Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Amy
Farmington Country Club in late May is so pretty, it makes me suspicious.
Everything is green in a manicured, controlled way that I used to find alluring and sophisticated, but now it's a bit stifling. The air smells like lilacs and money. Mulch obeys strict orders never to leap out of the beds where it's spread. Somehow, all the tulips are exactly the same height.
I walk through the front doors with Hamish beside me. We do not call it waddling. At this point, I'm big enough for my gait to have changed, though I only really notice when I'm running. My center of gravity has shifted from my brain to my abdomen as I enter the final quarter of this pregnancy.
Hamish's hand rests on the small of my back, warm and steady, not pushing, not steering, just there.
"Ye good?" he asks.
"I'm good."
"Ye look more than good. Ye look... glowy."
"I'm sweaty."
"Aye. Glowy." He smiles. "Ye shine like the sun and I orbit ye."
That smile makes my heart truly glow. I'm accustomed to people needing me to be competent, sharp, helpful, efficient. Hamish looks at me like he wants nothing except me.
We reach a set of double doors, not to the main ballroom but off to the side. They open, and a little cheer goes up from a warm, loud pocket of people who matter, maybe thirty of them, nearly all family.
The first thing I notice is not the decorations or the food or my mother's face practically levitating with joy.
It's the empty space where friends should be.
I don't want a hundred people. I would rather eat glass. But this haunts me: I don't have friends. Not in the real way. I have coworkers. Contacts. People who like my posts and ask me how my week is but never wait for the answer. People I chat with in meetings, but never see socially.
Shannon has friends. Carol has friends. Even my mother has friends, which seems unfair considering her hobbies include controlling her daughters and oversharing with the rest of the world.
Yes, my family is here. Even Hamish's family, all seven siblings, came over from Scotland for this special shower. We're surrounded by family, but that's all I have, and it's sinking in differently today.
I have spent so much time working that I forgot to build the other parts of life.
The thought hits hard and sharp, then the baby kicks, as if to say, Hey, Mom, let's not do this right now.
Hamish squeezes my hand once. Just once. He doesn't ask what I'm thinking. He just reminds me he is there.
The room is gorgeous. Tall windows look out over the grounds. The tables are round and close enough to feel intimate, with pale pink and white linens and peonies in glass containers.
An easel holds a tasteful baby shower sign that reads "Welcome, Baby McCormick" and not, thank God, "This Should Have Been Amy's Wedding."
Because that's what it would say if Mom had thrown this shower.
The cake is perfect, two smooth tiers with my favorite frosting, buttercream, one tier pink, one a lovely baby blue.
White frosting flowers line the edges. No fondant baby or creepy plastic stork.
No frosting that resembles anatomy, no shaved licorice for pubic hair or red gel frosting for blood.
No brownie mix and chocolate ganache as a placenta.
Mom had nothing to do with the details, and it shows.
A small sugar soccer - er, football - ball sits at the top of the cake, understated, like a wink. The black pentagons are pink and blue. It's undeniably cute, although it feels a bit like a contract my child did not sign.
My mother appears in front of us, radiant, a human hot air balloon, barely tethered to Earth.
"My girls did it!" she crows, hands clasped together, eyes shining. "They threw me the most perfect shower here at Farmington!"
"It's for Amy, Marie," Dad says gently, right behind her, looking tired. I know that look. It's exhaustion from the full-time, unpaid handler job he signed on for four decades ago. At least I got a paycheck when I was assigned to be Hamish's handler.
Dad's doing it as a service to humanity.
Mom waves him off.
"Of course it's for Amy. And look at the cake. It's..." She hesitates, clearly not liking it. "...classy."
"The bottom layer is lemon, the top layer chocolate. It's delicious. What's wrong with it?" Carol asks flatly.
"Nothing! It's very sedate and mainstream and, ah, cake-y."
"What's wrong with mainstream?" Shannon asks.
"It's fine! Just—I would have made it more festive."
"Festive?" Shannon narrows her eyes. "You made a Mardi Gras cake for my baby shower."
"It was creative! I baked a baby in the cake. Get it? Bun in the oven, baby in the cake."
The memory of Shannon's baby shower rushes through me.
Hamish and I weren't exactly friends then.
He made vulgar comments because he's Hamish, and I got offended because I'm me.
We learned that Mom's dog's name, Chuffy, is a wee bit too close to English slang for vagina.
When Hamish explained that, I was so shocked, I accidentally sprayed his chest with soda.
He considered it foreplay. Then Mom debuted her ridiculous Labor, Porn, or Constipation? game.
