Chapter 16
The fetus needs me to eat every couple of hours.
If I do, the nausea stays away. I’ve replaced the emesis bags with snacks and haven’t had any incidents since. I feel mostly healthy and energetic.
“This agrees with you,” Wyatt says, hugging me from behind while I brush my teeth. I lean into him as he nuzzles into my neck. “Can I tell you you’re glowing without you rolling your eyes?”
“You can,” I say, through a mouthful of toothpaste. I spit and rinse, then pull my nightshirt over my head. I’m wearing nothing underneath, and raise an eyebrow in the mirror as I bend forward, my forearms resting on the countertop. My libido is back with a vengeance too.
Wyatt, grinning, drops his pajama pants and presses into me from behind, his hands and fingers roaming gently.
He knows what I like after all these years.
It’s been a long time since we’ve enjoyed each other without the burden of an outcome.
The sex is good, great even, and I’m not quiet when I come.
Wyatt loves it when I vocalize how much I’m enjoying myself, but with Clementine and Shelby in the house, I usually muffle any sounds with my pillow.
“I’ll say it again,” Wyatt whispers in my ear, still inside me. I shiver as his lips and warm breath caress my sensitive skin. I’m drenched in sweat, my forearms slipping on the bathroom counter. “This agrees with you.”
I smile at him in the mirror, and he closes his gorgeous, long-lashed blue eyes, which I hope the baby inherits, before moving his lips back to my neck.
—
Are you both still good for Saturday night?
I ask Maeve and Kat at our weekly breath work class.
Wyatt suggested we have my friends and their significant others over for a belated birthday dinner celebration.
It can be hard to get our whole group together, between work and kids and life, but we try every few months.
My friends say they’re looking forward to it and ask what they can bring.
Just yourselves. Wyatt’s handling things. I don’t even know what the plan is!
Wyatt surprises me with a dinner reservation for our party of six at Ciel de Terre, a French restaurant in the city I’ve been dying to try, with a monthslong waitlist. Dale and Curtis know the owner, as Curtis used to work with her, and apparently pulled a string or two.
“We should celebrate properly, Tilly, with everyone who loves you,” Wyatt says when I protest the cost. Going out for dinner to a place like Ciel de Terre is not a regular line item in our budget. “You’re worth it.”
Clementine is dramatically devastated to not be invited. “But I’ve never been to Ciel de Terre!” she exclaims, as Wyatt and I are getting ready to leave.
“Briar has already been two times.” She holds up two fingers, pouting for good measure. Her petulance reminds me we are not far from the preteen phase.
“Well, I’m thirty-nine and a grown-up, and I’ve never been either,” I reply, setting my purse over my shoulder.
“Me neither,” Wyatt adds. Shelby suggests a girls’ night in, with caramel popcorn and whatever movie Clementine wishes, and then Wyatt and I head out.
On the train into the city I make him promise this is only about my birthday—I’m not ready to share the pregnancy news yet—and he assures me that’s all this is.
I send Dale a note of thanks, and he quickly responds with You’re welcome!
Curtis says you have to get the tarte tatin. Nonnegotiable. I promise I will.
—
Like many restaurants, Ciel de Terre uses augmented reality to enhance the dining experience.
Tonight Wyatt has requested a “Musée d’Orsay” table, as a nod to my love of the famed Parisian gallery.
I once visited Paris with my mother when I was eleven; she had to accompany a painting being loaned from Toronto’s museum to the Musée d’Orsay.
As the gallery’s senior conservator, she was responsible for the safety and well-being of the art, from packaging it for travel to its installation in the Parisian exhibit.
I roamed the gallery alone, my mother occupied with work, in awe of the art housed in the beautiful old train station.
Mesmerized, I spent hours with Edgar Degas’s statue Petite danseuse de quatorze ans, Claude Monet’s Femme à l’ombrelle tournée vers la droite, Auguste Renoir’s Bal du moulin de la Galette, Vincent van Gogh’s Vaches dans un pré.
My favorite was a piece titled Fleurs étranges, by French symbolist artist Odilon Redon.
By the day’s end I told my mom I wished to live at the Musée d’Orsay, and she laughed, her Parisian colleague stating, “Telle mère, telle fille.” Like mother, like daughter.
“A toast to my beautiful wife and another year around the sun,” Wyatt starts, holding up a glass of deep-burgundy Bordeaux. He’s ordered two bottles for the table. I’m having nonalcoholic champagne, which is delightful and barely distinguishable from the real thing.
Everyone raises a glass.
“Everything that’s good in my life is because of you. You’ve made my dreams come true, and you’ve done it with such strength, determination, and grace,” Wyatt continues.
I tear up, emotion welling inside me. With a small laugh I wipe at my eyes with the napkin Kat hands me, embarrassed by the display even among dear friends.
