Daisy (13 page)
She pushed away from the sink and passed by me, heading into the nursery. The door clicked shut behind her, and I stared into the place where she’d been standing. I didn’t know what to think about what she’d said. I wanted so badly to believe it wasn’t true. And yet, my mother didn’t lie, and there was something about the version of events she’d relayed to me that felt . . . real.
I got ready for bed in a daze and said hello to Lance when he came home around eleven. Mom didn’t come out of her room. Lance went to bed, and I settled onto the couch, staring at the streetlight shining through the miniblinds and thinking over what my mom had said.
I remembered thanking her when I would pick up December from her house after I’d moved out, but did I ever thank them for letting us stay? Did I ever try to make up for the extra burden I’d brought into their home and lives? The more I thought about that time of my life, the more embarrassed I became. I’d treated their help as my right. I’d expected my mother to take care of December just as she took care of my younger siblings. I expected it, took it for granted.
I’d been lying on the couch for half an hour when I heard a door open. I closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep, until I heard the bathroom door close. Then I peeked over the back of the couch. The nursery room door was open; Mom was the one in the bathroom. I feared I’d never get any sleep if I didn’t at least try to chip away at the ball of guilt and shame growing in my stomach. I stood outside the bathroom, waiting for her. The toilet flushed. The sink turned on, then off again. She opened the door, saw me, and then shut off the bathroom light, but not before I saw her red, swollen eyes. She’d been crying. Over me.
“Thank you,” I said. It came out in a gruff whisper. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Thank you for taking care of me and December back then, for letting me come back home and for . . . coming out here now. I . . .” I had to take a breath to keep from crying. “I’m sorry I never properly thanked you before now. I hadn’t realized that I’d been so . . . entitled and unfair.”
“Well, thank you for that,” Mom said, but she wasn’t giving in completely. The walls were back up. “You’re welcome.”
“And I’m sorry,” I said. “For judging you guys so harshly. You deserved better than that.”
She was quiet, and then her soft hand touched my arm. For my mother, any kind of physical touch was a powerful statement. “I love you, Daisy-Day, and I’ve never wanted anything other than your happiness. I’m very sorry you felt that I was in the way of that.”
I shook my head, words failing me. We both stood there in the dark hallway, facing one another and yet not looking each other in the eyes.
“I love you too, Mom,” I said, and wondered if I had ever said that to her before. We weren’t an affectionate family, and we didn’t say things like that often.
She gave my arm a squeeze before dropping her hand. “We’d best get some sleep,” she said. “I’m determined to get that desk into the hall before December gets home tomorrow.”
We said good night before retiring to our beds. I lay facing the window for what felt like a long time.
I love you, Daisy-Day,
kept repeating itself over and over in my mind, and for the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to believe that was true. I was forty-six years old and felt like I still had so much growing up to do.
Paul picked me up at the airport, and the anxiety I’d been feeling all the way from Ohio dissipated long enough for me to fully enjoy the reunion hug and take solace and comfort in the look in his eyes as he smiled at me.
“I missed you,” he said, leaning in to kiss me on the mouth. I could feel how much he’d missed me with the intensity of his kiss and responded in kind. I so wanted to believe everything was going to be okay between us.
I could have stood there forever, just looking into the face of the man I loved. “I missed you too,” I said. What if I told him right now about the baby we’d created?
A car behind him at the curb honked. Paul had parked too close, and the guy couldn’t get out.
Paul gave my hand a squeeze and then opened my door before hurrying to put my bags in the trunk. We pulled into traffic outside LAX and made our way home. I had considered going into work for a few hours since I’d missed four whole days, but I was exhausted and intent on what lay ahead of me.
At home, Paul took my bags in, and I called Stormy—who had just gotten out of school—and updated her on her new nephew. I’d talked to her every day I’d been gone and appreciated how the situation had brought us together. She mentioned she was babysitting for Paige on Saturday night. I experienced a little shudder of memory at the mention of Paige’s name. I didn’t know what to do about that situation but took it as a good sign that she’d still called Stormy to watch her kids. I asked Stormy if she could stop by the house after she finished up.
“Maybe you could stay over that night,” I offered.
“It’ll be late, like eleven,” Stormy said. I took that as proof that Paige was going on a hot date, and it made me sad to think that our budding friendship had come to such a place that she likely would never tell me that type of thing again.
“It’s okay if you come in late. I’ll wait up for you. I need to talk to you about something.” My stomach tightened at saying that out loud. I had crossed the threshold between hoarding my secret and letting it spill out.
“What?” Stormy asked.
“I’d rather discuss it in person. So, can you come over on Friday after you’re done at Paige’s?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
We finished the phone call, and I let out a breath, hoping that I could make it through the rest of the week. I put my phone on the counter and headed toward the bedroom, where my suitcase and husband had disappeared to. I thought back to the time I’d spent with my mom in Ohio. It had been different from any other interaction I could remember having with her, and I felt a soft spot inside me grow a little at the new perspective. The words she’d said when I vented about Church and God still rang in my head.
Church can help us find God, and then help us stay close to Him. It’s a vehicle, Daisy, not a destination in and of itself.
I reflected on the things Athena had said about her mother and what she’d learned since the funeral. Maybe there was time for me to do better, to be a little more lovable.
The sound of running water broke into my thoughts. Paul came out of the master bathroom, a satisfied smile on his face. “I’m running you a bath,” he said, crossing the room to me. “And while you unwind, I’ll throw together some dinner. Sound good?”
I put my arms around his neck and nearly asked him to join me in the bath before I realized that would be pushing the inevitable conversation way up, and I wasn’t ready for that. I needed this evening—this reminder of all the good things we had together—to help prepare the foundation I would need to build on later tonight.
