by Tara Sivec
Noel rests her hands on the back of the pew in front of us and drops her head with a groan. I swear I can hear her chanting something under her breath that sounds like “I will not throw up. I will not throw up,” but I can’t be sure since Bev and Reggie are now whisper arguing behind us.
“I never promised in our wedding vows to honor, obey, and feed you fresh bacon!”
“Jesus is very disappointed in you today, Beverly. He has risen and He is angry!”
“If you don’t stop it right now, we’re becoming Kosher and you will never eat another piece of pork for the rest of your life!”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
Suddenly, a loud squealing noise comes from the back of the church, and the entire congregation turns as one to see Bacon come flying out of the quiet room and down the center aisle, with three volunteers racing after him.
Bev pushes everyone in her row out of the way as she quickly shuffles down the length of her pew, bending down in the center of the aisle as Bacon comes flying into her arms. The entire room is a flutter of activity with everyone muttering under their breaths as Bev slides back down the row to her spot next to Reggie with a squirming, and still squealing, pig wrapped in her arms.
“Sorry! Sorry, everyone! It’s okay now, go back to praying,” she announces with a wave of her hand.
The priest goes back to speaking at the microphone and the congregation turns back around to the front of the church as Bev whispers quietly in Bacon’s ear and calms him down.
Turning back towards Noel, I find her place next to me empty and Aunt Bobbie gives me a shrug.
“I might have gone too far with the chocolate raspberry lube. But really, there’s no better place to purge the demons than the bathroom of a church. She will be HEALED!” Aunt Bobbie whispers loudly.
“Okay, fine. You convinced me. I’m gonna ask Scheva to marry me,” Alex whispers in my ear. “But she’s gonna have to swear on a stack of bibles that I’ll get my threesome for our one-year anniversary.”
Pushing my way around Alex and Scheva, I quickly head down the aisle to the back of the church in search of Noel, hoping she’s okay, wondering why in the hell we can’t have a normal holiday like normal people.
Chapter 9
Angry Bowels
Noel
“Will you stop worrying, it’s going to be fine,” Scheva tells me for the hundredth time in the last fifteen minutes as we watch Sam wander around the side yard of the church, searching for his eggs, opening each one and reading the notes inside as he finds them.
The distant sounds of children shouting and laughing around the front of the church as they search for their own eggs doesn’t even make me smile. Sure, they look adorable in their Easter outfits, all the little girls in pretty, frilly dresses and white Mary Jane shoes, and all the boys in their little suits and ties, but I’m too busy watching the expression on Sam’s face with each new egg he discovers.
“See? He just made a face. It doesn’t look like a happy face,” I whine, wringing my hands together in front of me nervously.
“He’s probably distracted thinking about how you fled from church and yacked in the bathroom, then lied to him and told him you had the shits,” she says with a roll of her eyes.
“I didn’t tell him I had the shits! I told him my stomach was upset because I was worried he wouldn’t like the Easter present I got him.”
“Stomach upset, equals the shits. Now, whenever he thinks about you, he’s just going to picture you squatting on the toilet, with your bowels exploding.”
“Is he done yet? What’s taking him so long?” Aunt Bobbie asks, coming up next to us.
“Sam is thinking about how he’s never going to have sex with Noel again because she has angry bowels,” Scheva tells her.
“Shut up! He just found the last egg,” I scold them, grabbing onto Scheva’s arm and squeezing it as hard as I can.
The three of us watch him open the egg and pull out the note. He reads it, looks over at me, then looks down at the piece of paper in his hand again and scratches his head.
“Maybe he doesn’t understand that whole growing by two feet thing. I should have just written I’m pregnant,” I mutter as Sam looks over at me again with a look of confusion on his face.
I give him a tentative smile and rest my hand against my stomach, hoping that will clue him in.
“Don’t do that!” Scheva shouts, grabbing my hand and pulling it away from my stomach. “That’s just giving him a neon sign that screams ‘I STILL HAVE THE SHITS!’.”
Holding the small basket in one hand I gave him as soon as we got out of church, which he filled with all of the eggs after he opened them, and clutching all of the little pieces of paper in his other hand, he slowly walks over to where we’re standing.
Unable to stand the silence when he doesn’t say anything, I smile at him again and take a step towards him until we’re toe-to-toe.
“So? What do you think?” I ask softly, looking up at his face that’s still filled with bewilderment.
“Um, what do I think? Actually, I don’t really know. I mean, it’s unexpected, I’ll give you that.”
Lifting my arm, I wrap my hand around his bicep and give it a gentle squeeze.
“I know, very unexpected. But…seriously, what are you thinking right now? You understood what the notes meant, right?”
He looks down at the pieces of paper in his hand.
“Yeah, I understood. It’s kind of hard NOT to understand, but I’m thinking Easter was a weird time for you to do this,” he finally replies.
Okay, not exactly the response I was looking for, but all hope is not lost. He’s just in shock, and I don’t blame him.
“Easter is a time of rebirth, and joy and…I don’t know. I thought it was kind of fitting to do it today,” I tell him with a shrug.
He looks at me quizzically, so I keep going.
