Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
Franky
“Anything I can get you?”
Violet eyed me over the lip of her coffee cup as she moved off a stool at the kitchen island.
“I’m fine with my oatmeal, thanks.”
A few days ago, I returned to Chicago and had decided to stay with my parents while Rosie packed up her stuff at my place. She was still looking after the cats, which was probably good because I couldn’t bend over to feed them.
“Tea? I have the herbal junk.”
“No, I’m okay. Honestly.”
Super Kid was very active today, making sure I got my kick counts in quickly. Maybe it was the oatmeal or maybe it was the fact she would be here in a few weeks, screaming her way into the world. Our Valkyrie shieldmaiden.
Violet smiled at me. “We’re thrilled to have you here, Franks. We’ve missed you so much.”
“I missed everyone, too. I loved my time at Harvard, but it’s good to be back in my hometown.”
Until I left again. If I left again. My interview at Harvard had gone well.
Of course, there were a few peculiar looks about my advanced pregnancy.
Federal law forbade questions about my child-rearing plans, but people clearly wanted to know about my support system and if a baby would interfere with my research.
The idea of being alone in Boston with my child scared me, but being here in Jason’s backyard and witnessing his life without me, scared me more.
“Just four more weeks until we meet the little one. Jason must be so excited.”
I tightened my grip on the spoon. “He is.”
We were still texting, the stiff, daily check-ins that were our normal during the times when we weren’t getting along. When He was Mad and I was Stubborn: The Jason and Franky Story.
“I’m surprised he hasn’t been around.”
“We’re in touch. That’s what we agreed to.”
Violet remained placid. “Agreed to?”
“In the contract. Regular check-ins, attendance at doctor’s appointments, if available, but on the whole, we both do our own thing. He’s his own person. I’m my own person.”
“Okay.”
They expected me to be like them. Anxious for a life partner, lonely without a man. If I’d made a baby with Jason, I must want something to happen with him.
I hated that they were right. That underneath it all, I was absolutely conventional, craving the white picket fence and a life of domestic banality.
“Vi, I hope you’re not wishing for something to happen with Jason, other than what’s already occurred—”
“Well, I—”
“Because that’s not in the cards. We both went into this arrangement with clear ideas about what we wanted out of it.” My voice had risen slightly there, which was not good for the baby. I fought for calm. “And it’s all going according to plan.”
“Good to hear it,” she said cheerfully.
“And now I need to review the proofs for my article on the role of sexual selection and the courtship rituals of the Arion Vulgaris.” I slid off the stool, carefully, and steadied myself before taking a step.
“Gotcha.”
I caught her eye. “He didn’t hurt me. I’ll admit that I might have let my imagination stray to ‘what if,’ but I quickly realized that anything more than our current contractual obligations would never work. We have different requirements of a mate.”
Violet let me ramble. She knew what I was like when I was nervous.
“I don’t need a partner in my everyday life. I have so much love and support. So much.” My voice broke on those final words.
“I know, carino.” She gave me a hug, holding on a little longer than necessary. “So I’m heading out to yoga and then a grocery store run. Anything I can get for you?”
I shook my head, my mind already straying to my article proofs and longing to bury myself in my work. Classic avoidance, but at least I recognized it.
Violet turned back and said casually, “By the way, Jenny, Elle, and Theo are throwing you a baby shower tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Usually, it happens earlier but you were out of town, and everyone wants to give you gifts and welcome you home. It’ll be small. Intimate.”
“Let me guess. A hundred people or so?”
She winked. “At least.”
I spent the next hour working on the article galleys and checking in with the snail-cams at Lakeshore U.
Rusty and Billy Bob had mated over the weekend.
Good for them. I was musing on how life always found a way, to paraphrase the great chaos theorist, Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, when I got a text.
Dad
Can you meet me in the kitchen?
I waddled out to find my father tying off his apron. Not just any apron, though. His uni-bow one, a combination of unicorns and rainbows. Faded and threadbare from years of washing, it was only used for one specific kitchen task.
Making apple pie.
It was a tradition in the St. James household, usually undertaken the day Dad came home from a road trip back when he played professionally.
We used to make an apple pie together while Mom went out to one of her girls’ lunches, because she was dying for some “me time” after days trapped with us.
For a while, Cat and I had made it alone because Dad “needed his rest” (aka, was hungover), but the tradition started up again when he was in recovery.
He looked up. “Hey, sprite.”
“Hi, Dad.” Tears threatened, which was ludicrous. It was only pie.
“Up for peeling some apples?” He had gathered the supplies I would need, so I took a seat at the counter and picked up the apple peeler. His hands were already a yellowy-white as he combined the butter and flour.
“How was practice?”
“Good. Petrov moaned about his knee and Remy gave him shit for it as usual. Kershaw decided to join us, because Elle told him she was finally calling a contractor to finish the deck he’s been building for the last three years and he needed to get out of the house instead of telling the pro everywhere he was doing it wrong. ”
I chuckled. “Retirement must be tough on him.”
“Aye.”
I started peeling, determined to keep the strip of skin intact and as long as possible. “Remember when we came up with the nanny plan to woo Violet into our clutches?”
He raised his clear blue gaze to me. “It was your idea. One, make an apple pie. Two, dazzle her with slug talk. Three, feed her pasta.”
