“Trust me,” she said. “I’ve been there, done that. And if you’d been there in the first few weeks after Joel was born, you would have seen a lot more tears than that.”
Of course, she hadn’t given him the option of being there, and maybe she needed to remind them both of that fact to gauge his response and know if he’d well and truly forgiven her for the choices she’d made.
“Next time, I’ll be there for you,” he promised. “Every step of the way.”
Next time.
Those two words dimmed a little bit of the shine from their morning, but she managed a smile as she put their son into the baby carrier Kyle was wearing, gave him a quick kiss and shoved him out the door.
She returned to the nursery with a tall glass of water and a cup of hot peppermint tea. “Your choice,” she said, setting them both on the window ledge within easy reach. “But you need to stay hydrated.”
Lucy nodded. “Thank you.”
Erin sat on the floor, her back against the wall, and hugged her knees to her chest. “Do you want me to apologize for sleeping with your brother?”
Lucy took a moment to switch her nursing baby to the other breast before responding. “Are you sorry?”
“No,” Erin said honestly. And though she knew they were having a serious conversation, she couldn’t hold back the smile that curved her lips. “It’s hard to be sorry when my body is still tingling.”
“Stop. Please.”
“As if you didn’t tell me, in a little too much detail, how amazing Claudio was after the first night you spent together.”
“The big difference there is that Claudio isn’t your brother,” Lucy pointed out.
“True.”
“I know you’re both consenting adults and, technically, your personal relationship isn’t any of my business,” her friend acknowledged now. “But I love you both and I’m worried that if you get in too deep and things don’t work out, someone’s going to get hurt.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Erin said. “I’m a big girl.”
“And Kyle’s a big boy, but even big boys get their hearts broken.”
“I’m not going to break his heart.”
“You don’t think you could,” Lucy realized. “But you don’t know how lost he was when you were gone.”
“Lost?” Erin echoed dubiously.
“I’m not sure how to explain it. I didn’t realize myself how deeply your absence had affected him until you came back again.”
“If he was different when I came back, it was no doubt because I brought our son with me.”
“No. Well, yes,” Lucy agreed “Obviously he dotes on Joel and loves being a dad. But aside from that, he’s different when he’s with you. You make him happy.”
“When I’m not making him mad, you mean?”
Her friend smiled. “Yeah, but that’s part of it, too. He’s always been so completely in control, never letting anyone see what he’s thinking or feeling. No doubt that’s part of what makes him so good in the kitchen—he can juggle multiple tasks while still maintaining focus on the most minute details by blocking everything else out.
“Except you,” Lucy noted. “He’s never been able to block you out. Maybe he’s never wanted to. Whether he’s said the words or not, he loves you, Erin. And I know you love him, too.”
“I do love him.”
“But something’s holding you back from telling him how you feel.”
“I’m afraid he wants more than I can give him,” she confided to her friend.
“He wants a life with you and Joel. A family.”
It was what Erin wanted, too, except that she would have been perfectly happy as a family of three, while Kyle’s remarks suggested otherwise.
And expanding their family wasn’t an option.
Chapter Twenty
By the time Kyle and Joel returned from their banishment, aka “walk,” Erin and Lucy were washing the paint off Seraphina’s hands—and various other parts of her body.
“Everything okay?” he asked cautiously.
“The meltdown is over—for now, anyway,” Lucy said.
Satisfied by her response, Kyle ventured into the kitchen to look at their handiwork. The T-shirt on the counter said Best Dad across the top and Hands Down near the bottom, with two tiny red handprints between the words.
“Cute,” he said. “But you could have centered the handprints—or added more to fill up the space.”
“I did it like that on purpose,” his sister told him. “So that there’s room to add another set of handprints when we have another baby, and maybe even another set after that.”
“Does Claudio know about your big plans?” he teased.
“He knows,” she confirmed. “We’re just waiting for the okay from my doctor to start trying again.”
He winced. “You just had a baby three weeks ago.”
“After two years of trying to get pregnant,” she reminded her brother. “And believe me, there was a lot of trying.”
He winced again. “You do not need to tell me things like that. In fact, I beg you not to.”
Lucy grinned at him, her usual good humor obviously restored, then turned to Erin, who’d been remarkably quiet since his return.
“Can I leave this here to dry?”
“Of course,” Erin agreed.
Lucy glanced at her watch. “We’re heading over to the pizzeria now to meet Claudio for dinner—and so Grandma Jo can get her daily baby fix.”
“Too late,” Kyle told her. “Joel and I just came from there.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “So Grandma Jo can get her daily granddaughter fix,” she clarified. “Which is sweeter than a grandson fix, because little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice.”