Hamish turned out to know all the "porn" faces in the game, and he did that thing he does with his tongue at the end of his pencil.
While I hated him with a simmering passion, it was also evident even then that the passion was going to be stronger than the hate.
Part of what turned the tide was his baby shower gift to Shannon and Declan: a onesie in McCormick tartan.
And here we are, having a baby of our own.
Hamish claims that ever since the advent of ultrasounds, every McCormick on his side has been born the opposite of what was predicted. He's not convinced the baby's a girl, says if this tradition holds, it will be a boy.
We're having a girl. Moms know.
Shannon steps forward, arms open, and hugs me carefully. She smells like her perfume and serenity and the kind of stability I really need right now.
"You look beautiful," she says.
"If you say you feel huge, I will fight you," Carol adds, sliding in for her hug.
"I feel huge," I say automatically. Carol pretends to remove her earrings and roll up her sleeves.
"You asked for it."
"Did you do all this?" I whisper, looking between them and the room. "It's amazing."
Shannon nods once, pleased.
"We did it. We kept it small."
"Small," Carol says. "No Agnes, no Corrine, no mailman. Remember when Mom invited him to my eighth birthday party?"
"Paul was such a nice man," Mom puts in. "And he was recently widowed."
"He snuck into Dad's man cave and drank all his beer," Carol reminds her. "He brought me Dr. Scholl's shoe inserts as a gift."
"Amy," Mom says, ignoring Carol, "tell us everything. Symptoms. Problems. Discomfort. That whole cheese-kink thing."
"Mom," I warn.
"Cheese?" Hamish asks, as if he must have heard wrong. This is where I remember that I never told him about Mom's ridiculous foreskin formaggio... thing.
Carol steps closer, delighted.
"Yes, we heard Amy has a pregnancy craving for a specific kind of cheese."
Hamish looks at me, eyes curious, and I want to die.
Shannon, bless her, rescues me.
"Are you sleeping? Are you uncomfortable? Is the baby kicking your ribs?"
"Are you leaking?" Mom asks.
"Leakin'?" Hamish's eyes widen.
"We are not discussing leaking." I close my eyes.
"Leakin', where?" Hamish asks, eyes jumping from my boobs to my crotch.
"I'm not leaking anywhere. Nothing's been breached."
"Don't say breech!" Mom scans around for something wood and knocks on the back of a chair.
Shannon assesses me in a sisterly, practical way. She looks at my arms. My shoulders. My posture.
"Amy," she says slowly. "You look... annoying."
"That's not a compliment."
"It's not meant to be," Carol says instantly.
"You look fit," Shannon says. "Like, disturbingly fit. Look at the definition on those arms."
"How much weight have you gained?" Shannon pursues.
"Fourteen pounds."
Silence. Then all three of them groan, long and dramatic, as if I just confessed to cheating at Rummikub.
"Fourteen?" Carol repeats, scandalized.
"At thirty weeks." Shannon squints.
I nod. Lying is useless. They know. They see my lack of swelling. They see my non-manatee ankles. Is it my fault my pregnancy is easy?
"We're kicking you out of the family," Carol announces.
"It's a betrayal." Shannon shakes her head, mournful.
"I gained forty with you," Mom says accusingly.
"You also ate ice cream for breakfast every day," I remind her.
"On medical advice! My doctor said I needed calcium. See that fantastic bone structure you strut around with? Look at those cheekbones. It's all thanks to H?agen-Dazs."
"Your doctor did not prescribe H?agen-Dazs, Mom." Carol scoffs. Tyler and Jeffrey appear behind her as if summoned by the brand name.
"We heard ice cream," Tyler says.
"Is there cake, too?" Jeffrey asks.
"Yes," Carol says, shooing them. "Later. Go be feral elsewhere."
They sprint away, Ellie in their wake.
I laugh, and it comes out softer than I expect.
Not sharp or defensive, just... real. Having my sisters and my mother clustered around me, all of them groaning dramatically and threatening to disown me for having an easy time, feels oddly comforting.
In our family, affection looks like teasing, and love sounds like someone threatening to kick you out for not suffering.
"Fourteen pounds is amazin'." Hamish kisses my temple. "And if it were a hundred pounds, ye'd be a goddess, too."
We move toward the tables. Hamish's Scottish family fills one side of the room, all seven siblings here, their voices weaving through Farmington like a tartan ribbon.
Darren scans the space like he is security.
Cora laughs with Pookie, who is holding a plate of mini quiches with pieces of bacon shaped like roses on top of each one.
Maggie is near the dessert table, eyes locked on the cake with the focus of a predator.