Bittersweet

by K. S. Thomas

  He waits until I’m completely settled, and clearly still conscious, before he walks around to the other side of the bed to lie down next to me.

  “I can’t do five more months of moments like this.” He runs his hands over his face repeatedly as if that will somehow erase the unpleasant images he is bound to be burdened with, same as I am.

  “Then stop forcing me to exist in limbo like this.”

  Carter lets out a laugh. “Existing in limbo, huh? How’s that exactly?”

  I pull the covers up to my chest. It’s not the dramatic gesture I want, but it’s better than lying there not moving at all. “What would you call it? I’m not ill or dying, and yet I’m more or less confined to my bed like a coma patient. When I’m not lying here, I’m downstairs on the couch. And it’s not because I’m physically limited. Well, not by my physical being anyway. It’s all of you and your overbearing bodies always hanging around and blocking my path.” I hear myself. I know on some level I sound like a spoiled kid. But I also know that this isn’t working. Being treated like a fragile flower is turning me into one. And that isn’t going to be good for anyone.

  “I get it, okay? I really do. And you’re right. Not counting this minor episode tonight, your heart hasn’t given any indications of struggling with the pregnancy.” He presses his lips together and I know he’s about to throw me a bone in the form of a compromise. “I was going to suggest we start having a weekly coffee outing, decaf of course, but maybe weekly isn’t enough. Maybe we should do it daily. Get you out of the house. Give us a chance to spend time together, just the two of us. A break from the crazy that is our actual life.”

  It’s the tastiest sounding bone anyone has ever thrown my way. “Are you serious? A coffee date, at an actual coffee shop? Every day?”

  He nods. “Yeah. I think we need it.”

  “Oh, I know I need it, but how does this tie in with your whole fear of fatherhood predicament?” I roll back onto my side and prop my head up on my hand, confident the funky feelings have passed completely now.

  “Because. We have a limited window to prepare for this parenting business and aside from trying to keep you alive for the duration, we haven’t done shit else to get ready. And since we can’t do as much physically as you’d like to, at least we can prep ourselves mentally. Brainstorm. Make to-do lists. Discuss parenting techniques or whatever.”

  I am now grinning so hard my face hurts, but it’s nothing compared to the pain in my tongue from where I’m biting down on it to keep from laughing. “Parenting techniques, huh?”

  Even Carter chuckles. “Yeah, Miss I’ll-just-wing-it. It wouldn’t hurt to approach this new endeavor with a little more seriousness and responsibility than you would when say, making a grilled cheese sandwich.”

  “You think taking care of a baby is going to be harder than making a grilled cheese sandwich?” I gasp in feigned shock.

  “I know. We’re totally fucked. In seven years, I’ve never seen you manage to make one of those without burning it.”

  I hold my hand up to object. “Hey, that has nothing to do with my lack of abilities but rather my lack of patience. It’s not that I don’t know that turning the stove up to high will burn the bread as it melts the cheese. It’s simply that I refuse to stand by and wait while the cheese melts in slow motion on medium. I can scrape a little ash off my bread. It ain’t no thang.”

  Carter points at my belly even though it’s hidden under the covers and gives no indication whatsoever at this point that it’s housing a person. “And that’s another thing you need to work on. Patience. You don’t want to spring this thing from the frying pan in a mad rush. You’re gonna have to let it simmer slowly.”

  By the time we finish comparing our unborn child to a grilled cheese sandwich, we’re both laughing longer and harder than we have in months. And, after, I sleep more soundly and more contently than I have since before the accident.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Carter ~ Seven Years Ago

  It’s been four weeks since Esi met my parents, and they’ve been on a mission to get her to come to mass ever since. Maybe they think they can save her. Or maybe they’re just hoping she’ll spontaneously combust, leaving nothing but a pile of ash behind in her empty seat of the pew.

  Just in case that’s their motive, I lean down until my lips are even with her ear and whisper, “You’re not going to burst into flames when you walk in here, are you?”

