Future Like This: A Small Town

Accidental Pregnancy Romance

(Friends Like This Book 8) Bethany
Monaco Smith
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 Copyright © 2024 Bethany Monaco Smith

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 Contents

About Future Like This

Meet the Characters
Trigger Warnings
Dedication
1. The Most Ridiculous Things
2. Ride This Roller Coaster
3. Pretty Fucking Awesome
4. Uncertainty
5. Come Out Now
6. Christmas Perfection
7. Never Have I Ever…
8. Maybe
9. The Best Valentine
10. Everyone Stay Calm
11. Not a Robot
12. Arcade Games
13. My Future
14. All-nighter
15. Stop and Become
16. The Lovers
17. That Dress
18. Profound Love
19. Futures and Forevers
A Note from Bethany
Bethany’s Books
The Music of Future Like This
About the Author
Acknowledgements
 About Future Like This

Future Like This is book eight of an eleven book series following the lives and love stories of six best friends from late high
school to early adulthood in the fictional small town of Ida, New York. Each book leads directly into the next, even when love
stories and character POVs change
Future Like This is book two of Miles’s and Amelia’s love story, and a direct continuation of the previous seven books. If you
haven’t read those yet, go back to the beginning and jump on the roller coaster in book one, Friends Like This.
Future Like This picks up where the end of Family Like This left off.
Are you ready for Miles and Amelia to get their HEA?
 Meet the Characters

The Main Six Besties

Miles Hyun-Hansen
Mackenzie Montoya
Rae (McKinley) Cooper
Aaron Cooper
Sarah (McKinley) Wilkinson
Joel Wilkinson

The Unicorn Girl

Amelia Davis
Bonus Characters

Hyla Montgomery
Dani Malone
Jesse Wilkinson
Trevor Matteny
Amanda Hamilton
Chelsea Winters
Jamie Henderson
Addie & Jameson Hyun-Hansen

The Parents

Kara & Charlie McKinley (Rae & Sarah)

Bob & Cathy Cooper (Aaron)
Jeff & Janet Wilkinson (Joel & Jesse)
Linda Kaley & Rick Montoya (Mackenzie)
Andy & Katie Hyun-Hansen (Miles)
 Trigger Warnings

This book deals with realistic life issues, including subjects that may be triggering for some readers. By their nature, trigger
warnings may include plot spoilers small or large. If you are concerned about possible triggers, you can view trigger warnings
for this book here.
For all those who have had to wear their strength like a shield, it’s okay to lower your armor and share your beautiful
heart.
 Chapter One

The Most Ridiculous Things

Amelia

“MY MOM… THEY THINK she—she had a stroke.” I choke out the words into Miles’s chest. Then I yank my head back and
look up at him. “I need to get to the hospital.”
“We need to.”
“You don’t have—”
He steps back, cradling my face in his hands as he looks into my eyes. “You’re mine. Mine to love. Mine to protect. Mine to
support. Whatever is happening, it’s we. So, let’s go.”
Even though I should be hauling ass to the car to get to the hospital, I can’t. I can’t move. Except to throw myself against his
chest and hold him as tight as I can with my stomach in the way.
“I love you,” I whisper.
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry.” I pushed him away all week—longer than that, really—now he’s here, taking care of me without a second
thought.
“Not right now.” His voice is calm and gentle. “There will be time for that. Right now, we need to get to the hospital.” He
kisses my head, then steps back and shuts off his computer before grabbing his wallet and keys from the top drawer of his desk.
He guides me back to my office to grab my purse and makes sure my computer is shut down as well, then he leads me to the
elevators.
I’m an absolute wreck. I used to be able to handle things like this on my own, but now? Miles is basically maneuvering me to
the car. Guiding me through doorways and making sure I don’t walk into anyone. How did I get this way?
My gut instinct is to say it’s because I’ve let someone take care of me for too long and that has stolen my independence, but I
shut that thought down. No. I’m not weak. I’m finally safe and supported enough to not have to deal with hard things alone. I
don’t have to push myself to the breaking point to survive anymore. I did that for so long, and it’s why I’m falling apart now.
Though it’s hard to push past those feelings, it’s easy to lean on Miles. When I do, I feel sparks of relief shooting through me,
like they’re rushing to heal the cracks that have formed in my heart and soul.
When we get to his car, I wrap my arms around him again, desperate for his warmth and the safety of his arms.
“I’ve got you.” He kisses the side of my head, then helps me into the car and buckles me up. Sometimes that bossy protective
thing drives me crazy. I can buckle my own seatbelt. But right now, it’s comforting to let him care for me.
When he shuts my car door, I close my eyes and let out a long breath, tears trickling down my cheeks.
They think she had a stroke.
They couldn’t give me much information other than she was unconscious. I’m not sure if she was still unconscious or only
was for a bit. The nurse sounded inexperienced which left me more stressed. All the more reason we need to get to the hospital
so I can find out what’s happening.
My stomach flips at the thought. What if I get there and they tell me—
“What if she dies?” I mutter, opening my eyes and looking at Miles.
He’s focused on the road ahead of him, but he says, “Let’s not go to that place. But if that happens… Fuck, Ames. I don’t
know what to say. I know this is scary, and I can’t make any promises about what will happen or find words to make you feel
better. All I can do is tell you I’ll be right by your side. No matter what happens, I’ll be there with you.”
 I reach over and rest my hand on his thigh. I know he’ll be right at my side. Words he said months ago flit through my mind.
After he told his friends I was pregnant, I asked him what would happen if I miscarried. My other hand drops to my stomach,
the mere thought is too much right now. He told me if I did, we’d have the best support system in the world. I know that’s true
now. We can’t control the painful things in life. All we can do is face them. I told him that, then promptly ignored it when I
needed it most. All I’ve done lately is try to avoid painful feelings. It’s hurt me more in the long run.
I have to get my shit together.
Or maybe I need to fall the hell apart before I can pick up the pieces again.
Either way, I have to get through today and whatever it brings first.

When we get to the hospital, Miles parks close and leads me into the building, being my rock.
“Can I help you?” the woman at the desk asks when we walk into the emergency area.
“I’m looking for my mother, Eileen Davis. She came in from Sunrise Nursing Center.”
“Okay…” She types on her computer as I wring my hands together. Miles places one large hand on top of mine, squeezing
gently. It gives me the little burst of calm I need right now. “She’s getting some tests done now. There’s a waiting room around
the corner, and a doctor will come talk with you when they’re finished.”
“Okay. Thank you. Um… was she—is she—” I don’t even know what I’m asking. It’s not like the admissions nurse will
know if she’ll be okay or what happened.
“She was conscious when she came in, after a reported stroke. That’s all the information I have.”
“Thank you,” I breathe. She was conscious. That’s something.
Miles wraps his arm around me and guides me to the waiting room.
I want to vomit as we sit in the waiting room. I hate waiting rooms. I’ve spent far too much time in them. During
hospitalizations and procedures my dad had, and later when my mom was getting diagnosed. I lean forward as much as my
stomach allows, resting my head in my hands. Miles rubs my back.
Today is fucked up. Everything is fucked up. Then our daughter kicks and for the briefest of moments, everything is beautiful.
Why is life like this?
The chair on the other side of me shifts, and a hand brushes my arm. I look up and see Dani’s soft smile.
“Hi. What are you doing here?”
“Excuse me? I’m your best friend. Where else would I be when you need me?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.” She pulls me into her arms.
“How did you know?”
She nods toward Miles and I spin around. He shrugs and gives me the sweetest boyish smile.
I have to fix things.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Ames. I told you, you’re mine to take care of. And I know when to call in reinforcements.”
I laugh lightly. “Should I expect everyone to storm the hospital?”
He squeezes my hand. “I didn’t think you’d like that, but my mom’s on her way and Mackie’s on call if we need anything.”
“That’s good. Whatever good is right now.”
“I’m looking for the family of Eileen Davis,” a doctor says, walking into the room.
“That’s us.” I stand and walk toward him. Miles’s arm is wrapped around my back in a second, bolstering me. “I’m her
daughter.”
“Your mother came in after a suspected stroke at the nursing home. The staff found her disoriented and difficult to rouse, and
noticed some muscle weakness and difficulty speaking.” My heart shudders at those words. More of her to be ripped away
from me. “The good news is by the time she got to us, she had very few symptoms. Really only some muscle weakness on her
right side. She was yelling and quite combative, actually. To the point that we may need to give her a mild sedative overnight.”
My mouth drops open. “Really? She’s—she didn’t—” I take a deep breath. Full sentences, Amelia.
“Will she be okay?” Miles asks before I get anything else out. Of course he gets right to the important question.
“She’s being transferred up to our stroke and vascular care unit now, and the therapy team will be in to evaluate her shortly.
They’ll be able to give you a clearer picture, but based on how she bounced back thus far, her prognosis is good. Of course,
we’ll continue monitoring her and make sure of that. With her returning to a nursing home, she’ll likely only be here a couple of
nights as long as all continues to go well.” He gives a gentle smile.
“Thank you,” I whisper, more to the universe than to the doctor.
“Of course. The doctor and therapy team in the stroke unit can answer any further questions you have. As soon as she’s set up
in her room there, you’ll be able to see her.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Miles says.
“Yes. Thank you,” I say again. “Should we go to the other unit?”
“A nurse will call you when she’s all set. Take care.”
And then he’s gone.
“That’s good news,” Dani says softly, coming to my other side.
“It is,” I say. But nothing feels completely good right now. She still had a stroke. It was mild this time. There’s no telling
what the future will bring, though, or how this may affect her overall long term.
I suck in a breath. Force another out.
That’s tomorrow’s problem.
For the moment, my mother is going to be okay. I glance over at Miles, who has stepped away—probably still trying to give
me space. I need to figure out how to be okay. How to move forward. Only I can’t do that here because I have to deal with
what’s in front of me.
Sighing, I sit down in a chair.
I hate waiting.

Waiting is all I did today. Waiting to see the doctor. Waiting to see my mom. Waiting to talk to another doctor and the therapy
team.
I still don’t know exactly what to say. About anything. My mom is doing well enough. She’s sleepy and disoriented—more so
than usual, because her combativeness only increased into the night and they had to give her a mild sedative. It’s for the better,
probably. In some ways, it made seeing her easier. There was a clear reason she couldn’t communicate—the meds she’d been
given. It was still hard to see her looking so pale and fragile. It makes me nervous that there will be more of this in the future. It
wasn’t severe this time, but next time it could be.
The good news is that her speech is mostly back to normal, and the speech therapist thinks it will continue to improve over
the next day or two. She had some mild muscle weakness on her right side and additional fine motor struggles, but that’s
something for the therapy team to work on to improve as much as possible.
It’s still a waiting game.
And I’m still waiting to talk to Miles.
As I sit down in the car, I let out a long breath. Okay. I handled the stuff with my mom as much as I can today. Miles sighs as
he drops into the driver’s seat and wordlessly starts the car.
Now I have to handle this, even though I have no idea how he’s feeling, how I’m feeling, or what to say.
All I can control is…
What I say.
What do I want to say?
I close my eyes and settle in for the twenty-minute drive, praying I’ll find the right words before we get home.

