Chapter 4 #2
"You can tell us," she whispers, rubbing my arm like it's the shoe on the statue of John Harvard in Harvard Yard, only instead of good luck on exams, she's unlocking my secret shame. "We're your family. We love you no matter how bad it is."
"It's bad," I moan, trying to conjure up some tears. Starving children? Nuclear war? A Sarah McLachlan commercial?
A wedding reception at Farmington?
"Whatever it is, I'm sure your OB can help," Shannon says compassionately, but she shares a look with Carol that says they're dying to know, and thrilled their baby sister is finally suffering right alongside them.
"It's—it's this kink," I say slowly, emphasis on the last word.
All six eyebrows shoot up so fast, it's like I'm holding an eyebrow cannon and the word "kink" is the fuse.
"Like a craving, but something more. Deeper. Impossible to control. I don't even know who I am anymore! I feel so, so bad for what I'm doing to Hamish, but it's like my bones just need it!"
Carol looks toward Hamish, who is innocently chatting with Declan. I grab her arm.
"Don't look at him! He'll know we're talking about it and I'm so ashamed," I hiss.
"What is 'it'?" Mom pursues. "What kind of pregnancy craving is so bad? Like, you're making him sleep on the couch because you can't stand the smell of his farts?"
"What?" I'm suddenly thrown off track, because... what?
"Or you're making him use your shampoo because his suddenly smells like gasoline?" Shannon asks.
"Or," Carol says in a low, conspirator's voice, "maybe you like him dirty? You're not letting him shower for days because pregnancy nose wants a funky, spunky man?"
"Is that it?" Mom asks. "You like eating his smegma?"
Never, ever—ever—did I imagine I'd be asked that question in my life. Now I actually am a bit queasy.
Carol and Shannon give Mom a look of disgust so sharp, it could cut steel.
"Eating smegma? Mom, really?" Carol admonishes her. "Where the hell did you come up with that?"
"She said it was a craving! You mentioned liking a smelly man! I just put two things together naturally."
"In your mind, those go together naturally," Shannon says incredulously, shaking her head. She studies my face. "Amy? Are you okay?"
"Just feeling some nausea."
"See? I knew it! Morning sickness!" Mom crows.
"No. I'm just grossed out by your—what you said."
"So it's not a hankering for Hamish's dick cheese?" Mom clarifies. Unfortunately, she asks that question at the exact moment my father approaches her from behind, his hand in midair, ready to tap Mom on the shoulder.
And because he's facing me and not her, I am the one who will forever be scarred by the look in his eyes. Jason Jacoby has heard, seen, felt, smelled, tasted, and sensed a lot in his six decades on this planet, four of those decades with Mom.
But hearing Mom ask about Hamish's dick cheese is a new one.
Dad turns on his heel abruptly and walks away, and I know that the next time we speak, we will pretend this never happened.
Carol groans. "Geez, Mom, would you stop with the dick cheese comments? That's obviously not it!"
"Amy hasn't technically said no!"
"I think I'll pass on the pimento loaf this year." Shannon frowns at a platter nearby.
If you had told me years ago, when Hamish and I shared our first kiss under the mistletoe in this very house, that in the future I'd be married to him, pregnant with his child, and my mother would very seriously be asking me if I ate Hamish's dick cheese, I'd—
Actually, this is my mother. I'd have believed it.
Hamish looks at me and winks, just as Mom, Carol, and Shannon glance over at him.
"If you're not going to tell us," Mom says, "I could just go over there and ask him." She takes one step toward my husband and I snatch her by the back of her dress, the top of the zipper in my fist before I can think.
Shannon and Carol's jaws drop.
"You will not go over to my husband and ask him about—"
"His trouser fromage?" Carol deadpans. Shannon snorts.
Mom twists and I let go. Her heavily made-up eyes focus on me, then narrow.
"Amelia Langstrom Jacoby, you just grabbed me like a bad kitty!"
"Because you're being impossible."
"Mom wouldn't have a neck left if we grabbed her every time she was impossible," Carol says.
"Trouser fromage," Shannon whispers with a giggle, elbowing Carol. "Kinky queso?"
"OH, MY GOD, YOU TWO," I hiss. "You're worse than MOM!"
"She started it," Carol points out. Shannon can't stop laughing.
"I—I guess giving you two a fondue pot this year was a bad idea," Shannon chokes out, and now all three of them are half-dead from giggles.
This was my joke. I was supposed to be the one stringing them along, and now all I'm going to think about whenever I give Hamish a blowjob is my mother asking about his dick cheese.
