoped that eventually, when we had a bigger space, the kids could spend time with us and get to know Daryl more but that wasn't practical in the tiny camper.
Daryl and Raph didn't interact much but worked together when they needed to and it seemed civil, if strained. Daryl didn't ask much about the conversations Raph and I had those first few nights, and I chose not to tell him about the mild panic attack, not wanting to cause any more reason for them to dislike each other. It seemed like Raph and Jenny were spending a lot of time together, and I hoped that worked out but didn't ask too many questions.
We learned that about 30% of the area's population had died during that first year, from health issues that didn't get addressed, the fires, the dead, and starvation or exposure. Another 20% had left to find family in other areas, or move in with folks to have more support, much as my family had done. We were in a particularly good spot, with all the flat land for farming and the forest that started toward the back of my grandfather's property and continued up the slope of the coastal mountain foothills. The land had originally been private property, but almost everyone had left their secluded homes and it was a good hunting ground these days.
I fell into a routine of working with my family in the mornings, helping with the milking and processing the dairy products, as well as feeding animals and mucking out stalls or weeding the garden. The afternoons were spent clearing out the house initially, and then helping till and plant the open part of my grandfather's land (which we'd started to call our own) with alfalfa and timothy hay. My parents hadn't had enough space to grow crops for the animals and had been trading for their food, so we were excited to be able to provide something so needed.
Daryl split his time between helping on our new property and hunting, as well as restoring some of my grandfather's old tools that he thought could be useful. He was still guarded around my family, but I was pretty sure he genuinely liked them, and he and my father had gotten to know each other fairly well. My father is constantly looking for new things to learn and was thrilled at Daryl's tracking and hunting skills. They spent many mornings in the woods, and Daryl was slightly amused, but pleased, at my dad's enthusiasm.
Daryl also fixed up an old pickup that he converted to run on a sort of biodiesel that was being produced by local folks. It was expensive, so we rarely used it, but it was useful for hauling bigger things occasionally, and if the industry kept growing there would likely be more auto travel in the near future.
It started with more frequent headaches, which I initially attributed to allergies. I'd always struggled with hay fever in the spring, and headaches often went along with it. But then my breasts got sore, especially my nipples, and Daryl commented that they looked bigger. "I think I'm about to get my period," I explained, "sometimes that's part of my PMS."
This was true, but at the back of my mind, it occurred to me that I hadn't had a period in a few months. At the prison, it had been common to have very irregular menstrual cycles due to malnutrition, and mine had been almost nonexistent for a while, but we were eating a fairly healthy diet these days, with the garden producing abundantly, and Michonne had mentioned just the other day how she, Beth, and Maggie's cycles had synced up now that they were living together.
I didn't think I could possibly be pregnant unless Daryl was lying about his vasectomy, which didn't make any sense, but when I started to feel nauseous upon waking up in the mornings, I went to find Herschel and discuss it with him.
"Do you think it could be some kind of ovarian cancer or something?" I asked nervously. He shook his head slowly, "I have no idea, and no way of figuring it out with the supplies I've got here. But why don't you do a pregnancy test just in case. Vasectomies do have a failure rate, you know," he warned.
It was positive, and I sat in shock for several minutes staring at the two pink lines. The thought of telling Daryl made my nausea worse, and I had to put my head between my legs to stop the dizziness. He didn't want kids - had taken drastic steps to prevent himself from having them - and we were just settling into a routine in a place that was unfamiliar and uncomfortable for him. I imagined every possible reaction - from abandoning me to being thrilled, though I knew the latter was unlikely at best.
That night, as we lay in the dark in post-orgasmic bliss, I tried to approach it as matter-of-factly as possible, connecting all the dots so he wouldn't have to. "After your vasectomy," I began carefully, "did you use condoms anyway, for other reasons?" There was a brief silence, as Daryl probably tried to figure out where the question came from. "Yeah," he finally responded. "Didn' wanna end up like Merle, gettin' the clap regularly."
"Yeah, that makes sense," I continued, pressing on despite the anxiety building in my stomach. "I mean, it was a good thing, since vasectomies have a failure rate of 1 in 1,000 overall. Higher if the doctor isn't a specialist."
The silence that fell on the camper after that comment was almost suffocating. Daryl rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. "What the fuck are you getting at?" he asked quietly. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, gathering all my courage. "Well, yours must not have been successful, because I'm pregnant. And I know you didn't want kids, and I certainly wasn't planning on having any more, but . . . but maybe this could be a good thing. I mean, once you've had some time to get used to the idea."
He was motionless next to me, and I opened my eyes and turned to look at him. He was staring past me, his expression unreadable in the dim light from the lantern. "Daryl," I tried tentatively. "I'm . . . I'm sorry to spring it on you, but I found out today and I didn't want to hide it. I know we can figure it out." I reached down to lace my fingers through his, and that snapped him out of his daze.
He jerked his hand away, and slid off the bed, pulling on his clothes. I knew he might need some space, but I wanted him to at least give me some sort of response before taking off, so I reached out to touch his shoulder as he laced his boots. "Daryl, please say something," I begged. "Just, tell me you'll be back after you've had a chance to think about it, so we can figure out what we're going to do."
His head turned toward me, and his eyes were startlingly cold, jaw and fists clenched tightly. "Nice try, with that little explanation, but I'm not quite as stupid as you think," he bit out, angrier than I'd ever seen him. "Reminisce a little too much those first few nights you spent over there? I'm sure he'll take ya back and be thrilled with a new kid."
I jerked back as if I'd been slapped. "You think you aren't the father?" I whispered in disbelief. "Daryl, I haven't thought about Raph like that in years. I would never touch him, or anyone else!" Daryl just turned and opened the camper door, and I slid off the bed and grabbed his elbow before he could leave. "Daryl! Talk to me! You can't go like this -" but he jerked his arm forward out of my grasp as he stepped out, and I lost my balance. I fell backward in the small space and hit my head on the little kitchen cabinet, pain blossoming behind my eyes.
Daryl looked back at me, and shut his eyes briefly before turning away, a glimpse of self-loathing visible before he left the camper and shut the door behind him. I sat in shock, eventually pulling myself up off the floor and prodding the sore spot on the back of my head. I had no idea where he'd gone, and no way to reach him but I hoped he'd come back by the morning after he'd had a chance to think it through.