Blanche's social life changes completely. She mainly stays home. She tries to be as calm as she can. Before they know it Christmas has arrived and so have Blanche's other children. She doesn't even mention being pregnant, nor do they find out despite the fact that Blanche is nearly seven months along. They leave without her telling them.
A few days into January. Blanche goes out to run some errands and when she comes home. The girls have a surprise waiting for her.
When she comes in the house she's filing through the mail. After doing so she nearly trips on Rose and Dorothy.
"What are you two doing on the floor? And what are you trying to build?" Blanche questions.
"We're trying to put this stupid thing together," Dorothy replies.
"What is it?"
"What's it look like?" Dorothy asks stupidly.
"A pile of wood, and some screws. Why? What is it supposed to be?"
"It's supposed to be a crib," Rose replies.
"And it was supposed to be done by the time you got home. We thought that it was supposed to be easy to put together."
"Oh," is all Blanche says.
"They've been at it for two hours," Sophia adds.
"Girls I've got a silly question," Blanche says.
"What?" Dorothy wonders.
"Once you get this crib together where are you going to put it? The contractor is coming to build the nursery until next week."
"Rose let's just put it in the closet until then,"Dorothy suggests.
"Sounds good to me."
By the end of the next week the nursery, and the crib are both done. Rose goes to the doctor with Blanche for her scheduled appointment.
"Hi Blanche how are you today?"
"Fine, how are you Doctor Green?" she wonders politely. If she hadn't been pregnant she would definitely try to get a date with him.
"Good. Now let's see how this little one is doing."
He looks at the baby. And then makes an assessment.
"Everything looks fine. She's growing properly, she looks healthy, no abnormalities. She should be a perfectly healthy baby when she gets here, as long as she doesn't come early."
"Good."
"I'll print you off some pictures, and you can be on your way."
"Ok," Blanche agrees.
They get home about half an hour later.
"So?" Dorothy asks.
"Everything's fine."
"Did you get new pictures?"
"Yes," Blanche gives them to Dorothy.
"I think she's going to look like you," Sophia says.
"How can you tell?" Blanche asks.
"Because she already looks wrinkled and fuzzy."
"Thanks Sophia," Blanche huffs.
"Let's have some cheesecake," Dorothy suggests.
"What's the occasion?" Rose wonders.
"Since when do we need an occasion?" Dorothy replies.
"I don't know," Rose adds.
"I know. We'll say that the baby wants cheesecake," Dorothy decides.
"Good enough for me," Rose says as they walk into the kitchen.
The following night Dorothy goes into the kitchen for a glass of water and finds Blanche digging in the fridge. She turns on the light and then asks Blanche nicely considering she'd nearly scared Dorothy to death, "What are you doing?"
"Eating cake," she responds.
"Can I have some?"
"If you get a plate."
Dorothy gets a plate and they sit down at the table with cake and some milk.
"You know what would go good with this?" Dorothy asks after taking a few bites.
"Ice cream?"
"Pie."
"I like where you're going with this. You get the pie I'll get the whipped cream and the chocolate syrup."
Rose comes into the kitchen as Dorothy and Rose are in the refrigerator.
"Girls it's two in the morning what are you doing?"
"Blanche had a craving for cake."
"And pie," Blanche adds.
"What's your excuse?" Rose asks Dorothy.
"I can't let her eat the whole thing by herself."
"You're right," Rose agrees.
They grab all of their supplies and Rose joins them at the table. Pretty soon Sophia comes in and joins them.
"Girls you know if you keep eating like this all the time you're going to look like your pregnant,"Sophia says.
"I am," Blanche yawns.
"Yeah but they're not," Sophia points out.
"You're right ma we should stop."
"And let all this food go to waste?" Sophia asks.
"Right, we'll finish it, and then go to bed," Dorothy proposes.
The following morning when Dorothy wakes up Rose and Sophia are both gone so she goes to find Blanche. She goes into her room and doesn't find her. She walks through the new door that leads into the nursery. She finds Blanche staring out the window.
"Are you going to get dressed today?" Dorothy asks after noticing that Blanche is robe-clad.
"Eventually," she says softly.
"Are you ok?" Dorothy questions.
"Uh huh."
"You haven't said much lately."
"I'm just tired I guess."
"So what are you doing in here?"
"I was just looking out the window and thinking."
"About what?"
"Different things."
"Such as?"
"Nothing."
"Blanche what's bothering you?"
"I don't know."
"You can tell me."
"I don't know I guess..."
"You guess what?"
"Well I was just thinking about the fact that I'm old."
"You're not that old."
"No but I'm too old to be having a baby. I mean think about it by the time she graduates from high school I'll be almost seventy. And by the time she finishes college, and gets married I'll probably be eighty. And what if I don't live that long? I mean she's going to need me until at least then right?"
"Blanche I'm sure that you're going to be there as long as she needs you."
"But what if I'm not?"
"The same thing could apply if you were thirty years younger and having a baby, you could get hit by a car, or get a mysterious disease, the point is you don't know how long you're going to have in this life so you've got to cherish the time you have with your loved ones. If you give them a solid foundation they'll manage to be ok."
"But what if something happens to me when she's still little?"
"One of us will take care of her."
"And what if something happens to you guys?"
"Blanche that isn't going to happen. And if it does..." she stops herself before she can finish.
"And if it does what? What were you going to say?"
"I was going to say that her father could take care of her except..."
Blanche cuts her off, "Except, I don't know who he is, right?"
"Yes."
"I hope I can tell once she's born. Or at least have some idea. I just don't want to cross that bridge until I get there."
"Fair enough," Dorothy finishes.
Blanche sighs.
"I have an idea," Dorothy declares.
"What's that?" she responds.
"Why don't we go shopping?"
"For what?"
"Well I was thinking that the baby would probably need more than a crib."
"Probably."
"Get dressed and we'll go."
"Ok," she agrees.
After Blanche gets dressed they go to the mall. When they get home they have to carry in about a million shopping bags. By this point Blanche is pooped. She decides to head for bed early. Once she gets there she can't sleep though. She decides to try and organize the drawer in her bedside stand. She doesn't get very far until she finds her date book. She begins flipping through it. She stops in the month of June and reads the names to herself. There are about twenty men. Twenty men that she dated. She goes through and crosses off the ones that were just dates. After doing so she's still left with twelve men. And for some reason there is a name written on the side of the page with a phone number but she can't seem to place who the man is or if she even went out with him, or anything at all happened. Out of frustration she tosses the book back into the drawer and attempts to go to sleep.