Chapter 24 Liz
FIVE WEEKS OLD
Liz started to head home from her walk, if moving her body twenty feet down the street and parking herself on the front step of an empty house for sale could be called a walk.
But Preston didn’t need to know about that.
No one needed to know that Liz had stared blankly into space for an hour, not even looking at her phone, dreading when the timer she had set would go off letting her know that she should probably return to her boyfriend and baby.
Which was something that should fill her with joy but still didn’t.
Please let my maternal instinct kick in, Liz begged someone, anyone, the universe, God?
Liz had tried to reassure herself that it would happen.
Maybe she was just operating on a delay, like when the audio feedback was a few seconds off.
She wanted to discuss her concern with Victoria, but after the conversation in the hospital, Liz was also reluctant to admit that anything was amiss.
Liz stopped in front of Preston’s house before opening the door.
She’d given up on trying to consider it their house.
She lived there, but it would always be Preston’s house.
Liz tried to practice putting a smile on her face so she’d seem happy, excited, thrilled to be back!
Then she pushed open the door and was surprised to see Preston waiting on the other side of it with a grin on his face—one that, unlike hers, didn’t appear forced.
“Hi?” Liz said, her voice rising to imply What’s going on here? Something was obviously happening. But what? Preston looked too pleased with himself for it to be an intervention.
“I have a surprise for you,” Preston said.
“Okay,” Liz said cautiously. She thought, Oh my God, is he proposing?
Her stomach twisted into knots at the idea, which was weird because not that long ago, it was all Liz had wanted.
A ring sparkling on that finger. The title of Mrs. in front of her name.
The promise, or at least the illusion, of someone promising to love her forever.
“You’ve seemed a little down lately,” Preston said. “I know it’s a lot, having a newborn, and we’ve been going through some stuff, so I wanted to do something to cheer you up.”
Preston took both of Liz’s hands and ceremoniously tugged her inside.
This felt like something that someone might do before they dropped to one knee and pulled out a ring, and Liz suddenly felt as if she might throw up, or start shaking like after her emergency C-section from the effects of the anesthesia.
“Where’s Charlie?” she asked to delay and give her a second to think.
“In his crib, sleeping. He’s fine!” Preston said.
“He’s been asleep this whole time?” Liz asked, even though she knew that the answer was probably yes, because Charlie only chose to unleash his bloodcurdling cries when Liz was around.
“Yeah! He’s such a great baby,” Preston said in the same tone of voice he used when he was bragging about a star client. “Now close your eyes,” Preston instructed. Liz did. “And don’t peek!” She wasn’t going to, but Liz sensed Preston standing there to make sure.
“I won’t,” she said to reassure him.
“I’ll be right back,” Preston said.
Liz heard his footsteps retreating, and then the sound of the bedroom door opening, and then the jingle of something in Preston’s hands as he returned.
“Okay!” he said with the showmanship of Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune. “You can open your eyes!”
Liz peeled her eyes open and blinked three times, dumbfounded by what was in front of them.
“Surprise!” Preston said with a huge, white-toothed smile on his stupidly happy face, which was so proud of what was in his arms: a small white-and-brown corgi puppy.
It cocked its head, its ears sticking up at attention, and stuck its tongue out at Liz in what looked like a matching smile to Preston’s.
“You got me a puppy?”
“Isn’t he cute?”
“You got me a puppy?” Liz repeated. The smile started to slide off Preston’s face.
“I thought you’d like him. And studies have shown it’s great for babies to grow up with dogs.”
“What studies?” Liz said, her teeth gritted together.
“Have those studies also looked at how the mother feels about taking care of one more thing that needs constant attention? One more thing that needs to be fed and watered and walked? One more thing that’s probably going to pee on her and keep her up all night?
Did the studies show that the last thing a new mom needs—the absolute last fucking thing—is something else to take care of? ”
Preston’s eyebrows shot up in an oh shit sort of way and he held the puppy closer to his body, as if to protect the poor canine from the unhinged female it had been unlucky enough to cross paths with.
“What possibly could have made you think I wanted a dog?” Liz said. She held out a faint, vague hope that Preston would say he remembered how she’d always wanted a pet when she was younger but she could never have one because she and Angela moved around so much.
