Chapter 15
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
MIRABETH
“If I could, I would’ve taken a shot or two or five before we left the apartment,” I tell Conrad during our walk across the field.
He adjusts our two new camping chair carriers over his shoulder, squeezing my hand. “Me too.”
I eye the crowds gathered around each of the four fenced baseball diamonds. “How long do these games typically last?”
If I have to meet and chit-chat with any more new people, I’m going to lose my dinner.
I drag my feet, causing Conrad to slow down to match my pace.
It’s not that I don’t want to see his nephew play, but knowing Tripp, Brad, and Alisa will be there sucks what little energy I have left after fighting and making up.
Plus, I’m embarrassed about the conclusions I jumped to about Alisa.
I’ll never tell her that I thought she was a bottom-feeding hoe for hitting on a married man, but I sure do feel guilty for it. Kinda.
“Longer than you want. That’s what the snacks are for,” Conrad says, nodding to the insulated lunchbox of the safely stored peach cobbler and hand-whipped cream he made for dessert.
I make a face since I don’t even want to think about food for the next week after Conrad stuffed me full of homemade chicken and dumpling soup, even though I told him eating for two is a myth—or at least that’s what it said on the What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Felon’s Baby website that I read when curiosity had gotten the better of me.
Brad’s jaw tightens the same way Tripp’s does when we join the family at the farthest diamond from the street where we parked in front of Conrad’s parents’ house.
Sondra hops up and pulls Conrad and me into a group hug, smothering me with her big hair, while Alisa waves from over Sondra’s shoulder, helping to set up our camping chairs beside theirs.
When Alisa tries to sit in the middle, Brad motions her to the farthest chair from us on the left and takes her seat instead.
He ignores the questioning look she gives him.
“Dad,” Conrad says, giving a chin nod to his turd-muffin father, who barely murmurs back a greeting.
Sondra sighs and pulls us down into our chairs on the right, offering up a selection of chips and dip she’d brought.
“Thank you, but no. I’m so full, I can barely breathe,” I say, the scent of hot dogs and popcorn in the air already churning my stomach.
I pinch the front of Conrad’s three-sizes-too-big, green, button-down jersey from his high school baseball days to pull it away from my torso.
Discreetly, I slip a hand underneath to roll down the tight waistband of my white bike shorts so it’s no longer digging into my waist, and I rub my stomach with relief.
It was much to Conrad’s delight to once more pick out my clothes, and his eyes had turned watery again as soon as I was dressed and had given him a little spin.
Sondra’s eyes light up when Conrad scoots his chair closer and lays his hand atop mine.
The smirk he sports beneath his ball cap is prideful for what he’s done to me, and he’s been especially smug since he pulled the plastic tote of baby clothes from beneath the bed and cleared a drawer for them in our “closet” while I ate dinner.
With so little space available, we’ll have to discuss moving into a bigger place before the baby comes, but we have plenty of time for that later.
Alisa leans forward to peer past her husband. “I’m glad y’all could make it.”
“Interesting shoes you’ve got there,” Conrad says in greeting, keeping his hand where it is on my stomach, giving Alisa a stink face to let her know what he really thinks of them—or at least pretending to think.
Alisa frowns, looking down at her popular brand of white sneakers.
I feel bad enough about my immature response to his promise of being mean to her that I silently shake my head at Conrad so he won’t go so far as to say anything about her recently highlighted hair that’s pulled back in a big, wavy ponytail.
Brad shoots up out of his chair, clapping his hands encouragingly when it’s Drew’s turn to bat. “Let’s go, O’Byrne! Keep your eye on the ball!”
The t-ball lands on the hard-packed dirt with a thud on Drew’s first swing, the lightweight bat just barely making contact with the top of it hard enough to knock it off the fixed stand.
Some of the nearby parents groan and grumble unhappily, shooting our group a few scowls, when Drew completely misses the ball on his second swing.
“Nice try, nice try!” Brad threads his fingers through the tall chain link fence, pressing his face against it, and shouts, “Feet wider than your shoulders, son, just like we practiced! You’ve got this!”
Twisting his little face up with concentration beneath his large, maroon helmet, Drew sticks out his tongue and takes his third and final swing.