Miles

I’ve grown to hate silence. It’s never comfortable anymore. It never leads anywhere good. Yet silence is all there’s been
since we left the hospital. I don’t blame Amelia. Today has been a lot to process. We thought we’d have a baby appointment
and dinner, not hours upon hours spent in the hospital.
I’m exhausted. I have no idea where we stand with each other. The absolute last thing I want is to leave again.
We trudge into the apartment and slip off our shoes. Amelia sets her purse on the kitchen counter and starts down the hall
toward the bedrooms, but I can’t make my feet move. I plop onto a stool, dropping my head into my hands as I sigh.
“Miles? Are you okay?” Amelia asks a moment later, and I jump, surprised to find her standing next to me.
My sigh is rough as I look at her. “I don’t want to push you. You’ve been through enough today.”
Her eyes flutter closed for just a second, and when she opens them again, they’re glassy. “Please tell me. Whatever you’re
thinking, it’s okay. Just… please.”
 The vulnerability in her voice—her unwillingness to look away—surprises me. It forces my fearful words out. “I don’t want
to pack a bag. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to walk out this door not knowing when we’re going to talk or see each other
again.” Standing up, I splay my hand over her stomach and rest my forehead against hers. “I love you, and I don’t want to be
without you.”
She lets out a shaky breath, her lip trembling. “Good. Because I don’t want you to go. I don’t want to watch you walk out that
door again unless I know I’ll be in your arms later that night.”
My eyes widen in shock as relief slowly trickles in. “Really?”
Her hands come to my chest and she gives me as much of a smile as she can muster. “Yes. I had so much I wanted to say to
you tonight. I thought we’d eat dinner, talk, then I’d have my—shit.”
“What?”
She walks around me and pulls her phone out of her bag, typing furiously. “I had my first therapy appointment tonight, and I
missed it.”
“Therapy?” I ask, happily surprised by that. It seems mean to say someone needs therapy, but the more I learn, the more I
think we all need therapy.
She nods. “I need to learn how to process everything I’ve been through, but also how to break it into manageable chunks, so
everything else doesn’t eat away at me while I do. I don’t want to be overwhelmed every second.” She steps closer again,
running her hand over my cheek. “I don’t want to push you away. I don’t want to hurt you or our daughter.”
I rest my hand protectively on her stomach. “You’re not hurting her.”
“What about you?”
“It hurt thinking you might not want me. Or a future together. But I know I’ve hurt you by acting the way I have. I’ve pushed
you for selfish reasons. Been too controlling.” I laugh. “I made an appointment with a psychiatrist. It’s next week. I need to
work on my shit too.”
“Your shit?”
I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and kiss her forehead. “I want to be your protective, bossy baby daddy. I don’t want to
be an anxious, controlling asshole.”
“You’re never an asshole,” she whispers. “You have the biggest, kindest heart of anyone I’ve ever met. I’m sorry I’ve been
shutting you and your love out. Everything just felt like too much and the way you love me… you crack my heart open, and it’s
impossible to breathe.”
“Then let me be your air. Feel that rush of pain, then let me hold you through it until you find some peace. I never wanted to
fix things. I just wanted you to let me be your safe space for whatever you were feeling at that moment.”
“I was afraid to feel anything. I thought the pain would consume me, and I’d never make it out.”
“I’m your lifeline. You never have to worry about getting lost. I’ll always be here to pull you to safety.”
“You are my safety,” she whispers. “I’ve been stupidly pushing that away and living in fear instead. I’m scared of my pain,
scared to lose again, scared I’ll become my mother. I’m tired of being scared.” She laughs. “This is why I need therapy.”
I smile at that and pull her into my arms. “We both have things to work on, but we can hold space for each other and love
each other through it. At the end of the day, I want to know I’m safe in your arms, and I want you to feel the same. I’m going to
do the work I need to on myself, but I promise you I’ll stop trying to fix and control things. I’ll sit quietly and listen as long as
you promise to stop shutting me out. Feel whatever you need to, just don’t shut me out anymore.”
“I don’t want to. And I’m going to work hard not to.” She lets out a shaky breath. “I’m starving and exhausted. And…”
“What baby?”
Tears spill out of her eyes, trailing down her cheeks. “You said you’d hold me through it. I need that because I’m coming
apart at the seams.”
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, sweeping her into my arms and carrying her to the bedroom. Food can wait until she’s settled. I
strip her down and get her into comfortable clothes, then tuck her into bed. I yank my work clothes off and climb under the
covers with her, wrapping her in my arms. She collapses against my chest, letting out all the hurt and exhaustion from the day as
I hold her. Emotions ping-pong around inside me, but it doesn’t bother me. No matter how difficult today—and the last week—
has been, I know we’ll be okay, and I’m going to do everything I can to be the best partner for her and father for our child. We
both have our work cut out for us, but I guess this is what Ma meant when she said relationships are work. Now I think work is
the wrong word. That makes it sound negative. It’s tending to and nurturing ourselves, each other, and our love.
“What happens if I forget her one day?”
“Your mom?”
“Our daughter.” She wipes her eyes. “I started writing her letters just in case.”
My heart clenches at those words. It’s scary to wonder if Amelia might have Alzheimer’s some day. It would never stop or
change my love for her. And I hope I’ll be a part of her life for so long she’d never forget me, but seeing the way her mother
suffers—and Amelia in relation to that—I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I hope it won’t be our future.
“In your heart, I don’t think you ever could. But I promise you, our daughter will always know you. She will know how
deeply you love her. I’ll make sure of that.”
“What if something happens to you? My dad… I know he would’ve made the same promise.”
I run my fingers down her arm. “We don’t know how life will unfold, but our girl will never be alone. You didn’t have a
family surrounding you to help you, but we do. She will too. I know you’re scared. I think I’m scared of everything right now.
The world feels scarier than it ever has before bringing this little person into it.” I rest my hand on her stomach.
“I was going to talk to my doctor—and maybe my therapist—about genetic testing to see if I might end up like my mom, but I
keep changing my mind.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure if it would be better to live life knowing it’s going to happen or wondering. People always say it’s better to
know. I remember my parents saying that when we were waiting on test results when my dad had cancer the last time. After we
found out, my mom broke down crying when my dad was out of the house, saying she thought knowing would help but given the
outcome, she wished she could go back to not knowing for just a few more hours. There was still hope.”
“I guess that’s the question you have to answer. Would knowing—if the answer was yes—help you? You don’t need to figure
that out right away, though.”
She looks up at me, letting out a long breath. “I keep alternating between wanting to thank you and tell you I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to do either. We’re going to take this one day at a time and do our best to get stronger. Pregnancy tipped both
our worlds upside down while converging them. We need to put our new world right side up. Everything else will come in
time.”
“I might need you to remind me of that. Daily.” She laughs.
“I probably will too.”
She sighs softly, twining our fingers together. “Do you think we need to go to couples’ counseling?”
“I think we should see how we do with individual therapy first before we decide.”
“That makes sense.”
We sit silently for a few moments. Finally, it’s comfortable silence again. I love comfortable silence. Not everyone can sit
silently with someone else without feeling a need to fill the space. I love it. To me, it’s the height of comfort with someone
when you can do that. I have that with all my friends, but especially with Mackie. I love that I have it with Amelia, too.
My hand is still resting on her stomach when I feel a quake that I assume is the baby rolling around until I hear the loud
growl. My eyebrows shoot up and I laugh. “Damn, baby.”
“I’m starving. I just haven’t wanted to move.”
I kiss her forehead, then pull her upright. “Well, I think it’s time we feed you before the rumbling scares the baby.”
She laughs. “I’m not sure it works that way, but food is probably a good idea.”
“More than probably. Get your sexy butt up.” I reach around and give it a playful smack before climbing out of bed. “Do you
want me to order something?” The nice part about living so close to downtown is that delivery is quick and readily available.
“Uh, no. The fridge is still fully stocked.”
“Right,” I say with a laugh. “Ma mentioned she cooked.”
“Her, Kara, Linda. Garrett sent an ice cream cake. We’re stocked for several more days,” she says as she slips her robe on.
“It’s good to be loved.”
She pauses for a second, then smiles. “Yeah. It is. Sometimes letting it in is so hard because it reminds me how alone I was.
How alone I’m afraid to be again.”
I step over to her and wrap her in my arms. “You will never be alone, Ames. Never.”
“If this last week has been a crash course in anything, it’s definitely that. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for all the
wonderful people in our lives. And for you.” She gently caresses my cheek. “You never gave up on me.”
“And I never will. I told you, you’re mine, and I meant it.”
“Move your clothes in here.”
A laugh bubbles in my chest. “What?”
“It’s dumb that they’re across the hall. You’re never sleeping in there anyway. Move your clothes in here. Let’s make that
room the nursery.”
My eyebrows go up, but then I smile. “What happened this week?”
“So much,” she says with a sigh. “Let’s talk about it all over dinner. And Gilmore Girls.” I chuckle at that. “Amanda got me
addicted.”
“Sounds right. And also like the perfect night.” Wrapping my hand around the side of her neck, I press my lips into hers.
“Love you. Always.”
“I love you too. Now feed me, baby daddy.”
“Yes ma’am.”
 Amelia

Of all the things I thought might happen tonight, I wasn’t expecting this.
“Do you need any help?” I ask Miles as he grunts, lifting his mattress onto its side. No. The spare bed.
He stops and pins me with a glare. “Lift a finger and I spank that perfect ass.”
I stroll over and trace my finger down his chest. “Sounds like you’re threatening me with a good time.”
His eyes drift closed for a second, and he counts backward from five, then lets out a long breath before opening his eyes
again. “It’s a good time we can’t have if I don’t get the mattress out of this room.” I open my mouth, but he holds up a finger to
silence me. “You moved sheets and clothes and put things in my dresser after I moved it into the master. You can’t help with
this. Everything is too heavy and your stomach, while beautifully big, is at risk of getting hit. So, I’m going to push this mattress
through the door, then you are going to sit down while I finish everything else.” His voice softens, and he brushes his hand over
my stomach. “Then I’ll bring the painter’s tape, and we can start figuring out the layout of the nursery.” He leans down and
kisses me, his large hand wrapping around the side of my neck. When he pulls away, he closes his eyes again and rests his
forehead against mine, his hand still on my neck.
“What’s wrong?”
His stunning green eyes open, meeting mine. His are glassy and filled with emotion. “Nothing. I’m perfect, sweetness. I’m
here with you. This morning…” He trails off, voice turning raw. He clears his throat. “I wasn’t sure how to get back to this
place, and I wasn’t expecting to be here tonight, but I’m so fucking happy I am. I love you, baby.”
“I love you too. Thanks for walking through the hard stuff with me.”
“Thanks for wanting me by your side. I’ll always be here with you. It’s a lot nicer when I’m walking next to you and not
behind you like a creepy stalker, though.”
I laugh at that, then kiss him again, a tear trailing down my cheek as I do.
“Today has been crazy. My emotions are all over.”
“I know. Mine too.” He brushes the tear off my cheek and steps back. “Let me finish this up so we can get on to some fun
things. We both need it.”
“Deal.”
He goes back to shoving the mattress through the doorway as I watch him in awe. Life is a roller coaster these days, but at
least I’ve got his hand to grab through the twists and turns.

Miles might be superhuman. He moved all the furniture into the spare room by himself and barely broke a sweat. It’s almost
midnight, and I should be sleeping, but my mind is racing, going over what we’ve been through, the insanity of the day, and the
excitement I feel. Sometimes, it’s been hard being truly excited about baby things. Moving the nursery in here has me beyond
excited, though. After Miles moved everything, we taped out where we wanted the crib, changing table, dresser, and bookshelf
to go. There’s a little nook next to the closet door. It’s a smaller walk-in closet than mine, but enough of one that we can easily
store our extra baby gear in there. The little nook will have the bookcase and a carpet where the baby can have tummy time and
eventually play time. The crib will be kitty-corner from the nook, sitting where the head of Miles’s bed—that he never used—
was. The dresser will be opposite that. And then there’s the cozy rocker. It’s a plush, light gray microfiber rocker with thick,
padded arms. It looks more like a cozy sitting chair that happens to rock. There’s a footrest that goes with it. Together they are
crazy comfortable. I know because it’s where I’m sitting.
We saw it on clearance when we were making our baby shower list, and since it was so comfy, we bought it then. It’s the
only baby item we have in the house. Everything else is at Katie and Andy’s, but I’m ready to have it here. To set everything up.
I rest my hands on my stomach as I rock, looking around the room and seeing the endless possibilities.
“You are stunning.” Miles stands in the doorway, staring at me reverently. He walks over and hands me a glass of water, then
drops to his knees in front of me. “I don’t know how I got so damn lucky.”
He nestles between the footrest and the chair, then glides his hand up my thigh and lays his head on my lap, face inches from
my belly. He rubs his hand over my stomach. “Hey, baby girl. Daddy loves you. Mommy and I can’t wait to meet you.”
I run my hand through his hair as he kisses my stomach and whispers to our girl, and I smile as she kicks his hand.
He stops talking and stares at my stomach, gently caressing it with his thumb, the rest of his warm hand staying protectively
in place.
“Talk to me,” I whisper.
 He swallows and takes a long breath. “This last week was hard without you. These moments mean everything to me. I want
to revel in this one.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He looks up at me, that dangerous gentleness in his eyes. “We have things to work through, and I’m trying to embrace all the
uncertainty as we do. It’s not always easy. And I want to make sure…”
“What?”
“Are you sure this is what you want? Where you want to be? I don’t want you to rush.”
“Don’t be uncertain of my love. Please.” I brush my fingers over his scalp, tousling his fine hair as I do. “I asked you to
move everything because this is what I want. It has been, but I shut it out. Now that I’ve let myself feel this joy for our daughter
and let your love in, it’s healing me. I never want to shut any of it out again. I need it. Need you. Our little family.”
“So do I.” He sighs. “I could stay like this forever. Feeling her kicks. Your fingers twisted in my hair. But I’m exhausted. Can
we go to bed? I need to hold you for as long as possible. I’ve got too many nights to catch up on.”
Ugh. This man. He does the most ridiculous things to my heart. Protects it. Saves it. Shows it the love it deserves.
“Yes, please.” I let him pull me up and happily follow him to the bedroom. Our bedroom. He’s right. A week spent not
sleeping in his arms was far too long.
As I settle into bed with him, relief washes over me.
I’ve been so afraid of the pain. Scared of what else is going to happen. Stuck feeling like nothing would ever be okay again.
It’s taken me too long to realize that’s not the point. I can’t prevent what’s going to happen, but I decide how I face it.
Everything won’t be okay, but for the first time in a long time I know I’m going to be okay.
 Chapter Two

Ride This Roller Coaster

Miles

“AMES?” I CALL, HEADING for the bedroom. It was a long weekend spent focusing on each other, the nursery, and getting
things settled with her mom. It’s Monday now, and her mom is supposed to be going back to the nursing home today. Because of
that and everything, we both took today and tomorrow off, though we’ll probably end up on our laptops checking in by tonight.
To some degree, we’re both workaholics. We know when to stop, but neither of us can stay away if we have the time and could
get something done.
I walk into the bedroom and hear Amelia rummaging in the closet.
“Hey,” I say, standing in the doorway. “What are you doing?” She’s on tiptoes and shoving something onto the top shelf of the
closet. She quickly drops back to flat feet and spins around, a sweet smile on her face. I lean against the door frame as I take
her in. There’s a hint of mischief in that smile, and it makes me want to pin her to the wall and question her, but I don’t. She
looks down at the tote.
“I was just moving a couple of things from this tote.”
“What is that tote?”
“My life,” she says, looking wistfully at it.
I step to her and wrap my arms around her from behind. “Yeah?”
“I started going through it last week. I wanted to start working through things before my therapy appointment, and this tote
holds a lot of pain. I didn’t make it far before I went to bed.” She spins around in my arms, looking up at me. “Would you go
through it with me? I want to share it with you. Especially…”
“What?”
“There’s a USB in here with videos of my dad. I want you to see him.” She sniffs. “I want to see him, but not alone.”
I wrap my arms tighter around her, feeling some light thumps as her stomach presses against mine. “Of course, baby. Where
do you want to look through it?”
“Living room?”
“Perfect. The tea’s ready. Why don’t you take our mugs to the living room, and I’ll carry this.”
She leans up and kisses my cheek. “Thank you.”
“I think we need to retire those words from our vocabulary. They’re important, but we shouldn’t have to thank the other for
things we do out of love.”
She gives me a tiny smile. “So, what you’re saying is… I should come up with other ways to thank you.”
Be still my aching cock.
She’s killing me.
We haven’t had sex all weekend because we’ve been focused on the other pieces of our relationship, but we’ve been teasing
each other, and I’m about to explode.
I wrap my hand around the side of her neck and kiss her possessively. “Remember who you’re teasing. That ass is mine to
spank and that pussy is mine to devour.”
“Miles…” she breathes.
With a quick kiss to her forehead, I dial back the horniness, and focus on what she wanted to do. It’s going to be intense and
emotional. Hopefully, healing, too.
 “Later, gorgeous. This is more important.”
She stares at me for a moment, then nods, but she still smacks my ass before she walks out of the room.