“I—um—who doesn’t love puppies?” Preston said.
“A NEW MOTHER!”
“I’m sorry. I’ll take him back.”
“A puppy isn’t an order you can return at the nearest Whole Foods kiosk,” Liz said. “It’s a living thing.”
“I was trying to do something nice,” Preston said, hurt in his blue-gray eyes, which made Liz feel bad, but she still couldn’t manage to calm herself down. “I thought you’d like him,” Preston said.
“Why? Because I’m the one who’s obsessed with the royals?
Because I’ve ever once said I loved corgis?
Because I look like I want to carry a stupid, useless little purse that isn’t big enough to hold anything like Queen Elizabeth—and don’t you dare say ‘God rest her soul’ or I swear, I will lose it. ”
Preston looked at Liz like she was already in the process of losing it, or worse, had already lost it, which was fair enough. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I really thought it would be a nice surprise.”
Liz’s face fell. She looked down at the ground.
“I know you did. I’m sorry. I’m an asshole,” she said to the wood floor.
But where to go from here? Because Liz could no longer ignore what was staring her in the face, what she had gotten so angry at Victoria for pointing out, mainly because she didn’t want to admit it.
It was what Liz had known, deep down, for a while probably, but she didn’t want it to be true.
Liz was so focused on being chosen that she had forgotten about doing the choosing too.
Liz had been so grateful to be picked by Preston that she hadn’t bothered to dig deeper and figure out whether he was a great guy for her, if they made each other better, or if they wanted the same things.
All the warning signs had been there too.
Liz had waved at them. She had marched defiantly past a sea of red flags…
only to arrive here. With a fluffy purse dog.
“Preston…we shouldn’t be together,” she said.
Preston’s face spasmed like he had been slapped out of nowhere and he couldn’t believe someone had the audacity to treat him that way. “What?” he said. The word sounded like water sizzling on a hot pan.
“Maybe we should sit down and talk?” Liz suggested.
“I don’t want to sit,” Preston said tightly. “What are you saying right now?”
“Please?” Liz asked again. “I’m tired from my walk.” From her non-walk, but still, Liz was bone-weary in a way that had nothing to do with exercise.
“Fine,” Preston said coolly, and followed her to the kitchen.
They sat down at the table, several seats apart from each other, the puppy nestled contentedly in Preston’s arms. Miraculously, Charlie was still sleeping, and Liz wondered if he would give his parents the gift of not starting to wail in the middle of their breakup.
“I care about you, Preston, and I think—no, I know—you care about me, but if we’re really being honest with each other, and ourselves, in the way that counts, I think we can both admit that we don’t make sense together. We’re not going to make each other happy, in the long run.”
“How do you know that?”
“We don’t want the same things,” Liz said.
“But we do. We want a family. We have a family.”
“Maybe we want the same big thing. But all the other things, all the little ways of being that family? Of being together? They don’t line up. And all the little ways—those are everything.”
“I don’t get it,” Preston said. “Where’s this coming from? Is this because I didn’t want to have sex when you were pregnant? Because I told you it wasn’t about you.”
“That didn’t help, but no. I hate sports and vegan food and counting macros, but even more than that, I don’t like who I am in this relationship.
I’m always pretending to be a better, different version of myself so you’ll like me.
I tamp down who I am and try to curate this other person and I can’t do it anymore. ”
“That’s what everyone does in the beginning of a relationship.
We haven’t been together that long. You have to give it time,” Preston said, like he was revealing the answer to one of the mysteries of the universe.
And maybe this was true, to various degrees, for everyone.
Maybe Preston was right. But it wasn’t enough.
“I’m afraid I’d be doing it forever,” Liz said quietly.
The puppy made a noise in its sleep and they both looked at it.
Preston put his hand on the corgi’s head.
Liz was breaking up with a guy who was good with dogs and babies.
He was everything Liz thought she had wanted and tried, for so long, to hold on to.
He was a good guy. He just wasn’t her guy.
“I don’t make you watch sports. Or eat tofu,” Preston said.
“We can be friends, Preston,” Liz said. “We’ll coparent. But we don’t have to be together because we have a child.”
This sat in the air as Preston digested it. Finally, he said, “Are you sure about this? I thought things were pretty good.”