Chapter 33
Cherry hadn’t planned to invite Russ to Thanksgiving.
They were walking Stevie in the dark. They’d gone to a fundraiser right after work, and Cherry had pushed Russ to leave early—she
kept thinking of Stevie at home, pacing the foyer and watching the door, possibly chewing up paper products.
Stevie missed Tom.
“Having a dog is worse than having a kid,” Russ said, “because a kid will eventually walk themselves.” Russ was shivering.
He was wearing a thin topcoat over a wool suit. He was dressed for commuting.
Cherry knew he was cold—she was cold, too—but she didn’t want to rush Stevie. Cherry felt bad about how often the dog was
alone lately. They stood in front of someone’s house while Stevie sniffed an evergreen bush.
“Your ex didn’t want kids?” Russ asked.
Cherry was surprised by the question—Russ didn’t usually mention Tom outright. Maybe he felt like he needed to know more about
him, in the wake of the Thursday revelation.
Or maybe Russ had been thinking about what Cherry had said, about wanting a baby . . .
“I think he did, actually,” she said.
Russ’s head was down. Very focused on the ground. “Was there a problem?”
“Several,” Cherry said. “But mostly we just couldn’t agree on when to try.”
He looked up at her. “You never tried?”
She shook her head.
Russ looked thoughtful, like he was doing the math. Cherry was thirty-six, and she’d been with Tom for more than a decade.
The ideal time to try for a baby had definitely come and gone.
At first it had been Cherry who wanted to wait. She and Tom didn’t make any money when they met. Daycare would have been crippling.
And having a kid would have slowed Cherry down; she might never have been promoted. Plus it felt like they should spend some
time being together, just the two of them.
Once Cherry was promoted, it was even harder to think about slowing down. She had new responsibilities, new ambitions—and
by then it was clear that she needed to be the one with a stable salary. Tom was constantly on the verge of quitting his job
at the ad agency. She wanted to be in a place where he could quit or take a pay cut, and their family would still be okay.
When they got to that place, and Cherry told Tom she was finally ready to have a baby, or to try—he wasn’t ready anymore.
Maybe Tom never would have been ready, whenever Cherry had called his bluff.
He said he wanted to talk about it more. But Tom didn’t actually want to talk about anything, ever.
He said they should see how they did with a dog. But once they had a dog, he said it was hard to imagine taking care of a
new person on top of Stevie. He’d already started traveling for Thursday. It was the beginning of the end.
Cherry should have gotten pregnant when they met. She should have stopped handing him condoms. She should never have started
taking her temperature and carefully tracking her menstrual cycle.
Now she had nothing but financial stability. Literally. Nothing.
Stevie tugged on her leash.
“I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject,” Russ said.
Cherry huffed out a sad laugh. She let Stevie pull her forward. “Didn’t you?”
“I guess I did . . .”
Cherry looked over at Russ. His face was kind. He looked like he liked her and was trying to figure her out.
She forced herself to shake off some of her bitterness; none of it was about Russ. “It’s okay,” she said. “I think this is
probably a better-sooner-than-later conversation. What about you? Did you plan on only having one kid?”
Russ shook his head. “No, but . . . by the time Liam was old enough for us to try again, it was clear that our marriage was
on thin ice.”
“I’m sorry,” Cherry said.
“Ope,” Russ said, motioning at Stevie. “There she goes.”
Cherry looked at Stevie and sighed. She pulled a plastic baggie out of her pocket. “I can’t believe this is my job.”
He laughed. “For someone whose life revolves around a dog, you are the most reluctant dog owner.”
Cherry was crouching over. “My life doesn’t revolve around a dog!”
“Then why is my nose going numb? Why am I out here, instead of in a warm bed with my warm girlfriend?”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Because my husband wanted a dog instead of a baby!”
Russ barked out a laugh. “Sorry,” he said. “That’s really sad.”
Cherry was standing up again. “I know.”
He kissed her cheek. “You’re cute when you’re pitiful.”
“I must be so adorable, all the time.”
He cocked his head. “Actually you’re unnervingly confident and self-assured most of the time. This is a rare moment.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Fortunately, you’re sexy when you’re confident. So it’s a win-win situation for me.”
“Oh, okay.” Cherry laughed. She wished she wasn’t holding a bag of warm shit. She clicked her tongue and tugged at Stevie’s
leash, turning her toward home.
Russ followed them. He bumped his shoulder against Cherry’s. “I’d have another kid,” he said quietly. “Just for the record.”
Cherry was surprised again. She looked over at him.
He glanced at her, but kept walking. “I didn’t say anything before, when you first brought it up, because I needed to think
about it. Liam’s a lot. And he’s always going to be a lot, I think. But . . . I like being a dad. So. Yeah. I would have another
kid. If I was in a relationship I believed in.”
Cherry felt suddenly tearful. “With someone who liked you this time?”
He smiled at her. “Those are the table stakes.”
She watched their feet hit the pavement. She bumped her shoulder into his arm.
An hour or two later, after Cherry had taken a shower, and then Russ had taken a shower, and they’d climbed into her bed,
and Russ had teased her about wearing a peekaboo bra to bed when he was so fucking tired, and Cherry had crawled under the blanket to suck and kiss and feel glad of him, and Russ had pulled her up to lick her mouth
and call her a vixen, and Russ had looked at her the way men looked at her right before they said “I love you”—Cherry said, “Do you want to spend Thanksgiving with my family?”