Chapter 20 #2
Justine squeals, picks up a cushion, and wallops me on the thigh.
“Oh, my God! When you get married, please, please, please can I be the maid of honor? I will be the best maid of honor in history. You won’t have to lift a finger for your bridal shower or on your wedding day. I’ll make sure everything is perfect.”
I laugh and cover my face. “Don’t jinx it. Let’s not get carried away.”
“Get carried away!” she exclaims.
Her exuberance is catching, but I’m hyperconscious that Cullan is in the house and Justine isn’t using her indoor voice. I hold my finger to my lips, and she nods and takes a deep breath.
“All right. I’m calm. I’m calm. But you’ve got to admit, this is so exciting. ”
“Of course I do, but I’m taking it one day at a time.” I hug one of the sofa cushions to my chest. “For the first time in my life, I’m starting to feel like I’m home.”
A few nights later, Cullan has a poker game, and so I go to bed alone.
Sometime in the small hours of the morning, I half wake when Cullan gets in beside me and pulls me into his arms. His lips seek the nape of my neck, and we fall asleep like that.
I half wake sometime later when he kisses me again and heads for the shower.
The room is a little brighter, but it’s still early.
I hear the rushing water and fall back asleep.
The next thing I know, I wake up and it’s broad daylight outside. I’ve slept until after nine in the morning, which is unusual for me. I wonder why Cullan didn’t wake me by eight-fifteen, which is when he leaves for work.
Then I remember that Cullan’s ex has Rosie, which means the house is quiet.
I put on some music and make a pot of coffee.
I think I’ll spend a few hours planning a two-week menu for the three of us and doing meal prep, and then I’ll read.
Having Rosie try new foods and learning what she likes is my latest challenge.
I don’t get started right away because my stomach feels a little upset and my head is fuzzy, so I pour a large mug of coffee to ease me into the day.
As I sip it, I hear a rumbling noise from the laundry room and open the door. There’s a load in the washing machine that looks like black clothing. Cullan must have put the washing machine on before going to work.
I got on top of the laundry yesterday, so this must be the clothing Cullan wore last night. I take a sip of coffee. What kind of poker games require someone to do laundry?
Now that I think of it, Cullan didn’t leave the house wearing black last night. He was wearing gray jeans and a dark blue flannel shirt. Feeling vaguely curious, I walk upstairs and lift the dirty clothes hamper lid. There are Cullan’s jeans and shirt from last night, waiting to be washed.
Back in the laundry room, I watch the black garments swirling around with water and suds. I wonder what clothes these are. I furrow my brow and stare into my coffee. I wonder who his poker friends are. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him mention any names.
I get started on my day, though my stomach continues to feel upset for several hours.
In the afternoon, I talk to Justine on the phone while I stack the dishwasher and wipe down all the kitchen counters. When I hang up, I see I have a text from Cullan
Cullan: I’ll be finishing late. Miss you so much. Can’t wait to get home and hold you.
Elena: I miss you too. See you when you get home.
The load in the washing machine finished hours ago, and I pull out Cullan’s clothes and examine them.
Black utility pants. Long-sleeved black T-shirt.
Black cotton twill jacket. I’ve never seen him wear these before.
They look vaguely professional. Something a man who works in home security might wear.
“Yeah, if he was going to rob the house, not protect it,” I say to myself as I put the clothes in the dryer, and then I smile at my own silliness. “Or maybe he’s an assassin.”
Sitting at the kitchen counter, I check my social media apps and then the news.
The first headline I read captures my interest. There was another murder last night, and police have released CCTV footage of the man they’re calling the Red Mask Killer.
I click through and watch the very brief clip.
It shows a narrow street, and the camera has been mounted up high.
A large, masked figure dressed in dark clothes strides along the sidewalk toward the camera, and he looks up at the viewer and seems to hold my gaze.
The mask is oval and glossy and molded to his face, and it’s blank apart from the eye holes.
A strange feeling overwhelms me, like he’s looking right at me.
Like he could reach out and touch me. It’s a deliberate stare.
He wants to be seen, and he’s watching us as much as we’re watching him.
I put my phone down, but a sense of déjà vu washes over me, and I pick it up again.
I watch the short clip over and over, studying how the man moves.
He reminds me of someone. A character from a movie, maybe, but I don’t watch thrillers or horror movies.
Did I watch a serial killer movie recently and forget about it?
Did I dream about one? I take a closer look at what the Red Mask Killer is wearing, and I get that sense once more that I’m missing something.
I find stills from the video and study them.
This man really is tall and well-built. His shoulders fill out his jacket, and his thigh muscles are defined through his black utility pants.
The sense of déjà vu dissipates, and I suppose I must be mistaken.
A notification pops up on my phone, a reminder to change my contraceptive patch tonight. I had put a new patch on after my shower, but I should probably place them somewhere I can see them while I’m thinking of it. Were they in my bathroom or Cullan’s?
I go upstairs and check. I’ve been moving things around a lot lately as Cullan has encouraged me to make myself more comfortable in his space.
I’ve been enjoying rearranging things, but I also don’t want to overstep any invisible boundaries he has that I might have missed.