“Are you sure you want to do this now? You don’t have to.”
Amelia swallows hard and nods. “I want to. I’m not sure how it’s going to make me feel, though.”
“That’s okay.” I sit back down on the couch next to her. We’d only gone through about a quarter of the tote when we found
this.
She snuggles up to me and my heart melts. I fucking love snuggling with her. I’m always grabbing at her, pulling her a little
closer. I need this girl, and I need her as close as possible. I rest one hand under her shirt on her stomach. I love the warmth of
her skin on mine and the feel of our baby girl’s kicks.
Navigating through the menu of our Blu-ray player, I find the USB section and open it up. Amelia directs me through the
folders until I find the first of a long list of videos.
“Ready?” I ask.
She nods and rests her head on my shoulder.
I push play, and a second later, the video begins.
“Ready?” Amelia’s voice comes through the TV, but I don’t see her yet. All I see are feet. Then the full picture of her father
sitting up in bed.
“Sure am.” His voice is warm and smooth. He pats the bed next to him, and Amelia comes around the camera and sits down
next to him. He extends his arm and she snuggles against him, much like she is with me right now. My heart is in my throat as I
watch this. Even without her in my arms, I would be able to feel her pain. I know what’s coming, and it’s evident in the video.
I’ve seen photos of Amelia’s dad, Max, from his healthiest times. He was around six feet with brown hair, and thin but filled
out for his body shape in those photos. Here you can see his height, but he’s wearing a winter hat, his skin is pale, and he looks
gaunt.
Next to me, Amelia sniffs and drops one hand so it’s resting over mine on her stomach.
“Hey, Daddy. How are you feeling today?”
“Same old, same old. How’s my girl?”
“Good. I missed you today. School was boring. It would’ve been more fun to skip and go to the movies.”
“Our old tradition.”
Amelia takes the remote from me and pauses the video.
“When I was eight, I got a horrible bloody nose at school. It got all over my clothes, so my dad brought clean ones for me. I
was upset, though, and kids can be little assholes sometimes, so I didn’t want to go back to class. Dad signed me out and took
me to the movies. It started a trend, and a couple of times each school year, I’d play hooky or he’d sign me out early and we’d
go to a movie. Just the two of us.”
“That’s sweet.”
“He was my best friend.” She wipes her eyes. “I had other friends as a kid, but the older I got, the closer I grew to my
parents. I loved doing things with them as a family. Then I had my ex-boyfriend around, and that was all I needed.” She sniffs
and shakes her head. “Anyway.”
She hits play.
“I wanted to ask you a question.”
“Ask away.”
“How do you stay focused on things you don’t care about but still have to do?”
Her father nods. “Hm. Well, don’t tell your mother this, but my personal philosophy is that we shouldn’t do things we
don’t want to do. I mean, of course, some things we have to do. Laundry, dishes, homework—things like that. But if you’re
talking about your daily life and always forcing yourself to do things you don’t enjoy or don’t care about, then you’re doing
the wrong things. Living with passion is important. It may not always be your job, but it has to be something. There must be
things in your life that you’re passionate about and bring you joy. If you don’t have those things, there truly is no reason to
do anything else. Why did I work a boring job most of my life? Easy. It gave me the ability to support your mother and you
and it gave us this beautiful home. Fun family vacations. I was always home for dinner. I could coach your sports teams
and never miss a game. I guess my answer is, you get through things you don’t care about or enjoy because they lead you to
or help you have the things you do enjoy. And if they don’t… stop doing them.”
“So I have to keep going to school because it’ll help me have the future I want?”
“Most likely. Of course, there are always other options. Your mother might kick my butt if she hears me saying that,
though.”
 “What other options?”
“You’re trying to get me in trouble.”
We both laugh at the mischievous smile on her father’s face. They have matching smiles and eyes.
“Never.”
“You need to graduate if you want to go to college. Or at least get your GED. That choice is technically yours. I have no
doubt you could easily get your GED and go on to college sooner.”
“Or explore the world?” Her words catch in her throat.
There’s a long pause before her father responds. “Exactly.”
They sit together for a few minutes before the topic of conversation switches. They joke around and laugh. Her laugh is
nothing like his. His is warm and chuckley while hers is high and shrill. His eyes crinkle at the edges, then a huge smile blooms
on his face.
“What kind of trouble are you two getting into today?”
Eileen appears and sits down on the other side of Max. She cozies up to him and kisses his forehead.
Beside me, Amelia’s breath catches, then tears come hard and fast. I reach to pause the video, but she stops me. “No.
Please.” I let go of the remote and pull her the tiniest bit closer.
“Trouble? Us?” Max’s voice is playful as he regards Eileen. Their love is beautiful and vibrant even on the TV screen.
“Usually.” Eileen bites her lip in an attempt to hold back a smile, but she can’t. Just like my girl.
Amelia laughs through her tears, then pulls her shirt up so she can twine our fingers together where they rest on her stomach.
“Just talking.” Amelia’s voice was a little higher back then and there was a brightness to it I don’t hear as often now.
“Well, I came to see if anyone was interested in some cookies.”
“How dare you ask?” Max’s smile is out of this world. He was dying and yet he lived every second of his life for his
family.
“Can we sit for another minute first?” Amelia asks her mother.
“Of course.”
They’re all quiet for a moment, then Max sighs happily. “My girls in my arms. This is the best place to be.”
My eyes fill with tears. His strength was incredible. Sitting there holding his girls with all his love. I glance down at Amelia
and our intertwined hands. I’d do the same, but I don’t know if I could do it so happily. To know I was being taken from them
would gut me in an unimaginable way.
There’s silence on the screen for a few moments as they sit together. Then Max asks for cookies and they all get up.
Tears are streaming down my face as the video ends. Amelia turns to me, still crying, and climbs onto my lap.
I tuck some hair behind her ear as I stare into her beautiful eyes, which have turned an aquamarine color. “Thank you for
sharing that with me.”
She rests her forehead against mine and nods. “Thank you for your patience.” She laughs. “I know we said no more ‘thank
yous’ but I think these are important. Your love for me is helping me find pieces of me that I’ve missed—that I thought I lost. I
forgot how joyful I used to be.” She wipes her eyes. “It came from him. My mom loved to laugh and have fun, but she was by
far the more cynical one. When I lost him, I leaned too hard into the cynicism. I want to find more joy again. Especially with
you and our daughter.”
“We’ll find it together.” I wipe my cheeks, then drag my thumb over hers. “I’m sorry for all you’ve lost. I know I can never
fill their void in your heart, but I promise to give you so much love maybe that emptiness will ache less.”
“You already do,” she breathes, kissing me deeply. “I love you. So much.”
I kiss her back like my life depends on it. I’m pretty sure it does. Her and our girl. The deeper we grow together, the more I
understand her pain. The family she lost. To lose her or our daughter would destroy me.
“Miles…” Her breath tickles my lips. “I need you.”
“Anything, baby.”
She grinds against me.
“Here?”
She shakes her head. I turn off the TV, then wrap my arms under her and stand up, carrying her to the bedroom. When we get
there, I set her down in the middle of the room and kiss her again.
“I know we like to play,” she whispers. “But I need something else.” Her breath shudders. “Something more.”
“I’ll take care of you.”
Slowly, I strip her down, pulling my T-shirt off her—they’re her favorite thing to wear lately—and then her sweatpants. The
only other thing she’s wearing is a tiny pair of underwear that sits under her bump. I pull them down, then stand up again. She
slides her hands under my shirt and pushes it over my head, then she nudges at the waist of my boxer briefs, tugging them and
my sweats down. I step out of them, then sweep her into my arms again and carry her to the bed.
Laying her down, I climb over the top of her legs and push them up so I can nestle between them. I kiss her luscious lips, then
down her neck, and spend some time sucking on her nipples as I dip my fingers between her legs. She whimpers as I glide them
up her wet center.
I am ravenous for her, but I force myself to go slow. She needs to feel cherished and loved. So deeply loved. When I can’t
hold out any longer, I pull my hand from between her legs and kiss down her navel until my head is between her legs and all I
can smell is the delicious scent of her pussy. I lap my tongue over her, swirling it around, enjoying every taste until I’m at her
clit. She moans as I roll my tongue over it in soft delicate strokes.
I push one finger inside her pussy, just a tiny amount, and swirl it around, occasionally pumping it, but never going too hard
or too fast. I want her orgasm to build slowly until it’s pulsing through her so hard she can barely breathe.
Her moans are music to my ears. Not as hard or forceful as they sometimes are. They’re long and drawn out, filled with
happiness and relief. Like she finally has everything she needs. Since I met her, that’s all I’ve wanted. To give her everything.
This is what she needs. This connection. The attention. The release that’s coming. She needs it all, and I’m going to give it to
her. My perfect girl.
She rocks her hips with the movement of my tongue. It’s slow and controlled, and for once, she doesn’t fight me. She gives in
and works with me.
“Ohmygod…” she whimpers and whines, needy as fuck.
I move my finger fast over her favorite spot while still keeping the pressure light. I flick my tongue faster until her fingers are
curled in my hair.
“Miles.” My name is a whispery scream on her lips as she comes undone. Her orgasm is hard and long, and I don’t stop
moving until she collapses against the bed.
“Such a good girl, baby.” I lick my fingers, then kiss her hard, but I stop when she laughs.
“Oh my god.”
“What?” I sit back and she looks down at her gorgeous tits.
“I think some breast milk leaked. They said it can happen.”
Oh shit. Rock hard cock getting harder.
I dive forward and lap up the few drops around one nipple, then the other, groaning as I do. “Delicious like the rest of you.”
Again, she laughs. “You have a pregnancy kink.”
I tilt my head as I look at her. “Maybe. I can’t help that you’re unbelievably sexy, and the thought—hell, the gorgeous view—
of you carrying our child is a massive turn on. I’m obsessed with you, baby mama.”
I lean down and kiss her again. It’s a shame I’m not someone who wants a ton of kids because I would love getting her
pregnant over and over again. Fuck… I groan again.
“Flip over,” she says, pushing on my shoulders.
Another quick kiss, and I do. She climbs on top of me and sinks down my length, her warm, wet pussy gripping my cock.
“Don’t move for a second, baby,” I rasp.
“Rub my clit,” is her response.
Jesus. This girl was made for me.
Gliding my thumb through the wetness leaking out from around the base of my cock, I move it up and swirl it over her
swollen clit. She shudders and tilts her hips forward and back. Barely any movement at all, but it sets me on fire.
“Okay.” My voice is still raspy. I can barely breathe. I want this to last because I love when she rides me, and the view right
now is fantastic, but I’ve got a few minutes at most before I explode. It’s been too long and I need her too much.
She lifts her hips and I swear I see heaven as she drops them back down. I steady my breathing and focus on her clit, stroking
it and flicking it with my thumb as she rides me.
“I love it when you’re deep like this. It feels so—ah—” She cries out as I thrust up while she drops down. “Fuck,” she
whines.
“Oh, baby. Those noises. Are you close?”
“Yes.” Another whine.
I move my thumb faster. “I need to feel you come again. Need to feel you clench my cock while I fill your pussy. Can you do
that for me?”
“Yes.”
“Such a good girl, baby.”
She rides me harder, and I grab her hip with my other hand, moving with her pace. Our eyes lock, emotion pouring out of us
as we fly toward the edge together.
“Ames, baby. You’re gorgeous. So fucking beautiful. Come for me.”
Her legs shake as she rides me harder, and I shift my hand up, pulling her down toward me. My abs burn as I lift my head to
kiss her, but I barely notice because this new angle allows me deeper, and it’s just what she needs. What we both need.
“Fuck… Miles.” She clenches me hard as she falls apart.
“That’s it, baby,” I groan. “Good girl. My perfect girl.” My abs lock and I moan loudly as I fill her pussy. She milks my cock,
the soft spasms continuing after I’ve finished. She rolls off me onto her side, throwing one leg over mine as she kisses me.
 “I love you,” she whispers, resting her head on my shoulder.
“I love you too.”
We lie together in silence, absolutely spent. I have no idea what time it is other than it’s before lunch, and I already feel like I
could go for a full night of sleep. The last few days have been emotionally exhausting, but in a good way, now that we’re
working through things.
I run my fingers over her back and she nuzzles my neck.
“How are you feeling?” I whisper.
“Grateful,” she says after a moment. “Happy. My heart still hurts. A part of it probably always will, but it’s better than not
feeling anything. The last seven months have been rough, but the beauty in them is irreplaceable, and I want to cherish it more
as I heal. I want to let it help heal me. I want to feel all the vivid, wonderful things, even if that means feeling the pain, too.”
“I’ll feel it all with you. Ride this roller coaster with you.”
“Good. Because you’re the only one I want by my side.”
I tug her closer, kissing her forehead, then a few minutes later, we both drift off to sleep.

