Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“IT’S NOT… TERRIBLE ,” Vivienne offered, hiding her smile behind one hand.
“Yes it is.” I stared down at myself in my atrocious bathing suit. “I look like a bowling ball that’s melting in all the wrong places.”
“But you’re a floral bowling ball.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure how that makes it any better.”
Vivienne, with her cute cherry red, high waisted bikini, looked adorable. Her blonde locks were pulled into a bun on the top of her head, and the facial had turned her face a becoming pink color.
I, on the other hand, looked like a fashion designer’s nightmare.
Probably a little kid’s nightmare, too. The hideous floral print on my bathing suit straight out of Geriatrics Weekly did nothing for my skin, which had turned an alarming shade of fire engine red after Hattie’s enthusiastic scrubbing.
It sagged in the butt and chest, pulled tight across my tummy, and left literally everything to the imagination.
If Vivienne was the poster woman for a glowing, chic pregnancy, then I was Tweedledum and Tweedledee’s retro cousin they were too ashamed to talk about.
“The good news is, this half of the pool is all ours.”
“Because looking at me makes people go blind,” I muttered.
She laughed, covering the sound with an unconvincing cough. “Well, whatever the reason, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“I don’t really care where I look as long as it isn’t at my reflection.”
I followed her into the pool, praying the Velcro would hold on my belly. Hattie had reassured me that the silicone belly would be fine, though the Velcro might weaken or unclasp when exposed to water. So far, so good. It wasn’t like we’d be swimming laps, anyway.
The water was warm and would otherwise be soothing, if I hadn’t undergone the full-body exfoliation.
Pro tip: do not, under any circumstances if you value your life, shave right before exfoliating.
My legs burned like I’d bathed in Tabasco-sauce-dipped knives. The only bright side to this entire experience after the massage was that they’d given me a hair serum—which I’d stashed in my locker—and this was the best my curls had ever looked.
We came to a stop along the pool wall, where Vivienne leaned back against it with her arms spread to suspend her in the water.
I mirrored her, all too happy to hide my swimsuit in the water as much as possible.
The belly’s band along my back loosened a touch with the motion, and it took every ounce of control I had not to freeze in place or scramble to assess the damage.
“Have you started nesting yet?” Vivienne asked, blissfully oblivious to my belly’s imminent migration. “I think I’ve packed and repacked our hospital bag at least five times.”
My voice squeaked in surprise. “Already?”
I’d been filling my days with research about all things pregnancy while Colt went to his fake job.
Some of what I learned was beautiful and made my heart wrench with the overwhelming desire to experience it for myself, to someday hold my baby in my arms despite the aches and pains I’d endured to bring such a pure soul into this damaged world.
Other things made me grateful I wasn’t at this stage in my life yet.
Nesting was pretty neutral as far as the spectrum of horror to yearning went, but I was pretty sure I’d read that it usually happened a few weeks before birth.
Pink colored Vivienne’s cheeks. She played it off by watching an employee restock the towels on the far wall.
“After you’ve been through so many ‘downs,’ that’s all you come to expect, even when you’re finally ‘up’.
” She placed a hand on her bump, a crease appearing between her blonde brows.
“The good feels temporary, I guess. I can’t help but stress over what might go wrong because, so far, something always has.
Preparing for the inevitable seems the safest option. ”
My vocal cords squeezed painfully, stealing whatever response I might have had.
The guilt I’d shoved down came back with raging force.
I could only imagine the extent of what she’d been through physically and emotionally during her and Charles’ efforts to conceive.
The constant rollercoaster of raised hopes followed by that one thin line on the test crushing her spirit.
Then the next month comes, rinse and repeat.
For years . And that was assuming she’d never seen those two lines before baby Matisse, only to lose them.
Whatever the details of her journey, they clearly hadn’t left her as unscathed as her sunny demeanor led people to believe.
And here I was, inserting myself into her life for the sole purpose of locking her husband away.
If she didn’t know about his nefarious side gig, she’d undergo a cutting betrayal from someone she dearly loved— after the betrayal from her new “friend” Lex Martin .
