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at any point in the conversation if you’d like.”
    “I can’t,” I said, thrusting her phone back at her. “I can’t do it.” Tears started to form, and I felt like running off to bed, drawing the curtains, and calling it a night at, what? A quarter to eight? I took off my black, plastic-rimmed, cat-eye glasses and rubbed away the tears.
    “Robin,” Sophie comforted, pulling me closer to her on my living room sofa. “If you want I can do it for you.”
    Why would she want to do that? How could she do that? How could one of my best friends call up her ex-boyfriend and tell him that he was going to be the father of her friend’s baby?
    “I can do it,” she repeated. “If you honestly feel that you can’t do this, I can do it for you.”
    The offer was tempting. Very tempting. But could I let her do it? And beyond that, why would Sophie offer? Did she really have the guts to call Brandon up and tell him this?
    “I don’t understand how you could even think of doing this for me,” I said. “Of all people, you seriously would do this? For me?”
    “Robin, listen.” Her voice was still, staid, and her face was glowing with compassion. She took my hands in hers once I’d readjusted my glasses and wiped away the remaining teardrops. “Listen to me. I can’t imagine how difficult this is for you. You’re so brave to carry on like you’re doing. To choose to have this baby and raise it on your own if you have to. It’s very admirable.” She cracked a smile. “And the most important thing through all of this is that your baby is brought into this world showered with love…brought into a happy home. You can and you want to give that to your baby. And you want to give it a good life. The best life you can provide.”
    I nodded. “I do. I really do.”
    “Part of providing your baby with the best life it can have is starting out doing the right thing. It means telling the baby’s father that he’s going to have a child.” She gripped my hands tighter and shook them as she said, “You can do this. And we can do it together if that’s what it takes.”
    “He’s going to hate me,” I said. “He probably won’t even believe me.”
    “Don’t think about that—”
    “I don’t know how you can be so calm about this, Sophie,” I interrupted. “How are you so calm? Why aren’t you mad about this?” I gave a lighthearted guffaw, letting her know that while I was surprised she wasn’t a raving lunatic about the situation, I wanted her to remain calm and supportive.
    Her face turned down slightly, and she looked away to the corner. She seemed to wander somewhere for a moment, before coming back and saying, “Since Pamela died…I guess I’ve been given a new lease on how I look at life. Sounds goofy.” She smiled weakly. “Losing her all of the sudden…it kind of put everything into perspective for me, I suppose you could say. We may not have been the closest of friends or anything. Not like we hung out outside of yoga class, but I still loved her. Still looked up to her. And I still miss her. It’s not easy to all of a sudden lose someone, and when you do you kind of…well, like I said, you kind of see things a little more clearly or positively or something.”
    Pamela, Sophie’s yoga teacher, had suddenly passed away from cancer a few short weeks ago. It was after Pamela’s funeral, in fact, when Sophie unexpectedly showed up on my front doorstep, telling me she was sorry for cutting me out of her life, and that she forgave me for sleeping with Brandon. Pamela’s passing made Sophie realize that life is simply too short to spend it toiling over troubles and matters that can be solved with forgiveness, kindness, an open heart, and an understanding that sometimes mistakes are made. And those mistakes can be forgiven and forgotten.
    “You’ve been given the precious gift of this baby,” Sophie said, “and it doesn’t matter how or why it was conceived. The baby’s here and it deserves