I peered inside. “She’s sleeping now.”
“She settled down as soon as we left. Now I’ll never know what happens to Pete the Cat and his white shoes.” Sarah shrugged, clearly unperturbed by the mystery. “How are you, Ethan?”
“Better than Lizzie. Check this out?” He retrieved his phone and played the video of my espresso taste test.
Sarah covered her mouth. “Oh, my. Can you send me this?” She turned to me, shaking her head. “You didn’t know you’d hate espresso?”
“Never had it before.” I tossed my hands up.
“Such a waste of delicious caffeine. I’d kill for a cup. Or even a good whiff.”
“I can buy another and let you sniff it all day, if you’d like.” Caffeine was allowed for nursing mothers within moderation, but Sarah had been avoiding it at all costs in case it kept the babies awake.
“You would do that?”
“For the mother of my children, yes.” I stood up. “Shall I get Lisa and Casey something?”
“Nah. They have to head out right after for dance class. It’s ballet this month. We came in separate cars.”
I returned with an espresso for Sarah, another plain coffee for Ethan, and a steaming chai. “I think the government should pass a law making caffeine free for parents.”
“Geez, too many people who should never have kids already make too many. Don’t add to over population by tempting caffeine junkies.” Ethan stirred in white sugar.
Sarah held her espresso under her nose, inhaling deeply.
“Go on, have some. Heidi Murkoff says it’s okay in moderation.” I encouraged Sarah to take a sip.
“She does?” Sarah’s eyes grew sevenfold.
“Yes. I can grab a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting if you don’t believe me.”
“Oh, I believe. I’m so fucking tired I’d believe it if you told me you were descended from alien leprechauns.”
Ethan cocked his head. “That would explain some things.”
“Hardy har har, Ethan.” I turned to Sarah. “Did you know you can eat up to five hundred calories more a day because you burn that much breastfeeding?”
“But I’m feeding two. Does that mean I’m burning a thousand calories?”
I rubbed my chin. “Logically, that makes sense.”
“But illogically?” Ethan pitched an eyebrow over his black-framed glasses.
“I don’t remember reading that it automatically doubled.”
“And if it’s not completely black and white, Lizzie doesn’t understand.” Sarah grinned.
I shook a stuffed giraffe in Freddie’s face. Ollie was still out cold; otherwise we’d be hightailing it out of the shop. Freddie observed wide-eyed, with curious caution. He clearly took after me. “I’ll do more research for you.”
“If I asked you to research what a hippo fart smells like, would you?” Sarah crinkled her nose, and I wondered if she did so subconsciously.
“I think we can only accept firsthand observation.” Ethan’s sincere expression failed to mask his derision.
“All right. As much as I’m enjoying bantering with adults, I think we should get to the heart of the matter. I’m guessing we have about twenty minutes before Olivia wakes up.” I nodded to Sarah to get the ball rolling. Today’s meet-up was always intended to be more than a casual chat.
Sarah stared, as if wondering why I had to mention that, but she seemed to accept it was best since these kinds of conversations were difficult for me.
“Lizzie and I have been talking about the twins, what would happen to them if—”
Ethan teetered forward in his chair. “You’re not sick, are you?”
“Oh, no. Unless you count sleep deprivation, we’re in great shape. We just want to know that if something does happen, our kiddos will be taken care of. My mom is getting up there in years, and Lizzie’s family—”
“Is in a class of its own,” I let fly.
Sarah frowned at me. “We’ve talked with Maddie, and she’s game, but you know Lizzie, she likes to have a back-up plan for every back-up plan, and I would too in this case.” She stopped to smile at our twins.
At the moment, they weren’t a handful. But when they awoke, all bets were off. “Would you also be willing to help out with the kids if we… weren’t around?” I asked.
Ethan stared open-mouthed at Sarah and then at me. “Really?”
“If it’s too much—”
Ethan waved Sarah off and rested his hand over his heart. “No, I’m honored, and I know Lisa would feel the same way. Why, Lizzie, I didn’t know you trusted me this much.”