Trouser fromage.
Kinky queso.
"Monster Muenster," I mutter, and that's fucking it. We're all folded in half now, and whatever set me off earlier dissolves as we weep and guffaw.
"Pants provolone," Carol gasps.
"Foreskin formaggio," Shannon sputters.
"You are all sick, sick people," I declare, but my diaphragm hurts from laughing. "And for the record, Hamish has no ricotta roulette going on down there. Ever."
Mom lets out a high-pitched squeal and her dog, Chuffy, starts barking from the other room.
"Hey, Declan!" Shannon calls across the room. "What's the Russian word for cheese?"
Dad turns white as a sheet and looks at Hamish's crotch. Declan tilts his head and gives Shannon a weird look, but answers.
"Syir." He pronounces it like a deep "sir" from the back of his throat.
We pause. No one can come up with anything good for that.
"I want cheese! Cheese?" Tyler asks, looking around. "Where's the nine-month aged Manchego?"
Carol covers her mouth and points toward the platter, and we all scoot four feet away.
"I was lying," I inform my sisters and Mom. "No cravings. No kink—well, not the pregnancy kind. I feel fantastic. If anything, I have more energy than before. My skin looks good. My only complaint is that if someone bumps my chest, I see God for a second. The girls are sensitive."
"I was sick for months." Mom looks wounded.
"I lived on saltines," Carol says.
"I couldn't drive near a Dunkie's," Shannon adds.
"Wow," I say. "You all suffered so I could glide through this. Truly, my foremothers."
"It's coming," Mom says darkly.
"Not this time," I say. "My doctor says every pregnancy's different. Mine is easy. Apparently I'm built for this."
They stare at me like I've cheated on a test.
Just then, on the sideboard, I spot Carol's peppermint cookies: perfect white icing, crushed candy cane on top. Next to them, a full pot of coffee, steam curling upward.
If the universe hands you props, use them.
I step past the tribunal, grab the biggest peppermint cookie, and take an obnoxiously huge bite. Butter, sugar, vanilla, peppermint. Instant mood stabilizer.
"Oh, wow," I say around the mouthful. "Carol, you outdid yourself. Again. Please tell me there's a backup tray hidden somewhere. I could eat these forever and not get sick. Mmmmm."
Mom makes a strangled sound.
"Amy! You cannot just inhale sugar. You're growing a person."
"Mmmmm," I repeat.
"I couldn't even look at sweets in the first trimester." Shannon shakes her head.
"This is a medical anomaly," I say. "I'm a peer-reviewed study waiting to happen."
I pour myself coffee, rich and dark, exactly how I like it.
"Amy," Mom breathes. "Coffee?"
"I cleared it with my doctor," I say. "One cup a day is fine. This is my cup."
"Doctors say all kinds of things," Mom mutters. "Then you have kids and learn which ones were wrong."
"The baby wants me awake and calm, not biting people's heads off. Coffee supports domestic peace. This is pro-baby."
I take a long, slow, theatrical sip, slurping loudly, maintaining eye contact with all three of them.
It is glorious.
"Notes of chocolate," I say. "Hints of nutmeg. Finishes with a subtle undertone of 'my body doesn't do morning sickness.'"
Shannon snorts into her mug. Carol looks half-appalled, half-relieved. Mom presses a hand to her chest like I just announced I'm taking up pregnant cage fighting.
Across the room, B's giant glasses swivel toward me. She watches me eat a cookie and drink coffee while three older women hover like I'm juggling knives above a stroller. She leans in to Jeffrey and whispers something. He glances at me and gives the tiniest respectful nod.
I lift my mug toward them in a subtle toast. B's mouth twitches. It might be a smile.
The front door bangs open again, letting in a blast of cold air and the smell of snow.
"Ho, ho, ho!" Terry's deep voice booms from the hall.
He stomps in, cheeks red, snow in his hair, carrying a bottle of Scotch in one hand and a fistful of gift bags in the other.
"Traffic is a horror show," he says. "People see one snowflake and forget how to drive."
Dad beelines for him.
"You brought Scotch. You're my favorite McCormick now."
"HEY!" Declan and Hamish shout. Terry is Declan's older brother and Hamish's cousin, and he spots Hamish and me and grins.
"There they are. Come here, you two."
He hugs me, careful of the mug, then claps Hamish lightly on the shoulder, very obviously avoiding the knee brace.
"Congratulations," he says. "New baby on the way. Another Jacoby-McCormick crossover event."
"Thanks," I say, throat tightening for a second, but Terry has turned to Carol.
