4 - THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
August bled into September, and the mornings grew sharper.
Victoria woke each day to the pale light filtering through the guest room curtains and the familiar roil of nausea that had become her constant companion.
She'd learned to keep saltines in the nightstand drawer—Brock had started buying them, setting the box on the kitchen counter without comment—and she'd learned to eat two or three before her feet touched the floor.
Joey had started reaching for her in the night.
Not every night. Not even most nights. But more often than he had in months, his hand would find her hip in the dark, his fingers tracing the curve of her waist, the swell of her breast.
His touch was tentative—the touch of a man who'd forgotten how to want his wife and was trying to remember.
Victoria would lie still, her breathing carefully even, until his hand retreated and his breathing deepened into sleep.
She always had an excuse ready. Fatigue. Nausea. A headache that wouldn't quit. The pregnancy, she'd say, and Joey would nod and kiss her forehead and tell her to rest, his brown eyes flickering with something she couldn't name.
Tonight was the third time this week.
Joey's hand slid from her waist to her belly—the gentle curve that had begun to push against the waistband of her sweatpants—and rested there. His palm was warm. His thumb traced small circles through the cotton.
"Victoria?" His voice was barely a whisper. "You awake?"
She considered pretending she wasn't. Instead, she said, "Barely."
"I was thinking. About the baby."
"What about the baby?"
"Whether it's a boy or a girl. What they'll look like." His thumb kept moving, drawing patterns on her belly. "I hope they have your eyes. Blue like yours. Not brown like mine."
Victoria's throat tightened. "Brown eyes are nice."
"They're boring. Yours are—you know what someone said to me once? They said your eyes look like the ocean. Like you could drown in them." He laughed softly. "I told them that was the cheesiest thing I'd ever heard. But they weren't wrong."
She turned her head on the pillow. Joey's face was inches from hers, his glasses off, his features softened by the dark.
He looked younger without them. More vulnerable.
The man she'd married four years ago, before the infertility and the treatments and the twenty thousand dollars of debt. Before Brock.
"Go to sleep, Joey."
"I love you. You know that, right?"
"I know."
"Whatever happens. Whatever's wrong. I love you."
She closed her eyes. "Nothing's wrong."
His hand stayed on her belly until his breathing evened out, and Victoria lay awake long after, staring at the ceiling fan's slow rotation, counting the months until March.
—
The distance widened in small increments.
Victoria stopped sitting next to Joey on the couch.
She'd position herself in the armchair instead, a pregnancy book open on her lap, and pretend not to notice the hurt that flickered across his face.
She stopped kissing him goodbye in the mornings—just a wave from the kitchen, a mumbled have a good day that didn't require eye contact.
She stopped undressing in front of him, retreating to the bathroom to change, locking the door behind her.
Joey noticed.
Of course he noticed. He was an accountant—his whole job was noticing discrepancies, things that didn't add up.
But the thing about Joey was that he blamed himself first.
Always had. His low sperm count. His body's failure.
The money they'd spent on IVF. When Victoria pulled away, he didn't suspect betrayal. He suspected his own inadequacy.
"You want to talk about it?" he asked one evening, standing in the doorway of the guest room while Victoria folded laundry on the bed.
"Talk about what?"
"Whatever's going on. You've been—" He paused, searching for the word. "Distant."
"Just tired." She folded one of his t-shirts, the faded band logo crackled with age. "Growing a human is exhausting."
"I know. I know it is. But it feels like more than that." He stepped into the room, his hands shoved in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. "Did I do something wrong? Something I'm not seeing?"
"No, Joey."
"Because if I did, you can tell me. I want to fix it."
"You can't fix it." The words came out sharper than she intended. She softened her voice. "It's not something you can fix. It's just—the hormones. The pregnancy. Dr. Chen said mood swings are normal."
Joey nodded. His brown eyes searched her face, looking for answers she couldn't give. "Okay. Okay, I get it. I'm just—I'm here, okay? Whatever you need. I'm here."
"I know."
He stood there a moment longer, like he was waiting for something.
Then he turned and walked back down the hall, and Victoria listened to his footsteps retreat, listened to the creak of the recliner as he settled in front of the television, listened to the canned laughter of a sitcom that neither of them was watching.
She pressed her palm to her belly. Twelve weeks now.