“I know we never discussed this before, and it’s probably a little bit shocking, but you’re happy, right?”
He opens and closes his mouth a few times before finally deciding what to say.
“I guess?”
I don’t really like the fact that it comes out as a question, but at least he’s not screaming and running away. We can still salvage this.
Dropping the notes into the basket on top of the eggs, he sets it down by our feet, quickly straightening back up to wrap his hands gently around my upper arms.
“Here’s the thing, I know I’m supposed to be happy, and over the moon excited, but…”
He pauses and my heart starts thundering in my chest as he gets his thoughts in order and keeps going.
“Look, I know most guys say they want this, but I’m not exactly one of those guys. I’m perfectly happy with the way things are.”
He smiles down at me and I have the sudden urge to punch him in the face. My gorgeous, sweet, amazing husband doesn’t want the child we’ve created and is happier with it just being the two of us. That’s basically what he’s saying right now.
“It’s not like I can just take it back. You realize that, right?” I tell him through clenched teeth, grinding them together as hard as I can before I start to cry.
“I know, believe me. It’s out there and it’s not like we can erase it. Well, I mean, we can always pretend like it didn’t happen, maybe that’s a better idea,” he tells me with a smile.
A smile. A FUCKING SMILE.
“I’m pretty sure we can’t just pretend like it didn’t happen. It’s going to be very obvious it happened in no time at all,” I fire back, tears clouding my vision.
“I won’t tell anyone if you won’t,” he says with a wink. “Don’t feel bad. I love that you want to do something like this, but honestly, I don’t need to.”
I take a step back from him, swiping angrily at the tears that fall down my cheeks.
“Um, Noel, can we speak to you in private for a minute?” Aunt Bobbie asks from next to me where she’s squatting down beside Sam’s basket
.
“I’m a little busy here right now! Busy having my hopes and dreams completely RUINED by my husband!” I cry.
“Okay, now you’re being a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
Sam quickly realizes he said the wrong thing to me when I narrow my eyes at him and Aunt Bobbie and Scheva both jump towards me, wrapping their arms around me before I throw myself on him and start swinging punches.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that!” Sam says in a panic, throwing his hands up in the air in a calming gesture.
“Noel, seriously, I think we need to—”
“SHUT UP!” I scream, cutting Scheva off as I glare at my husband.
“What in the devil is all this commotion about?” my mom asks, coming up next to us with Bacon in her arms.
“I MARRIED A MONSTER!” I scream, Sam’s eyes widening in shock at my proclamation.
“I told you that a year ago. No one ever listens to me,” my dad adds, walking up next to my mom. “If it makes you feel any better, I married a bacon-denier. We’ve all been duped, Noel.”
My mom smacks my dad’s hand away when he tries to reach for Bacon.
“I understand everyone is feeling a little stressed after mass this morning. Bacon apologizes for causing such a fuss and distracting everyone from their morning prayer. I think we all just need to calm ourselves down and head back to the house and enjoy a nice Easter dinner.”
Shrugging out of Aunt Bobbie and Scheva’s hold, I take a few steps away from everyone and wrap my arms around my waist, unable to take my eyes off of a still completely confused Sam, wondering how I’ll ever be able to celebrate another holiday after the disaster this one has turned into.
“It’s not going to be a nice Easter dinner unless we get to eat Bacon,” my dad grumbles.
“If you say eat Bacon one more time, I’ll make you convert to Buddhism!” my mom fires back.
“Woman, I don’t even know what that means.”
“IT MEANS NO COW FOR YOU EITHER!” my mom screams, walking away in a huff.
“YOU CAN’T DENY ME BEEF, BEVERLY! YOU ARE ON THE LAWN OF THE HOUSE OF GOD! THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT STATES THOU SHALT NOT DENY THY HUSBAND BEEF!”
Everyone turns when we hear Alex laughing and find him bent down by the basket, sifting through the notes.
Unable to bear it any longer, I turn and walk away from the group, having no idea where I’m going, but knowing I need to be away from everyone right now before I drop down in the middle of the grass in a puddle of tears.
“Sam, you are the luckiest man in the world,” I hear Alex say before he shouts after me. “Noel, I have so much more respect for you right now! This is a God damn Easter blessing!”
At least someone sees the joy in this. Too bad it wasn’t my own husband.
Chapter 10
Butt Stuff
Sam
I’m still in the same spot I was when Noel walked away a few minutes ago, staring at the door of the church she disappeared into, hoping she’ll come back out in a few minutes after she cools off.
“Let’s do butt stuff, anal is awesome, you should stick it in my butt,” Alex says, flipping through the pieces of paper Noel left in the eggs for me and reading them out loud before dropping them back into the basket and shaking his head at me. “I’m so disappointed in you right now. Who says no to butt stuff?”
I sigh and run my hand through my hair, trying my best to ignore him. It’s just so hard to believe Noel would get so mad at me. Shouldn’t a woman be thrilled her man doesn’t need anything like that to keep him happy? I love the sex we have now. It’s not like it’s boring and needs spicing up.
“Sam, we need to tell you something,” Aunt Bobbie says, resting her hand on my shoulder.
