Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
“No way. In Hell. Am I spending Thanksgiving with them,” Lydia says, then forces her mouth into some imitation of a smile. “I’d rather have forcible manicures every day for a week.”
I shake my head, exhaling as I sink into the living room chair. “God, can you imagine? It’d be like her rehearsal dinner all over again.”
“Oh, be more specific. Are you referring to when my mom started yelling at Adam’s mom because the crystal on the table didn’t match? Or Adam’s dad lecturing us on there being no worthwhile universities west of the Mississippi?”
We both snort at the memory.
“You wearing your CU sweatshirt to breakfast the next day was a nice touch.” Lydia chuckles, then looks at me curiously. “Though, for a second there, it almost seemed like you were going to tell Celia we’d come?”
“What?” I look up at her. “No, I was worried you were going to cave because she put you on the spot—probably on purpose. I was playing into her sentiment, but mostly trying to get her out the door before you agreed to something you didn’t want.”
“Oh.” She considers this, then says, “Thanks.”
In truth, Celia isn’t terrible. Not like their mom. She can be judgy and aloof, but she isn’t overtly hurtful. What’s unbearable when she’s around is the tension between her and Lydia. At least the baby broke some of that up tonight.
Heartthrob thrusts his head into my lap, wagging his tail, seemingly as relieved as we are that they’re gone. But as I ruffle his fur with one hand and we settle into companionable silence, an uneasy stillness seems to creep back in. The house is suddenly too quiet again. Empty. Even with Lydia and Heartthrob here.
I push myself out of the chair. “I’ll um... I’ll go finish up the dishes.”
“They’re done,” Lydia says, following behind me.
I get to the kitchen to find she’s right. Everything’s tidied up and the dishwasher’s running. Even the counters are wiped down. It hardly looks like anyone cooked here tonight. “Oh. Thanks.”
Lydia hovers next to me, and it seems like there’s something else she wants to say. I just wish I could make this cold, vacant feeling go away. I grab Heartthrob’s squeaky octopus toy off the floor and he lights up, racing ahead of me to the back door. “Seems like he could use a little fun after spending all night in detention.”
“That’s fair.” She laughs, but as she moves to follow me outside, I sort of wish she wouldn’t. Which immediately makes me feel worse. And apparently I broadcast the feeling, because she hesitates and holds back.
“I’m just going to catch up on a few things while you two play,” she says.
Equal parts guilt and relief flood through me as I step into the yard alone. I should be pulling Lydia closer, not pushing her away. It was way worse earlier when I was home alone. But I need a second to try and make this feeling go away. This weird, empty stillness wrapping around me like a shroud.
The sun has mostly set, and the crickets start up their evening song, but the patio light illuminates our tiny yard. I launch the octopus into every corner for Heartthrob, sending him diving after it like a puppy while I try to figure out why I don’t want to go back inside.
Things felt almost normal while Celia was here. More than they have since we left for Dallas. But all the awkwardness came flooding back after she left. Which is so odd—it should’ve been the other way around. Was it the distraction of entertaining? Will things be okay if I just make sure we have constant dinner guests?
I throw the octopus again. I felt this way at the office too. So that doesn’t really track.
Eventually, Heartthrob slows his retrievals, and after a few more, finds a good-smelling spot in the grass where he can roll instead. I stand on the little patio watching him, and finally admit the emptiness inside me is just as bad out here by myself.
When I reenter the kitchen, Lydia has changed into her white cotton nightgown and presents me with a mug of tea. She’s made one for each of us, which is surprisingly comforting. A flicker of memory, of my mom doing this for the two of us on lonely nights after my dad died, tries to push its way to the surface. But that seems like a bad direction for my thoughts, so I chase it away with words.
“How did the meeting go with Henry?” I ask, choosing the safest subject I can think of.
Lydia seems surprised when I bring this up, then scrunches her nose and looks away. “He suggested closing Ooh La Pooch or consolidating it within one of the daycares. I told him I’m not eliminating any jobs.”
She leans against the counter, shoulders slumped, looking more defeated than I’ve seen her since before she opened for business six years ago. A pang of guilt twinges in my chest. Maybe I pushed her too hard to bring Henry on as a partner.