"Merry Christmas," he says, voice softening. "That sweater is... festive. In a good way."
"It shrank in the wash," she says, flushing.
"Then the wash did you a favor," he says easily.
Carol laughs, surprised. Mom's head swivels toward them like she just detected a distant wedding bell that only she can hear.
"Terry!" Tyler comes skidding back, barely stopping in time. "You gotta see Skibidi Toilet, it's this toilet with a head and—"
"Later, Champ," Terry says. "I need at least one drink before watching animated plumbing."
Two minutes later, Dad and Tyler are laying out scratch tickets on the coffee table with the solemnity of a religious rite. Ellie bounces next to them, chanting, "Big money, big money," even though the top prize is maybe twenty bucks and bragging rights.
A big, warm hand takes mine and tugs me toward the tree. Following Hamish, I wonder what's up until I realize suddenly and begin laughing.
Mistletoe.
A sprig of it hangs from a support beam, the red ribbon glimmering in the light from the tree.
"Ye remember? Our first kiss?"
"I remember Mom asking if you'd give a Scottish kiss."
He bursts out laughing.
"I wondered why in hell she'd ask me ta break yer nose." His finger traces it. "Yer lovely, beautiful nose. I hope our bairn gets it."
"Yours is fine, too."
"Mine's been the recipient of a few too many Scottish kisses, pet. It's about as crooked as a politician."
"Someone once told me mistletoe is a fertility symbol," I say in a low voice as I wrap my arms around him. "Someone quite full of himself."
"Aye?" He nuzzles my cheek. "I canna say I ken many folks like that."
"Hah. You kissed me and right then, your sex tape with your ex-coach's daughter was splashed all over the television!"
"Could ye say that a bit louder? I dinna think the gov'nor heard it in Boston."
I kiss him. Under the same mistletoe, in the same house, with the same chaos swirling around us. Except now I'm his wife, and pregnant, and the kiss is the real thing instead of the terrifying almost-thing it was back then.
He breaks away first.
"Ye told me that night at Thanksgiving that ye'd never, e'er sleep wi' me. 'Blisteringly blunt.'" His eyes widen, then go soft with laughter. "Ye have such willpower."
His hand slips to my ass and gives it a condescending, teasing pat.
"Do you really want to go there?"
"Na," he whispers, hand moving to the front of me, to a spot between us. "I'd rather go there."
"Hamish!"
"I'm glad ye were weak fer me, Amy," he continues as I groan. "Because otherwise, ye'd no' be pregnant wi' ma baby."
"You showed me another side of you."
"Ma arse?" His eyes sparkle, then go serious. "Ye're the only woman I've ever truly loved. Ye ken that, aye? I make people happy, it's what I do. But ye make me feel loved. There's a difference, pet. An' it's everythin'."
"I love you." I kiss him and it's everything that first kiss wasn't, and more.
We turn back toward the living room and stand quietly. Hamish watches the chaos with that focused calm he gets before a match.
"This is... a lot," he says quietly.
"This is nothing," I tell him. "Wait until Agnes and Corrine show up and start arguing about who cheated at bingo in 1997."
He smiles, eyes crinkling, and slides an arm around my waist.
"Oh, that wasna criticism. I like it. It feels... full."
This is a smaller crowd than usual. No Andrew stomping through rooms. No Amanda stage-managing three conversations at once. No twins turning the hallway into a racetrack. No James talking nonstop about himself and then disappearing with a woman a quarter his age.
Instead, it's this. More than enough.
Mom, oscillating between panic and joy. Dad, pretending the game is all he cares about while listening to everything.
Carol, freaking out about her son's first girlfriend and unconsciously straightening her sweater every time Terry looks her way.
Shannon and Declan, sharing tired but content smiles over Ellie's cookie-smeared face.
Tyler vibrating between Skibidi facts and scratch ticket greed.
Jeffrey trying to look cooler than he feels while B leans into his shoulder, silent and watchful in her dragon shirt.
And Hamish.
In my parents' overcrowded, overdecorated living room, his arm warm around me, watching my family like he's just been traded to the strangest team on earth and somehow lucked out.
Our kid is going to be born straight into this.
Into cookies and scratch tickets and Skibidi lectures and dragon shirts and Mom's overreactions and Carol's spirals and Shannon's stories and uncles arriving with Scotch and opinions and boundaries and boisterous chuckles.
And, of course, Chuckles.
It should feel terrifying.
Instead, standing there with coffee in one hand, peppermint cookie in the other, and Hamish at my side, it feels like the safest place in the world.
There are worse places to start a life than here.