  “It would be a first,” she says, but then pretends to cautiously dip one toe inside the door before following it up with the rest of her body. “Phew. Another close call.” And it’s all I can do not to bust out laughing right there in the chapel. But it’s not enough. My mother catches us and hits me square in the eye with one of her death rays.

  “Jonathan,” she hisses and I have to fight the urge to turn around and pretend to look for this ‘Jonathan’ character she’s so angry with. She and my dad are the only two people who still insist on calling me by that name. I don’t know why I hate it so much, except it’s my father’s name and the older I get, the more convinced I am, I don’t want to be anything like him.

  “Dora, dear, come here and sit by me, won’t you?” My mother snakes her hand around Esi’s wrist and skillfully directs her to follow along, while Esi has been unable to stop from falling right into the same kneejerk reaction of searching for herself when called by that name. Both my parents have been calling her Dora from the moment I walked her into their house, completely disregarding the fact that it was not her name, and claiming to do so under the false pretenses of trying to make Esi feel more comfortable, because according to them, really, who wanted to be called something as strange as Esidora?

  While my mother slides Esi into the pew first, I hurry to at least try and get in after both of them, but my father intercepts, letting me know with one glance at my mother that he intends to sit next to his wife, leaving me at the opposite end of our foursome, and Esi at my mother’s mercy.

  The service is nearly over and the congregation stands waiting for the choir to deliver their final performance of the morning, when Esi takes advantage of being on her feet and excuses herself. I wait maybe ten seconds before I do the same and meet her outside on the way to the parking lot.

  “Where are you going?”

  She’s pacing back and forth on the front steps, kneading her hands and, for the first time since arriving here this morning, she looks genuinely panicked about something.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” She stops right in front of me. “Your mother wants me to go to confession after mass. She says she already spoke to the priest about it and he’s ready to see me.” Both hands reach up desperately grasping handfuls of my shirt. “Carter, the coffee I’ve consumed this week alone, will have me saying Our Fathers until next Sunday.”

  I wrap my hands around hers and bend down to kiss her nose. “You’re not Catholic. You don’t have to do anything he tells you.”

  She shakes her head. “Yes, I do. If I walk in there, and give confession, I’m agreeing to repent and do what he says. And if I agree, then I’m giving my word, and I can’t go back on that, Carter. That’s just not who I am.”

  I get it. And, I kind of already knew that. “Es, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. My mother can’t make you. We did what they asked. We showed up. Anything beyond that, we didn’t sign up for. You didn’t sign up for.”

  Her beautiful face goes from nervous to sad and I hate it. I want to change it. Right now. I want the smiling Esi. The ‘one who lights up my whole life with her laugh’ Esi. And for a brief second, I have an inkling of what’s to come. Of what my parents have in store for us. They’re going to try to take that Esi and change her. And if they can’t, they’re going to do whatever they have to do to make her disappear for good. But my life will go back to being dark without her. And I can’t let that happen.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Esi

  “I see some of us are
still operating on fuck it time.” Carter grins as I sit down in the bench across from his.

  “I see some of us are still surprised by that.” I shimmy out of my jacket and let it get scrunched up in the seat behind me. It’s uncomfortable against my back, but I’m too lazy to move it. In the last three months, my belly has expanded quite a lot and movements in general are becoming less and less enjoyable.

  “One white chocolate mocha – decaf.” The coffee wizard sets a still steaming mug down on the table in front of me.

  “Thank you.” I smile up at him, genuinely grateful for the fact that he delivers, although I’ve noticed that seems to be a service he provides exclusively to his pregnant customers.

  “My pleasure, Esi.” The coffee wizard smiles back and doubles my guilt over still not knowing his actual name. After three months of coming in every day and sitting in his coffee shop for at least an hour every time while I sip my sweet, sweet custom decaf beverage and am called by name the second I step in through the door, it would just be awkward to ask him his name now.

  “You should really ask him what his name is. We can’t keep calling him the coffee wizard,” I hiss as soon as I am sure he’s out of earshot.

