Michelle's POV:
Surrey, Present Day
"Were you happy when you found out?" Aurora asks me.
"Happy? I was terrified," I admitted, "but yes, I couldn't have been happier."
I wait to see if she has any more questions before continuing. "I wasn't ready to be a mother. I was only twenty and I had never had to do anything on my own. My parents had provided everything that I had. I needed to grow up."
My daughters are quiet as I tell them everything that I'd felt. I tell them how I had felt incompetent and completely unprepared. I tell them that I had been unbelievably excited.
"Did you get married because you were pregnant?"
"No," I giggle. "We didn't get married for some time."
***
Paris, 1983
He thought I was calmer than he was. Apparently, he'd completely missed the way my hands were shaking or the way my voice seemed to scratch in my throat.