The size of a lime, according to the pregnancy app, and growing every day.
Brock's child. Brock's gray eyes, maybe, or Brock's strong jaw.
The baby didn't know about the lies. The baby didn't know that its father was a secret, that its grandfather was more than a grandfather, that the man who would call himself dad was its brother.
Victoria folded another shirt. Placed it in the drawer. Shut the drawer harder than necessary.
—
The evening she overheard them, Victoria was coming downstairs for a glass of water.
She'd been nauseous all afternoon—the morning sickness that was supposed to end after the first trimester but hadn't—and her throat was raw from the acid of vomit.
She'd rinsed her mouth in the bathroom sink and was padding down the hallway in her bare feet when she heard Brock's voice from the living room.
"—not unusual. Your mother was the same way when she was pregnant with you."
Joey's voice, quieter: "It's not just mood swings, Dad. It's like she can't stand to be near me. She flinches when I touch her. She won't look at me."
Victoria stopped at the foot of the stairs. The living room was around the corner, out of sight. She pressed her back against the wall and held her breath.
"Son." Brock's voice was measured. The voice of a man who'd spent thirty years talking people down from ledges. "Victoria's body is going through something incredible right now. Hormones, physical changes, the stress of carrying a child. It's a lot. It's more than a lot."
"Then why won't she talk to me?" Joey's voice cracked. "I'm her husband. I'm supposed to be the person she talks to. But every time I try, she shuts me out. I thought—I thought when she got pregnant, things would get better. But they're worse. They're so much worse."
A long pause. Victoria heard the clink of a bottle—beer, probably—and the creak of the recliner.
"I think you need to give her some space," Brock said. "She's pregnant. Her body's not her own right now. And you remember how long you two tried for this baby. The stress of that doesn't just vanish because the test came back positive."
"You think that's what it is? Stress?"
"I think she's been through hell these last few months. You both have. But she's the one carrying the child. She's the one whose body is changing every day. Give her time, Joey. Give her space. She'll come back to you."
The silence stretched. Victoria pressed her palm against the wall, felt her heart hammering in her chest.
"Yeah." Joey's voice was steadier now, calmer. "Yeah, you're probably right. I'm being paranoid."
"You're being a husband who loves his wife. That's not the same thing."
"Thanks, Dad. For listening. For—you know. Everything."
"That's what I'm here for."
Victoria heard the creak of the recliner again, the shuffle of feet, the clasp of hands—a handshake, probably, or one of those half-hugs men exchanged instead of real affection.
She slipped back up the stairs before they could find her, her glass of water forgotten, her throat still burning with bile and guilt.
She sat on the edge of the guest bed. The room was dark except for the lamp on the nightstand, its bulb casting long shadows across Joey's high school trophies.
She stared at them—Most Improved Player, JV Baseball, 2008—and tried to remember who she'd been before all of this.
Before the fertility treatments. Before the move. Before Brock.
A woman who loved her husband. A woman who believed in the future they were building. A woman who would have been horrified by the person she was becoming.
That woman was gone. In her place was someone who listened outside doorways, who hoarded secrets like currency, who loved a man she couldn't have and carried a child who wasn’t her husband’s.
Brock's words echoed in her head. She'll come back to you.
But she wouldn't. She knew that now, with a certainty that settled into her bones like cold water.
She wasn't coming back. She was leaving, eventually, when the time was right.
Leaving Joey. Leaving this house. Taking the baby and building a life with Brock.
The thought should have horrified her. It didn't.
Her phone buzzed with a calendar reminder. Dr. Chen's office, Wednesday at 2:00 PM. The twelve-week ultrasound. The appointment where they'd see the baby's profile, count its fingers and toes, make sure everything was developing on track.
Joey had a conflict. The Henderson audit was in its final week, and his supervisor had made it clear that missing the deadline wasn't an option. He'd apologized three times, his face crumpled with guilt, until Victoria had told him it was fine, really, she'd go alone.
She hadn't planned to ask Brock.
But when she came downstairs the next morning and found him at the kitchen table, coffee mug in hand, gray eyes still soft with sleep, the question slipped out before she could stop it.
"Can you drive me to my appointment Wednesday?"
Brock looked up. "The ultrasound?"
"Joey can't get off work."
The pause was fractional. Half a heartbeat. "What time?"
"Two o'clock."