“I was quite the little manipulator.”
“You just wanted a mom.”
True, but mostly I wanted an adult female presence in my life who didn’t recoil at the weirdness. “Violet fascinated me. She was such a maverick with her pink hair and tattoos and short skirts. She didn’t care what anyone thought.”
“That was all a front. She cared greatly. She wanted a place to belong, with her sisters, with us. She just didn’t know it yet.”
I picked up another apple. Cooking apples we called them. Too sour to eat, but perfect when stewed for a while.
I met his gaze. His beard was salted with flour, and a wave of nostalgia hit me so hard I almost keeled over. If a girl had her dad keeping her safe, what else did she need?
“Vi thinks I might be lonely as a single mom. I tried to explain to her that I have everything I need.”
“What about everything you want, sprite?”
“I’m about to get it, Dad. This baby is all I’ve ever wanted.”
He grunted. “And Isner? Do you want him?”
“Why does everyone assume I can’t be happy with what I have? That I need a man as that perfect cherry on top? Most of all, why can’t people see that Jason and I only have this baby in common? That’s it. Sure, we became close because of our joint enterprise. Nothing else.”
“Tell him that.”
I snapped my head back. The dough was now in a messy ball on the counter. As a girl, I would insist on kneading it, though my small hands weren’t strong enough to make much impact. Dad would stand there patiently, letting me learn about effort and pie.
“You spoke to him?”
“He was out on the ice with his brother this morning. We sparred a little.”
Sparred? “You’d better have been nice to him.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s the father of your grandchild. I would like if you got along.”
He shrugged. “Why would I make nice with the man who hurt my daughter?”
“Why do you think—did he say something?”
My father bent over to pull the rolling pin out of the drawer and gave the mound of pastry a whack, as if letting it know winter was coming.
“He mentioned the job you’re applying for at Harvard.”
That snitch. “I haven’t made any decisions yet. I just want to keep my options open.”
He nodded. “When you were a kid, you used to invent stories for your slug friends. Send them on adventures. Give them happily-ever-afters.”
Bit of a non sequitur, but okay. “Until I decided to release them back into the garden and set them free. They were flesh-and-blood creatures. It wasn’t fair of me to impose my wishes or desires on them.
Besides, slugs and snails don’t experience emotions like we do.
They have nerve endings rather than brains. All instinct.”
Like Jason. But he was smart, too. Much more so than he gave himself credit.
“Guess what I’m saying is that you had quite the imagination,” Dad went on. “Your mind was open to possibilities then, and sure, I know you’ve grown up and put away childish things as the poem says.”
“Bible, actually.”
“Oh yeah?” We weren’t religious, but I knew that much.
“Anyway, what I’m trying to remind you of is that you used to have dreams and desires.
Not just basic needs. Not just living inside your head.
You spend a lot of time there, sprite. And it’s served you well, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting things for yourself. ”
“That’s where the baby comes in, Dad. She’ll make me happy.”
He studied me with his usual gravity. “Your mother has never understood you, Franky. So why would you listen to her?”
“I-I don’t. With Mom, it’s in one ear—”
“Where it scrambles your brain for a bit, and then out the other. She never encouraged you. She had a certain idea of what a little girl should be, and you weren’t it.
And I worry you carry some of that weight with you.
Some of that pain. Sure, you’re professionally successful and you’re about to have a baby you’ve longed for.
You have people who love you to the moon and back, but you still let your mom put you in a box when it came to your lovability.
She told you that you were kooky and weird, and you took that inside you and let it fester. ”
I set an extra-long apple peel aside. In Dutch folklore, it was said that throwing a long strip of peel over your shoulder would reveal the initial of your true love. No matter how hard I wished, this one looked more like a G.
“I don’t mind being the weirdo. I accept that.”
“I know you do. You’re the most interesting person I know.
But sometimes I think you don’t want to be seen as interesting or kooky.
Sometimes you just want to be seen the same as everyone else.
Worthy of the things everyone else deserves.
Like a boyfriend. Or a husband. Or someone who loves you for who you are instead of how it reflects off them.
Your mother is a selfish woman, and she only ever cared about how good you made her feel. How you reflected off her.”
“But … she’s not wrong, Dad. I’m not the kind of girl who gets the hot guy or the hunky athlete.
Yes, I fell for Jason against my better judgment.
But I never really believed. Something inside me knew it was utter nonsense.
Jason wants to be a dad, and I happened to be on the spot to fulfill that need.
Just as he happened to be available when I needed him.
To make a baby. Expecting anything more is like inventing fairytales for my slugs and snails. ”
He looked at me with such love I wanted to melt on the spot, preferably into his strong arms.
“We all have dreams, goals, desires, needs. It’s okay to want things.
The way I grew up, thrown from pillar to post with my parents, half the time in Scotland, half in Canada—the minute I had a chance, I bought this house.
Before I had even met Kendra, I had it because I knew it was the first building block to what I wanted.
Family. A life that was more than hockey.
More than alcohol. I wanted to fill the rooms with laughter and games and little girls who liked dolls and science, music and slugs.
But it all started with a wish, sprite.”
He winked at me. “You’re never too old for that.”