Amelia

My computer makes a silly boop-boop-boop noise as I wait, stomach in my throat. Therapy. It’s not a dirty word, but it feels
like one. One I know I need, but that I’m terrified of.
The noise stops as the video call connects.
Why on earth did I think a video call was a good idea? I should’ve chosen a phone call.
Too late now. He’s on the screen.
Smile.
“Hi. Amelia?”
“That’s me.”
God. This is going to be forty-five minutes of pure torture.
“Great. I’m Ken.”
“Hi, Ken.” I put my head in my hands and grumble. “I’m sorry. This feels incredibly awkward.”
He laughs. “Trust me, it’s always a little awkward during the first call, and sometimes after. It takes time to settle into this,
and don’t worry, if for some reason this isn’t a good fit, you can always trade me in with no hard feelings.”
I let out a breath. His easygoing nature is helpful.
“I appreciate that, but I’m going to hope this works because I don’t want to be awash in awkwardness all over again.”
He laughs again and nods. “Understandable. So, should we ease in or jump?”
“I’m a jumper.”
“Okay then. Obviously I read your intake form, but why don’t you tell me a bit about why you decided to start therapy?”
I take a breath and nod, then do my best to succinctly, but clearly, tell the complex path that led me here.
When I’ve finished, he nods in an understanding way. “That’s a lot for anyone. I want to start by saying I’m truly sorry for
your loss. I’ve dealt with the loss of a parent—it’s part of why I became a counselor. Grief is complex. It never really stops.
While saying I like working with situations like this seems strange, I feel the most in my element—like I have the most to
offer.”
“That’s good because I’m going to need it all. Thank you, by the way. I appreciate it. I’m still figuring out how to navigate all
this. Obviously.”
“Is there one place you want to start?”
“I have no idea.”
“Let me rephrase that. If you had a magic wand and could fix one thing right now, what would it be?”
I pause for a moment, thinking that through, trying to find the right words.
“I want to learn how to manage all the trauma and things I haven’t processed so they don’t feel so overwhelming. When I feel
overwhelmed, I shut down.” I stop talking for a minute. That just slipped out, but it’s undeniably true. I’ve known that about
myself in terms of school or work since college. It’s why I always have detailed to-do lists. How did I never realize I feel the
same way emotionally?
“I’m going to encourage you to finish wherever that thought process was or is taking you.”
My eyes snap back to the screen. “I never realized I did that from an emotional standpoint. Rather than just shut down, I shut
people out. I don’t want to keep doing that.”
He nods and we discuss some coping mechanisms—healthy ones as opposed to my unhealthy one of shutting down or trying
to ignore the problem if it feels too overwhelming. He recommends making an emotional to-do list since they work for me in
other ways. Though it’s less to do and more to process, but it makes sense. It’s about breaking what I’m feeling down into more
manageable chunks to hopefully help get me to the primary trigger and allow me to focus on that. It might also help me discover
things about my trauma and triggers that I haven’t put words to yet.
He also suggests journaling as a way to get my thoughts out and help me make sense of them.
“You can even write them to someone if you want. You may find it helpful to write them to your father or mother. It might
make you feel more connected to them.”
“I thought about writing letters to my daughter,” I admit. “Sort of about where I am, but also with advice. Just in case I end up
like my mother.”
“That’s something you’re concerned about?”
“It’s possible the Alzheimer’s is genetic. I’ve considered genetic testing to find out, but it’s not a guarantee. And I’m not
sure… if I want to know.”
He nods thoughtfully. “That might be something else to spend some time thinking of. Making a list. Even a pro-con list might
help you organize your thoughts and help you understand what you truly want and what you can gain—or lose—from that
information. As for writing letters to your daughter, I would say only to do it if it brings you peace. Don’t do it because you feel
like you have to or should. They’ll feel forced. That’s the thing with therapy and coping mechanisms—there’s no right answer.
You have to do what works for you. And often, that means a lot of trial and error and checking in with yourself.”
“I’m ready to do that. Well, I don’t know if I’m ready, but I’m going to do it because I want to have the best possible
relationship with my partner and I want to build a strong connection with my daughter. Both of those things start with me having
a healthy relationship with myself.”
He smiles. “That’s very true. Wanting to do the work is half the battle.”
Tears quickly fill my eyes, but I wipe them away. “Sorry,” I sniff. “That just… reminded me of advice my father gave me
once. Sometimes you have to do hard things or things you don’t enjoy because you want the outcome you’ll get from it.” I know
this won’t be easy. I’ll fight my instincts sometimes, but I want to do this. No, I need to do this for my future with Miles and our
daughter.
“Sounds like he was a smart man.”
“In every way,” I whisper.
“We’re close to the end of our time. Is there anything else you want to discuss tonight?”
I shake my head. “No. Thank you. It’s time for me to dig in and do the work.”
“Good. Well, our appointment is set for the same time next week. We’ll talk more and check in and see where you’re at and
what you need.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Of course. Have a good night.”
“You too.”
The call ends and I lie back against the pillows. My shirt is soaked with stress sweat, but I feel better. Relieved. I like the
idea of listing and journaling, and though I think journaling might be tougher because it’ll bring out more raw emotions, I want
to try it.
I’m glad I matched with that therapist. Originally, I wanted a female, but his calm, easygoing nature was exactly what I
needed. The session was nothing like I expected. I thought we’d be parsing over intimate details of my past, but I’m realizing
how much of therapy is self-work.
I’m surprised at how optimistic I feel, but having the tools to succeed in any situation is key, and I think tonight helped me
find some good ones.
Sitting up again, I close my laptop screen and climb off the bed. I quickly change my sweaty shirt, digging one of Miles’s
cozy old Ida baseball tees from his dresser. They’re soft and never tight on my bump.
I hope Miles’s therapy appointment on Thursday is as helpful as mine was tonight. And I hope the psychiatrist can find a
balance between talk therapy and meds that works for him.
I would never tell him he needs meds, but I think they could benefit him. Even as we were in a better space over the
weekend, his anxiety came through several times. The worst was when we were reading one of the pregnancy books together
and we got to the time after the baby was born and the book talked about SIDS. Miles went deep into an anxiety spiral, trying to
figure out how long we should keep the crib in our room and what type of mattress was best and all the tiny ways we could
possibly prevent that outcome. It took a lot of calming words from me, plenty of talking, and some deep breathing to pull him
out of the spiral, but he’s still on edge about it.
Feeling helpless and unable to protect the people he loves are his biggest triggers, and I think with the baby, it’ll only get
worse, and that’s where I hope meds might help. Otherwise, I’m worried he’ll have an anxiety attack every time he puts her
down to sleep.
I want him to enjoy the time with our daughter and not be riddled with anxiety.
After another long breath in and out, I’m ready to snuggle up with Miles. My phone goes off before I take a step, so I sit back
down and look at it, finding a text from Aaron.
Aaron: This is me casually checking in to make sure you’re still alive. Both of you.
Me: Why wouldn’t we be?
Aaron: Well, none of us have heard from you guys since late Friday night. We figured you were… reconnecting. But
on the off chance there was a Romeo and Juliet sort of situation, I wanted to check in.
Me: Nope. No warring families or taking of potions that could kill us simply because we’re whiny, lovesick teenagers.
God, that entire situation could’ve been avoided if they weren’t so stupid.
Aaron: 16 year olds aren’t known for being intelligent. Looking back… I was a dumbass.
Me: Obviously, since you didn’t realize you were in love with Rae.
Aaron: You didn’t even know us then. You don’t get to pick on us for that.
Me: Oh, I absolutely do. It’s a benefit to being a member of the cult.
Aaron: Fantastic. So things are good there?
Me: Wow, what a smooth subject change. And yes, they’re good. Reconnecting, getting the nursery ready, and some
therapy for me.
Aaron: Good.
Me: *gasp* Are you saying I need therapy?
Aaron: Everyone needs therapy.
Me: So I’m learning. Anyway, thank you for checking in, but I’m going to ghost you now so I can spend some time
with my man.
Aaron: Not sure it counts as ghosting if you tell me, but have a good night. I’d tell you to use protection, but that ship
has sailed.
Me: [middle finger emoji]
Shaking my head, I flick my phone screen off, smiling to myself as I do. I never would’ve predicted the friendship that’s
growing between Aaron and me, but it’s fun, and I’m grateful for it.
Leaving my phone behind, I stroll out to the living room. Miles is working on his laptop on the couch.
“Hey,” I say, walking around the couch.
He smiles and closes his laptop, setting it on the coffee table. He pulls me close and gives me a firm kiss before asking,
“How was it?”
“It was good.” I nestle against him and pull a blanket over us. “Helpful. Not at all what I was expecting.” I tell him about the
session, and it seems to ease some of his fears about therapy.
“I’m glad it helped you. It’s good we’re both doing this.”
“Definitely. We’re going to do the work on ourselves and build our relationship so strong even a nuclear bomb couldn’t
rattle us.”
He laughs and kisses me. “I like the sound of that. Even if it is a little nerve-racking.”
“It’s worth it, though.”
“So fucking worth it, sweetness.”
He kisses me, long and slow, holding his lips against mine and pulling them away millimeter by millimeter.
I let out a content sigh and rest my head on his shoulder, my hand dropping to my stomach. He places his hand over mine.
“She needs a name,” I whisper.
It’s something we decided to wait on until we knew the gender, then once we knew the gender, we wanted to get a better idea
about her energy before we came up with a name, but I’m ready to figure it out now. I’m tired of calling her ‘baby girl’ all the
time. At least here at home, I want to call her a name. I think it’ll help me feel more connected to her.
“Any ideas?”
“Not really.”
“Any special names in your family? Something to honor your mom or dad with?”
“I’ve always loved my mom’s middle name, but I don’t love it for a first name.”
“What is it?”
“Mae.”
He laughs. “No way. Seriously?”
I look up at him. “Yes. Why?”
“That’s my mom’s middle name, too.”
My heart does a little flip at that. “They would’ve been best friends.”
 “I think they still are. My mom adores your mom, and even if your mom’s grasp on who she is varies by the day, she seems to
enjoy her company.”
“She does,” I agree.
“So, we’ve got a middle name, then? Mae? For her grandmothers?”
I look at him through glassy eyes and nod. “Definitely.”
“Still need a first name.”
“Is there anyone in your family you’d like to honor?”
“I mean, we’re honoring Ma with her middle name. There’s no one I’m that close to in my family outside of that. I love my
grandparents, but my grandma’s name is very Korean, and it doesn’t feel like the right name for our daughter.”
“I always loved my dad’s mother’s name, but it’s longer than I’d like.”
“What is it?”
“Emmeline.”
“That’s pretty, but I agree we’d never call her that.”
“Right?” I say with a laugh. “And I refuse to be one of those parents who names their kid one thing but has an intention to call
them something else. It’s weird.”
“Agreed. But playing off that, hypothetically, if we chose Emmeline, what would be the name we shortened it to? We could
use that.”
“Oh, I like that idea. I hadn’t come up with a specific nickname for it though.”
“Emma, Lina, Linnie, Emily, Emme, Emmie—”
“Emmie. Oh my gosh. My grandpa died when I was pretty young, but I just remembered he used to call my grandma that. She
died when I was twelve, and she was the best. She absolutely adored my mom.” Emotion creeps into my throat. “Kind of how
your mom is with me.”
“Emmie Mae,” he says, and my heart flies out of my chest.
“I love that. It’s perfect.” I rub my hand over my stomach. “It’s her.”
Miles leans down and runs his hand over my stomach, talking to our girl. “How do you feel about that? Is your name Emmie
Mae?” Her kick is instantaneous, and he laughs. “Well, I think it’s decided.”
My heart is light, filled with joy that seemed impossible a week ago. Everything is in a fragile balance right now, but the
more I find joy in these happy moments, the less fragile they seem. I like that feeling.
“What are we going to do about a last name?” he asks.
My eyes widen. I don’t really want to use Davis because I hope one day Miles and I will be married, and I may take his
name. Davis-Hyun-Hansen would be a mouthful. I’m not against Hyun-Hansen, but I don’t know.
“I think that’s tomorrow’s problem,” I say with a laugh.
“Agreed, baby mama. I’m exhausted. Bed?”
“Bed.”
He stands and pulls me up, then gives me a kiss so tender, I swear it heals the little cracks in my heart. When he lifts his lips
away, he stares down at me like he’s the luckiest man alive.
He might be.
But I’m the luckiest girl in the world. Actually, that’s our daughter. Emmie.
As I follow him to the bedroom, his hand wrapped around mine, I’m hit with a wave of intense joy and gratitude.
A year ago, I couldn’t have imagined my life going this way, but now I simply can’t imagine another future. This is where I’m
supposed to be. With Miles and our daughter. Our little family.
I can’t wait to meet you, Emmie Mae.
 Chapter Three

Pretty Fucking Awesome

Amelia

“MM, THIS SMELLS PERFECT. Thank you,” I say to Kara as she sets some homemade hot chocolate in front of me.
“Of course. I’m glad to steal you for a little while.”
“It’s been good for me to take a few days off.” We rescheduled our baby appointment for this morning, so I took today off as
well. I’ll check in at work later, and I have a couple things I want to do for AB Construction, but taking some time to breathe
has been important. I take a sip of the hot chocolate and groan in happiness. Miles would be going crazy if he were here. “Mm,
that’s so good.”
“She makes the best hot chocolate,” Katie says, sitting down next to me at Kara’s kitchen counter. She lowers her voice and
leans in toward me. “That’s why I became her friend.”
“Knock it off or I’ll take your hot chocolate away,” Kara says pointedly.
Katie holds up her hands and feigns innocence. Addie and Jameson definitely get their spice from her.
“How are you doing?” Kara asks, leaning over the counter and looking at me.
“Okay. Better ish? I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m spiraling anymore.”
“That’s good,” Katie says. “It’s a starting point.”
“The girls love to say they spiral up. I think I finally understand what they mean.”
“They’re quite a tribe,” Kara says with a laugh. “After we had Rae, I was set that we were only going to have one. I liked
only having to share Charlie with her. But then she started collecting friends, and we met Sarah. Suddenly I had another
daughter and a bunch of surrogate kids, too. All thanks to Rae’s big heart. She’s so much of my mother.”
Katie puts her hand on Kara’s.
“We get to see her in all the girls in your family. I think that will continue,” Katie says, then looks at me. “No doubt we’ll see
your mom in your little girl.”
Kara looks at me. “I know what I’ve gone through and what you’re going through aren’t the same, but I had my own spiral
when my mom passed. I was trying so hard to keep it all together. I didn’t want the girls to see I was struggling, which is silly.
Of course I was going to struggle, but I wanted them to be able to come to me.”
“As they get older, you have to learn how important it is to lean on them,” Katie says. She’s not usually that forceful with me
about what I should or shouldn’t do. Then again, Dani would be. I think Dani and I are a lot like Kara and Katie.
“I’m working on it.” She laughs. “See? Still a work in progress. That never changes.”
“I’m learning that. How did you get through the worst of it after you lost your mom?”
“A lot of tears. My siblings. Katie.” She smiles. “And Charlie. I wouldn’t be who I am without him and his love.”
“You two married young, right?”
“Nineteen. Had Rae at twenty.”
“Wow.”
“And they planned to have her,” Katie teases. “Crazy.”
We all laugh and Kara playfully tries to slide Katie’s mug of cocoa away, but she latches onto it.
“Hey Momma, you here?” Rae calls from the back of the house.
“Kitchen, baby.”
A moment later, Rae appears in the room. “Oh, hey. It’s a party.” She glances at me. “I can come back later.”
 “What are you talking about? Get in here,” Kara says.
Again, Rae looks at me. “I don’t want to intrude on your time with them.”
“She’s your mom,” I say with a laugh.
“I know, but I’ve had her for almost twenty-three years. I can share her.”
“Enough of that,” Katie says, getting up and hugging Rae. “There’s hot cocoa. Sit your cute butt down.”
“Well, okay then.”
“Sure, you listen to her,” Kara says, stepping around the counter to hug her daughter.
Rae throws her thumb up in Katie’s direction. “Have you met her? You don’t cross Katie Hyun-Hansen.”
“Damn straight,” Katie says with a wink.
Rae sits down next to me and Kara slides her a cup of cocoa. “How are you, baby?”
“I’m good. Just finished outreach for the day. Aaron wanted me to have lunch with him later, so I thought I’d hang out here for
a bit and work on some of my master’s stuff rather than drive back up to the farmhouse.” She takes a long sip of her hot
chocolate. “Mm. Chocolate is so much better than my master’s. I know it’s a means to an end, but I just want to be out there
helping people.”
“You’ll get there,” Katie says. “And there’s no reason you can’t start building a business plan now.”
“The hardest part is going to be finding someone to be the clinical supervisor. It’ll take time for Chelsea and I to become
LCSWs, which we’ll need to be.” She sighs. “Which means finding someone who is as passionate as us who doesn’t care how
low their pay will be.”
“I’ll be on the lookout for you. You never know who might be excited to work on something like this with you.”
“I know. I’m a doer. I want to get things done. I hate waiting.”
I laugh out loud. “Same. Totally same.”
“Why can’t we just snap our fingers and fix things?” she says with a laugh.
“Hey, how’s your sister?” Kara asks Rae. “I can barely get her on the phone right now.”
“She’s crazy busy with her program, but it’s good busy. I saw her last night. Well, I see her pretty much every day. Perks of
living on the same property. She’s in her element right now. It’s busy in a way that fulfills her and brings her joy. She’s crazy
happy. Joel’s been busy, so I think all their spare time has been spent together. Texting her is the most effective method of
communication right now.”
“Not surprising,” Kara says. “Your dad has texted with her plenty.”
“Yeah, they have meme wars,” Rae says with a laugh. Then she looks at me. “See, I’m co-opting your time with them.” She
grabs my hand. “Oh, how was your baby appointment today?”
“Great. I’m healthy. She’s growing like a weed. I’m worried she might break me on the way out, but I’m trying not to think
about that.” I bite my lip, then smile, trying to decide how mean I want to be, but… I need some amusement. “We picked a
name.”
Everyone turns to me, waiting for me to elaborate, but I don’t.
“Are you going to tell us?” Katie demands.
I nod. “When she’s born.”
Rae laughs into her hot chocolate as Katie pins me with an intense glare, that up till now I’ve only seen used on Addie and
Jameson.
“You really are becoming one of my daughters.” She points at her head. “Giving me gray hairs.”
Kara snorts. “Please. You have like six gray hairs. I have more, and I’m younger than you.”
Katie sticks her tongue out at Kara.
Rae and I both laugh at that. Their friendship is adorable.
“We want to surprise everyone when she gets here, but given how long we put it off, it felt like a milestone that we finally
picked a name.”
Katie’s still glaring at me. She sighs dramatically. “Fine. But if someone else finds out before me—”
“You’ll cut them?” Rae asks in amusement, then we both laugh.
Katie points a finger at us. “Exactly.”
I’m smiling so big it hurts, but I love it. Though there’s a touch of sadness because I know my mom would be laughing just as
hard at this conversation, I’m filled with joy, and thankful that I have two incredible women in my life who are happy to step in
and give me all the mom love and laughter when I need it.