“You are adorable,” I said.
He smiled, kissed me again, and closed the bedroom door behind him as he headed for the kitchen.
The bath was wonderful. I gathered my hair on top of my head and clipped it in place before undressing. The smell of the lavender bubble bath Paul had thought to add wrapped around me as I slid into the water. It was hot. Too hot? Just in case, I adjusted the temperature of the water still streaming from the faucet—one of so many accommodations I was going to have to make in the coming months. I took a deep breath and looked down to see my belly poking up just above the water. I stared at the curve for a long time, trying to hold on to the realizations I’d had at the hospital, trying to remember the excitement I’d felt amid the fear.
When the water began to cool and my nerves began to tighten, I got out, dried off, and looked at myself full on in the mirror. I wasn’t going to be able to hide this much longer; it was time to stop trying. I pulled my silk robe off the hook and put it on. It was impossible to tie the thin fabric in a way that disguised my belly, so I didn’t even try, simply tying the sash above the mound which, again, made the truth inescapable. I fixed my hair so that it looked casually undone, but still flattering, and began adjusting my makeup before realizing I was stalling.
When I entered the kitchen, the smell of salmon was heavy in the air, and I remembered the last time Paul had cooked it—and I hadn’t been able to eat it. Now I knew why. Soon he would too. I was glad the nausea had passed so I could enjoy the food this time.
He turned from the stove, and I caught the look that went from my face to my body, then back to my face. He wouldn’t know what to think of it—he didn’t have enough information to draw the right conclusion—but it had caught his attention.
I drew a shaky breath, but I couldn’t say the words yet. I slid into a kitchen chair. A moment later, he set down a plate with a large piece of blackened salmon and some steamed squash.
I smiled up at him. “This is wonderful,” I said as he sat down across from me.
“You haven’t even tried it yet,” he said, picking up his fork, but his manner was reserved. Were the pieces coming together for him?
I cut myself a bite and tried to calm my nerves. It tasted as good as I knew it would, and we ate in silence for a few minutes. I focused intently on the flavors and textures, truly putting myself into every detail of this moment as I prepared for the moments that would follow.
The fact that he didn’t ask me about the trip, or start any kind of conversation made me even more anxious. Finally, I put down my fork. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
He raised his eyebrows and placed a bite of fish in his mouth.
“Um, it’s . . . not a conversation we ever expected to have.”
Flashes of memory spun through my mind. Me sitting on the hood of Scott’s truck, almost thirty years ago, crying about how my parents were going to kill me, begging him to marry me and make this all better.
Ten years later, knocking on the door of Jared’s apartment while December waited in the car. As soon as he opened it, I blurted the whole thing out. I didn’t cry that time, just stared at him with a “What are you going to do about it?” expression.
Calling Jared on the phone at work to tell him that, surprise, the very thing that had brought us together was happening again and we
had
to give our marriage another chance. Two weeks later I put a note on his car that said never mind, I wasn’t pregnant anymore. Go ahead and move forward with your attorney.
“Sounds serious,” Paul said, bringing me back to
this
moment I felt I had lived too many times already. But Paul wasn’t Scott or Jared. He was Paul, and I loved him. We were good together.
“It’s serious,” I said. “But in a good way, I hope.”
He put down his fork and braced his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his knuckles and looking at me with those intent blue eyes of his.
“Remember when we were first together and talking about our children?”
He nodded.
“And I asked you if you wanted any more, and you said not really?”
He nodded again, but his eyebrows pulled together. Apparently my belly hadn’t given me away, and the idea that I could be pregnant was so far off his radar it wasn’t even a possible direction of this conversation. I took a breath and pushed forward, needing to get through this.
“And I said that was good, because I had taken steps to ensure I wouldn’t have any more.”
He nodded a third time, still trying to anticipate.
“Something went wrong.”
Silence hung as heavy as the smell of salmon in the air.
“What do you mean, something went wrong?”
“I’ve always thought getting my tubes tied was a for-sure, no-way, never-gonna-happen procedure that guaranteed I would never get pregnant again.”
He said nothing, did nothing. He just stared at me.
“Something went wrong,” I said again. I took a deep breath and felt the emotion rise in my chest. The rest of the words tumbled out in an ungainly heap. “I’m pregnant, Paul. I didn’t mean for it to happen, I didn’t think it
could
happen, but it did, and I tried to ignore the signs for a long time, but I finally took a test—well, three tests—and they were all positive. I think I’m sixteen or seventeen weeks into this and . . . yeah.”
He blinked at me, then sat up straight in his chair. “You’re pregnant,” he repeated. His tone was completely even and dangerously calm.
I nodded and picked up my napkin to wipe at my eyes. I willed him to take my hand, or come around the table and lay his head on my belly. I needed him to tell me that everything was okay, that
we
were okay, that we were in this together, and that, above all, he loved me. He just sat there. I looked into my lap and continued wiping at my eyes, waiting, silently pleading that he would save me from this awful feeling of the unknown. I heard the legs of his chair scrape against the tile, and I looked up to see him standing. He didn’t meet my eye as he left the table. He didn’t come to my side.
“Paul?”
He didn’t answer me. Instead he disappeared into the master bedroom. I was on my feet and heading in his direction when he came back out, keys in hand. The panic set in.
“You’re leaving?”
He didn’t say anything, just looked at my belly, then walked past me toward the garage.
I followed him, and the first sob broke. “You’re leaving me!”
“I’m going out,” he said.
“Now?” I cried, tears coursing down my cheeks. “We need to talk about this. We need to—”
He pulled open the door, stepped into the garage, gave me a cold look, and slammed it in my face.