“I don’t. We just don’t have many options.” I winked at him.
“Don’t listen to her.” Sarah’s tight smile chided me.
“I never do.” Ethan swiped at one eye with his index finger.
They laughed together, and I feigned being offended. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly when my wife and best friend had become so friendly. They even texted on a daily basis now. Ethan rarely texted me—albeit I abhorred texting, but still.
A wail from Olivia quieted their merriment.
Sarah sighed. “Give her to me.”
Before she could undo her top, I said, “Why don’t we take them outside? Fresh air helps with digestion, I hear.”
“Walking outside after eating helps with digestion.” With one hand, she motioned for me to hand her over, while her other freed one of her massive breasts.
I reluctantly handed Ollie over and then pulled Freddie onto my lap.
Ethan gawped. He was clearly surprised Sarah intended to feed Ollie right there in the store.
An older man and woman moseyed by, the woman tutting after taking her sweet time to get an eyeful of my wife’s bosom. She whispered something unintelligible to her companion. It was hard to decipher whether she was more outraged by Sarah’s exposed boob, even covered with a muslin blanket in a weak attempt to provide privacy, or her decrepit husband’s leer. Ethan, squirming in his seat, flipped the woman the bird behind her back. It seemed like a futile gesture, but Sarah seemed to appreciate it.
I bobbed a happily cooing Freddie on my lap while Ethan rattled the giraffe in his direction. Freddie’s tiny arms flailed above his head. “I’m certain he’s inherited my sporting skills, or lack thereof.”
“Hey, you’re lucky. Casey is a whiz at dance, basketball, soccer, and God knows what else. Lisa and I are constantly taking turns ferrying her to one activity after another.” He motioned he wanted to hold Fred.
After a while, Sarah buttoned up her shirt and handed Ollie back to me. “I’ll be right back.” She made a beeline for the bathroom.
“Feeling better, Ollie?” I followed, pursing my lips and making baby sounds I’d previously sworn I’d never make, not even for my own child.
“Motherhood has made you soft. Isn’t that right, Fred? She’s a softie woftie. Yes, she is.”
“Because you’re the paragon of manhood.”
Ethan stuck out his tongue. “Whatever.”
I leaned back in the chair, positioning Ollie sideways on my lap in an attempt to get her to burp. I patted her back, working up and down. Occasionally, I mixed it up by rubbing her back the way the nurse had shown me.
“I always had more luck with the over-the-shoulder method. Don’t forget the burping cloth, though.”
“I always forget that. You have no idea how many shirts and pants I’ve thrown away in the last few weeks.” I reached into the diaper bag hanging on the back of the double-wide stroller.
“You actually throw clothes away when your baby spits up? All this time you’ve been teasing me about my dislike of fluids, and you’re worse than I am.”
“At least I like sex.”
He scrunched up his face. The older couple returned just in time to overhear that nugget. The woman didn’t tut this time, but the look of horror on her face was priceless. Served her right for getting worked u
p about Sarah breastfeeding our child in public.
Ethan waited for them to totter out of range. “Do you still like it after—?”
“After?” Of course Sarah and I hadn’t had sex since the births. She was still sore, and neither of us had any extra energy to expend.
“After seeing—you know, the babies, blood, and…” He pantomimed etcetera with a grossed-out look on his face.
The experience would be hard to erase from my memory bank, not that I would admit that aloud—not even to my best friend, who’d just agreed to be a father to our children in case I wasn’t around. “Oh, that. It’s completely natural.” I stood, placed the cloth on my left shoulder, and repositioned Ollie.
“That’s it. Pat her a bit more.” He stood, rocking Freddie in his arms. “Yeah, like that. So tell me the truth. Have you felt like getting your groove back on with Sarah?” He fixed his eyes on mine. “I know it’s hard for some.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Sarah was nowhere in sight. “It’s different now, somehow. Besides being exhausted, I keep getting visions of—it was like a war zone.”