Miles
 “When was the last time we did this?” Joel asks, sitting down in an oversized chair in Mackenzie’s apartment. He had some
free time this morning, and since I’m not going into work for another hour, the three of us decided to have coffee together while
my mom and Kara stole Amelia for the morning.
“This combo of us? I don’t know. It’s been a while. We’re a rare combination,” I say, sitting down on the couch.
Mackie sits on the other end from me, laughing. “We’re a collector’s edition.”
“Sky, sit,” Joel says to his and Sarah’s dog. He’s a mixed breed, but he’s got a lot of lab in him with longer hair like a golden
retriever.
Sky climbs onto the couch and sits on Mackie’s lap as she happily laughs.
I laugh too as Joel shakes his head. Sky is very well trained, but also thinks he’s a lap dog.
“Hey, he sat,” Mackie says. “Right where I wanted him to. Good boy, Sky.” He licks her face, and she pets him vigorously.
“You’re the crazy aunt who spoils him,” Joel says.
“Just wait till the baby is born.” Mackie grins at me. “I’m going to spoil her rotten. Then give her back.”
“She will be well loved,” I say. Especially if Sky is any indication. He settles on Mackie’s lap.
“I think I might get a dog,” Mackie says. “But I’ll have to take Sky with me when I do so I can ensure they’ll be best friends.”
“I think Sky could get along with any human or animal. Nothing bothers him. Except squirrels,” Joel says, shaking his head.
“Anyway, how are you? And you and Amelia?”
“We’re good. Getting better. I’m… nervous as fuck about my therapy appointment tomorrow.”
“Ah, yes. I’m familiar with that. You’re in the why the fuck did I agree to this? phase,” Joel says.
“Yeah, pretty much. I also started down the rabbit hole looking at medications and side effects. A couple of the meds aren’t
so bad, but all of them have basic side effects like agitation or sleeplessness or low sex drive.” I mutter that last part into my
coffee mug.
“Way to think with your dick,” Mackie says.
Joel side eyes her, then looks at me. “There’s no guarantee you’ll have that or that they’ll put you on meds. Either way, I think
you can work with lessened sex drive if it means your anxiety won’t be as bad.”
I sigh. “Yeah, I know. But… I like who I am. Minus the more extreme anxiety. Call it egotistical, but I’m pretty fucking
awesome, and I don’t want meds to change me.”
“It’s a good thing you’re going to therapy,” Mackie says with a sweet-as-pie smile. I’d smack her, but Sky would get pissed.
“Thanks. Easy for you to say.”
“Excuse me. I went to therapy before the thought even occurred to either of you idiots.”
I turn and gape at her. “What? Why didn’t you ever tell me that? When?”
“When everything blew up with Hyla and me.”
“Seriously? We didn’t even get to hold an intervention or anything,” Joel jokes.
“Yeah. You’re no fun,” I agree.
“Well, at the time, Rae and Aaron were hoarding all the drama. It was easier to keep it to myself. But also, I mostly went
when I was visiting my dad. I did a few video sessions, but then moved on. Once I got past the worst of the stuff between Hyla
and me, I started feeling better.”
“You know we still would’ve supported you, right?” Joel says.
“Yeah. But I don’t know… sometimes I like to do things outside the hive mind.”
“You usually tell me,” I say.
She looks down at Sky and pets his head. He makes a happy huff noise. “I was figuring my shit out then. It was easier to do
without anyone else knowing. Sometimes, on rare occasion, I’m like Rae. And him.” She nods at Joel.
“Which is why we all need therapy,” Joel says with a laugh. He looks back at me. “Try not to stress. That’s sort of the
opposite of the point.”
“I know. Amelia had an online session and was happy with how it went. I think I’ll get there. I always thought I was good at
self-reflection. This stupidly makes me feel like I don’t know myself as well as I thought I did.”
“You are good at self-reflection. This isn’t about you not knowing yourself, it’s about learning how to work with your own
struggles. You’ll get there,” Mackie assures me.
“I’m ready to do the work. I’m just scared of what the work is.”
“Anxiety,” Mackie whispers dramatically.
“Hilarious. Someone tell me something about their life, because I’m done with mine.”
Joel shrugs. “I don’t know. Having a blast in my master’s program. Sarah’s hyped about hers. Despite working long days
between clinical stuff, online classes, and studying, she comes home bouncy and energetic every night. I reap the benefits of
that,” he says with a sly smile. “We’re enjoying living our best lives right now. So in that sense, I’m pretty boring. Macks?”
“I’ve learned boring can be a good thing.” She laughs. “I’m good. Finally said the big ILY to Mari. It’s been a slow burn, but
I’m really happy with her. She’s sweet and supportive. We’ve discussed maybe moving in together. She spends a lot of time
here, anyway, but it’s farther from the school, so we haven’t decided anything yet.”
 “We are getting old and boring, aren’t we?” I say with a laugh.
“You’re having a kid, and I have a feeling she’ll be the first of many in this friend group. If anything, this is the calm before a
storm of loving chaos headed our way,” Joel says.
“Oh, I’ll drink to that,” Mackie says.
We lean over and clink our coffee cups against hers. I take a long sip, looking out the window at the street I grew up on.
Loving chaos was our childhood. It’s barely ended for us, now we’re starting the next generation. Fucking crazy, but exciting at
the same time.