  “I don’t call him that.” Carter smirks. “Weird nicknames are all you. I’m cool with just calling him ‘that guy’, or, if I’m talking to him, ‘hey you’.”

  I shake my head, but don’t engage any further. My mouth is busy sipping something so purely delicious it’s clearly made by the Gods.

  “Anyway. I called and signed up for class this morning. I went with the one day deal rather than breaking it up into multiple sessions.” I have mixed feelings about Lamaze. Obviously some guidance on the whole birthing process will be handy, unless, of course, people would just take me up on my suggestion to go ahead and knock me out for the whole event and wake me up after.

  “What day is it?” Carter looks like he’s fighting back a grin. Probably because he knows how I feel about labor. Well, maybe not labor. It isn’t the pain that scares me, merely the idea of having a person come out of my vagina. I get it, it’s natural and all, but something about the whole concept still freaks me out.

  “A Saturday. Last of the month I think.” I glance out the window beside us. The sun is shining in a really deceiving sort of way. We’re almost into April and it still hasn’t warmed up nearly enough to be considered anything even remotely close to spring weather.

  “Think you’ll be ready to face the harsh realities of birth by then?” He’s no longer holding back his amusement at any degree.

  “You mean like how you poop during labor?” My mother was kind enough to share that little gem with me during my last acupuncture session. After, a whole poop discussion ensued between her and Rusty, and I still feel sufficiently traumatized from being exposed to it.

  “Pooping. Yeah, that will bring a whole new level of intimacy to our relationship.” He’s full on laughing now. Me, not so much.

  “I’m telling you. Between watching me poo and seeing my vagina turn into Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors, you are never going to want to have sex with me ever again.” As it is, I feel like I am well on my way to becoming a born again virgin. Considering I’m not allowed to do anything more strenuous than walking, thanks to my busted up ticker, sex is obviously not on the agenda these days.

  “Esi.” Carter turns serious, surprisingly, since I’ve just compared my vajay-jay to a murderous, singing plant.

  “What?” I flick at a straw wrapper which has been left on the table, avoiding his gaze.

  “Es.” He’s waiting for me to raise my head again. Begrudgingly, my eyes meet his. “Feel that?”

  I do. Carter has a way of devouring me with just a look. I found it intoxicating early on in our relationship. Then, somewhere along the way, fascination had crept in as well, in a sort of amazement that he could still feel so hungry for me after having had me countless times already. Now, sitting here, feeling the opposite of sexy and unable to deliver on any sort of physical satisfaction so early on in our marriage, his torching hot gaze is enough to make me believe he still sees me the exact same way he did when he first crashed into me.

  “How do you do that?” I whisper, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. Hormones. I definitely blame the hormones.

  “It’s not me. It’s you,” he whispers back. “It’s what you do to me.”

  I lean over the table to be closer to him. “I’m just scared of losing that. If you ever stopped looking at me that way...”

  “I’m never going to stop. Never.” A small grin creeps up around the corners of his mouth. “And tomorrow morning, when you drag yourself out of bed and stroll across the room and find me leering after you like you have every morning for the past seven years, you’ll remember that I’m right.”

  “You do still do that, don’t you? Huh.” I lean back into the booth thoughtfully, and, smiling.

  “Yeah. Now who should be worried? Maybe you’re the one slipping away from this relationship. No longer feeling the romance so much.” His finger points up at me accusingly.

  “Oh please. I’ve been anchored into this mess since long before you fully committed. I’m never getting out.” I laugh, even though it’s true. Or, maybe because it is.

  “That’s not fair. You weren’t the one getting involved with the town witch. Obviously, I was a little apprehensive.” He really has a flare for embellishing stories to his advantage.

  “Really? The town witch?”

  He shrugs. “Well, if you ask my mother...yeah.”

  “Oh, the irony of that sentence, meanwhile, since we’re speaking of the devil –“ Carter makes a face. “What? Is that not how the expression goes?”

