by SJ Molloy
Lucca takes my hand to follow Mum into the sunroom. She takes a seat on a padded wicker chair, clasping her hands on her knees, while we sit on the three seat rattan sofa across from her.
“I’m sorry about dinner, Mum. Please forgive me. I just felt so … so sick.” I place my hand to my throat and swallow slowly.
She pauses, looking down and arranging Granny’s thistle coasters on the table in front. I wait for her to speak but she says nothing. I squeeze Lucca’s hand, looking for help as I’m still hot and sickly, trying to keep down the lurking seediness in my stomach.
“Is everything okay?” Lucca asks.
“Lucca …” She pauses again, taking another deep breath.
“Yes?” Uncertainty laces his voice. Mum takes a deep breathe, mindlessly twirls the pearl earrings in her ear then addresses him.
“Lucca. I know Alexis is pregnant. How far along is she? When were you going to tell me?”
Beam me up!
She’s losing her mind.
“Oh God … Mum, stop it. What are you talking about?” I retaliate with irritation.
“I know my own daughter and you, my girl, are pregnant.” I can’t quite process this.
“What?” I yell moving upright and turning to face Lucca.
“Lucca, I’m not. Tell her I’m not.” I plead.
He’s silent. Why?
Speak, goddamn it!
“Of course I’m not pregnant. I’ve just been on my goddamn flipping period and have an implant in my arm.” I raise my voice towards my mum, which I’m ashamed of but she’s driving me to it. I’m angry and confused.
“Calm down, Alexis. Have you taken a test?” She softens her voice. I turn to look at Lucca for backup, but he’s frozen on the spot, shocked with this conversation, staring at the stupid bloody coasters possibly with a paler complexion than me.
“Lucca?” I yell, shaking his arm.
He blinks from his momentary trance, then stares at my midsection. “Lexi, are you? Are you pregnant with our baby?” It sounds more like a hopeful wish than an inquisition.
“What are you two going on about? You both sound ridiculous.”
Flustered.
Irate.
Hot and bothered.
“No, I’m not pregnant. I had to take a test at the clinic with the doctor before I got the implant and it was negative. I was bleeding yesterday and early this morning so I can’t be.” I begin to shake nervously.
“Alexis, sweetie, that doesn’t mean you’re not. I bled all through with Cameron, and halfway through my pregnancy with you. It can be very common,” she adds.
Lucca is white, like a frozen snow statue. He hasn’t moved, and I’ve never seen him like this before.
“Mum, please stop. You’re freaking him out and getting his hopes up.” I don’t know what I’m saying, I don’t know what she’s saying but I do know that I feel like disappearing into the ground below me.
She quizzically looks at him, and me, then him again. “Oh, goodness gracious … I’m sorry, Lucca, you poor thing. I thought you both were aware. I thought maybe that was the reason you fell head over heels so early and got engaged. Of course, I might be wrong but, Alexis, you need to do another test. Your Aunt Eva had to take four tests before it showed positive with the twins.”
“Oh, I think I’m going to be sick …”
I lean over the rattan chair and vomit up the glass of water.
Splash. All over the floor.
The room is spinning. I need fresh air. I can’t hear this, not from my mum anyway. Once I sit up, Lucca takes my hand, sweetly stroking it but I feel him trembling. It’s the first time I have ever truly felt him shake like this.
“Jesus, Lexi, baby, you are pregnant. You must be.” His glistening eyes meet mine, hungry and eager for answers. Answers that I can’t give him because now Mum has put ideas in my head and I’m wondering about the effectiveness of the test I took.
“Lucca, I’m not. I must have a virus, please don’t make an issue of this. I have enough going on. I promise you I’m not and I had a negative test. Sickness is a side effect of the implant.” I choke and break.
I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.
Denial. File. Compartmentalise. Ignore.
Mum nods towards Lucca, giving him the look. The “mother knows best” look and confirms to him that I very much am pregnant.
“I’ll clean that up for you. Lucca, take her for fresh air. I’ll make something else to eat if she wants it.” Then she wraps her arms around my shoulders and kisses my head now covered in sweat.