“Maybe most little girls,” Kyle said. “But if Seraphina grows up to be anything like her mom...”
Now his sister’s gaze narrowed, and he held up his hands in mock surrender.
“...she’ll be a force to be reckoned with.”
* * *
Erin was a little concerned that everything would change after the-day-before-Father’s-Day, and she was unmistakably relieved when she and Kyle settled back into their usual routines of sharing parenting responsibilities. The only difference was that they were now sharing a bed, too, and that her baby’s father was now the main reason she was losing sleep because she was discovering there were much more pleasurable ways to spend time in bed.
He hadn’t proposed again, but he wasn’t shy about dropping hints that warned her his focus was in that direction. And sometimes she let herself imagine the future they could have together, as a family, and she wanted that future so badly she ached.
As June gave way to July, Erin and Kyle continued to marvel over their baby’s development. He was rolling over all the time now—sometimes starting on one side of the living room and ending up on the other. His daily menu had been expanded to include vegetables—he was not a fan of green beans—and his communication skills were starting to develop beyond just babbling and cooing. And he loved to laugh, so much so that he sometimes laughed at himself laughing.
It was a happy time for Erin, who felt certain that life would be perfect if they could just keep on the way they were going. The idyll lasted until the third Tuesday of the month. Erin had taken the day off to spend with Kyle and Joel, and when Kyle suggested a walk after lunch, she didn’t hesitate to agree. Though the heat of summer was like a blanket over the town, their walks often took them by the ice cream window at Sweet Caroline’s.
But today, Kyle turned in the opposite direction, away from Main Street.
“Where are we going?”
“For a walk,” he said, as if that wasn’t obvious.
“Usually when we walk, we walk that way,” she said, pointing.
“We can go for ice cream later,” he promised. “Now we need to go this way so we’re not late.”
“Late for what?” she asked.
“You ask a lot of questions,” he remarked.
“Because I like to know what’s going on.”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Now would be soon enough,” she said, but held back the rest of her questions until they turned onto Larrea Drive and he stopped in front of a house with a For Sale sign stuck in the grass.
“Ohmygod—are you buying a house?”
“I’m thinking about it,” he said. “Aside from the fact that real estate is always a good investment, this one has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, two fireplaces and a great backyard that Joel could play in, complete with sandbox and swing set.”
“Why do you need four bedrooms?”
“Well, we don’t right now, but—”
She held up a hand. “Wait a minute...did you say we?”
“I said we,” he confirmed. “I only want the house if you and Joel are going to live in it with me.”
“Moving in together...that’s a big step.”
“I’m hoping you’ll take a bigger one and finally say yes to my proposal.”
Erin was saved from having to reply by the arrival of the real estate agent.
“JJ Green,” the man introduced himself.
He shook their hands with enthusiasm and ushered them into the house that he promised was perfect for a growing family. After the tour, JJ warned that the property was new on the market and not likely to be there for long, but he promised that if they weren’t ready to make a decision, he’d keep his eyes open and let them know when other similar properties became available.
“What do you think?” Kyle asked, as they began to retrace their steps toward home.
“Four bedrooms is a lot,” Erin noted.
“I figured we should have a dedicated guest room, for when your mom comes to visit again.”
“Let’s not encourage that,” she said, making him laugh.
“And we’ll need at least one more bedroom for Joel’s little brother or sister,” he continued his justification for the extra space.
It wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned the possibility of having another child, but she couldn’t let him continue to hope for something that wasn’t going to happen—at least not with her.
And she had to tell him why.
“I made an appointment to have a tubal ligation.”
Kyle stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, his smile fading. “What?”
“Well, I made an appointment with a gynecologist to talk about it,” she clarified.
He was silent for a long minute, considering the implications of her revelation. “You want to have surgery to ensure you don’t get pregnant again?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want an apology,” he said, moving forward again. “I want to understand where this is coming from.”
“Anna called yesterday,” she told him. “She’s pregnant again.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” he wondered aloud.
“Nicky’s only seven months old and, in another seven months, she’s going to have another baby.”
“And she doesn’t want another baby?” he guessed.
“No, she does,” Erin admitted. “She’s thrilled to be pregnant again, even if she didn’t expect it to happen so soon. According to the doctor, she’s incredibly fertile.”
“And you think that means you might be, too.”
“We used protection and I still got pregnant,” she reminded him.
He nodded slowly.
“And I’m not sorry,” she said. “But we got really lucky with him. He’s a great baby...but I don’t want to push my luck.”
“You think you wouldn’t love another baby as much,” he realized.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
And the not knowing was obviously causing her anguish.