You’d think he’d just knocked it out of the park with the way Brad pumps his fists in the air when the ball slowly rolls down the foul line and out of bounds four feet away.
“That’s my boy!” Brad yells, then sniffles and thumbs his nose. “The next Nolan Ryan!”
I’ll admit, I get a little swept up in the moment and follow the rest of my in-laws out of their chairs toward the fence, even letting out a small hoot while clapping my hands when Drew jumps up and down with excitement on his way back to the dugout, having struck out.
I even get a little teary when Conrad curls me under his arm and says, “In a few years, that’ll be our son or daughter up there.”
Though he’d said it quietly with his lips pressed to my temple, his hand snaking back to my stomach, Sondra’s eyes go even wider behind her glasses.
She skip-hops back to her chair, pulling her phone from a side pocket, then scurries off with it held to her ear, looking back over her shoulder from time to time.
What an odd duck.
The whole family is. My family.
When Alisa approaches Brad with a wide smile, lifting her arms for a hug, Brad turns away and hugs his father instead.
Tripp’s features have softened with pride for his grandson.
I’ve never seen so much emotion from either of the two men—though, to be fair, I’ve only met them twice.
Alisa sucks in her cheeks and tries again, finally settling for rubbing Brad’s back, before slumping in her chair silently, confused and crestfallen, until it’s Drew’s turn to bat again.
As draining as it is to sit out in the evening heat and humidity beneath the still blazing sun, plied with cobbler until I’m about to burst, the noise reaching an ear-splitting level when one of the t-ballers actually hits the ball hard and far enough away that she’s able to make it to the first and then second base, I find myself enjoying the game.
More so, I enjoy Conrad’s big, warm, thankfully healed hand stroking up and down my bare thigh.
The icy silence from Conrad’s brother and father, not so much, but I do my best to ignore them as much as they ignore us.
At the end of the game, which Drew’s team lost by double-digits, our strange, strained little family makes our way across the field and street to Conrad’s parents’ house for a pit stop at the restroom before Conrad and I head home.
“Oh, I was hoping y’all would stay for a bit,” Sondra says, waving us away from the front door to sit at the dining table while the family digs into a post-game treat of root beer floats and popsicles.
She hums and sits on the edge of her chair beside me, her smile growing broader by the minute, darting a look past me to the front door.
I nearly knock over my float that I’ve only barely sipped from when the front door opens with a crack against the wall. Sondra lights out of her chair, and high-pitched squeals ensue as Sondra and the new guest hold hands and jump around in a circle.
Before I can pick my jaw up off the floor, another woman, younger this time but with Sondra’s fiery hair, sprints inside the house, out of breath. “Got stuck in traffic. Tell me they haven’t left already.”
I push away from the table to stand, the same as Conrad does.
“Bridget!” Conrad laughs heartily and picks up his older sister, spinning her around while she hugs him tight around the neck. “How the hell have you been?”
Now there’s a proper greeting from a sibling you’ve only occasionally seen over the past five years. I hope my kids are like that with each other.
“Put me down, put me down. I want to meet her,” Bridget says, knuckling Conrad’s hair, standing as tall as her brother.
“Me first! I need to see my babygirl,” Mom says, dodging the siblings with the kind of smile on her face that I haven’t seen since Dad passed.
I immediately burst into tears—my new MO; they just keep coming out of me—and cover my face with my hands.
“Oh honey, oh sweetie, I know, I know,” Mom says, wrapping her arms around me, rubbing my back.
“You tricked me,” I choke out, probably snotting all over her vibrant pink tank top. Good.
“I know!” she exclaims happily with a laugh.
I curl my hands under her arms to hug her around the middle, needing her no matter how mad I am. “You left me!”
She strokes my hair. “Hmm, that, well, ok—that I am sorry for, but it was a necessary evil.”
“How?” I step away and turn my back, taking comfort in Conrad’s arms instead. “Why?”
“That,” she says, joined by Sondra as they bump shoulders with a shared grin.
“What?” I ask.
“That.” Mom points at us, and Sondra giggles.
“You need to use more than one word, cavewoman,” I say grumpily.
Mom clicks her tongue with a playful huff. “I left so you two would get to know each other. Otherwise, you’d have hidden out at the house instead of giving Conrad a chance and falling in love with your husband.”
