dk;dc

 Maybe if Bella had gotten fat after she had baby Jane, things would have been different. But then again, Gordy wondered if he would have been the one leaving her if that had happened. He'd like to think he wouldn't, but it could have been a different story if it had happened.

Instead, she just couldn't take it. Maybe that's the way it is when you're just sixteen, but he had a feeling Bella would have been like this if she were twenty-six, or thirty-six, or even forty-six. She just wasn't mother material. Well, it looked that way in the beginning. Everyone was happy. He remembered that smile. Her smile. His smile. It was a thrill to have something so perfect they'd made together. Until the crying started. And soon Bella was crying too. And then he was crying. He felt it was all his fault what had happened to Bella. How could she ever forgive him? How could he ever forgive himself, even? The only way to think about it was to think about Jane when he got up in the morning til he went to bed at night. As it was, he didn't get much sleep, anyway. Working the graveyard shift down at Walgreens. Yeap, it was hell to pay. And he just kept paying. And his body kept dragging. And just when he thought the end was near, there Jane would go and do something for him. She started walking by the time she was eight months old. She called his black lab, Rob, Daddy, first. Yeap, she was a happy little girl when she wasn't teething. Gordy just wished Bella was around to see all those firsts.