“Alexis, I’m sorry to alarm you. I just know my own daughter. I’d like you to take another test tomorrow. I’ll go to the chemist for you. Please don’t worry, sweetie. We will work this out, and after seeing you both, I know this can’t be a bad thing. You love each other. Everything will be fine, I promise you.”
Promise.
A promise is a promise.
These are her words. She would always promise to make things better and protect us when we were kids. If she promises, then she means it and does everything in her power to make sure it happens. She’s soft and caring, speaking the way she would when I was a young, vulnerable girl. She is serious but she’s compassionate. These words end me. I cry.
“No,” I retort. “I’m not pregnant. I can assure you. Mum, please don’t … just accept I’m not. I want to marry Lucca first before thinking about children, and with everything else going on I’m not equipped, I can’t be a mummy. I can’t do it, I can’t because I’m too …”
I fall onto my knees, breaking down in sobs, holding my stomach as if in denial, searching for another sign. Confirmation.
“Grace, I am taking her out for fresh air. I will come back with her if she is hungry.” Suddenly Lucca has snapped out of his trance and is taking control while I just need to evaporate into space. Forever.
Fuck!
File F for fate. Fate interrupting my already complicated life.
Lucca lifts a heavy shawl that’s folded and sitting on top of a wooden trunk and scoops me up in a swift move. Then he opens the sunroom door and walks with me around the back of the house to the wood shed. It’s pitch black.
“There’s a switch to the right,” I sob.
He flips the switch and a strip light above flickers then shines brightly.
“It’s full of logs. I was hoping to sit with you. To talk.”
“There’s another section to the back. It’s a barn. There are hay bales but no lights, only lanterns,” I inform him, snivelling through my broken sobs.
He walks past the rows of logs and finds the door into the barn. I signal towards the lanterns, and he balances me on his thigh while he fidgets with the lantern. He has two lit, so he leaves one at the entrance and carries the other, finding a corner by the hay.
He stands me on my feet then spreads the thick shawl out over the hay. Setting the lantern on a nearby ledge, he lifts me up and places me on the shawl, then kneels in front of me, leaning protectively over me.
I stare at the pine timber roof, nervous about how this discussion is going to go. He straddles my legs, lifting my sundress, then leans over and runs his thumb along the edge of my panties. Softly, he kisses my navel, covering every piece of skin. He kisses, strokes, and tenderly rubs the pad of his thumb across my stomach.
I ripple in a delightful flutter under his touch. I’ve never felt such soft, gentle butterfly wings flickering so tender, desperate, and profound. Involuntarily, I lace my fingers in his hair.
“Lucca, I don’t think I’m pregnant,” I whisper, not wanting to spoil the moment or burst his bubble, but I need to be honest.
He doesn’t say anything. He brushes feathery strokes, kisses, and softly licks along tummy. Then he rests the side of his head there, his stubbly chin and cheeks tickling my abdomen as his fingers skim my lace panties’ edge.
I’m breathing heavily. He’s breathing heavily.
My chest rises and falls with such sweet attention. Closing my
eyes, I actually don’t want him to move. I want to stay here forever with his cheek pressed against my fluttering tummy. Safe.
“Lucca, I took a test, and it was negative.”
“I want you to do another one tomorrow. I think Grace is right. It makes sense.”
The dizziness, sickness, headaches, tiredness, and loss of appetite.
More tears break the dam and cascade down my cheeks. I’m shaking and sniffling with the realisation.
Metallic taste to my mouth. Shit.
I am pregnant. I must be.
He lifts himself up, looking into my wet eyes and quickly wipes my tears away.
“No, baby, do not cry. Do you know how happy you would make me if you are carrying our baby? I love you more than anything in the world. I thought I could not love you any more, Lexi, and I do every day. I would love us to have a baby. I know this is a little quick for you, but we agreed to have a family at some point. It is just unexpected, but not unwelcome.”
“Hmmm …” I sigh. This is not what I expected, perhaps in a few years’ time, not now.