“No, YOU need to tell him something. I had nothing to do with this shitshow,” Scheva adds, coming up to the other side of me.
“I didn’t force that vodka down your throat, dickhole,” Aunt Bobbie argues.
“I don’t even remember what happened after Noel left and that incident with the spatula,” Scheva hisses.
“We promised to NEVER speak of that again!”
It’s like watching a tennis match with my head whipping from side-to-side with these two that I finally put up my hands to get them to stop.
“Will you two shut up and tell me what’s going on?”
Aunt Bobbie and Scheva move to stand in front of me, and then both take a few huge steps away from me.
“It’s better if we stand a safe distance away from you right now. You’re not armed, are you?” Scheva asks.
“Just spit it out. Do you two know what’s going on with Noel? What in the world would make her ask me if I want anal? Is she bored with our sex life? Oh, shit, she thinks I’m boring, doesn’t she?” I ask in a panic.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, no. She doesn’t think you’re boring in bed; believe me. I’ve heard her shouting just how unboring you are through those horribly thin doors you have,” Aunt Bobbie reminds me.
“Please don’t kill us, but we may have switched out the notes Noel actually wrote for you and put in those eggs that listed all the reasons she loves you, with notes of our own because vodka makes us do stupid things and we should never be allowed to make decisions when we’re drunk,” Scheva blurts out rapidly.
“Jesus, you could have warned me you were going to just rip it off like a Band-Aid. I didn’t even have time to take my heels off so I could run,” Aunt Bobbie complains.
“Wait, so you’re saying, Noel didn’t write those notes?”
Both women silently shake their heads no.
“So Noel doesn’t really want anal?”
They shake their heads in unison again.
Alex sniffles next to me and wraps his arm around my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, man. I’m really sorry. This is just a sad, sad day all around.”
Jerking out of his hold, I finally let out a deep breath of relief. Then I look at Aunt Bobbie and Scheva and scowl at them. I take a few steps in their direction, clenching my hands into fists at my sides, forcing myself to take a few more calming breaths before I speak as I look back and forth between the two of them.
“I’m going to start this off by saying that I love you both. I will never stop loving you, no matter what stupid shit you pull, but know this—I am very, VERY disappointed in you. I can’t even look at the two of you right now; I’m so upset. I want you to go over to the cars and think about what you’ve done, and when you’re ready to give me an apology, I’ll be ready to hear it.”
Right when I think they’re going to start cursing at me, they both break into tears.
“I was wrong. You’re not dumb. You are going to be SO good at this,” Aunt Bobbie tells me as she pulls a handkerchief out of her cleavage and dabs the material under her eyes.
“I have no idea what that means, but I’m going to go get my wife now,” I tell them, turning around and running as fast as I can across the lawn and into the church.
As soon as I step foot into the quiet, empty church, I see Noel sitting in a pew a few rows in front of me, staring straight ahead. Moving quietly down the aisle, I slide into the row behind her and take a seat, the wooden bench creaking as I sit down.
“I love you because you asked me to come home with you at Christmas, when you didn’t even know me,” I tell her softly. “I love you because you gave me a family. I love you because you’re beautiful and you don’t even know it. I love you because you make me laugh.”
Moving forward, I rest my knees on the kneeler, drape my arms over the pew and around Noel, resting my chin on her shoulder.
“I love you because you’re sexy. I love you because you’re independent. I love you because you love your family even though they’re nuts. But most of all, I love you because you love me better than anyone ever has in my life.”
I hear her sniffle and she finally turns to face me.
“Why do you have to say such sweet things to me when I’m
mad at you?”
I smile at her, removing one of my arms from its tight hold on her to brush the tears off her cheek.
“Don’t be mad at me. Aunt Bobbie and Scheva just admitted they switched out the notes you wrote and put in the eggs,” I explain.
Her eyes widen and she groans.
“Wait, there’s more. The notes that were in those eggs were all about you wanting anal. Shit. I shouldn’t say anal in a church, should I? Shit! I shouldn’t say shit! Oh, my God, I’m going to hell. I mean, oh my goodness!”
Noel laughs, turning all the way around in her seat to look at me.
“So everything you said outside, that was all about anal sex?” she asks.
“Yes, yes, it was. And just so you know, I still stand firm on my decision, even though Alex will never forgive me.”
“And did they tell you what all of the notes said?” she asks tentatively.
“Yes. I mean, I think they did. They told me you wrote down all of the reasons why you love me. Which gave me the bright idea to come in here and do it for you. Did it work? Am I forgiven?” I ask hopefully.
She sighs, leaning towards me to rest her forehead against mine.
“That depends on what you’re going to say when I tell you what the last note I wrote said. I did write down ten reasons why I love you, but the eleventh egg had a different note in it,” she says.
“And what did that note say?” I ask with a smile.
Pulling back from me, she gets on her knees facing me on the seat of the pew, grabs my hand and holds it against her stomach.
“That our love grew by two feet, arriving in October,” she whispers as tears fill her eyes.
My mouth drops open as I look back and forth between her face and her stomach where my hand rests.
“Are you serious?” I choke out, not even ashamed that my own eyes are getting blurry with tears.