He understood that the scars she carried from her mother’s rejection ran deep and he had no intention of diminishing their importance. He could only imagine how difficult it had been for her, the distance between her and her mom, exacerbated by Anna’s close bond with Bonnie. Considering all of that, it wasn’t surprising she’d have concerns about the relationships she might develop with her own children.
“I love Joel more than I ever thought it was possible to love anyone,” she confided to him now. “But I’m not sure I want to have another child.”
He was silent for a long minute before responding, “If you’re contemplating a surgical procedure, you need to be sure that you don’t.”
She nodded and brushed at the tears that spilled onto her cheeks.
They were both silent the rest of the way home, any interest in ice cream long forgotten.
* * *
“Were you going to tell me?” Kyle asked, when they’d returned to the privacy of her apartment. “Or was this surgery something else you planned to keep a secret?”
“Of course, I was going to tell you.”
“Are we going to talk about it, then? Or have you already made up your mind?”
“I’d like to talk about it,” she said.
“Because this doesn’t just affect you,” he said.
“I know.”
“It affects us—you and me and Joel. Our family.”
She nodded her agreement.
“And you dropped it like a bombshell. Out of the blue.”
“You took me to look at a house. Out of the blue,” she countered.
“Should I apologize for that?” he asked incredulously. “Was I wrong to think that we might want a home in which to build our life together?”
“No. You weren’t wrong,” she said. “But you caught me off guard. You always said you didn’t plan to be a father, and suddenly you’re talking about filling a four-bedroom house with kids.”
“I mentioned the possibility of a brother or sister for Joel. One.”
“The number isn’t the issue,” she said.
“What is the issue?”
“I’m scared,” she admitted.
“It’s okay to be scared,” he told her. “But you don’t have to be scared alone. I’m here for you, Erin. Please don’t shut me out.”
“I didn’t mean to shut you out. I just need some time to figure things out.”
Apparently Kyle needed some time, too, because he slept in his own apartment that night.
Erin didn’t blame him for that. Just as she knew she wouldn’t blame him if he decided that he wanted more than she was willing to give him. But she would be heartbroken.
“How was your appointment?” Kyle asked, when she got home after seeing the doctor Thursday afternoon.
She immediately scooped up the baby, who was having tummy time on the floor, and sat him on her lap for a cuddle. Because she might have a lot of doubts about a lot of things, but the one thing she knew for certain was that she loved Joel with her whole heart.
“It was fine, I guess,” she finally said in answer to the question. “But Doctor Alipio won’t schedule surgery until I’ve talked to a counselor.”
“How do you feel about that?” he asked cautiously.
“I don’t think a few counseling sessions are going to change my mind, but I also think they’re probably a good idea.”
She smiled as Joel reached for the locket hanging around her neck. She’d worn it every day since Kyle had given it to her, but the baby’s fascination with the shiny bauble had yet to wane.
“Can I go with you?”
Erin was surprised by the offer and immediately realized that she shouldn’t have been. Because whether or not she decided to go ahead with the surgery, Kyle was right—her decision would affec
t not only her body but also their relationship and their family.
“You want to hear about the potential side effects, like depression, mood swings and loss of sex drive?” she asked, keeping her tone light so he wouldn’t guess the extent of her own concerns about the possible repercussions of the surgery.
“I want to know what you know, so that we can make important decisions about our future together.”
She nodded and reached for the ring of colorful plastic keys that Joel liked to shake—and chew on—in an effort to distract him from her locket, now firmly in his grasp. “You’re right. And I think I would like you to be there when I talk to the counselor.”
“Then I will be,” he told her. “And if you decide that you’re one hundred percent sure you don’t want another baby but you’re not sure about the surgery, it might make more sense for me to...um...deal with things on my end.”
The comment was so shocking and unexpected, she completely forgot about the baby’s viselike grip on her necklace for a moment. “Do you mean a vasectomy?”
He nodded, though she hadn’t missed his instinctive wince when she said the word.
“I’ve been doing a little bit of research,” he said. “And it seems there are a lot more risks for a woman with tubal ligation than for a man...getting snipped.”
If the topic wasn’t so serious, she might have smiled at his obvious discomfort in talking about the procedure.
“I don’t think you really want to get snipped,” she said.
“Well, no,” he admitted. “But I really want you to know that I am one hundred percent committed to doing whatever needs to be done so that you’ll finally agree to marry me.”
He couldn’t hear the word vasectomy without wincing, but he was willing to do it. For her.
She was touched and humbled and more than a little scared. “Are you sure that’s what you want? That me and Joel would be enough for you?”
“I love you, Erin. You and Joel are everything to me. And I’m willing to do whatever it takes not only to prove that to you but to ensure you feel comfortable about living our life together in that fabulous house on Larrea Drive.”
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