Chapter 49
FORTY-NINE
[Love is…] um…I don’t know.
“My turn.” I stretched my hands out to take the baby from Ali. “She’s my niece, I want to hold her.”
“You’re working.” Ali held up Lulu, the nickname given to Louisa almost immediately. “That mean old aunty is trying to steal you from me. Boo!”
“I know the boss, she’s fine with me holding her. Gimme.” Reluctantly, Ali handed her over. I cuddled her close and smelled the top of her head. “She still has that new baby smell. Best smell in the world.”
“Smell it all you want.” Mae pushed her plate aside. “I’ll just curl up under the table and take a nap.”
“Are you keeping your mama up all night?” I asked. Lulu puckered her lips and blinked up at me with fuzzy eyes that couldn’t quite pick a color. Her hair, on the other hand, was a vibrant red, brighter than Mae’s.
“She likes her meals on time, that’s for sure,” Mae muttered.
“I hope Chris is helping you out. I can go beat some sense into him if he isn’t.”
“He’s been a little too helpful. She’s two months old and it’s the first time he’s let me out of the house without insisting he come with us. He’s there for every cry, every feeding, every diaper.” Mae smiled and rattled the ice in her glass.
The bell over the door tinkled. Oliver raced over, Gil behind him. He slung an arm around my neck and stared down at his cousin in awe. “She’s so little.”
He said that every time he saw her, like he couldn’t believe people came this small.
The birth of Lulu had also brought up a lot of questions: how did the baby get in Aunt Mae’s tummy?
How did the baby get out? When was he going to get a baby brother already?
I was ready to go steal a baby just to make the questions stop.
But at night when I was in bed, sometimes I let myself wonder what our child would look like if Gil and I had a baby.
I knew it was dangerous. I knew we were on borrowed time.
I knew since our talk in the office last week, things had been strained.
But I also knew I couldn’t stop my feelings.
Which was annoying. Next session, I planned to ask Sunny about this whole focus on “feelings.” Feelings were dumb and they hurt like hell.
“Isn’t she so little?” Oliver asked, craning his head to look up at Gil.
Gil smiled down at the baby. “So little.”
“You should hold her,” I said to Gil. “Sit down.”
A look of pure horror crossed his face. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ve never…held a baby.”
“Never?”
“Never ever.”
“Well, you’re doing it today.” I nodded at a chair. “Sit.”
Warily, he sat. I carried her over. “Cross your arms. Make sure you support her head.” I transferred Lulu over. After adjusting his hold, I stood back and smiled.
“I don’t want to drop her,” he said.
“You aren’t going to drop her. You’re doing great.”
Slowly he loosened up. Soon, the terror was replaced by wonder. “She’s so little.”
Oliver nodded. “That’s what I said.”
I’d been wrong about Gil wearing a toolbelt and cuddling a kitten because this scene in front of me was really doing things for me.
I suddenly wanted to give Oliver that baby brother real fast. I picked up one of the menus and fanned my face.
Ali caught my eye and smirked, like she knew exactly what I was thinking.
Mae pulled her phone out and took a photo. I’ll send it to you , she mouthed to me.
I flushed.
“While I have you here, I wanted to double-check you’ll be selling pie at the Fourth of July Festival?” Ali picked up the clipboard she had permanently attached to her these days.
The festival was one of Ali’s pet projects, a hometown celebration, and this would be the second year for it.
The whole of downtown was closed off to cars, and vendors came in from as far as the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
There was a co-ed baseball game and a fireworks show at night.
Legacy Park would house the food trucks and petting zoo and games.
To make extra sure we weren’t competing with the bigger events in Houston, we held it on the Saturday before the Fourth.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Apple, blueberry, and strawberry rhubarb.”
Ali checked something off on the clipboard. “Perfect.” She turned a blinding smile in Gil’s direction. “Since you’re here, I was wondering if you’d be willing to volunteer to work security. Just for an hour shift, that’s all.”
Lulu started to fuss. Instead of panicking, Gil stood and began to sway back and forth. The baby quieted. He was a natural. “When is it?”
