“Jaz,” I said, finally having enough with the mopey yoga dragon currently in my kitchen, eating what looked like tree bark and sounded like gravel, “we need to talk.”
“Oh God,” Jaz said. “I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Jaz, calm down,” I said, “I just need to know something for my own curiosity, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, breathing slowly and closing her eyes. “I can do this. I have agency over my emotions.”
“Right,” I said, not sure exactly what that meant and trying hard not to roll my eyes.
“What is it you need to know?”
“I need to know how it happened.”
“I had sex,” Jaz began, and I held up my hand to stop her.
“I know the mechanics, sis. I mean how did you not know you were pregnant until recently? We talked just about every day, and you never said anything,” I said.
“I didn’t know,” she said, sighing. “I really didn’t. My periods have never been regular. I don’t have that much body fat. Then I noticed I was putting on weight. I tried getting it off every way I could, but my stomach kept developing this pouch. I got scared that it was a tumor.”
“You thought you had a stomach tumor and didn’t tell me?” I asked incredulously.
“I didn’t want to upset you until I knew for sure,” she said. I sighed. I understood that, I supposed. After our parents died, and it was just us, we were both pretty paranoid about losing the other. I tried to put myself in her shoes and decide what I would do if I thought I was sick. I would want to tell her, but I would want to know how serious it was first too.
“Fine,” I said.
“I was pregnant.” I shook my head. Sometimes my sister needed some prodding to get to the details.
“What did your doctor say?”
“He said between my insane training schedule and my lack of body fat, that it wasn’t unheard of to get later into pregnancy before figuring it out,” she said. “He said that there were cases of people in top shape who made it all the way to delivery without knowing.”
“I could not imagine that,” I said, shocked. “You didn’t notice anything?”
“Not other than a little extra pudge in my stomach. When it got round, I went to the doctor,” she said. “That was a week ago.”
A sad smile crossed her lips, and she sat down at the table across from me. I reached over and squeezed her hand for a moment and returned the smile. My heart felt a lot better knowing she wasn’t avoiding me on purpose.
Suddenly, a vision crossed my mind. It was of a baby. A baby with her eyes and her hair. The big, toothless baby grin staring up at me and making gurgling baby noises. Then that vision melded into another one. One of Kane holding his niece. How amazing he’d look carrying her.
I shook my head to get rid of the image. I couldn’t think of him right now. Especially like that.
“You were right that we needed to talk,” Jaz said. “I needed to talk to you about this. And to ask you for the biggest favor I could possibly ask.”
“Go on,” I said, my voice cracking as I started to put together what she could possibly be asking me.
“I can’t keep this baby,” she said. “I’m not a mother. I would be so bad at it. It’s just an innocent baby, and it doesn’t deserve me as its mother.” Tears were filling up the corners of her eyes, but her focus on mine was unchanged. There was an intensity there, and pleading. “But not you. You could take this baby and raise her.”
“Jaz…” I mumbled, unsure of how to even begin to respond to that.
“You raised me,” she said. “When it was just us, you took on that role and did a fantastic job. Even while you stayed just my big sister too. You have it in you. And you are more settled in your life and your job than I am. I don’t know how to do anything but dance, and I can’t do that with a baby, alone. Please, Dani, I can’t do this. My career would never recover if I took time off to raise a baby.”
I felt like the room had shrunk and everything was pressing in on me. My vision was tunneled, and I could only see Jaz. Her pleading, begging eyes were laser-focused on mine.
What she was saying was at least partially true. I had raised her after our parents died. She and I shared a bond that was far stronger than just sisterhood. I did everything I could to make sure she realized her dreams, and now I was watching her beg me to do it one more time. To let her be her, the way I had done for her since our parents passed.