Chapter 12. Alice #2
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there when she heard the faint call of “Mom!” There’s a word.
Then she heard it again, and Finn appeared in the foyer, his new khakis already too short and hovering above his suede oxfords, which were wet from the snow.
He pressed his hands together in prayer.
“I know you’ll say no,” he began, “but the guys are going to Leo’s to play the new Madden after dinner tonight.
” He bounced on his wet toes and pouted his lips in that way he knew she struggled to resist. “Can I please?”
“Finn, no,” Alice said. “Please don’t ask that of me today of all days.”
“But it’s so close,” he said, pointing out the window. “I can walk there and be back in like an hour.”
“There’s no way your father will approve, and it’s not just about spending the day with your family.” She looked at him. “Do I have to bring up what happened yesterday?”
Finn flushed. “But I told Dad it was Leo’s.”
“And you stole it from him, which makes it even worse—”
“I didn’t steal it,” Finn squeaked. “Leo told me to keep it so his mom wouldn’t find it!”
“That’s not what your dad told me—”
“Because he never listens to anything I say!”
Alice wasn’t sure what to believe. She liked to think of Finn as honest, but lately, she’d caught him in a bunch of lies, and she was beginning to worry that Kyle was right about her blind faith in him. This frightened her. What else might she be missing?
“Either way, the answer is no.”
“This is so unfair!”
Nora appeared around the corner. “What’s unfair?” She was passing through the foyer on her way to the back room with the caterer, Beth, who was sporting a chef’s hat— Come on! —and carrying a tray.
Alice composed herself and turned to Finn. “Go ahead, tell Grammy.”
Finn huffed and stormed up the stairs.
“It’s nothing,” Alice said to her mother. “Don’t worry.” She turned to Beth. “Do you need me for anything?”
“We got it, love,” Beth said. “But look—” Before she even lifted the tin foil from the tray to reveal the oysters, the smell of something like stranded shellfish on the beach hit Alice’s nose and sent her stomach swirling.
Alice tried to maintain her calm. “Hmm, delicious. Yes, totally worth it. Cait always knows!” She swallowed down the nausea. “I’m going to find Finn.”
Upstairs, she snuck past the bunk room, where the boys wrestled and laughed in a way that she knew would wrinkle their clothes and soon end in tears, and as she walked into the bathroom, Kyle emerged from her bedroom across the hall and joined her.
He closed the bathroom door behind them. “You’re sick again?” he asked.
Alice sat on the covered toilet seat. Like the boys, Kyle wore the outfit she’d chosen for him. Tan cords and a navy cashmere sweater her mother had given him last Christmas. His freshly shaven face and neatly combed side part made him look like a preppy schoolboy.
“What can I do?” he asked.
What she wanted more than anything was for him to leave her alone, but if she asked for this, he would only be suspicious something else was going on. So instead she asked him to get her a cup of ice, and while he was gone, she dry heaved into the toilet.
He returned a minute later and sat on the tub’s edge. He cupped her forehead. “You’re warm,” he said.
Alice slid off the toilet and onto the floor. She lowered the seat cover and rested her head on the side, grateful she’d cleaned the bathroom yesterday in preparation for her sisters’ visit.
“I think I know what’s wrong,” Kyle said. She stared at him and popped a piece of ice into her mouth. “This isn’t about bad milk or a stomach bug, is it?”
The nausea swirled again, and Alice lowered her head between her knees. “No,” she said, “it’s not.”
She waited.
“You’re stressed about Georgia’s bungalow,” Kyle said.
Alice squeezed her eyes closed. Please stop , she thought. Please.
Kyle slid onto the floor next to her. “Look,” he said. “Maybe it’s not the right time to go back to work. I know you’re worried about money, but you don’t have to do this for us.”
“I love working,” she said. “I’m doing it for me, not for you.” She was surprised by the need she felt to hurt him.
Kyle moved back to sit on the edge of the tub, elbows resting on his spread knees. “All I’m trying to say is maybe you’re taking on too much. I’m worried about you.”
“I’m pregnant.” She stared at the cracked tile beneath the clawfoot tub when she said it.
Kyle sat up. “What?”
When she didn’t answer, he started to reach for her again, but she brushed him away.
“I’ll be sick,” she said.
“Right, sorry.” He stopped and stood. “Okay, this is, well. Huh. This is—When did you—”
“I took a test yesterday.”
“And you’re just telling me now?”
She lowered her head into her hands. “I needed a second to process it all,” she mumbled.
Kyle paced back and forth in the small room, then hovered over her. “And you’re sure? Weren’t we—I mean, you were on—”
“I missed one,” she said. It’s my fault.
“Don’t cry. We can—There are precautions we can take, the doctor can take. James was—That was nine years ago. I’m sure things have changed. I mean, medically speaking. They must have. How many tests did you take?”
Alice looked down at herself, sitting on the bathroom floor, her face plastered to the toilet. “I think it’s fairly obvious beyond the test.” She pointed to the pimple, which had officially become a tender cyst on her chin. “Plus, this.”
Kyle looked at her. “I had noticed that.”
“Thanks.”
“No,” Kyle said. “Sorry, I meant, just that it’s new. Or not new. I remember with the boys.” He scratched his head, messing up the neat side part. “But okay, okay.”
“Can you stop saying that?”
“Sorry. This is—No, this is great. It’s a lot. It’s unexpected. But great.”
“Stop saying that, too.” Hearing him try to pretend was only making things worse.
Finally, a moment of quiet.
Alice was twenty-five years old when she became pregnant with Finn. She and Kyle had been married for less than a year. The pregnancy wasn’t planned, but she’d been excited. When James came along four years later, she’d secretly hoped for a girl but was happy for Finn to have a brother.
But none of that joy, excitement, or even curiosity was there for her now, and it wasn’t for Kyle either, as much as he was trying. And this wasn’t just about the fear of her developing preeclampsia again. They both knew that.
No one had to say it.