All very true.
“Then I have you to thank, Nurse Perkins,” Conrad says, reaching past me to shake Mom’s hand.
“You can call me ‘Mom’ or ‘Kyra’ now that you’re no longer my patient.” Mom bobs her head side to side twice. “Well, I’d let you, even if you still were.”
My jaw hits the floor again. “Wait, you two know each other too?”
“Of course we do!” she says, like it should have been obvious. “How else do you think I was able to pick the right inmate for my babygirl?”
I blink. “So Conrad wasn’t randomly-assigned to me?”
Mom tuts. “As if I’d let you marry some random man. Pshaw.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’ve met?” I ask Conrad with an accusatory tone.
He shrugs. “I figured you knew.”
Dangit. I should have.
“See? I knew it,” Tripp says from the head of the table, having remained seated. “No parent in their right mind would allow their kid to marry some random criminal.”
Bridget bursts out laughing, crossing the dining room in her sleek, wide-legged slacks and pointy red heels that match her shiny lipstick. “Try and stop me. Hi, Daddy,” she says, bending and giving Tripp a kiss on his cheek.
“I will. No child—uh, second child—of mine is signing up for this hairbrained, jailhouse marriage idea. I will not allow it,” Tripp says, his face turning red as his speech grows louder.
“I guess this is a bad time to tell you I was arrested last week for punching a guy who pinched my friend’s butt.” Bridget cocks a hip and sets her hand on it while Tripp sputters at her confession. “And that hairbrained idea was mine.”
“And mine!” Mom adds.
“How the fudge do y’all know each other?” I ask, looking back and forth.
“Mom introduced us during my first visit with Conrad,” Bridget says.
“Now, we’re besties.” She slides a chair out to position it beside her father’s, sitting down and slinging an arm over Tripp’s shoulders that instantly makes him melt.
“And I’m the one who pushed the program through legislation.
It’s still too early to determine if it’s as successful as we projected, but so far it’s worked out so well that other wardens in the state have written to ask when they can implement the program in their prisons.
A few from out of state too. We might even go national if the recidivism rate declines and the greedy assholes at the for-profit prisons don’t get in our way.
So, I figure I might as well give it a shot.
See if the reason I haven’t met my soulmate is because he’s behind bars.
” Tripp grumbles at that, and Bridget laughs.
“And if Mirabeth can end up with someone so selfless that he’d go to prison for his dying brother, then why not me?
” This she says while looking directly at her father, challenging him to argue or dismiss her.
At a loss for words, Tripp’s face goes white when he looks at my husband with shame-filled eyes, perhaps finally accepting the truth about Conrad’s arrest. Conrad inhales sharply and holds it, never breaking eye contact, his body rigid beside mine until Tripp gives him a little nod—one that will change the course of their relationship for the better.
It’s my hope that Tripp’s turd-muffin days are over for good.
Bridget tells Conrad, “So you can thank me too.” Palm up, she gestures for Conrad to hurry, then cups her hand at her ear. “Come on, I want to hear you say it.”
I do so before Conrad can when I jog around the table and give the sister-in-law I only met five minutes ago a hug around her slim shoulders. “Thank you so much. You’re my favorite in-law.”
While Sondra and Mom have a laugh, Brad huffs from the side, crossing his muscular arms when he leans back in his chair so it’s propped on its two back legs.
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” he tells me. With his face going as red as his father’s had been, he asks Bridget, “Any plans to try it out at the women’s prisons? Let me know if they do.”
“Why?” Alisa asks with a pinch of her brows.
“I might as well try it, too, seeing as you and Conrad are planning to waltz off together when his three years are up. Hopefully, I’ll find a wife who isn’t still in love with her ex,” Brad says, barely glancing at his current wife, who gasps and clings to his arm.
He shakes her off. “I really thought you were my soulmate, yet here we are.” He cuts his watery eyes to Drew.
“But don’t think for a second that I’m going to let you take my son and let this cheating bastard”—he motions to my husband—“raise my son as his own.”
Oh.
Shit.
Looks like I’m not the only one who jumped to the same—fortunately wrong—conclusion. It makes me feel somewhat better, and I give Conrad a pointed look.