“We are lucky and blessed to have one another, but a family ... God, Lexi, I cannot tell you how much that excites me, how much I want you to be the mother of my kids, now or in the future. There is probably never a perfect time. It is a miracle and will happen when God sees fit to bless us with this gift.”
His warm hand splayed across my stomach causes light tremors of internal desire deep in my core. The other hand is on my cheek. He leans into me, kissing my cheeks, my eyes, my nose, and then my lips. I’m trying to block out the fact I’ve just been sick.
Yuck.
“And what if I’m not? I don’t want you to be disappointed. You seem pretty convinced and hopeful,” I say cautiously.
“If you are not, we live our lives. I protect you. We get married and think about it when you are ready. I feel awful about putting pressure on you before when you have all this other stuff going on. You need to know either way I have you and you are the most important person to me, the most important person in the world and always will be. If I can keep you safe, I will be a happy man. Then we will concentrate on our future when this all passes.”
He always says the nicest, most sincere words when I’m in despair.
“And what if I am pregnant, what then?” It changes everything.”
In the dim flickering light of the lantern, I see a glimmer of excitement cross his eyes.
“I will take great care of you, both of you. I will spoil you and we will have a baby, a very lucky baby I might add to have parents like us to care for it, and we will cherish and love our baby and live our lives, and we will be the happiest parents in the goddamn world.”
“And what about getting married?” I ask a little more rationally now that my tears are subsiding.
“We can marry as soon as possible if you want. You know I want to. I can make it happen or if you want to wait we will until after the baby has arrived then that is fine too. Lexi, I need you and want you to be my wife, baby or not, we are going to get married and have a future together.”
Could I love this man anymore?
I close my eyes.
“You sound like you already know I am.”
He’s so near my mouth, his nose pressed against mine and his warm hand splayed across my abdomen. With one finger hitched under the lace edge of my panties, the other rests on top. He pulls me closer to him. His hot breath gusts over my lips and neck, and it’s deliciously exhilarating. He’s raspy, sexy, and attentive.
“I just know you are. Your mother is right.”
He graces my lips with a chaste kiss. Then he slides back down and kisses my stomach causing little reverberating ripples of pleasure. Sweetly circling and kissing my skin, his tender caress has my sex so electrified with a pulsing desire that I need him. It’s a feeling like nothing else.
For a nanosecond, I’m thinking I may be able to handle pregnancy if this is the pleasure I get from the man I love smothering me in protective blissful caress. I like it, I feel secure, safe, and special. Lucca’s hot air from his nostrils travels across my abdomen, only to turn me on because he’s so near my hot, damp sex.
His attentive fondling is pacifying and pleasing, and I’ve forgotten all about my day of sickness beneath his considerate and thoughtful touch. Rationally, I feel as if I need to pull him away from caressing my tummy in the event I’m not pregnant, but it feels so perfect and I just can’t. My head is full of mixed emotions, but the one thing that pulls me back from fear, doubt, and anxiety is Lucca’s love.
Always, Lucca’s love.
“Lucca?”
“Hmmm?” He sighs, moving his jaw so his bristly stubble grazes across my soft skin again.
“I love you … but I’m scared. I mean I was scared about Michael Parks but this just … well, I don’t know if …” My voice trails off, sounding broken. It scares me on a whole new level. I don’t know that I’m ready right now to be a mum. Lucca is supportive but it’s me, I question my coping mechanisms. What if I screw this up? He’s already talking about having extra therapy sessions with Casey. How am I supposed to be strong and supportive, set a good example to a child, when I can barely do it for myself?
He kneels in front of me on a lower haystack and slides his hands behind my back, pulling my upper body up so he’s between my legs: his chest to mine, my sundress scrunched up in between us. He looks into my eyes, closing the space between us, claiming me, owning me and wordlessly calming me.
I know he’s telling me everything will be okay, and I want to believe in us, our light and our future.
“Tell me what you are thinking.” He searches my eyes, so close and sincere.
Here goes.