I check my bathroom cabinet first and don’t find them, but the moment I open the cabinet in Cullan’s bathroom, I spot something else.
Pregnancy tests. I pull them out, accidentally knocking my contraceptive patches over and scattering them all over the floor. Why does Cullan have pregnancy tests?
Maybe they’re old and they’re the ones Rebecca used when she found out she was pregnant with Rosie.
I feel a stab of jealousy as I imagine Cullan buying another woman pregnancy tests.
Keeping his ex’s pregnancy tests, like he’s wishing he could get her pregnant again. I turn the box over in my hands.
Unless they’re new tests.
New tests that he bought for a new woman .
I check the expiry date, and it’s nearly three years in the future. Rosie was conceived over two years ago, and I doubt tests last that long. The packaging is shiny and new, and they were sitting prominently inside the cabinet, not scuffed and at the back of a drawer.
I caress the packaging with my thumbs. Cullan bought pregnancy tests while thinking about me?
A pleasurable shiver rocks through me. His words the night in the garden as he was touching the patch on my hip come back to me. “Do you know what I’m fantasizing about, Elena? Ripping the patch from your body.”
I picture him buying these tests for me—for us—while thinking about doing just that, and heat ripples through my body.
What if I don’t put a new patch on tonight?
What if instead I ask him to tear this one off, and we have wild, unprotected sex where he does and says all those delicious, intense things that I enjoy so much?
Cullan, I’ve been thinking. Let’s make a family, you, me, and Rosie. Let’s grow it. Let’s have a baby together. That’s what I could say to him tonight and watch delight spread over his face, along with one of his beautiful smiles.
I smile at my reflection in the mirror. A family that he and I can love and protect.
A noisy, happy home with toys and books and paints.
Joyful Christmases and exciting birthdays, and Cullan’s strong arms around both of us.
I want that so much, but it feels too good to be true.
Wonderful things don’t often happen to me.
My recent run of happy days with Cullan probably isn’t permanent.
My real life of exhausting myself for tips and handing them over to my aunts is lurking just around the corner, and it doesn’t feel right to be longing for a new family when I haven’t learned who my mother is yet.
My aunts would howl with derisive laughter and then furiously scold me if they could hear my thoughts right now. They’d point out that I’m still the nanny, and I’ve already given away all my power.
“Do you truly believe spreading your legs for him makes you special to a wealthy, important man like Cullan Grant? Worthy of being the mother to his children?”
“You take his money and let him use you for his pleasure, night and day. You’re convenient to him, Elena. You’re his whore. A man doesn’t want a whore for a wife.”
Their cruel, snide voices cut me like knives. Reluctantly, I return the box to where I found it, feeling ashamed of myself for getting excited over nothing.
Before I let go of the tests, a startling thought occurs to me. I can’t remember the last time I had my period.
Frozen in shock, I turn back the days and weeks in my mind, but I can’t recall the last time I bled, or even the last time I bought tampons.
Was I living in Cullan’s house? Was I still working at Archer’s Diner?
My period hasn’t exactly been predictable over the years, but I thought being on birth control was supposed to make it regular.
I wish I knew more, and it’s not like I can talk to my aunts about these things.
Even getting my period the first time at eleven and a half was a shock I wasn’t prepared for.
After I worked up the nerve to confess what was happening to me, telling them was excruciating.
They threw their hands up in the air and paced up and down the kitchen, exclaiming as if a great calamity had befallen us all.
All I could gather was that I was now dirty, and what was happening to me had something to do with S-E-X, which I must never, ever think about, let alone participate in.
I was so confused. I had no intention of participating in any S-E-X. I was eleven.
If I am pregnant, it’s better to know than not know. I slip my nail under the cellophane on the box of pregnancy tests and slice it open, and then sit on the toilet and read the instructions. I stick the test between my knees, pee on it, and then wait for the results, sitting on the closed lid.
Two minutes later, I turn the test over.
Tears fill my eyes, and my hands shake.
Two lines. Pregnant.
I feel just like I did when I was eleven and pulled down my underwear and saw blood.
Like the world has been ripped out from beneath me.
My own body has been keeping secrets from me.
I remember crying for my mother the day I got my period, longing for the kind, loving, sweetly smelling woman I’d imagined many times.
The woman who would put her arms around me and tell me everything is going to be okay.
I want her now. I need her advice and comfort more than anything.
When this happened to her, did she tell my father she was pregnant? Was he angry? Pleased?
I have to tell Cullan, but right now there’s one person I dearly want to share this news with.
Someone who can understand the swirling fear and anxiety of being young and unmarried and suddenly finding out you’re pregnant.
Someone who must have felt like I’m feeling right now, lost in a storm of emotions.
I don’t know my mother’s circumstances, but I can imagine that two lines on a pregnancy test were once a shock to her.
She’s out there somewhere, and I can’t cry or panic or celebrate with her.
I can’t receive her hugs and her promises that everything will be okay.
“I want my mama,” I sob brokenly in the empty bathroom.
I’ve waited so long to meet her. To prove myself worthy of knowing her. I’ve given so much money, shed so many tears, spent dozens of hours on my knees, and suffered so many sleepless nights. I’ve had my hopes dashed again and again. I haven’t got anything more to give, and I have no time to lose.