Ethan nodded thoughtfully. “Just so you know, Sarah’s talked about it with Maddie, who in turn told me.”
I knew Sarah had been worried about that before the births: that I’d place her solely in the mom box. “What should I do?”
“You’re asking me?” He grinned. “The deed. Do the deed. Trust me; it won’t be bad.”
“How am I supposed to trust you when it comes to sex?”
“You know what they say… Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”
Ollie spat up.
“Ah, perfect timing.” Sarah took our daughter from my arms and secured her in the stroller. “Time to roll.”
Ethan caught my eye. I had a feeling he was still communicating what we’d been discussing.
Time to roll… in the hay.
Chapter Thirteen
“Helen, would you like a cup of coffee?” Rose stood next to the dining room table, waiting for an answer. “We have a lovely lemon sponge cake for dessert.”
“Yes, please.”
Sarah followed her mom to the kitchen, leaving me alone with Helen. We didn’t dine often in the formal room. The mahogany dining set, antique hutch along the back wall, fringed Oriental rug on dark hardwood floors, crystal chandelier, and cinnabar walls made me uncomfortable in my own skin. Sarah was well aware of my feelings, but this was the first time we’d hosted my future stepmother, and her desire to welcome Helen properly usurped my dislike of formality. Also, I showed no interest in decorating, so in her book, I didn’t have any room to complain.
Helen eyed me from across the table, her head tilted expectantly.
“So…” I started and quickly faltered.
She reached over and patted my hand. “I know this must be awkward, to say the least. Cap—”
“Cap?” I interjected.
“Oh, that’s what I call your father.” She smiled innocently.
Cap—his initials Charles Allen Petrie. Never in my life had I heard anyone call my father anything other than Charles. For two decades, my father had been involved with this woman, and she had an endearing nickname for him. Puzzle pieces in my head started to click together, initiating a wave of queasiness.
“Coffee’s on.” Sarah and Rose breezed back into the room.
Sarah placed a tender hand on my shoulder before retaking her seat. “Mom was telling me about your shop, Helen. I have a mania for fresh flowers.”
Helen nodded. “Yes, I’ve been fortunate to survive. Not many florists made it through the Great Recession.”
“Our friend Maddie had a tough go of it with her design business. It’s slowly coming back to life.”
“Maddie—she was at the hospital?” Her voice hitched at the end as if she was asking a question she already knew the answer to. Had she met Maddie before then? Surely she had heard the name from my father.
“She used to be engaged to Peter.”
Helen glanced down at her laced fingers on the table. “That’s right. I remember the name.”
The temperature in the room seemed to have dropped several degrees.
“How long have you owned the shop?” Rose shifted in her seat, blocking me from her view.
“Oh, gosh. Almost thirty years.”
Was that how she’d met my father? Did he hop into the store to buy my mother flowers and… boom? Love at first sight? I wanted to ask, but I wasn’t sure it was the right time to put her on the spot. Also, how would I handle knowing the whole story?
“According to your website, you have a branch here.”
Was Rose conducting a job interview: position Lizzie’s new mother? What was next? So, Helen, tell us in three words why you’d make a good mother for Lizzie, who, according to all who know her, is special.
“Really?” Sarah said much too enthusiastically. “I’ll need to put in a standing order. Do you deliver?”
“We do. My son—” Her voice stilled, along with my heart.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” Rose said, clearly not jumping to the conclusion I had leapt to. Judging by Sarah’s fingers gouging into my thigh, my wife had as well. “How old is he?”
“Twenty-eight. He’s working on his MBA. He has grand plans of becoming like Amazon, but in the flower world. Although, right now we own shops only in Denver, Boulder, and here.”
Rose laughed, and I exhaled my first breath since hearing Helen had a child. If Maddie was right, my father and Helen had been together a little over twenty years, not twenty-nine, which meant her son wasn’t my half brother.
“Do you have any other children?” Rose asked, oblivious to the tension hanging in the air.