Ali told him the date and time slot she hoped he’d fill.
He shook his head. “I can’t. Sorry.”
“That’s right, you leave on the weekends.” Ali tapped her fingertips on the table.
“I visit my brother on the weekends.”
Ali snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it. Bring him with you.”
Gil stopped mid-sway. “It’s not so easy.”
“He’s not in prison, right.” Ali started to laugh and then slid Gil a look. “He isn’t, is he?”
“No.”
“Is he okay to travel?”
“I mean, sure.” Gil looked a little panicked.
“Then, it’s settled.” Ali stood and tucked the clipboard under her arm. “You’ll bring him. I love it when a plan comes together, don’t you?”
“He’s asleep?” Gil asked.
“Finally.” I sat down next to him on the bench we’d uncovered in the backyard. After a good cleaning and fixing a few loose screws, it had become a favorite place for Gil and me to sit after Oliver went to bed. “He wanted me to explain how Lulu got in Aunt Mae’s tummy.”
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth, obviously.” I leaned back and waved a hand at the inky-black sky. “Aliens.”
Laughing, he patted my leg. “You’re a good mom.”
I rested my head on his shoulder. “I don’t feel like it most of the time.”
“You are all the time. That’s the first thing I liked about you.”
“That I was a mom?”
“That you were a good mom. I could tell from that meeting with the lawyer when you wouldn’t let me stay in the house because you didn’t want strangers around Oliver.”
I lifted my head and looked at him coyly. “What’s the second thing you liked about me?”
Absently, his hand on my knee wandered up to my thigh. My heart skittered at the delicious weight of it resting there. “Everything.”
“I like you, too,” I said. “Even when you wear your toolbelt.”
“I think especially when I wear my toolbelt. I feel faintly objectified when I wear it around you.”
I gasped. “I do not objectify you.”
“Good thing I like it.” He kissed the side of my head. “Why do you think I keep wearing it?”
Jokingly, I elbowed him in the ribs only to snuggle into his side right after. “About the Fourth of the July Festival, listen, I can get you out of that. When Ali goes into high gear, she steamrolls people into agreeing.”
“I can see how she’s good at her job,” he said dryly.
I picked at the frayed edge of my jean shorts. “But also, if you wanted to bring Mikey here for the weekend, I think it would be nice to meet him.”
“I don’t know. He likes his routine and being in familiar places. It might be way too much for him.”
“Or you could try it and see what happens.”
“I don’t know if I want to experiment on him.”
“Not an experiment. How are you going to know how he’ll do in a new situation if you don’t let him try? When’s the last time you took him somewhere new?”
Gil frowned. “I guess it’s been a while. I’ve been a little busy the past few months.”
“Exactly. Bring him here. Maybe just for the day. You can take him back home after. But I want to meet him.” I turned and tucked a leg under me. “He’s important to you. You’ve met all my important people.”
Tilting his head to the side, he looked at me for a long moment. “I just figured something out.”
“What?”
“You can talk me into things, too.”
“Does this mean you’ll bring him?” When he nodded, I clapped my hands. “What does he like to eat? Is he a dessert guy? Please tell me he likes dessert? Cookies or cake? Pie, maybe? Brownies? Oooh, muffins?”
He grinned. “Mikey is gonna love you.”
“You think?”
“How could he not?” His smile slipped. With the back of his hand, he touched my cheek.
I swallowed and turned back in the seat, the metal from the back of the bench pressed against my spine. The overwhelming need to cry hit me hard. My heart physically ached. “What happens? Next month when the six months are up?”
He slid an arm around my shoulders. “I don’t know.”
We sat like that for a long time. The cicadas serenaded us, a toad or two added in their two cents. Beyond the lights of the house, there would be snakes and armadillos, coyotes and possums. Beyond that, the rest of the world waited and with it, the responsibilities and pressures we each carried.
But right now, here on this bench, it was just Gil and me, the steady beat of his heart, the quiet rising and falling of his chest with each breath. A feeling wrapped around me, kept me right there pretending nothing else existed, that my happily ever after was within reach.
It was a nice illusion. One that I knew wouldn’t last.