“I’m …” Breathlessly, I carry on through my nerves. “I’m worried I won’t be a good mummy, or be fit to look after a child. You said yourself that the specialists suspect I’m on the verge of a breakdown similar to my mum’s.”
Pain and upset lace his voice, but his eyes are so warm and compassionate that they are filled with honest love. He’s hurting that I would even question myself. “Christ, Lexi, they do not know you, but I do. You are strong, loving, caring, and selfless. You put everyone before yourself the way your mother has done with you and Cameron. You have endless support, and I will always love and protect you. We can do this together. I give you my word, I promise. I will be a hands on papa and be there every step of the way, at every aspect of our child’s life. And for you, dolcezza, I will be here for you, always. If you are rotten at changing the nappies, I will tell you so.”
I giggle because he’s alluding to my insecurities and trying to be light-hearted.
“Lexi, your mother may have had issues to face, but she has done a pretty damn fine job of raising you both, especially under the circumstances. She is stronger than you give her credit for, and so are you, Doc. Believe me. Do you feel better?”
“I don’t feel as sick as I did.”
“That is good. I am pleased. Do you feel better now that we have spoken?” His thumb trails down my stretched neck, my chest, my breasts, and to my stomach again.
“Yes, you have a way with me, Mr. Caruso, and I’m thankful you can always centre me. I need your reassurance, and you’ve helped me see a little clearer tonight, so thank you.”
I imagine everyone has doubts and this is normal. I had an amazing weekend with Lucca’s nieces and nephews and I could see myself care for our child someday, but now the reality is overwhelming. I’ve not even had time to file and revisit these thoughts.
His hand travels under my dress, over my thighs, and up to my tummy again. These palms of his are going to be splayed over my tummy for the next nine months if I am pregnant.
“You know, Lucca, it’s the same tummy you felt seconds ago.”
“Baby, get used to it. If you are pregnant, which I am sure you are, I will be stuck to your tummy like glue.”
“Hmmm, and what if I’m not? Does that mean I won’t get an
y of this TLC?” I challenge, wrinkling my nose.
“I will still be giving you plenty of TLC because I told you I am stuck on you, but that is if, baby. I know you are.”
We talk and cuddle for so long my stomach rumbles, which stifles a laugh from both of us.
“Time we fed you. Are you ready to go?” He places a final kiss on my abdomen, then my lips.
“Yes, I hope my mum didn't tell Granny. Oh God, can you imagine? I might be dragged into church tonight after she wallops me with her loafer.” He laughs, fixing my dress. “Then she’ll wallop you,” I add.
We lift the blankets, blow out the lanterns, and walk back to the sunroom.
Chapter 30
Church
Everyone has finished their meal when we return to the dining room. Mr. Carlin and Grandpa have a dram of whiskey in hand as they share familiar stories, playing chess.
“Alexis, Lucca, I’m glad you joined us. Would you like some dinner?” Mum asks.
“Yes, thank you, but it’s okay. I’ll fix something,” I say, squeezing Lucca’s hand.
“Okay, I’ll help you.” She picks up the rest of the empty plates and carries them into the kitchen.
“I’ll bring you something. Please, sit down and relax,” I tell Lucca. He picks up my hand, kissing the front of it, and nods for me to go with my mum.
I follow her into the kitchen. My fingers feel tight, my heart rate is quickening, and my head is dizzy. I’m nervous about what she might say.
“Is peppercorn fillet of beef, Diane sauce, potatoes, sautéed vegetables, and soda bread okay for Lucca?” she asks, fetching the ingredients from the fridge.
“Yes, perfect. He’ll love that.”
“And you?” she adds.
“It sounds lovely, but I don’t think I’ll manage tonight. It would be a waste.”
“Did you two talk?” she asks as she seasons Lucca’s beef fillet. I watch her sear it in the hot pan then put the potatoes back onto the cast iron stove to crisp.
“Yes, but I’m so confused.” I lean against the counter and worry my fingers in front of my lips.
Stopping, she turns around to face me. “When did you get this implant thing?”