I want to vomit.
Social anxiety is not my form of anxiety. I’m fairly extroverted but enjoy quiet time too. Sitting in a psychiatrist’s waiting
room has my anxiety running around like a kid at a carnival snatching up cotton candy and bingeing it till they puke.
I’m going to puke.
“Miles?”
I stand up and wipe my sweaty palms on my pants as I walk toward the middle-aged woman with brown hair holding a
folder and waiting for me. Her smile is soft and kind and gives me the slightest bit of ease.
“Hi,” I say, because what the fuck else do I say?
She confirms my last name and date of birth, then leads me back to her office. It’s surprisingly bright. I’m not sure why I
always think of psychiatrists’ offices as dreary or dark, but I do. Probably doesn’t help with the stigma around therapy.
“I’m Doctor Pierce,” she says kindly as she sits down in her desk chair. I sit across from her in a plush, oversized chair. Not
a weird couch like I thought there would be. What the hell kind of TV shows and movies did I watch that depicted therapy as a
kid?
“It’s nice to meet you,” I say. Amelia warned me it would be awkward.
“I know it takes some time to get comfortable here. Not in that chair. I picked those because they’re luxurious, and if you’re
going to feel uncomfortable in other ways, you might as well be at peak physical comfort.” I chuckle at that. I like her. She
disarms me in a good way. “I’ve read your file, and it’s your anxiety primarily that brings you in?”
“Yes. It’s something I’ve struggled with most of my life, but usually I could handle it. The last six months or so have been
hard and they’ve brought my anxiety front and center.” I do my best to clearly explain everything that has happened.
“That’s a lot for anyone to deal with in a short amount of time. It’s good that you’ve recognized you need help to work with
your anxiety, especially during this transition.”
“Thank you. I want to be the best partner I can be and I want to be healthy for my daughter. I don’t want her to feel my
anxiety. I don’t want it to negatively impact my experiences with her. Unfortunately, a lot of my anxiety has been around the
pregnancy and health of Amelia and the baby, even though there hasn’t been any cause for concern. It pushes on my trigger
points.”
“Which are?”
“Feeling helpless or like I can’t help or protect the people I love.” I tell her about my mini-breakdown over SIDS this past
weekend. “This is the part where I feel like you should throw meds at me to fix me.”
“First, we’re not here to fix you, so let’s step away from that mindset. Second, I would never prescribe meds and send you
on your way. I always continue seeing my patients when I prescribe medication to make sure it’s helping them and their mental
health. You may be a good candidate for medication to help you manage those bigger spikes in anxiety. But if you’re not
interested in medication, we can wait to discuss that.”
“I am… interested. Just nervous. I read the side effects—”
“Which ones are of the biggest concern to you?”
“Some I saw had aggression and worsened panic attacks as side effects, but I’d assume those wouldn’t be right for me.” I
swallow the lump in my throat. What’s left of my pride, probably. “And I saw almost every kind can have sexual side effects.
I’m sure that sounds shallow—”
“Not at all. It’s a valid concern. Sexual health is important. Especially within a relationship. Here’s the key thing to
remember with medication: just because you take it tomorrow, doesn’t mean you have to take it in a month. We’ll check in. See
what’s working and not. There’s no reason you couldn’t go off it, and you may not need it forever. Sometimes we go through
periods in our lives where we need more help than others. Any medication I start you on will be a very low dose, so the side
effects will hopefully be minimal, but again, we’ll discuss this more as we go on.”
“Thank you,” I say, letting out a rough sigh.
“No thanks needed. This is what I do. What do you do, Miles?”
“I’m a business consultant. Mostly I work with small businesses as they start or grow.”
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
order to make and repair the highways; and by a peculiar irony,
although the great thoroughfares were thus maintained solely at the
peasants' expense, the roads which the peasants really needed, the
cross-roads in agricultural districts, were left to ruin and neglect.
More odious still were the demands of the militia service. Every
unmarried man up to forty years of age could be called upon for this
oppressive duty. No substitution was allowed. Although for the
wealthy the exemptions were innumerable, for the poorest class no
exemption was permitted. Improvident marriages offered the only
means of escape. The approach of the Government's agent was the
signal for panic and disorder, and the miserable villagers fled for
concealment to the woods.
Even more grievous than the Corvée and the militia were the abuses
which pervaded the whole system of taxation. The heaviest of all the
taxes was the terrible burden of the Taille, a direct tax levied
sometimes on property and sometimes on income, falling almost
entirely on the poor—alike on the struggling landowner and on the
landless labourer—assessed without order or method, constantly
varying and constantly increased. Every year in the rural districts
some unfortunate villager was selected to act as collector of the
Taille. He alone had to decide how much each of his neighbours was
worth, and how much he must extort from them to satisfy the
Government, and if his efforts or his calculations failed, his own
property and person were responsible for the amount. The
opportunities for abuse in such a system, for the satisfaction of
personal jealousies and grudges, are as obvious as its unfairness
towards those on whom the office was inflicted. 'The office of
collector,' cried Turgot, 'drives to despair and frequently to ruin all
those on whom it is imposed.' In order to escape the Taille, the
peasant strenuously concealed his savings. If, in spite of his
Government, he prospered, he dared do nothing to give an air of
comfort to his home. We find him in one case entreating his landlord
not to tile the roof of his cottage, because such a sign of prosperity
would mean for him an increase of taxation. It was the object of
every man to seem desperately poor. Then besides the Taille, the
peasant had to pay the accessory taxes, which in process of time
had been assimilated with it; the Poll-tax and the Vingtièmes,
imposts imposed by Louis XIV on all alike, but the weight of which
the powerful classes had contrived to shift on to the shoulders of the
weak; the road-tax, when the Corvées were abolished; the tax of the
franc-fief, whenever he happened to own lands which had once been
the lands of nobles; and always, apart from the demands of the
Exchequer, his seigneur's dues and his pastor's tithe. Statistics may
sometimes be misleading, but an able statistician has calculated,
upon evidence which it is difficult to deny, that, allowing for all these
direct charges, the peasant in many parts of France paid away four-
fifths of his income to the Treasury, the seigneur, and the Church,
and out of every hundred francs he earned, retained little more than
eighteen francs himself[4].
But the record of his troubles did not end there. The Gabelle,
perhaps the most exasperating impost ever devised by an empty
Exchequer, compelled all citizens over seven years of age to
purchase yearly seven pounds of salt from the agents of the State.
But this salt was reserved for cooking and eating alone, and if salt for
any other purpose were needed, the agents of the State had the
right to make its subjects purchase more. The whole system of
indirect taxation was conceived in the same spirit as this monument
of fiscal folly. The face of the country was covered by barriers and
custom-houses, occupied by an army of revenue officers, who
purchased from the Government the right of collecting the customs
and excise. Twelve hundred leagues of artificial frontiers separated
the various provinces of France, impeded trade, and played havoc
with prices. The small vine-growers were almost ruined by the excise
levied upon wine, which even in those days was conspicuous for its
severity and for the inquisitorial practices of those who enforced it.
Calonne declared that the salt tax alone produced every year nearly
four thousand sentences, of imprisonment, flogging, exile and the
galleys. Under such auspices smuggling multiplied, and the
Government retorted by heavy punishments. Bodies of armed
banditti were organised in disturbed districts, and carried on for
years together a guerilla war against the forces of the Crown.
Unemployed labourers and ruined peasants found a livelihood in
swelling the ranks of disaffection, and in the absence of any poor-law
administration, mendicancy and vagabondage rapidly increased.
The records of the last years of the Ancien Régime are consequently
full of evidence of alarming and growing disorder. Townspeople
complained that the beggars, driven from the country, flocked into
the cities for shelter. The Intendants reported to the Council that the
chief highways of the kingdom were infested with dangerous
vagrants. In vain the Government multiplied its corn-laws and
arrests, and endeavoured to stifle the clamours of indigence by
feeding some and by punishing others. In 1767, fifty thousand
beggars were arrested; but in 1777, the numbers of that unfortunate
class had risen to nearly a million and a quarter. In Paris the census
of 1791 declared that out of a population of six hundred and fifty
thousand, over one hundred and eighteen thousand were without the
means of regular subsistence. It is easy to understand how, pressed
by hunger, and pursued by a rigorous penal code, many of these
wandering mendicants crossed the thin line which separates
extreme want from crime, and how, when the Old Monarchy
suddenly collapsed, and when in the search for freedom law was for
the moment lost, this large group of miserable beings, armed with
brief power and long-accumulated hatred, exacted a terrible revenge
for the wrongs of the labouring community in France, from whose
ranks they and their ancestors had been driven by a system
politically and socially unjust.
Such, in the eighteenth century, were some of the conditions of life in
France. Each class lived apart, entrenched in its own chilling
traditions. 'Nobody,' cried Turgot, 'cares for any interest but his own.'
Local patriotism, common intercourse, friendly feeling, no longer
drew men of different ranks together. The sense of citizenship had
generally died out. Below the others the peasant stood alone. His
poverty clung to him as a garment of shame. His commonest
impulses were want and fear. His love of legend made him
superstitious. His ignorance made him credulous, bigoted,
suspicious, easily persuaded to believe in evil. Isolated from the
world, conscious of belonging to an inferior caste, encountering on
all sides the privileges of his masters, and yet with no superior to
care for him and no wise counsellor to guide him, blunted in feeling
by long endurance, gentle, submissive, often gay, but more often
brooding on the indignities which he suffered, and resenting the
injustice even more than the hardship of his lot, he heard and
welcomed with passionate illusion the new doctrine of human
dominion, which proclaimed that men were equal, whatever their
station, whatever their distress, and from that moment the attainment
of equality, so easy to imagine, so hard to approach, became the
commanding ideal of the poor.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] It will be understood that in the Pays d'État, the powers of the
Intendants, as regarded taxation and public works, were limited
and controlled by the rights of the local assemblies.
[2] The expenses of the royal table amounted to nearly three
hundred thousand pounds a year.
[3] I have taken all these figures from M. Taine's Ancien Régime,
and have reduced them roughly to their equivalents in English
money of our own day. I have, however, throughout calculated the
livre at 10d., although Arthur Young puts it as high as 10-1/2d.; so
that the amounts in the text are, if anything, understated.
[4] One part of the taille, that which fell upon the cultivator,
reached the privileged orders indirectly through their farmers, but
even then there were certain exemptions in their favour. The
franc-fief was the tax of one year's revenue levied every twenty
years on non-noble holders of noble lands. The calculation of
income given here I take from the note on the subject contained
in the appendix to M. Taine's volume on the Ancien Régime,
which is founded on the procès-verbaux of the provincial
assemblies. On an income of 100 francs, he estimates the taille
(with its accessories), the poll-tax, and the road-tax together, at
42 fr. 15 c.; the two vingtièmes at 11 fr., the tithe at 14 fr. 28 c.,
and the feudal dues at 14 fr. 28 c.; total 81 fr. 71 c.
 CHAPTER II.
The Last Years of the Ancien Régime.
The decay of the old society was accompanied in France by a decay
of the ideas which were inseparably associated with it, and which,
long kept alive by authoritative sanctions, had exacted, not always
without violence, the reverence of men. As the State had usurped
the control of every department of action, so the Roman Catholic
Church had usurped the control of every department of thought.
Resting serenely upon authority and dogma, it had dictated and
circumscribed the knowledge of its subjects, had directed their
intellectual interests, and had aimed at supplying not only a religion
to govern their conduct, but also a complete theory to govern their
lives. Against this monopoly, and the conceptions on which it was
established, the best minds of the eighteenth century rose in revolt,
and their revolt was celebrated by an outbreak of active and intrepid
thought. Beginning in the mysterious domain of physical science,
with great discoveries in astronomy, chemistry, physics, geology and
mathematics, the new spirit of enquiry spread like a flame to illumine
other topics. Its votaries, rejecting ancient tradition and immemorial
habit, turned with sudden enthusiasm to observation and analysis,
and built up for themselves step by step new systems of knowledge,
based, not on what their teachers taught them, but on positive facts
which they had ascertained and tested for themselves. The vivid
curiosity thus aroused woke in them distrust of all preconceived
notions, banished the reverent awe which had restrained earlier
generations, and broke down the old barriers of belief.
Before long the passion for investigation passed beyond the limits of
physical science, and ranging far afield, entered the domain of
theology, of economics, of politics and social laws. In all fields alike
there appeared the same disposition to repudiate opinions previously
held, to examine afresh, under no restrictions, the principles which
lay at the root of religion and government, the general laws which
regulated human institutions, the origin of existing conceptions of
society and property, of justice and right. Tradition was dethroned,
and reason was set up in its seat, as the only test by which opinions
could be determined, without regard to the subordinate place which
reason fills in the conduct of men. The classical spirit, with its finish,
its artificiality, its limitations, already dominant in France, set its
stamp upon the new philosophy, and afforded the vehicle for
conveying it to the world. In successive generations of polished
intercourse, the French language had acquired extreme nicety and
clearness of expression; it was admirably fitted for criticism, analysis,
argument, definition; and it thus rendered the new ideas at once
popular and lucid. A passion for philosophical discussion took hold of
the educated world, and carried them past the facts which they ought
to have noticed, to theories which seemed more distant and
consequently more profound. All alike began to speculate, to
generalise, to enquire into the meaning of many things, the current
interpretation of which they had determined no longer to accept;
while the necessity, from which all Frenchmen suffer, of never being
dull, encouraged superficiality in the new search for truth, and
checked the close study of history, which alone could have avoided
error.
As the secrets of the universe unfolded, and as men learned how
clear and simple were the laws of physical nature, they determined
that there must be other laws of nature, equally clear and simple, to
explain society and politics; and finding this theory lamentably
contradicted by the confusion of institutions and abuses round them,
they began to assail those institutions and abuses with the audacity
which science gives. Law and religion in their actual forms were so
corrupt that the shocked imagination of these dreamers fell back
upon ideals of natural religion and natural law. Far aloof themselves
from actual politics, untrained by that wisdom of many voices which
free political discussion bestows, dissatisfied with their own political
customs, but disdaining to study thoroughly the political customs of
others and the origin of all, they proceeded to formulate, by the aid of
pure reason, theories which would satisfy their newly roused
emotions, and fit in with some apparently more simple and scientific
formula of life. All those for whom politics in practice were a sealed
book, took refuge in these politics of the imagination, and the political
world in France found itself presently divided into two camps, one
consisting of those who governed, the other of those who
discoursed, the latter perpetually establishing principles, which the
former perpetually broke. A society devoted to letters and to
conversation embraced and disseminated the speculative literature
of the age, and thus the great literary men of the eighteenth century
became in France what politicians sometimes strive to be in happier
lands, the fountains of political inspiration, and the real leaders of
public thought.
Among the pioneers of the new doctrines two men stand out
conspicuously in each half of the century,—Montesquieu and Voltaire
in the first half, Diderot and Rousseau in the second. Montesquieu,
the earliest of the philosophers, was a polished and eminent lawyer,
well versed in history, serious, acute, a profound student of human
institutions, and the master of a terse and pointed style. His writings,
generally speaking, were no mere flights of pert fancy, but the result
of systematised and careful thought, weighty, luminous, moderate in
tone, and scientifically sane. It was Montesquieu, who, in his Lettres
Persanes, initiated the philosophic movement, and unmasked the
batteries of criticism and satire, which for two generations were to
play so effectively upon the foundations of the old monarchy in
France. It was Montesquieu, who, twenty seven years later, when he
produced the great work of his life, the Esprit des Lois, analysed with
clear and wide sagacity the laws which regulate human governments
and customs, and thus destroyed the mysterious prestige which had
never till then been stripped from the ancient institutions of France. It
was Montesquieu, who first exposed those institutions to a ruthless
analysis which they could not stand. But the slow and careful
method, which was Montesquieu's distinction, was less popular with
his successors. It involved too much trouble. It ran the risk, except in
a master's hands, of being dull. The classical spirit, the French
temperament, the love of amusement combined to guide criticism
into an easier groove, and the philosophic movement, without
altogether deserting the studious atmosphere of facts, adopted a
more becoming garment in the exquisite raillery of Voltaire.
Voltaire's life extended long past the middle of the century, and its
closing years were the years of its greatest triumphs. But he yet
belongs to the generation of Montesquieu rather than to that of
Rousseau. Under him, the tone of the new movement altered. It
became lighter, and bolder too. Its reserve vanished. Its intrepidity
increased. It entered every field. It illumined every subject. In verse,
in prose, in history, in drama, in romance, Voltaire assailed traditions,
beliefs, abuses, exposing mercilessly their shortcomings and shifts,
laughing aloud over their absurdities, denying the pretensions which
they boasted, denouncing the iniquities to which they led. Voltaire's
rare and versatile wit, his light touch, his unabashed scepticism, his
brilliant common-sense, appealed irresistibly to the minds of his
countrymen. He made the philosophic movement popular. He
identified it with many errors, and with the gravest faults of taste. But
with it all he taught men to despise many follies and to impeach
many wrongs.
It was Voltaire who gave to the literary movement that decisive tone
of irreligion, which it so long retained. The Church stood in the van of
the opponents whom the philosophers had to encounter, and to
attack the Church, her practice and her creeds, was to Voltaire an
intellectual delight. More than any other institution the Church in
France represented the spirit of tradition, of authority, of submission
to formulas, of reverence for the past. As such, she was certain to
view with alarm the new spirit of independent enquiry. Of all forms of
political power, the political power of the Church was the most
unpopular. She stepped in to support with mysterious sanctions the
civil institutions which many felt were unjust. As the censor of the
Press, she represented the Government at the very point where the
Government and the philosophers came into conflict. Of all the
supports of the old order, she was in many ways the most open to
attack. Consequently, the philosophic movement from the first
brought its forces to bear upon the Church, and Voltaire led the
onslaught with the irreverent vivacity of his nature, and the rich
splendour of his information and literary resource.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the conduct of the
philosophic movement passed to a large extent into younger hands.
In 1751, the first volume of the celebrated Encyclopaedia
concentrated public attention on a group of writers of no common
range and understanding, all inspired with the new spirit, and
combined to carry it into every field of economic, political, and social
action. The Encyclopaedists numbered among them many
distinguished men. On the roll of their contributors we find the names
of Turgot, Rousseau, Buffon, Marmontel. D'Alembert, the
accomplished mathematician, brought to the work his trained
abilities, his admirable style, and the wisdom acquired by a student
during a life spent in frugality and independence. But the greatest of
the staff, the most original in genius, the most reckless in expression,
and the most intense and imaginative in thought, was the brilliant,
perverse, impetuous Diderot, with his extraordinary, magnetic
conversation, his indomitable perseverance, his genuine
consciousness of his own shortcomings, his ardent desire for the
improvement of mankind. It is significant that nearly all the prominent
members of the Enyclopaedic party had been brought up as pupils of
the Jesuits, and unquestionably, as a party, they associated
themselves with a pronounced attack upon the chief tenets of the
Catholic Church. But it is difficult and not very profitable to attempt to
assign definite names of obloquy to the varieties of disbelief within
their ranks, and it is a grave mistake to regard that aspect of their
writings as the most characteristic or important. What gave to the
enterprise its force and success was the fact that it travelled far
beyond the barren conflicts of theology, and brought the new ideas,
the new habit of enquiry and analysis, the new fearlessness of social
comment, and the new humanitarian zeal, to investigating political
and economic phenomena, to preparing the way for practical reform.
The glory of the Encyclopaedists lies not in their contempt for things
holy, but in their hatred of things unjust, in their denunciation of the
trade in slaves, of the inequalities of taxation, of the corruption of
justice, of the wastefulness of wars, in their dreams of social
progress, in their sympathy with the rising empire of industry, which
was beginning to transform the world.
Posterity is more familiar with the defects than with the virtues of this
strange episode in human thought. Its ideals were disfigured by
many faults—by unreality, political ignorance, dangerous license,
violent extremes. In its anxiety to escape from conventions, it relaxed
necessary codes. It made impiety obstreperous. It hastily adopted a
belief in the perfectibility of man, to fill the niche where once had
rested a belief in the perfection of God. In place of the traditions and
systems which it uprooted, it taught its followers to look for guidance
to their own instincts, and to vague aspirations after imaginary
systems of natural law. It planted in the French people an
inextinguishable desire to abolish everything which reminded it of the
past, however much they might suffer in the attempt. Its teaching
seemed to discourage the impulses of virtue, and to offer no
satisfaction for the spiritual needs of man. Helvetius' famous treatise
De l'Esprit laid down, amid much shallow commonplace, the
depressing doctrine that self-interest dictates both the conduct and
the views of men, and that the attainment of pleasure is their only
final aim. Holbach's not less famous Système de la Nature touched
the climax of a century of philosophical commotion, in its passionate
indictment of the vices of kings and the slavery of men, in its direct
demand for revolution, in its remorseless rejection of every form of
faith, in its insistence upon atheism and materialism as the only true
philosophy of life. 'Religious and political errors,' cried Holbach, 'have
changed the universe into a valley of tears.'
Beside the contributors to the Encyclopaedia, and sometimes among
them, were men of different schools of thought, allied with them in
advocating change. Quesnai and Turgot were conspicuous in the
ranks of an eminent sect termed by some Economists, by others
Physiocrats. The Economists shared with Diderot and his colleagues
the zeal for reform, the contempt for the past, the democratic temper
of the times. They were prepared to enforce equality even at the cost
of despotism. They insisted on the subordination of all private rights
to the public interest. They preached the necessity of national
education as the first essential of national prosperity, and urged that
the burden of taxation should be thrown upon the land, which they
regarded as the sole source of wealth. They advocated free trade,
free agriculture, free industry, while they cared little for freedom itself.
Others like Morelly, the author of the Code de la Nature, accepted
the Economist theory of the omnipotence of the State, but added
other theories of their own. Morelly proposed to establish community
of goods and uniformity of all conditions. He denounced the
institution of private property, and he shadowed forth in their earliest
shape many of those suggestions for the readjustment of the world,
which have since assumed the name of Socialism and acquired the
dimensions of a spectre in minds intolerant of change.
But far above the sound of other voices rose the lofty tones and the
sonorous rhetoric of Rousseau. Rousseau disdained the study and
analysis of the past, in which Montesquieu had sought laborious
wisdom. He cared nothing for the diffusion of knowledge and art, of
which Voltaire was the brilliant representative. He hardly understood
the wide, ambitious projects, by which Diderot and Turgot hoped to
benefit humanity. He resented the utilitarian theories of Helvetius. He
hotly denied the material philosophy of the school of Holbach. To
Rousseau's angry discontent with life, study, knowledge, cultivation,
seemed to be only steps in the degradation of man. To his inflamed
vision all society was artificial, all accepted forms of political
organisation were tyranny and abuse. Man, he protested, was
naturally good and just and loving, created by a just and loving God,
