Chapter 4 #2
“Oh, Elodie, you’re glowing.” Ava stands, her arms outstretched to clasp Elodie in an airy hug. “Are you cold? Being pregnant made me cold all the time too.”
Elodie tries for a smile, but she feels like a long-legged stork before this beautiful slip of a woman. “Oh, the coat is just because I’m from Queensland.”
Ava’s polite but slightly puzzled smile reminds Elodie most people here have no context of Australia outside of the clichés: the Sydney Opera House, poisonous snakes, eternal summers. She should say less about her country anyway, keep stifling her accent. She wants to blend in.
“Come sit down!” Ava says quickly to avoid any awkward lulls. “I’ve got an extra teacup for you. I assume you’re skipping caffeine for the baby.”
Elodie would die without coffee. Outright die. “Of course,” she says. “For the baby.”
The café has a cutesy farm theme: chairs white wicker, baskets of floppy flowers, country music crooning in the background, milk jugs shaped like cows and spoons topped with silver carrots. Ava sips from a rose teacup and splits a tiny morsel of lemon cake to share with Poppy.
“Are these cakes all right for you? Brendan mentioned you don’t get morning sickness.
” Ava’s smile is so genuine and lovely it makes Elodie’s teeth hurt as if she bit into something too sweet.
“I was so sick with Poppy, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
I’m still trying for another, but, well …
no luck so far.” She puts an absent hand on her flat stomach.
Elodie wants to say, If I fuck a man for two minutes, I’ll get pregnant, but she needs Ava to like her.
She has kept Jude tucked away as much as she could during these last four months, but the invitations keep coming: family barbecues and birthday parties, a housewarming, an anniversary.
Now Thanksgiving is around the corner with Christmas soon after.
Her excuses to stay home will evaporate and she will have to let Bren’s aunts and grandparents and sister truly see her son. And see her.
“I just have easy pregnancies,” she says. “Luck and genetics.”
“Don’t let Brendan wear you out with that house.” Ava sets down her cup and chews her lip. “I told him he needs it to be ready before the baby.”
Elodie gives a small laugh. “That’ll be a miracle. It’s a mess.”
“He has the nursery done, at least.”
“That’s Jude’s room.” Elodie bites into a cake, and it takes a moment to realize another awkward pause has caught between them.
“You don’t want the baby in there?” Ava says, tentative. “Brendan told me he restored this incredible woodland crib.”
Jude’s little bed must convert into a crib, Elodie realizes, with railings that pack away and a mattress that can be lowered as the child ages.
But Bren has said none of this to her, and Jude is obsessed with the room, the bed, those toys.
His furious reaction over the baby has left her shaken in ways she doesn’t want to think about, and that will be a hundred times worse if he’s made to give up his things for it.
She knows what jealous children are like.
Poppy chooses that moment to ask for more with a baby sign, and Ava fusses over her, proud of her communication, careful to reward and encourage and cuddle.
“Brendan is so excited to be a father,” Ava goes on.
“I know some men get cold feet, but he’s wanted to be a dad since he was twelve.
He’s so sweet. He’s really something special.
” There’s something emotional about her voice.
“This baby has already stolen his heart, and I just know he’s going to do everything right. ”
All Elodie can think of is herself, alone, devouring him, her teeth sunk into Bren’s raw, throbbing heart, his worship for her never-ending as his blood stains her tongue.
The image is eviscerating, thrilling, and she is shocked by it.
Shocked by herself. She reaches for her tea, masking her quickened breathing, and shoves the thought away.
“… and I’m here for you too. Anything you need, at any time. Will your family come for the birth?” Ava asks.
Elodie thinks of her parents, puffy eggplant pouches beneath their eyes and faces like sallow butter. When Elodie would talk, they would simply leave the room.
She sips her tea, though her throat has closed up. “We’re not close.”
They finish the tea, and Ava drifts after Elodie toward their cars.