“To Tilly,” Nick adds. “Happy birthday, and happy baby!” He winks at me, claps Wyatt on the back with his other hand. There’s a moment of surprised silence, and then everyone is talking at once at the unexpected reveal.
Happy birthday, happy baby! they repeat, clinking glasses around the table, offering me and Wyatt congratulations.
I don’t know what to do with my face, my anger all-consuming and surely darkening my expression.
I can’t look at Wyatt, my hand holding the champagne glass quivering, as I clink, clink, clink.
I only manage a smile when Maeve’s hand reaches my leg under the table, giving a small squeeze of support.
—
“I’m going to bring you the ring myself,” Nick says between bites of his mile-high mille-feuille dessert, the custard dotted with bright red raspberries.
“What a great idea,” Kat says, slicing her fork into the dessert they’re sharing.
My insides constrict at the mention of the ring.
I don’t tell them I haven’t yet signed up for MotherWise.
This week, I promise, I told Wyatt when he brought it up, again.
How can I explain the superstition that has gripped me?
With Poppy, once my perspective shifted on the pregnancy, I couldn’t wait to make that call.
This time…whenever I think about MotherWise I hesitate.
I’m not ready, and besides, there’s no rush.
I technically have until thirty weeks to sign up.
“That’s a long way away,” I say to Nick, taking another bite of the tarte tatin even though I’m full.
The caramelized apples are perfectly spiced, nestled into a buttery crust that melts in my mouth.
Wyatt catches my eye, and I can’t read his face.
Later, he’ll confess he told Nick when they played pickleball the day after the positive test, unable to hold back his excitement.
My anger lessens, because I also told Maeve.
It isn’t only my news to share, though I wish Wyatt had asked Nick to use discretion. It is decidedly not his news to share.
“It will be here before we know it,” Wyatt says, and Kat murmurs how true that is. I try to swallow the tarte tatin, the bite glomming in my throat.
“You’re catching up to us, Tilly,” Nick says. “But we’re not done yet, so best keep at it, you two.” Kat smiles in a way that makes me wonder if there’s more to that comment.
“I’d love three. Maybe even four,” Wyatt replies. My tepid smile wanes, for this should be our third baby. Why does it feel like I’m the only one who remembers that?
“Who wouldn’t?” Nick says, going back to his dessert.
“Me. I wouldn’t.” Jenn raises one hand and sips her coffee.
She often pushes Nick on this topic whenever we all get together.
They are polarized on the program, and for Jenn, the main issue comes down to overreach.
“The government shouldn’t be this involved with our uteruses” is a statement she has made more than once.
“Well, luckily you’re in the minority, Jenn,” Nick says, forking an icing-sugar-dusted raspberry before shifting the conversation back to me.
“We’re working on more incentives, including a six-month extension for NourishBoxes.
It will be up and running soon—well before you deliver, Tilly. People are excited.”
“Another six months is a big deal. Nick’s been instrumental in getting it to this point,” Kat says, glancing at her husband. They exchange a smile before she turns back my way. “I’ve loved the boxes, personally. And the program. Just wait, Tilly. You’ll see.”
“You can dress it up in whatever costume you want, Nick, or add a dozen new incentives, but it’s still about control,” Jenn says. “We should all stay vigilant, if you ask me. These things have a way of snowballing.”
Nick sighs quietly, and I see Kat nudge him gently. The waiter arrives then to check in on dessert and coffee refills, thankfully inserting a break in the conversation before it can escalate.
“He makes it so easy,” Jenn whispers my way, after Maeve mouths—for Kat’s sake, and also probably mine—for her partner to leave it be. She smiles then. “But fine. I can play nice. It is your birthday, and I love you.”
Jenn is petite with fiery red hair, which also matches her personality.
I adore Maeve’s partner of three years, finding her both refreshingly different from many of my women friends, as well as incredibly empathetic.
She’s the ride-or-die sort, Maeve told me after her first few dates with Jenn had gone well. You know that’s my love language.
For this reason alone Jenn will always get a pass with me, even when she’s needling Nick at my birthday dinner. I don’t disagree with her take on MotherWise, but I also know I’m biased, as a newly pregnant mother. The perks are tantalizing, and the benefits hard to ignore.
I also know that Nick is a wonderful husband to Kat and father to their kids, and that she’s as happy in her marriage and family as one can be.
Not to mention, my husband values his long friendship with Nick.
Both reasons I typically give Nick a pass for his insensitivity and at times clueless remarks.
“Jenn, you keep telling us you never want kids, but how does the saying go?” Nick asks, scraping his fork through a swirl of custard on the plate. He grins at Jenn. “Thou doth protest too much.”
“ ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks,’ ” Kat says. “From Hamlet. That’s the line.”
She sips her water before giving Nick a pointed look. “Let’s leave Dr. Jenn be, babe. She’s busy saving the world.”
“So are you, Kitty-Kat. One precious baby at a time.” Nick kisses his wife’s cheek. Her four gold rings shine brightly against her neck.