The color instantly disappeared from Helen’s face.
Realization must have crashed into Rose’s mind, because she puffed out an apologetic sigh.
Helen studied me carefully. “I have another son who’s graduating from high school this spring.”
No one spoke. Not a sound could be heard. Not even the birds outside the three-paned window squawked.
“Would you excuse me?” I stood and discarded my napkin on the tablecloth. “I think I hear the twins fussing in the nursery.”
I sank onto the third step of the staircase, out of view of the infernal dining room. My vision blurred, and my breathing grew rapid, like I’d just run up and down the staircase for an hour.
Sarah stuck her head around the corner and approached cautiously.
“Not now.” I shook my head. “Please, not now.”
She eyed me before agreeing with a nod. Then she sat next to me quietly, one arm draped around my shoulder.
Moments later, she said, “I should get back. Do you—?”
I cut her off with a vehement headshake.
Much to my surprise, Sarah didn’t drag me kicking and screaming back in there.
***
Hours later, my wife found me in my library, sitting on a cushion in the bay window. Twilight settled along the horizon, tingeing the sky over the foothills a purplish gray.
“Would you like a drink?” She motioned to the bar.
“Do I need one?”
“After that bombshell, I’m surprised you aren’t already snockered.” She laughed and half-heartedly added, “Of course, it hasn’t been confirmed that you have a half brother.” Without waiting for my reply, she prepared a gin and tonic, thrusting it into my hands as she took a seat next to me in the window.
I sipped the fizzing concoction, not tasting a thing. “I don’t know how, but I feel it in my bones that he’s my brother.”
“Want to talk about it?”
I was surprised she was giving me the option. “Nope.”
She smiled her smile that meant she’d only give me a reprieve for so long.
“Mom feels awful.”
I took another tug of my drink.
“To find out that way—she didn�
��t mean it.”
Hank wandered in, meowing, and jumped between us with his back arched. Sarah drew a hand away to stroke his shiny black fur, head to tail.
I waggled his tail. “How would it have been better to deliver the news?”
Sarah’s eyes went blank, and she shrugged.
“I mean, for twenty something years my father carried on with this woman—and that’s been enough for me to adjust to—and now I find out they had a child together.”
“Allen.”
I sucked in a breath. “He has my father’s middle name?”
“Yes.”
I shrouded my eyes with one palm. “Jesus. Am I wrong in thinking you don’t name a son after you when it’s with a mistress? You do that with a woman you love. How am I supposed to process all of this? I’m not equipped—”
Hank kneaded my thigh with his paws.
Sarah waited patiently in the darkening room.
I glanced out the window. “I don’t even know what to think, what to say. My father had two families—and from the looks of it, I got the short end of the stick when it came to mothers. Helen’s a sweet lady who owns a flower shop, for Christ’s sake. My mother—” The back of my throat tingled, and I swigged my gin and tonic. “Why did I deserve that? Deserve her?”
Sarah remained quiet.
“And not only that, I feel guilty as fuck for wishing I had a mom like Helen, rather than the Scotch-lady who tormented me from the moment I made my appearance in this oh-so-wonderful world.” I slumped against the window. “I’m going to be in therapy until I’m eighty.”
One of the twins cried out, and I started to get up.
“Stay here,” Sarah said, patting my thigh. “I got it.”
Hank followed her out of the room.
The purplish light turned inky black, and an odd sensation overcame me and forced me into action. I stopped briefly in the kitchen to pour the contents of my gin and tonic down the drain.
Next stop, the nursery.
When I stepped into the room, Freddie, still in his crib, squirmed happily. “Hey there, little man.” I scooped him into my arms.
Sarah was rocking Olivia, smiling. “Shall we order Chinese for dinner?”
“Do you think they’re ready for Moo Shu Pork?” I raised Fred over my head. “Do you want a Pu Pu Platter?” He didn’t giggle, but his face radiated happiness.
A Family Woman Page 18