“Well, he only owns half of the business,” I say, dropping into a chair. “You get just as much say about what happens.”
She nods, sipping her tea, but seems distracted, like she’s mulling something over. “It’s fine. I just have to do some thinking.”
Her phone lights up on the counter, and when she looks at it, she snickers and holds it up.
Seth
“Nothing is impossible. The word itself says: ‘I’m possible!’”
“Did your brother just quote Audrey Hepburn? ”
I roll my eyes. “Maybe you and Seth should get into motivational coaching.”
She looks at the screen, thumbs clearly ready to fly with a comeback, but then she glances at me and sets it down again. “You never really said why you came home early today.”
My stomach tightens, but I shrug. “I was just having a hard time focusing.”
She considers this a minute, then sets her mug down and steps forward. And though I can see her second-guessing every move, she crosses the few feet to where I’m sitting at the kitchen table and lowers herself onto my lap.
“Maybe you just need the right thing to focus on.”
I hesitate. She’s trying to get something started. Something that, a couple of weeks ago, I would’ve pounced on without hesitation. I’m sure that version of me would be horrified that I haven’t already reached up to touch her. Encourage her. She looks like a fucking cupcake in that nightgown. The swell of her pert breasts peeking out from the low neckline, her long legs parted across my lap. But absolutely nothing stirs inside me. Just a swirl of hollowness.
Ugh, I hate this. And I don’t want her to think it’s her fault. I know how hard she’s trying. How much effort it takes for her to try at all.
“Maybe you’re right.” I set down my mug and bring my hands to her hips. She smiles, looking relieved.
Lydia leans in, laying kisses along my cheek and down my neck, and I close my eyes, trying to focus on the sensation. Just be present. It occurs to me this is actually a battle we’ve talked about her fighting, but it doesn’t seem like the right time to mention that revelation. Because she’s taking hold of my hands and guiding them along her thighs.
I open my eyes just as she touches my palms down on her warm, bare skin and begins to slide them up, until my fingers disappear beneath her cotton hem. Pretty much any straight man’s dream—hands up the skirt of a beautiful blonde straddling him in a nightgown—but even as my hands move along her skin, it feels like something’s chasing after them. Catching up to me.
Lydia thrusts her chest forward, recapturing my attention, and I bury my face in the space between her breasts, hoping to find my oblivion. Her skin is soft, her scent like warm French vanilla—but when I lay my lips on the swell of one breast, I’m as aroused as I would be kissing Aunt Betty.
Somewhat panicked, I refocus where my hands are, squeezing the supple skin of her legs, letting my fingers slide up the last few illicit inches. Lydia catches my eye at the exact moment I realize she isn’t wearing panties. Which is, unfortunately, the same moment I’m forced to admit nothing is going to happen at all. And my hands fall back to my sides.
She freezes when she realizes I’ve withdrawn. “Anton?”
I cover my face with my hands. “I... I’m sorry.”
Neither of us moves for endless seconds. But finally, she rises, dismounting me like a broken saddle. She disappears down the hall, then returns covered up in her bathrobe. I can’t even bring myself to look her in the face.
I keep hoping she’ll say something to make this not horrible. Give some kind of reassurance. Not that it will help. But when she doesn’t, I hear my own voice breaking through the air. “It not your fault.”
She sets the kettle back on the stove and pulls a chair up next to mine. Companionable. Friendly. Just a month ago I would have done anything to redirect that feeling. Take off her clothes, worship her body. Ensure we felt more like a married couple than friends. But right now, I am so grateful she’s still here, next to me. That she didn’t get upset and shut herself in our room, alone.
The way I used to.
“What do you think it is?” she asks. “I mean, obviously you’re grieving. Maybe it’s just too soon.”
“I—I don’t know.” I sigh. “It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with my mom, or even you. It’s just... there.”
“What is?”
I open my mouth to try and explain, but every way I can think to describe it just sounds dumb.
The kettle is heating up, and she rises to prepare more tea, not speaking again for a while.
“When did it start? Just last week?” she asks, dumping out the first mugs. “Is it there all the time, or does it ever go away?”
“I don’t know.” I chew on that for a second. “It definitely started last week, but we were doing all the funeral stuff. It seemed normal to feel bad.”