Poppy chirps happily in her arms, and Elodie tries not to think of how difficult and overtired Jude always is in the afternoons, how if she’d brought him, there’d be juice stains and cake crumbs on his clothes, and he’d probably wrench free of her hand to bolt into the parking lot while she had a heart attack and ran after him.
Two wicker baskets of newborn swaddles and onesies sit in Ava’s trunk, and they switch them to Elodie’s back seat.
A loan, not a gift. Ava has baby fever like nothing else, and the way she looks at the slight rise in Elodie’s coat is hungry, as if she wants to be the one to hover between Elodie’s legs in the hospital and snatch the baby as soon as it slithers out.
Ava lingers, Poppy on her hip, as Elodie slides into her car.
“I wanted to mention something,” Ava says.
It takes effort for Elodie to keep her face neutral, to not let any tiredness or anxiety show. Every time she’s around Bren’s family, she’s waiting for their judgment to be delivered knife-sharp with a sweet smile, because they will always be polite, but she knows what they’re thinking.
She tricked him into this.
Look how fast she got herself pregnant.
What is wrong with her first child?
Slut.
Gold digger.
Bad mother.
There is no doubt that his family hates her, hates how she is a dark stain on their golden boy, hates how he left the country to visit a girl and came back with a pregnant wife.
“I think it’s helpful to be on the same page as your husband when starting a family.
” Ava tucks a wisp of hair behind her ear, not quite making eye contact.
“Early learning programs, sleep routines, weaning, and … well, discipline. Brendan is—” She pauses, restarts like a car with an engine frosted over during the night. “He likes to fix things.”
Elodie digs the car keys into the edge of her thumbnail. It’s oddly hesitant, the way Ava is talking about Bren, when usually all she does is gush about him.
“So…” Ava says. “Oliver and I agreed we won’t spank Poppy.
I personally believe it’s so detrimental to children’s development, and they only act out because their needs aren’t being met or they don’t have the skills to manage big emotions.
I would just … make sure you both agree on how you’ll handle difficult situations. ”
“He’s besotted with the idea of being a father,” Elodie says. “I’ve never seen him lose his cool for anything, and I hardly think he’ll want to hit a baby.” She means for it to sound reassuring.
But there’s something odd about Ava’s smile, a stretching that makes skin seem too tight against bone. “Oh. I’m not talking about the baby.”
A splinter of unease tugs deep in Elodie’s gut, and she has the sudden urge to slam her car door and peel out of there before Ava can say anything else. Today has already been too much, and Elodie doesn’t need new worries gnawing at her.
“I know Jude has some struggles.” Ava sounds like she’s picking each word with excruciating care. “Not that it’s anything to worry about. Children are all special in their own ways.”
Oh, Elodie is going to have words with her husband over what the hell he’s been saying to his sister about Jude.
“He told you exactly how our parents passed away, didn’t he?
” Ava adjusts Poppy on her hip and then looks away to hide the ache in her eyes.
“Bren was there. He saw everything. It really affected him. I mean, how could it not? He loved our parents so, so much, and maybe they were a little strict, but they cherished us both. He’s come so far from being the traumatized little boy he once was, but I know his biggest dream is to follow in our parents’ footsteps.
We were both brought up to be very polite, very neat, very …
respectful. I’m sure he’ll want that for his own children. ”
It takes everything in Elodie not to snap, Good thing Jude isn’t his, then.
Instead, she keeps her smile thin as she says, “I’m sure he’ll be the perfect father to our child.
” She maybe leans too much on the singular child, but Ava only nods in relief, as if whatever cryptic undercurrent she was trying to relay has been successfully delivered.
Elodie just feels exhausted and annoyed. There is no changing Jude; there is only surviving until he outgrows the meltdowns. Bren has never indicated he’ll overstep and meddle with the way she parents her own son, and if he ever tried to spank Jude, she simply wouldn’t let him.
Bren will listen; he adores her.
She isn’t worried.