41. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Theo, for all of his experience and sexual prowess, hadn’t realized it could be like that.
The moment she’d said I love you, said yes, he felt something greater tethering them together.
He knew it was a spiritual connection, their souls or their energy colliding along with their bodies.
He’d been well aware what kind of connection Effie saved her virginity for, because it was the same one he’d wanted to find.
It was soulmates. It was devotion. It was a forever kind of love, whatever came their way.
Making love to Effie was a bliss like he’d never known. And he realized that was the difference. He’d had a lot of sex, but he had never made love. Not like he knew it now.
If he’d thought he was enamored before, crossing that final line in their physical relationship had only solidified for him that Effie was his person.
It was all he could do to get out of bed in the morning and go to work the next day.
As though it were any other day. As though his world hadn’t come into crystal clear focus, forever changed by the woman who held his heart in her hands.
It could only be called blasphemous that everyone he passed on the street didn’t stop to congratulate him on being so in love, so utterly and completely devoted to Effie Thatcher.
In the days that followed, Effie spent every night with him.
He’d made good on his promise to take her against the kitchen island and it was better than he ever imagined.
Everything about them was good, at least when she wasn’t missing the family dinners or breakfasts she’d become accustomed to over the last two decades of her life.
Her angst over the changes had him encouraging her to go home and be with her family for a few nights, though—honestly—the emptiness in bed made it hard for him to sleep.
Effie stood beside Hope, zesting a lemon for the lemon bars she was making for dessert while Hope slathered chicken breasts with her favorite marinade before popping the pan in the oven.
Though popping probably wasn’t the right word, since Hope’s movements had become slow and deliberate, holding her belly like she thought it might fall off. “How ya doing there?”
Hope huffed a breath but laughed. “Oh you know, three days past my due date, so stellar, fantastic, didn’t know existing could be so exhausting.”
“I can finish up, go sit.”
Hope dragged the stool from beside the landline phone into the kitchen instead, propping herself on it while she peeled potatoes.
The house was quiet for once. The sizzle of the stove warming water and the hum of the oven the only constants in the room.
Each swipe of the vegetable peeler was a sharp slice into the silence between them.
Effie put her lemon bars in another chamber of the oven and set her egg timer before taking up the cutting board beside Hope.
She cut the peeled potatoes into chunks and plopped them into the boiling water.
“So what’s next?” Effie asked.
“What do you mean?”
Effie fidgeted, unsure what words made her point clearest. A feeling like shedding many skins had settled over her in the last couple of weeks.
Standing there beside Hope like they’d done a thousand times only highlighted the shift.
“It seems like the start of something, you know? Everything feels so different and . . . raw, I guess. I don’t know.
It seems like something is coming. I wasn’t sure if you knew what it was . . .”
Hope’s eyes crinkled with her smile. “Well, besides Bug, I think it’s just life now.”
“Life.”
“Remember how we used to play all the time? The board game? How we’d drag the box from the closet to the rug in front of the fireplace and organize all the cash and cards.
We’d pick our favorite color car, set our tokens on a track, and get everything situated?
Mugs of cider and doughnuts beside us, Grams’s knitting needles clinking in the background, the stage set for the game? ”
“I remember.”
“That’s what it feels like to me. The stage is set, everything is lined up. Now we get to start playing.”
Effie sighed. She liked the analogy, but a niggling reminder fluttered in her chest. “You always won that game.”
“Yet you kept playing with me.” Hope nudged Effie with her elbow.
It was nice that Pamela worked late and Tibby had a last-minute appointment.
That Louisa and Ellen had taken the girls to a dance class and Grams read in the living room.
It got to be just the two of them, for however brief a moment.
A moment, Effie realized, that would become all too rare when Bug arrived.
That was rare enough already given that Hope had moved out.
“Thanks for coming tonight. I think I needed to go back to start for a minute.”
“Me too,” Hope said, though Effie could tell Hope needed the touchstone less than she did. Effie placed the last chunk of potato in the water and took her utensils to the sink to wash up. Hope remained on her stool, a hand laid over her stomach as she stretched like a cat. “Are you happy, Effie?”
Effie paused her washing, warm suds dripping from her delicate fingers. Happy had been relative for so long, she wasn’t sure she could trust the feeling, the big deep resounding yes that bubbled from her toes. “Yeah, I am happy.” Floral-noted honey.
Hope smiled broadly. “I could tell. I just thought you needed to hear yourself say it.”
Effie savored the last bit of quiet, the honey sweetness of her happiness, as it flooded her senses and overflowed with the creak of the front door, the patter of little feet, and the effervescent chatter of the women she loved as they came home to share a meal.
Tibby landed in the kitchen first. “Anything I can help with?”
“Just waiting at this point,” Effie asserted.
“Brayden joining us?” Tibby asked. Effie encouraged her eyebrows to stay put as she waited for Hope’s reply.
“Yeah, he had a performance review at work, so he’s running a little late. ”
“Whose performance are we reviewing?” Pamela crooned as she walked into the kitchen and took up a seat at the breakfast table beside Tibby.
“Brayden’s. At work,” Effie said with a look that she hoped conveyed to her mother to play nice. Pamela nodded and Effie’s shoulders relaxed.
“Theo coming for dinner too?” Tibby inquired, her look telling Effie’s mother to behave. To Effie’s surprise, Pamela didn’t even flinch.
Effie plunged her salad tongs into the mix of greens and cucumbers and cherry tomatoes.
She tossed the contents of the bowl a few times, coating them in her lemon vinaigrette before daring to answer.
“No. I wanted a nice dinner with everyone. His being here would have made things awkward.” She kept her eyes trained on the bowl, her heart hammering in her ears.
She didn’t like how small she felt, how much like a child waiting for permission.
It was maddening, especially given how free and confident she’d felt as of late. How womanly and sensual and—
Pamela cleared her throat. Effie looked up to find all eyes on her. She was grateful it was only three pairs because the whole of the Thatcher clan would have been too much. Hope’s grin was wicked. “Effie Rose Thatcher, you had sex with that man!”
“What? How did you…”
“You let me sit here talking about my swollen ankles when you’re having sex!”
Effie buried her face in her hands. “Ugh, let it go.”
“I will not!” Hope turned to Tibby and Pamela. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
Pamela looked straight at Effie and her throat constricted.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever shared her plans with her mother.
How she’d remained celibate to protect her heart.
Maybe in passing or defense against her mother’s man-hating, but she couldn’t be sure.
So when Pamela said, “She loves him,” Effie couldn’t have been more relieved.
Effie squeaked out in faux embarrassment, “I do.”
Pamela did the one thing that truly cleared the air, set everything to rights, and made it all perfect. She smiled. Her genuine, full, real smile that told Effie that Pamela was as happy as she was. Happy had never tasted so good.