She nods, re-pouring the water and adding a little sugar.
“Normally, exercise helps with any kind of stress,” I continue. “But a twenty-mile bike ride did nothing for me today.”
Lydia comes around the counter and reclaims the seat next to me, presenting me with a fresh mug of what smells like lemon tea.
“But...” I say, thinking out loud. “I did feel a bit better when I was talking to Seth about moving here.”
“That’s promising.” She considers for a moment. “Has anything else felt like that?”
I’m about to say no, but I pause, realizing there was something else. “Um...” I say, reluctant to bring it up. “I don’t know why, but I felt the best I have all day while Celia and the baby were here.”
A line forms between Lydia’s eyebrows. “Really?”
I shrug, raking my hand through my hair. “See? None of this makes any sense.”
“Maybe it’s just helpful having something different to focus on?” she guesses, holding her mug between her palms.
We sip our tea in silence, and I mull through the whole day again. My interactions with Lydia. Everything that happened at work. Talking to my brother. My sister-in-law and nephew.
“Seth was trying to tell me something.” I scratch my head, wishing I could remember exactly what he’d said. “About us still being a family, or finding what’s missing...”
“Well, he’s right,” Lydia says. “We are a family. And we’ll probably feel even more like one after he gets to Denver.”
“Yeah... I guess. I was mad at him and wasn’t really listening,” I admit. “Now I wish I had.”
A quiet alert sounds on Lydia’s phone. It’s one that goes off every evening that I hardly ever register, reminding her to take a birth control pill. She gets up, walking automatically to the bathroom, as she often does. But tonight, for some reason, this action penetrates my mind. And stays there.
I jump out of my chair and follow. “Lydia, wait. ”
She turns in the bathroom doorway, brows furrowed. “Is something wrong?”
Suddenly, my mind is churning with my brother’s message. With my own at-odds emptiness. And a new feeling I had just this evening, while holding Celia’s newborn. An unexpected, contented... peace.
“What if—” I clear my throat. “What if we had a baby?”
She wrinkles her nose, then gives me the automatic answer we always give when people ask about this. “We will. Someday.”
She continues into the bathroom, opening the medicine cabinet where she keeps the pink plastic compact and its ring of colored pills. But as I watch her take it from the shelf, I’m filled with the most foreign sense of dread.
“No,” I say, circling behind her in the small bathroom so we’re both staring into the mirror. I reach around her waist, gently tugging the belt of her robe until it falls open. I pull the two sides apart and run my hands up the front of her nightgown, snaking over every curve of her body until I reach her full, delicious breasts. I squeeze them together, grinding my fingertips over her nipples through the fabric until her head lolls back against my shoulder and she lets out a gasp. I’m not sure when it happened, but all at once I realize my dick is hard as fuck and I’m completely turned on. I press against her ass so it’s clear she knows it too, and then I whisper in her ear. “I meant, what if we do it now?”
Her breath is ragged, still lost in the touch that finally brought us together, but she catches my eye in the mirror. “Do what?”
I pull her against me so her chest thrusts forward and we can both watch my hands work over her in the reflection. I tug her neckline down to reveal one nipple, then pin her to the sink, grinding against her with my hips, overcome with desire to push inside her. “Make a baby.”
“ What? ” She stops moving, staring at me in the mirror, her forehead set with lines.
I slide the pill case out of her hand and place it on the counter, grazing my lips over her ear. “Let’s grow our family. Now. Tonight.”
She frowns, pulls her gown back up, and turns all the way around in my arms until we’re facing one another. “That’s not a good idea.”
“It’s a great idea. Why not?” I take in her flushed skin and mussed hair, breasts swelling, begging to be touched under her nightdress. And even though I have always found my wife physically beautiful, tonight I see her in a whole new way. She looks... ripe. Fertile. I press my erection against her stomach, aching to slide into her and—fuck— consummate seems like the only word for what I want to do.
But before I can reach down to lift the hem of her nightgown, reveal the naked pussy I know is waiting there for me, Lydia places her hand on my chest and shoves. Then, in the newly created space between us, she grabs the pill dispenser on the counter, punches a tablet through the foil, and swallows it.
“Because, Anton. I don’t want to .”