by K. A. Berg
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Penelope asked. I knew she has been dying to ask that for a bit but was holding back. “You guys should probably talk.”
Scooping up the phone, I flipped the button on the side that would silence the ringer and dropped it on my lap. “I can’t.” I was too stuck in a pit of despair, unable to move passed the very real fact my husband, the love of my life, the father of my children, could potentially have a baby with a total stranger.
The texts started popping up on the screen.
Matteo: Natalie, please come home.
Matteo: Please, I need you.
Matteo: Just please tell me you’re ok.
Norah was sitting flush against me, so we saw the messages at the same time. She cursed under her breath.
“What?” Pen asked.
Norah squeezed my leg and gave me a sad smile. “This feels like an impossible situation. Matt wants her to come home. I can feel the desperation in his texts, and I want to tell her to go home. But”—she turned her attention to me—"I don’t know if I’d be able to be around Derek in a moment like this either.”
I wanted to go to Matt, but I couldn’t soothe him when I felt the most exposed and vulnerable I’d ever felt in my life. His arms around me would only rub my wounds raw.
What would everyone say if this baby was our reality?
How the hell would we explain this to the kids? To my parents?
All I kept seeing was a movie playing in my head of Matt sliding in Brooke. His face when he came. Her face when he walked into the kitchen shirtless this morning. Her with a big pregnant belly. The two of them holding a little baby they shared. Him leaving me for her. It was like watching some TV drama characters fall in love.
Penelope’s voice interrupted my day-mare. “This is Matteo we’re talking about here. He would never do anything to hurt you, Natalie. I get that this sucks, but you aren’t going to actually leave him over this, are you?”
The image of him smiling down at a baby . . . over Brooke’s shoulder had another sob barreling up from my chest. “How am I supposed to stand around as he has a child with another woman?”
“You don’t know anything yet,” Norah stated as she rubbed her hand on my leg. “Don’t start planning for the worst.”
That was easy for her to say. I wiped snot from my nose with the back of my hand and didn’t think twice about it. “How can I not? He came inside her, Norah. He fucking came in another woman without wearing a damn condom.”
Pen moved from the smaller sofa to our larger one and pressed against my other side, leaving me sandwiched between the two of them. “She said she was on the pill. Let’s all just pray that everything is fine, and in a few weeks, you can put this all behind you.”
It didn’t seem as simple as she made it out to be.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Matteo
The hours ticked by with an unnatural slowness. Days felt more like weeks as I sat around alone, dealing with one of the biggest things that had ever happened to me.
I was confused and hurt and angry about the way Natalie was handling all of this.
I’d thought our love was unconditional. That there wasn’t anything that could tear us apart. Turned out I was wrong. One simple oversight—one that I wished with all my being I could go back and change—was all it took to burn it all down around us.
Things went too far.
Lines were crossed that couldn’t be uncrossed.
We had to find a way to fix this divide between us. There wasn’t another option. Living without Natalie was something I would never accept. Even with as angry as I was, two days without her felt more like an eternity. She’d stayed with Penelope last night. Communication had been sparse—in fact, the only time she’d answered any of my calls or texts was last night, and that was to tell me that she needed time.
If it weren’t for Adam, I would’ve gone insane with all the silence in the house. Yesterday, I busied myself with stripping the mattress and tossing it all in the garbage—wishing like hell that that was all I had to do to get rid of my problems. I bought new bedding and then scrubbed the house clean as if I could remove the memories with some Clorox.
But that only helped pass a fraction of time, and I needed something to keep me from hurling myself off a cliff. Hence, calling my best friend.
We sat out on the back patio, finished beers littering the table. Drinking probably wasn’t my best response, all things considered, but what else did one do when they could have impregnated a woman who wasn’t their wife and their wife left them all alone to deal with the potential fallout?
“She still hasn’t answered?” Adam asked, breaking the silence that had settled over us.
There may have been times before then that I wished for just a bit of silence when things got really crazy around here, but I didn’t think I’d ever ask for that again. I’d have given my left nut to hear Natalie yelling about dirty clothes left on the bathroom floor.
I shook my head as I stared out into the thick trees that lined the edge of our property.
“The video is legit?” he questioned once more, so I slid my phone to show him.
Brooke kept her word and sent me a video of her taking the morning after pill. She documented everything, opening the package, swallowing the pill, showing her empty mouth after. She was still wearing the same shirt as when she left the house. The woman covered all the bases for us. I had no idea if she had anything to lose like I did with Natalie, but she was equally invested in making sure nothing permanent resulted from Friday night.
“She said she was on the pill too?”
I nodded. She also told me that she was due for her period shortly and was certain we didn’t have anything to truly fear, but at that moment, I hadn’t been willing to count out any possibility. I took another pull on my beer bottle.
“Have you told Natalie that she did this?”