  “You’ve made your point, Glinda, get on with it. What about my mother?”

  “Well, when exactly did you want to inform her of the new twiglet growing on her family tree? I know you’re not what one might consider close, or even on speaking terms, but don’t you think a grandchild warrants a phone call? A note? A smoke signal?”

  Every trace of his former smile disappears. “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  He sits up straight, suddenly tense. “I mean, no. She’s not getting a call. She’s not getting anything.”

  I don’t get it. “Not now? Or not ever?”

  “Not ever. I mean it, Esi. We need to keep my mother as far away from our baby as humanly possible.” He’s being ridiculous. Only his stern and almost painful expression suggests he feels otherwise.

  “You’re serious. You don’t want your mother to know that we’re having a baby. Ever.”

  He nods. “Promise me. Promise me you won’t tell her. I mean it, Es. Don’t go thinking you can smooth things over and fix things for me. This one is not for you to fix. Promise.”

  I don’t understand why, but I do understand that whatever is motivating Carter to back me into making these promises is very real for him. “I promise.”

  Appeased by my word, Carter starts smiling again. “So, what do you have planned for the rest of the day?”

  I’m less impressed and it’s going to take a tad more than digs at my boring state of being to put me in a happy mood again. “What is that like a joke or something?”

  “No. It’s more like nudge.” He leans forward. “Things have been amazing. You have been amazing. According to our last visit with Starling, the baby is perfect and your heart has shown minimal signs of stress. And, I think that’s in large part because you followed your gut and didn’t let any of us fuck with your ‘I rule the universe’ state of mind.”

  Chewing on my bottom lip and curiously cocking my head to the side, I give him a ‘what gives’ nod. “I like where this is going so far, but do you have an actual destination in mind or are you just talking until I stop scowling at you?”

  He laughs. “Were you scowling at me? I thought maybe that was the heartburn giving you that face.”

  “I’m about to show you some heartburn, mister. Stop screwi
ng with the pregnant lady. It’s not nice.”

  My threats hardly affect him, although he does his best to humor me. “My apologies, pregnant lady, or perhaps pregnant wife would be a more appropriate term? Certainly feels more personal.” He takes a moment to have himself another chuckle before he continues, “I think you should tell Lev to forget about spending the evening at our place, like I have no doubt she was planning, and instead the two of you should head out for dinner at Ari’s. You haven’t been since before the wedding. I’m sure he’d love to see you and I know damn well you could use a night of having your sister just be your sister and not your babysitter.”

  No joke. “You’re serious? You wouldn’t give me a hard time? No freak outs? No loss of total control meltdown?”

  Now it’s his turn to scowl. “You make me sound like an asshole.”

  “Not an asshole.” I take a long, perfectly timed sip of my coffee.

  “Fine. I’ve had some less than charming moments over the last six months, but you haven’t exactly been all unicorns and rainbows yourself, miss ‘people need to start wearing masks or get some goddamn make overs, because I can’t spend another second staring at the same three faces day in and day out’.” He’s smirking again, and he looks as gorgeous as ever.

  “One time! One time I said that. And that was only because Lev was wearing her hair in fucking bun for the tenth consecutive day in a row.” Truth is, I’d be devastated if any of them ever showed up looking different. Carter especially. There isn’t anything about him I don’t love to look at, even after all these years. I particularly love the way he looks in that olive green shirt he’s wearing again today.

  “That bun does make her look kinda cranky and uptight, doesn’t it?”

  Is there anything better than having your husband agree with you on the silly petty things? Probably not.

  “Well, she can shave her head tonight for all I care.” Because I’m going out for dinner. A real dinner. At a restaurant. Going with Carter would have been the only thing to make the outing even more enticing, but I know he would have suggested going himself if it was even remotely possible. Regardless, Lev and I are due a fun night out that doesn’t involve her checking my blood pressure every time I move more than three feet around my house. Not that she won’t want to check it tonight, she simply won’t have the option since there is no way I am bringing any medical supplies with me.