Then would come the trial, guaranteed to be a lengthy, grueling ordeal.
And if she did know about his crimes… I tried not to think about what would happen then. The prison system in this country was borderline barbaric when it came to incarcerated pregnant people. The thought of putting Vivienne through that shriveled my heart in my chest.
But what choice did I have?
“I can imagine,” I finally ground out, my throat like a vice around each word. “Sorry for asking.”
Vivienne’s head whipped in my direction, her blonde bun flopping dangerously from the motion. Two of the other guests laughed from the hot tub nearby. Vivienne didn’t spare them so much as a glance, her eyes drilling into me under a furrowed brow and her mouth pulled into a frown.
“Nuh-uh,” she chided, jabbing a finger in my direction, “don’t you go walking on eggshells around me because I told you about my infertility, okay?
You didn’t ask any nosy, insensitive questions, not even once.
I chose to share that with you because you’re my friend.
And going through it is lonely . Partly because no one talks about it, and partly because when they do, everyone gets all weird about it. ”
I blinked hard, taken aback by her stern tone. Her confiding in me hadn’t been what made me uncomfortable. It was the guilt. The undeniable truth that I’d be adding to her suffering, and that so much of our friendship was built on lies. But I couldn’t exactly admit that, now, could I?
My stomach twisted. I knew the assignment wouldn’t be easy. But never in my wildest dreams did I think the Greater Good would be the thing to fracture my soul, little by little. Piece by piece.
“I’m sorry,” I squeaked out, my eyes burning with the threat of tears.
And I meant it. I was sorry for what I’d have to do to her, for what her husband had done to put her and me and all of us involved in this position in the first place, and—if my hunch was correct—for the rotten lot life had thrown her and Charles that made him choose this path in the first place.
I was sorry for the lives his drugs had claimed, the families who lost their loved ones to addiction long before their souls departed this earth.
And most of all, I was sorry that I’d come to care about her, and that that wouldn’t— couldn’t —change what had to be done.
All it would do was cost me my soul.
The door to the pool room opened as another guest entered, and I shoved my feelings aside. Boxed up the guilt, the compassion, the hurt. Labelled them. Thrust them into the dark corners of my being. Now that I was hollow and heartless again, there was plenty of space.
I was here for a reason. I knew what I’d signed up for.
“You’re absolutely right,” I continued, my tight voice echoing around the vacant chambers inside me. “How can I be a better friend, especially with this?”
The planes of her face softened, and she leaned her head back against the wall of the pool.
“When I was in the thick of it all, I think the thing that got me most was how everyone would say things to ease their own discomfort. They didn’t try to empathize or agree that it wasn’t fair.
Those who’d let me vent to them would offer unsolicited advice or meaningless platitudes about how” —she made quotation marks in the air with her fingers— “‘your time will come’ or ‘kids are so expensive and so much work anyway’ and how I should ‘enjoy my freedom while I could.’”
I grimaced. Had I ever said anything like that to someone I knew was trying to conceive?
I couldn’t remember, but I hoped not. Now that I’d opened my mind to the possibility of having kids of my own—now that I wanted kids of my own—the thought of wanting it so badly only to get my hopes crushed over and over felt like I’d taken a pickaxe to my chest. And the thought of going through all of that only to have people who couldn’t possibly know all the details of my intimate life dismiss my pain for their own comfort?
I’d rather snort tomato soup.
Vivienne sighed and kicked her feet absently through the water.
“Then there were the ‘you can always adopt’ people, who clearly didn’t know jack squat about the adoption process in this country or the trauma inherent in it.
Charles and I heard everything under the sun, I swear.
And it sucked every single time.” She huffed a laugh, her smirk sharp and ironic.
“It’s still a little strange to me how eager people are to insert themselves into our love life and medical issues the second it pertains to babies. ”
Colleen’s face came to mind, and I wrinkled my nose. For some people, the nosy questions didn’t stop once you were pregnant, either. “No kidding.”