The video was sent yesterday, and the moment I received it, I called her. I wanted to tell her that Brooke did was she said, and I hoped it would help bring her home. She didn’t answer. I didn’t want to text that kind of thing to her and I wasn’t going to forward the video to her. That seemed cruel. Although, it didn’t seem like Natalie was interested in not being cruel because what she was doing felt exactly that.
“I tried,” I replied. My voice was dry and harsh.
Adam had the decency not to try to offer me some platitude about things working out.
We sat quietly, the rustle of the leaves on the trees in the breeze the only sound.
“I know this won’t make you feel any better at the current moment,” Adam said a few minutes later. “But at least the chances of this resulting into a child are slim to none.”
He was right. It didn’t make me feel better.
Nothing could have made it feel right except my wife coming home and being the rock I needed her to be.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Natalie
Matteo’s name flashed on the screen as I exited the airport into the parking garage. I’d just landed in Seattle from a quick trip to Portland to handle some things for the gallery opening in two weeks.
I didn’t bother to tell Matteo I was heading out of town for two days. Based on his text messages and voice mails, he was getting progressively angrier that I wasn’t coming home or answering his calls or texts. Couldn’t blame him. I certainly wasn’t going to call him while I was in Portland. We weren’t speaking and I’d just hopped on the plane, which was childish and rude, but him knowing it would have just made things between us worse. After I snuck home for a change of clothes while he was at work and couldn’t get out of there fast enough, all I thought about was the idea that maybe a bit of distance between me and here would be helpful.
I’d have done anything if it meant finding a way not to want to crawl out of my skin every moment of the day. Anything to have those nightmares that were present whether my eyes were closed or not go away. All I could think about was Matteo
and his new family. Adorable little Brooke and their sweet baby. Visions of their life danced in my mind like the goriest of all horror movies come to life.
Matt didn’t deserve to be shut out. I knew that above all else, but I just couldn’t. Not yet. A long, harsh breath blew from my lungs as I sent him to voice mail and drove home. Or my temporary home.
My emotions were all over the place, same as every day since the weekend. I was exhausted as I pulled into the driveway. Skipping dinner at heading right to bed sounded like the best thing in world.
I didn’t have the energy to move. All I wanted was to hide away from the world until everything returned to normal. If anything ever returned to normal again.
Penelope peeked through the window again. She was either worried I was going to sleep in the car or that I was a burglar who liked to park in the driveway. It was the third time in the last seven minutes. I knew it was exactly seven minutes because I kept checking the clock as if I could just wish the time by. Wish my life into a place where all my problems no longer exist.
Everything was overshadowed by this looming doom. Food didn’t have a taste. Things didn’t have smells. Life just sucked. Fear and pain consumed me. My heart was heavy. My stomach flip-flopped with every turn I made that took me in the opposite direction of my home—where I so desperately want to go but couldn’t. I was a coward.
Just then, the front door swung open and Matteo’s form filled the space. Every inch of him shook with an intense something. I couldn’t tell from my vantage point in the car, but I knew things were about to get real.
Matt was done letting me ignore him.
Part of me was thrilled to see him. I still loved him fiercely. But the other part, the vulnerable part, of me was terrified of this confrontation.
I gulped as I exited the car. Nothing felt worse than knowing you were the problem but not having any way to fix it or make it right.
He wasted no time storming down the path to the driveway and the car. “Is this how it’s going to be? It’s been six days, Natalie.”
I wanted nothing more than to tell him it was all going to be okay but with everything all unhinged, I didn’t know if it was true.
Matteo was clearly exhausted. He was wearing his glasses, a tell-tale sign he wasn’t himself. There was stubble lining his jaw. His dark hair was sticking up in all directions as if he’d run his hands through it over and over.
Penelope looked apologetic from her spot on her porch and I wondered how long Matteo had been waiting for me. And what they spoke about.
“Natalie . . .” Matteo sighed. His voice no longer filled with anger but rather desperation.
My emotions were on overload, I wanted Matt to wrap me in his arms and assure me that it would all be okay but then that evil picture of him and Brooke and their baby and our babies all smiling for a happy holiday photo crashed through that thought reminding me that everything wasn’t okay and there was a chance it never would be again.
“I—”
He reached a hand forward in attempt to grab mine. but I stepped back. The hurt on Matt’s face matched the hurt in my heart “Please don’t finish that sentence with can’t.”
The first tear rolled my cheek. “I don’t know what to do here, Matteo.”
I could tell he wanted to grab me, hug me, or maybe shake me, but it was clear he wanted to be touching me. My stupid brain seemed to have wiped all memory of his touch and replaced it with visions of him coming in Brooke. Unprotected. Then the happy family photo sans me popped back in. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
“We’re supposed to weather this storm together.” His eyes glittered with moisture. I’ve only seen Matt cry twice. The day the kids were born and when his grandfather died. “I cannot sit in the house all alone any longer.” His voice grew a notch louder. “I can’t sit around waiting for this to all work out. We’re a team, Nat. That means we handle shit like this together. Not with you hiding out at Penelope’s and leaving for Portland without telling your husband. Is that what we’ve become?”