until art, the bane of life, invaded his simplicity, tainted his virtue, and
brought him face to face with suffering and sin. Sweep away
therefore, he exhorted his hearers, all the false fabric of society, the
world of ugly want and insolent riches miscalled civilization, the
oppression miscalled order, the error miscalled knowledge! Level its
inequalities, repudiate its learning, break its conventions, shatter its
chains! Let men return to the simplicity of ancient days, to the idyllic
state, when uncorrupted instinct only ruled them, and there once
again, innocent and ignorant, as Nature made them, and guided only
by the 'immortal and celestial voice' of reason, seek the high paths of
felicity of life.
In a generation full of privilege and hardship, and weary of its own
artificial ways, such teaching as this struck a resounding chord. It did
not matter that the teacher reconciled a rather sordid practice with a
gorgeous theory, and was himself too often morbid, egotistical,
unmanly, mean. The disciples, who drank in his doctrines, did not
enquire critically into his motives. They did not ask—and possibly we
have not the right to speculate—whether he assailed society,
because he failed to shine in it, or whether he inveighed against
riches, because he lacked the patient industry to earn them for
himself. They did not know or care whether his quarrel with the
world, his indictment of its usages and laws, his eloquent defence of
human instinct, and his sensuous love for Nature, were or were not
dictated by the feverish longing which possessed the man to follow
every impulse of his mind, and to submit his impulses to no control.
They did not see that the example of a master, who, whatever
shameful faults he might commit, could still maintain that civilization,
and not he, deserved the blame, and could still gravely describe
himself to his friends as one of the best men that he had ever known,
was only too well calculated to enable his disciples to persuade
themselves that they were instruments of virtue, purity and justice,
while they were permitting iniquity and palliating crime. They knew
that his denunciation of oppression coincided with the bitter lessons
which their experience taught. They found that his eloquent words
renewed their self-respect, and raised their ideal of the dignity of
man. They felt that he pleaded the cause of the unfortunate in tones
and with a genius which made the fortunate attend, and that he
brought to that exalted service the widest compassion, the readiest
sympathy, and the most majestic language which the eighteenth
century had heard.
In 1762, Rousseau published one of the most famous, and, in its
consequences, probably one of the most important books ever
written. 'Man was born free,' ran the prologue to the Contrat Social,
—'man was born free, and is everywhere in chains.' In the Contrat
Social Rousseau rejected altogether the historic method—that wise
process of political philosophy, which patiently studies the
circumstances of the past, in order, by the experience so obtained, to
modify and to improve the present. Relying on the unsafe methods
of abstract, a priori speculation, he proceeded to develop, out of his
ardent and imaginative brain, an ideal theory of society, which should
establish by logical and conclusive argument the opinions which his
sentiments had already espoused. The result of the enterprise was
the celebrated doctrine of the Sovereignty of Peoples. The origin of
every human society, argued Rousseau, was this:—At some remote
epoch in the dawn of days, men, living in a state of nature, virtuous,
rational, equal and free, had resolved to enter into an association to
defend the persons and property of all, while every individual in it
remained free. Accordingly, they had formed a Social Compact,
under which each individual had submitted himself to the direction of
the general will, and had been received as an inseparable part of the
whole. The body formed by this Social Compact was the Sovereign.
All citizens who belonged to it—and all did—had an equal share in
the common sovereignty, and were bound to one another by a
fraternal tie. Its sovereignty consisted in the exercise of the general
will, and that sovereignty could not be alienated to any individual or
group, nor could it be divided up into different parts and distributed
among different officials. The will of the sovereign body was
expressed in laws, and every member of it must take his part
personally, and not by delegation, in the making of those laws. If he
delegated that right to representatives, he surrendered his share of
sovereign power. For the sake of convenience, the sovereign body
might delegate to governments certain executive powers for a limited
time; but the sovereign body still retained the right of resuming or
modifying those powers at will, and must from time to time assemble,
in order to enforce its right. When the whole sovereign people was
thus assembled, the power of governments ceased, and all
executive authority was suspended. If any government usurped the
sovereignty, the Social Compact was thereby broken; all citizens
resumed their liberty to act, and might rise in rebellion to assert it.
Lastly, in religion, the sovereign body was entitled to impose a civil
profession of faith, and to compel all its citizens, under penalties of
banishment and death, to believe in the existence of a beneficent
God, in an immortal life, in the reward of the just and the
chastisement of the wicked, in the obligation of the Social Contract
and of the laws.
It is easy in these days to criticise the Contrat Social. The mistaken
idea of compact as the basis of society; the rejection of
representative legislatures, and the insistence on a principle which
could only apply in a miniature State—the personal participation of
every citizen in the making of the laws; the sanction given to the right
of insurrection, when the imaginary compact was broken; the
absence of any method of ascertaining whether the compact were
broken or not;—these are flaws in its argument which will readily
occur. It is easy also to point to certain characteristics which disfigure
it throughout—to its disregard of facts, to its sophistry and
inconsistencies, to the narrow intolerance of its sentimental theology,
to its aloofness from the region of practice, to its reliance on dogma
and on the logic of words. But it is not so easy to appreciate the
extraordinary impression which in those days it produced, or the
enthusiasm aroused in all who looked for liberty, by the fearless
splendour of its phrases, by the fused argument and passion of its
style, by its generous democratic temper, by the spiritual
earnestness which inspired it, by its fine exaltation of patriotism and
freedom. The Contrat Social supplied the text and lit the fire of
revolution. It became the gospel of the Jacobin party, and of that
party Robespierre constituted himself high-priest.
The seed sown by these remarkable writers fell upon fruitful soil. The
years which immediately preceded the outbreak of the Revolution in
France were years of vague but widespread agitation. An
enthusiasm for the natural greatness of man, and a boundless
contempt for the age and society in which he lived, pervaded the
thought of the time. In almost every European country, observers
noticed the same presentiment of impending change, and of a
change which, on behalf of humanity, most people were prepared to
welcome. Thinkers and talkers alike were full of illusions, full of
curiosity, full of unselfishness, full of hope. Outside France, as within
it, everyone plunged into philosophical debate. In the trading cities of
Germany, merchants and manufacturers would gather, after the
day's work, to discuss the condition of the human race. Sovereigns
like Frederick, Catherine, and Joseph affected the secure radicalism
of despots. In Spain, in Portugal, in Tuscany, as well as in England
and France, statesmen echoed the new humanitarian maxims.
Aranda, Pombal and Manfredini exhibited the spirit, and emulated
the reforms, of Turgot and Necker, of Fox and Pitt. The outbreak of
the American Revolution roused the deepest interest in Europe.
Volunteers from France poured over to America, to fight for the
political ideals, about which they had for so long been dreaming, and
the realisation of which in the New World seemed to bring home
conviction to the Old. The tidings of the triumph of the American
colonists were received with acclamation in the roadsteads of
Elsinore. Strangely enough, the feverish unrest of the time produced,
in an age which professed to have undertaken a war against
superstition, a revival of the mysticism of an earlier day. On the eve
of the French Revolution, the best educated classes in Europe were
engrossed by secret societies and brotherhoods, like the Illuminati,
the Swedenborgians, the Mesmerists, the Rosicrucians, dabbling on
all sides in necromancy and occult science, and frequently the dupes
of ridiculous impostors, who, catching the temper of the times,
proposed to effect by charlatanism the regeneration of the world.
This vague perturbation of spirit did not, it is true, penetrate to the
lowest or unlettered class. But in all above that rank it was
conspicuous. The years of the reign of Louis XVI were in France, as
in nearly all parts of Europe, years of national expansion. The trade
of the country was advancing by leaps and bounds, and the
commerce of Bordeaux already exceeded, in the sober judgment of
Arthur Young, that of any English port save London. At the same
time the wealth of the middle classes was increasing with similar
rapidity. Year after year they lent more money to the Government;
and year after year, as they saw the Government wasting it with
reckless profusion, and falling steadily deeper into debt, they ranged
themselves more decidedly in the ranks of opposition, and became
more emphatic in their discontent. The gross mismanagement of the
finances became a matter in which they felt they had a right to
interfere. Their stake in the game of politics made them politicians,
and not only that—it made them reformers too. And thus the growing
wealth of the country tended indirectly to multiply the enemies of the
Court, and to throw on to the side of revolution that important
financial interest, which is generally a stable, sometimes an
obstructive, element in a State.
In other ways also, by the end of the century, in their style of living, in
their education, in their enlightenment, the middle classes had
become the equals of the nobles. They had imbibed the same
philosophy; they had cultivated the same tastes; they contemplated
with the same sublime ignorance of history and politics the
philanthropic ideas of the age; and they resented, even more bitterly
than before, the exclusive and exacting privileges of caste. At the
same time, the nobles, on their side, were losing, under the benign
influence of philosophy, a great deal of the apathetic insolence,
which had made their privileges hateful. The Court of Louis XVI was
very different from that of his predecessors. It was less pompous,
less artificial. The rules of etiquette were relaxed. A better tone
prevailed in its society. The haughtiest nobles opened their doors
freely to lowborn genius. They debated republican theories in their
drawing-rooms. They applauded republican sentiments in the
theatres. They began dimly to realise their public duties, and in a
tentative way to perform them. They awoke to the distress of the
poor about them, and endeavoured to alleviate it with a generous
hand. Some of the nobility proposed to surrender their immunity from
taxation. Others, headed by the King, emancipated the serfs who still
remained on their estates. The Marquis de Mirabeau established a
gratuitous office for the settlement of law-suits. The Duchesse de
Bourbon rose early in the morning, to visit with alms the garrets of
the poor. The Queen laid out a village at the Trianon, where, attired
in a muslin gown and a straw hat, she could fish in the lake and see
her cows milked. The King multiplied his private charities, and, one
severe winter, commanded that all the poor, who came, should be
fed daily in the royal kitchens. On all sides, among the upper classes
of society, the same symptoms showed themselves. Extravagant but
kindhearted sensibility became the mainspring of their actions;
reform was their passion, limitless, radiant hope their creed. 'With no
regret for the past,' says one of their number, looking back from the
sere contemplation of later years on that entrancing morning of his
life,—'with no regret for the past and no apprehensions for the future,
we danced gaily along a carpet of flowers stretched over an abyss.'
The same spirit animated the Government of the time. In spite of his
want of strength, his lamentable irresolution, and his well-intentioned
lethargy of mind, Louis XVI possessed not a few of the qualities in
which good kings excel—a high standard of morality and duty, a
large fund of quiet simplicity and courage, a readiness to listen to the
advice of wiser men, a marked sensitiveness to public opinion, and a
genuine desire to serve his people. Louis had not been long upon
the throne before he gave proof of his benevolent intentions by
appointing to the office of Comptroller-General the greatest practical
reformer of the day. Under Turgot the new spirit penetrated rapidly
into every department. The extravagances of the Court were cut
down. Useful changes were introduced into the system of farming
and collecting the taxes. The Corvées were converted into a regular
impost, from which the privileged classes were not exempt. The
guilds, which monopolised and fettered trade, were suppressed.
Fresh encouragement was offered to agriculture and commerce.
Free trade in corn was established within the kingdom. The minister
talked of commuting feudal dues, and dreamed of abolishing the
inequalities of taxation. A spirit of gentleness and consideration
came over the administration. The Government not only introduced
reforms; it condescended to recommend them to the public, to point
out their necessity, to explain their intention. 'The burden of this
charge,' said the Royal edict which abolished the Corvées, 'falls
solely upon those who possess nothing but the right to toil.' 'The right
to work,' ran the preamble to the edict which suppressed the guilds,
'is the most sacred of all possessions, and every institution which
infringes it, violates the natural rights of man.'
In the same way, Necker, when he succeeded Turgot, appealed for
support to public opinion. He recognised the 'invisible power which
commanded obedience even in the King's palace,' and endeavoured
to justify his policy by publishing an account of the state of the
finances. In the same way, though Turgot and Necker fell, and their
schemes perished with them, the reforming spirit continued to affect
the Government all through Louis' reign. Change after change,
experiment after experiment, attested the readiness of the Crown to
bend before the forces of the time. The measures taken, first of all to
suppress, and afterwards partly to restore the guilds, destroyed the
old relations between employers and workmen, while they did little to
establish a more complete or satisfactory system in their place. And
thus, when the Revolution came, there reigned generally among the
artisans of the great towns a sense of uncertainty and discontent,
which rendered discipline impossible and mischief easy.
Again, only a year before the Revolution, one royal decree
transformed the administration of justice in France; while a year
earlier, in 1787, another bold and memorable measure completed
the reform begun as an experiment some years before, and
established provincial assemblies in all the Pays d'Élection. The
importance of this step, which has been sometimes overlooked
among the graver changes of a later day, can hardly be
exaggerated; for it introduced, almost without warning, a new
principle into the government of the country. By the side of the
autocratic Intendants, new provincial assemblies were created,
which stripped the Intendants of most of their powers, or, if they
resisted, entered into active competition with them. By the side of the
autocratic Sub-Delegates, new district assemblies were formed, to
pursue a similar course of action in a smaller sphere. In place of the
ancient parochial assemblies, and in the midst of the inequalities and
privileges, of which French villages were the familiar scene, and
which in themselves remained unaltered, new, elective, municipal
bodies sprang up to assert democratic methods, among conditions
wholly irreconcilable with democratic ideas. When one considers the
scope of these important changes, their novelty, their
inconsistencies, and the suddenness with which they were made,
one realises something of the confusion and paralysis which they
must have produced in the public service, and one begins to
understand why the agents of the Government proved so powerless,
in spite of their prestige, when they had to face the crisis in 1789. On
the very eve of the Revolution, Louis and his advisers, forgetful of
the salutary maxim that the most dangerous moment for a bad
Government is the moment when it meddles with reform, had
deliberately destroyed the old, despotic, administrative system,
which, at the end of the eighteenth century, formed the only certain
mainstay of the throne.
It is not necessary to linger here over the episodes of Louis' reign.
Turgot and Necker fell in turn; but Necker carried with him from office
a reputation for sound finance, for disinterestedness, and for honest
liberality of opinion, which won for him a name out of all proportion to
his powers. He left behind him a problem of ever-increasing difficulty,
and a deficit alarmingly enlarged by the intervention of France in the
American war. For a time, after the overthrow of Necker, reactionary
influences had their way. The wastefulness of the Treasury
continued. The spectre of reform was for the moment laid. And at the
head of that splendid and light-hearted Court, which combined the
profuse traditions of the Grand Monarque with the gay philanthropy
that was the fashion of the day, and resented all economies as
mean, and radical innovations as thoroughly ill-bred, there stood,
conspicuous in brilliancy and beauty, the figure of the Queen. Wilful
and proud, unthinking and extravagant, intolerant of disagreeable
facts, because she was wholly ignorant of their truth, already widely
calumniated and misjudged, but destined to face far worse
calumnies, which partisanship, in the mask of history, has repeated
since, Marie Antoinette has never ceased to command the interest
and attention of posterity, as her tragic story, and the fall to which her
errors partly led, have never ceased to move its pity and respect. In
1783, Calonne took office as Comptroller-General, and for four
years, encouraged by the favour of the Queen and Court, and
helped by his own surprising agility and resource, Calonne
maintained his place. Money was found at ruinous expense to supply
the necessities of the Government and the rapacious claims of
courtiers. Every day bankruptcy came more distinctly into view. At
last Calonne, unable to carry on his system any longer, fell back
upon a desperate expedient. He summoned, in February, 1787, an
extraordinary assembly of Notables, consisting of nobles, bishops,
magistrates and officials, laid before them frankly the situation of
affairs, and gaily informed them that within the last ten years the
Government had borrowed no less than fifty millions sterling.
It is curious to notice the attitude of this assembly, and the way in
which its action was received by the country. As might be expected,
the Notables, consisting almost entirely of members of the privileged
orders, were not prepared to make large personal sacrifices to save
the state. When Calonne audaciously proposed to them the abolition
of privileges and exemptions, and asked them to submit to a heavy
tax, he fell, amid a storm of reproaches from the courtiers, who
regarded him as a deserter from their ranks. But instead of carrying
popular sympathy with him, Calonne found that his opponents,
although they were resisting reform, had usurped the popularity of
reformers. The Notables adroitly shifted the ground of attack to the
conduct of the Government. They demanded the public accounts.
They censured the acts of the Administration. And simply because
they assailed the Government, and ventured to criticise and oppose
the Crown, they suddenly found themselves, to their own surprise,
transformed into popular heroes, and their conduct and courage
applauded all over the kingdom. The same thing happened after
Calonne's fall. Loménie de Brienne, the Archbishop of Toulouse,
succeeded to Calonne's office, and found himself compelled to take
up many of Calonne's plans. Thereupon the Parlement of Paris
stepped to the front, and following the example of the Notables,
accepted some of the Minister's reforms, and particularly the edict
for the establishment of provincial assemblies, while they rejected
the new taxes, which were an inseparable part of the Government's
scheme. In vain the King threatened and punished the members of
the Parlement. The Parlement, borrowing the language of the times,
and forgetting that they themselves were only a privileged and
exclusive corporation, posed as the representatives of the nation,
and demanded that the States-General should be summoned to
express the national will.
The Government attempted to carry its schemes through with a high
hand. All over the kingdom, the local Parlements, the judicial
magistracy of France, took up the cause of the exiled Parlement of
Paris, echoed its tones, and even threatened dangerous rebellion. In
Dauphiné, in particular, the clergy, nobles, and commons of the
province, gathering at Vizille, and led by the courageous eloquence
of Mounier, protested against the policy of the Minister, and defied
the Crown. The nation, caring little for the rights or wrongs of the
quarrel, but delighted to see the all-powerful Government baffled and
assailed, welcomed the Parlements as national deliverers, and
proclaimed them the champions of popular freedom. For a moment
the strange spectacle offered of the privileged orders in France
defending their privileges, with the enthusiastic support of the nation,
against the Government, which wished to destroy them in the
interests of all. In face of this extraordinary union, the Government
recoiled. Alarmed by the increase of riots and disorder, by the high
price of food, by the disaffection in the army, by the Ministry's total
loss of credit, and by the prospect of bankruptcy in the immediate
future, the King decided to consult the nation. He announced that the
States-General, the ancient, representative Parliament of France,
would again, after the lapse of a century and three-quarters,
assemble to debate the destinies of the kingdom. Then the
popularity of the privileged bodies died as suddenly as it had begun.
In August, 1788, Necker was recalled to office, and a general
outburst of rejoicing celebrated the astonishing surrender of the
Crown.
A wise minister would have endeavoured by prompt and decisive
action to allay the vague excitement of the time. Every day the
feeling of restlessness was spreading in the country. Paris had
become a great debating club. The tension in the public mind was
already extreme. Instead, however, of hurrying on the elections,
instead of showing a resolution to face the crisis with enlightenment
and calmness, the Government hesitated, procrastinated, wavered,
and allowed all the world to see that it had formed no policy, and
hardly knew what its intentions were. The meeting of the States-
General was delayed until the following spring, and in the meantime
the Government stimulated the fever of opinion. All through the
winter of 1788-9, France was flooded with political addresses and
with democratic pamphlets—among which the audacious pamphlet
of the Abbé Sieyès excited general remark—calculated to raise as
high as possible the hopes and pride of the Tiers-État. To add to the
war of words, the Government invited all classes to draw up Cahiers
or petitions of grievances, to be laid before the States-General, when
they met, and thus, by its own action, it focussed the attention of its
subjects on the many abuses which had been borne silently so long.
Moreover, when the important question of the constitution of the new
States-General arose, the Government found it impossible to make
up its mind. In the electoral arrangements, as might be expected
from the innumerable local and personal rights still existing in the
country, there was very great complexity and confusion. But the
general principle, at any rate in the Pays d'Élection, was this. The
nobles and clergy of each Bailliage, as a rule, elected their
representatives directly, though the rule was subject to a good many
exceptions. In the election of the commons, on the other hand, the
voting was in no case direct, but had two, or even three or four
degrees. All Frenchmen over twenty-five, who had paid even the
smallest amount of direct taxes, had votes. They might vote for any
representatives they pleased, for there was no property qualification
for candidates. But they could not vote for them directly. The
electoral assembly of each Bailliage thus consisted of the nobles and
clergy of the Bailliage, and of a number of representatives of the
commons, who had been previously elected by primary assemblies
of voters in the different towns and villages of the Bailliage. When
the electoral assembly of the Bailliage had been formed, the nobles,
the clergy, and the electors of the Tiers-État, who composed it,
separated into three distinct bodies[5], and each order chose a
certain number of deputies to represent it in the States-General at
Versailles. The number of deputies allowed to each Bailliage varied
according to circumstances, but was mainly determined by its
population and wealth.
It was arranged without opposition that the nobles and the clergy in
the States-General should have, according to usage, three hundred
representatives each; but then the difficult question arose, how many
deputies were the Tiers-État to elect. The advocates of democracy
urged, amid enthusiastic applause from the public, that the commons
infinitely out-numbered the other two orders, and ought therefore to
have at least double the number of representatives. On this point
Louis and Necker alike wavered undecided, besieged by the
importunities of the democratic feeling which they had let loose in
France. In vain Necker, in November, 1788, gathered another
assembly of Notables, and tried to shift his responsibility on to them.
The Government at last made up its mind to concession, and
announced that the commons were to have 'the double
representation'—six hundred representatives in the new Parliament.
But the genius of irresolution still dogged its steps. It could not even
then bring itself to decide whether the three orders should sit and
vote in separate Houses, or whether they should all sit in one
Chamber and vote together. The timidest intelligence must have
perceived that, unless the three orders were to vote in one body, the
numerical superiority which the commons had obtained would be
without significance, and the Government's concession to popular
feeling would be merely a delusion. And yet to the last this important
question was left undecided by the Crown, as a fruitful source of
quarrel out of which the troubles of the Revolution might begin. So,
with a Government perplexed by fears, with a local administration
paralysed by a variety of recent changes, with signs of disorder
multiplying upon every side, with innumerable difficulties requiring
settlement, and with the fixed spirit of old traditions vainly attempting
to assimilate the new, the monarchy prepared to meet the
representatives of the nation, who, already flushed with triumph, and
intoxicated with self-confidence and hope, advanced to realise their
long-delayed millennium, and with the aid of freedom and philosophy
to readjust the destinies of France.