His anger flared, igniting mine as well. My fist clenched around my purse. Angry tears streamed down my face. “This isn’t easy for me either. You just don’t get it.”
“What don’t I get?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Because last time I checked this was just as bad for me as it was for you. Do you think that I like the fact there is a possibility, no matter how big or small, that another woman could be carrying my child?”
It might not have shown in my actions, but I knew that wasn’t easy for him. I wasn’t a complete idiot, but logic wasn’t in control. I took a deep breath and tried to explain myself. “Of course, you don’t. I know this was an accident. But it’s like that movie when they’re trying to kill Freddy Kruger and they pull him from the dream. They bring him into their world, and he starts destroying them. That was what it feels like happened to us. We dragged our sex-adventures into our private lives—into our home, our bed. We mixed our worlds, and they came crashing down around us. There was a real chance that you impregnated another woman, in our bed, while I watched. That is the stuff nightmares are made of, Matteo. I can’t figure out how to separate the two worlds again. They are all knotted together. I can’t stop imagining what they could mean for us, for the rest of our lives. We’ve been here before. We know all too well how reliable the pill can be. It’s like deja-vu with Jackson and Emma but I’m not in the picture this time. ”
“Nat—”
“I’m terrified and hurt and sad. I felt like my skin was crawling for the two minutes I was in the bedroom on Monday.” My chest heaved as I battled to get a hold of my anger and pain. “It’s all so raw. I’m not strong enough right now to do anything other than wake up in the morning and perform basic functions. I’m sorry. I know you deserve better, but I just don’t have any more left to give right now.”
It was a struggle to put one foot in front of the other. Subconsciously I think I knew it would be unbelievably hard to walk away from him which is why I stayed away. I was torn in two. One half of me wanted to run back to Matt and just pretend that nothing ever happened. Go back home and live our lives as if the last week never happened. But the other part of me knew just how much damage this whole thing had inflicted.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Matteo
Natalie had just walked away from me. Again. I wanted to chase after her as she headed up the driveway to the front door and force her to talk with me, force her to act like a partner, but I had to be at an important dinner with my boss in an hour. Earlier that afternoon, he came into my office and told me he wanted me to meet a client who just hired us.
A part of me had a feeling something big was going to happen for my career tonight and I wanted to share it with Natalie. That just made me angry. Next thing I knew, I veered off the exit and headed toward Penelope’s, ready to drag my wife home after almost a week of her hiding out here. Only, I hadn’t expected her to be on her way home from Portland when I got there. I expected her to just be getting home from work as well. I thought it was the perfect time to catch her off guard. Not give her any time to hide from me.
My anger kicked up a notch when Penelope told me she had just landed back in Seattle after having been in Portland for the last two days. After learning that, I wasn’t leaving without confronting Natale. I gladly sacrificed an hour of my time waiting for her to get home from the airport.
I didn’t get what I came for. If anything, I just felt worse as I stared at the front door to Penelope’s house a few moments past Natalie having already gone inside. Pen stood there looking at me with her eyes full of sadness.
Penelope was extremely empathic, and I knew this was hard for her. Even if she was Natalie’s friend first, she was just as close of a friend to me as she was to Natalie. She had texted several times over the last few days to check in but left out that Nat wasn’t there in her messages. It felt like a sucker punch to the balls to find out Natalie had flown out of town without so much as a word. She j
ust up and left and I wanted to smash my hand through Pen’s glass coffee table as she spoke while I waited.
Natalie’s words sat heavy on my chest all the way home and to the restaurant. She couldn’t separate the reality and the fantasy any longer. I knew the movie she was talking about. Freddy Vs. Jason. It was always part of the Halloween movie marathon that Jackson loved to watch every year.
Brooke brought everything from the darkness into the light. Natalie didn’t want the two to mix, she didn’t want to acknowledge that it all existed in the same room. That was what she didn’t understand. Whether it was a dream or nightmare, it was our life. We needed to deal with the consequences of our actions together. Only then could we separate the two again. But truthfully, were they ever separate to begin with? We are who we are. We want what we want. We enjoy what we enjoy.
All of the want and indulgence tasted like ash on my tongue.
I was begging for forgiveness while Natalie acted as if I went out of my way to hurt her. When it felt like the exact opposite, like she was trying to punish me.
I couldn’t put into words how that felt.
Each day I sat alone, painfully aware that I was one more day closer to knowing the fate of this awful situation, waiting, hoping for a call from Brooke telling me that we could put the monster back into the box. If the news was anything other than we had nothing to worry about, I wasn’t sure my marriage would survive it. And, shit, did that hurt.
I’d been trying to convince myself that Natalie wasn’t doing well with the unknown. I knew she was scared of history repeating itself. Nat was on the pill in college. We were the .01%. We knew all too well how anything could happen. I kept saying that, so long as Brooke didn’t turn out to be pregnant, we could get through this. But if that wasn’t the case, I was seriously starting to worry my life would never be the same.