FOOTNOTES:
[5] In three cases only, in Langres, Péronne, and Montfort
l'Amaury, the three orders sat and voted together in the electoral
assembly.

CHAPTER III.
The Early Days of the Revolution.
On the 5th May, 1789, the States-General were opened by Louis at
Versailles. From the first the Government betrayed its helplessness,
and its total inability to appreciate the situation. The Commons'
deputies had come to Versailles for the most part with the largest
expectations. They were fully alive to existing evils. They were full of
schemes and ideals of reform. They foresaw, and were willing to
foresee, no obstacles. They were prepared to transform the country;
and they confidently expected, under the guidance of a benevolent
King and of a liberal and experienced Minister, to begin without delay
the work of national regeneration. But from the outset they
encountered a series of checks and disillusionments, which
increased in gravity as time went on. They found that the
Government, instead of taking the lead with vigour, met them with no
definite proposals for reform, and with little but vague philanthropic
intentions over and above its desire to restore the finances. They
found that the King and his advisers had not even made up their
minds as to the constitution of the new Parliament, and could not
bring themselves to decide whether the three orders were to sit and
vote together or apart. They found themselves in an atmosphere
new to most of them, set to do work new to all, conscious in their
own minds that a new era had begun and that they must assert
themselves to mark it, but yet accustomed from immemorial habit to
regard the nobles as their superiors, the King as their master, and
the Government as irresistibly strong.
Accordingly, at first, the attitude of the Commons was one of great
embarrassment. They had as yet no recognised leaders of their own,
and the Ministers, to whom they looked for leadership, were silent
and appeared to be as much perplexed as themselves. On one point
only they were clearly resolved and determined to yield to no
pressure. They insisted that the deputies of the nobles and clergy
should join them, and should form one chamber with themselves. On
their side, the nobles and clergy refused to listen to this innovation.
The Commons steadily rejected a compromise, and on that point the
deadlock arose. Instead of the States-General setting to work to
repair the finances and to carry reforms, six weeks went by,
occupied only with this preliminary quarrel, while all the time the
excitement in Paris and in the country deepened, the conflict of class
interests became more apparent and acute, and the reactionary
courtiers rejoiced at the fiasco and used their influence to widen the
breach. The Commons, growing more confident as they felt their
strength, and as they realised the power of the forces behind them,
held their ground, disregarded the pressure and the innumerable,
little, social slights, to which they were daily exposed at Versailles,
and became more and more pronounced in their policy of self-
assertion; and the Government revealed more strikingly than ever,
alike to the States-General and to the public, its entire lack of
purpose and resolve.
At last, after six weeks of waiting, the Commons took matters into
their own hands, and from that moment events moved fast. On the
17th June, the deputies of the Tiers-État resolved on a momentous
step, and on the motion of Sieyès, constituted themselves alone the
National Assembly of France. The Government, alarmed at this
usurpation of power, determined to reassert its authority and, while
offering a large programme of reform, to insist on the separation of
the three orders. On the 20th, the Commons found themselves
excluded from their hall, and their sittings consequently interrupted;
but they persevered in the policy which they had adopted, and
adjourning simultaneously to the Tennis Court, swore solemnly never
to separate till they had given a constitution to France. On the 23rd,
the King came down in state to the Assembly Hall, and while offering
large concessions, annulled the resolutions of the Commons. But the
Commons, inspired by the courageous words of Mirabeau, rejected
the programme which Louis had laid before them, adhered to their
resolutions, and defied the Crown. Within a few days, the nobles and
the clergy were requested by Louis to abandon the struggle, and the
union of the three orders was complete.
But the Court party bitterly resented the usurpation of the Commons.
The disorder in Paris was increasing fast. Necker held ostentatiously
aloof from his colleagues. The King, distressed and embarrassed,
suffered himself to be persuaded by the haughtier spirits at Court,
helped by the direct influence of the Queen, to make an attempt to
recover the authority which he had allowed to slip from his grasp.
The old Maréchal de Broglie, a veteran of the Seven Years' War, was
summoned to the royal counsels. Great masses of troops, composed
chiefly of Swiss and German regiments in the service of France,
were concentrated, in spite of the protests of the Assembly, around
Paris and Versailles. On the 11th July, Necker and three other
Ministers were dismissed, and their places in the Government filled
by decided adherents of the reactionary party. On the 12th, the news
reached Paris, and the people, scared, famished and indignant,
burst into revolt. On the 14th, that revolt culminated in the decisive
movement which destroyed the Bastille, which shattered the plans of
the Court party, and which completed the triumph of the Revolution
and the humiliation of the Crown.
'With the 14th July,' said a wise and enlightened witness of the time,
'the terror began.' The rising in Paris was the signal for the first
general outbreak of violent disorder in France, which proved that the
distressed classes had taken the law into their own hands, and that
the Government was utterly unable to cope with or control them. The
strongest motive for disorder was unquestionably material want. For
many years past, the condition of the poorer peasants and labourers,
both in the towns and in the country side, had been almost
intolerable, and in 1789, the chronic distress of this large class
reached an acute stage. In 1788, a severe drought had been
followed, on the eve of the harvest, by a hail-storm of extraordinary
violence and extent, which had destroyed the crops for sixty leagues
round Paris. That, in turn, had been followed by the severest winter
known for eighty years, which had completed the ruin which the
drought and the storm had begun. The consequence was that, in the
spring and summer of 1789, the price of bread rose as in a siege,
and on all sides the cry of famine spread. From all parts of France, in
the spring of 1789, came the same alarming rumours of scarcity and
distress. From all parts of France, in the months preceding the
capture of the Bastille, came the same reports of disturbances and
riots occasioned by the want of food. Discontented peasants,
unemployed labourers, rapidly reduced to criminals by hunger,
passed from patient misery to despair, and broke out into resistance.
Compromised or defeated in the country, they took refuge in the
towns; and thus, in April and May, observers noticed that 'frightful
numbers of ill-clad men of sinister appearance,' many of them
foreigners, all more or less destitute and dangerous, were pouring
into Paris, where already bread was exorbitantly dear, and where
already the number of unemployed and paupers bore a dangerous
proportion to the population of the city.
The trouble caused by the scarcity of food was stimulated by another
motive second to it only in importance—the feverish excitement of
political hope. Depressed and ignorant as they were, the labouring
class in France had, nevertheless, grasped the idea that in some
vague way the meeting of the States-General marked an era in their
lives, and was somehow or other destined to ease the intolerable
burden of their lot. With them political freedom and constitutional
reform took the immediate shape of food, work, and relief from
feudalism and taxation. Once the idea had been implanted in them,
their restless anticipations rapidly increased. Every week of delay
rendered them less manageable. Every check experienced by the
Assembly was a spur to their impatience. Every step taken by the
Government to assert its authority or to overawe the reformers filled
them with indignation, suspicion and panic. In the poorer districts of
Paris, and especially in the gardens of the Palais Royal—the
headquarters of Bohemians, idlers, mischief-makers, crowds—the
political excitement of the time found expression in perpetual
demonstrations, not unmixed with rioting and outbreaks. The regular
authorities of the city, unused to the spectacle, looked on, unable to
control it. The police force of Paris under the Ancien Régime was so
small as to be practically useless. The garrison, formed of the
Gardes Françaises, who were responsible for the maintenance of
order, sympathised with the citizens, who spared no hospitality or
flatteries to gain them, and finally, mutinying against their officers,
went over to the popular side. The other regiments in the
neighbourhood showed a marked inclination to follow the example of
the Gardes Françaises. The Government, deserted by its own
agents, drew back; and the spirit of disorder, produced by the desire
for food and the desire for freedom, obtained the mastery of Paris,
and took command of the Revolution too.
The example set by Paris was immediately followed in the provinces.
At Strasbourg, Lyons, Dijon, Troyes, Besançon, Rouen, Caen, all
over the country, spontaneous risings occurred, directed against the
authorities or practices of the Ancien Régime, and often
accompanied by violence and bloodshed. The people, stimulated by
the pressure of famine and by the feverish excitement of the time,
and believing that the hour of their deliverance had come,
determined to deliver themselves. In different places the outbreak
took a hundred different forms. In garrison cities the people, imitating
the Parisians, attacked the nearest fortress or castle, and, as in
Paris, the troops generally fraternised with the assailants. In some
quarters popular indignation was directed against the tax-offices and
custom-houses, in some against the local magistrates, in some
against the tithes, in some against the newly-introduced machinery,
in some against the Jews, in most against corn-dealers and all
concerned in trafficking in grain. In the towns the distressed
workmen rose against the bourgeois, and against the unjust
economic system, which had long rendered their condition
unbearable. In the country districts the peasants rose against the
iniquities of feudalism, and burned the monasteries and châteaux,
where the court-rolls, the records of their hated liabilities, were kept.
No doubt, with the desire to redress abuses there mingled, in the
minds of an ignorant and embittered peasantry, a great deal of
ferocity and crime. In many places indiscriminate war was declared
against all kinds of property, and the outbreak took the form of a
struggle between rich and poor. But the most notable features of the
revolutionary movement were, first, its universality, and secondly, the
powerlessness of the authorities to confront or to suppress it.
Everywhere the agents of the administration collapsed. The
Intendants, the law-courts, the police, completely paralysed,
abdicated or disappeared, and the inhabitants of town and country
alike, recognising the helplessness of the Government, gave way to
an inevitable panic.
The consequence was that the months of July and August were
signalised by a sense of insecurity amounting to terror. The wildest
rumours pervaded the country, and the most extraordinary instances
are found of places where the people, panic-stricken by some vague,
unfounded report of the approach of brigands, who had no existence
out of their imagination, rushed to arms or fled into concealment to
protect themselves against their own alarm. One result of the 'great
fear' was that volunteer forces of citizens, interested in restoring
order, sprang up on all sides, in imitation of the National Guard just
organised in Paris, to which they were destined before long to be
assimilated; and these volunteer forces, though sometimes used by
the bourgeois to repress the movements and to maintain the
subjection of the labouring class, were still invaluable in restoring
peace. Moreover, in place of the authorities of the Ancien Régime,
there sprang up, to exercise the duties of administration, informal
municipal committees composed of electors, which, usurping the
powers abdicated by the Government, rapidly organised themselves,
secured the obedience of their fellow-citizens, and set to work, as
best they could, to reconstruct the administration of the country. The
rapidity and skill with which these municipal committees and their
volunteer forces organised themselves, clearly illustrate the
readiness of the provinces to act on their own initiative and to take
over the responsibilities of the Revolution, and show how completely
the people of France at first kept pace with, if they did not outstrip,
their leaders in Paris and Versailles.
The most obvious and the wisest course for the National Assembly
to adopt, would have been to legalise as rapidly as possible the
changes so suddenly effected, and to set to work without delay to
organise the new administrative system. After the 14th July, the King
had completely surrendered, and the Assembly had only to act in
order to be obeyed. The task before it was, it is true, difficult and
almost endless. It was imperatively necessary to restore order. But it
was also imperatively necessary—and this the Assembly did not see
—to construct, as quickly as it could be done, some form of local
government, to replace the old order which had disappeared. It was
imperative to provide by some means for the necessities of the
revenue, until a permanent financial system could be organised, in
place of the old taxes which people would no longer pay. It was
imperative to take steps to convince, not only the bourgeois and the
peasants, but the distressed artisans in the towns as well, that the
Assembly was alive to the urgent necessities of the moment, had a
real grasp of the situation of affairs, and would do all that could be
done to protect their interests, and to save them from the starvation
which they imminently feared. These were the measures which
Mirabeau urged upon his colleagues, but unfortunately, there were
few men in the Assembly who possessed the gift of practical
statesmanship, which genius, lit by experience, had conferred on
Mirabeau.
The character of that famous Assembly, read in its own day by the
critical but far-seeing eyes of Burke, has excited the wonder of
posterity. Its most notable feature was its want of practical
experience. Among the upper clergy and the nobles, there were, it is
true, certain deputies, who from their position had obtained some
knowledge of affairs, but these men were liable to be distrusted by
their colleagues, because the moderation which their experience
taught them, obviously coincided with their interests. Among the
Commons there were not a dozen men who had held important
administrative posts. There was only one deputy, Malouet, who had
held the great office of Intendant, and was in consequence really
familiar with the working of the old administrative system. The great
majority of the deputies of the Commons consisted of lawyers of little
celebrity, who brought to the Assembly all the facility of expression,
but little of the utilitarian caution, which in England is associated with
their profession. The place of experience, in the case of most
members of the Assembly, was taken by a large imagination, a
boundless optimism, a vast store of philosophic tags and democratic
phrases, a fatal fluency of speech, a fine belief in logic, an academic
disregard of the rude facts of practical existence. Never was any
body of men so much inspired by hope and confidence, so full of
honourable enthusiasm, so convinced of its own ability, or so fixed in
its honest desire, to regenerate the world.
Accordingly, the early history of the Assembly is marked by a series
of strange scenes, only possible in a nation with whom extreme
versatility of temperament takes the place of humour, illustrating the
susceptibility, the emotion, the feverish excitement, the liability of the
whole body to act on the impulse of the moment, regardless of what
the consequences might be. A happy phrase, a witty saying, a burst
of declamation, would carry it off its feet, and settle the fate of a
division. The prodigious quantity of written rhetoric declaimed from
the tribune wasted a prodigious quantity of time, but there was
always an audience ready to applaud it. The debates were
conducted with very little order. The entire absence of method in the
Chamber often frustrated the business-like work done by its
committees. In vain Mirabeau urged his colleagues to adopt the
procedure of the English House of Commons. The French people,
newly emancipated, disdained the example of any other nation. In
the great halls at Paris and Versailles, where the Assembly
successively sat, the process of legislation continued to be attended
by a constant clatter of talk and movement, interrupted by noisy
shouts and gestures, by obstruction and personal abuse, and
aggravated by the presence in the galleries of large numbers of
strangers, whom at first the Assembly welcomed, and whose
turbulence it afterwards vainly attempted to control. The noisy