Never Can Tell

by C. M. Stunich

  Unprotected sex = babies. That's life. That's nature.

  “If you do want to have the baby, know that I'll take the load off of you however I can.”

  “I want to go back to school,” I whisper. Ty's lips come down and meet the edge of my forehead, brushing against my hair, bringing goose bumps to my skin.

  “No more fucking around,” he promises. “We'll come up with a game plan. Everything will be okay. There's no way it couldn't be. Long as I'm with you, the world can go fuck itself.”

  I want to believe him. I do. I do, but I can't. Not yet.

  There are still a lot of things that could go wrong. So many, many things.

  7

  “Never, what were you fucking thinking?”

  I hear a slap as Beth cups a hand over her mouth and drops her voice to a whisper.

  “I'm sorry,” she says quickly. “I have no room to talk, really. It's … I know it's harder than it sounds.” I sneak a drag of my cigarette and look over my shoulder to make sure that Ty's not on his way down the stairs. I'm standing on the front porch in an oversized shirt with no panties, having what I keep promising myself is my last cigarette. It might not be good for the baby, but it also wouldn't be good for her or him if I were to die from a heart attack either.

  “No, Beth,” I say as I watch Chuck put a claw into the tip of Angelica's nose. The dog yelps and comes crawling over to me for protection. “It's pretty fucking easy. The rubber goes over that hard bit between their legs, and when they cum, it traps their baby sauce.”

  “Never, that's disgusting,” she tells me, and I can just imagine her hiding outside on the porch the same way as me, glancing around to make sure none of the kids can hear our conversation. Especially the cursing bits.

  “Or I could've just popped a pill. It really isn't that hard.”

  “It's … complicated. Boys like Ty … ” I know her mind is drifting to Danny Delphino, but he is nowhere near Tyson Monroe McCabe. Not even freaking close. If Ty's a stallion, Mr. Delphino would rank right up around the status of donkey fucker.

  “They burn like fire? Curl tendrils of smoke around your logical mind and choke it to death?” Beth laughs, but I don't think it's very funny. Not that I really blame Ty. I mean, come on. This was an inevitable conclusion with a predictable outcome. “So what do I do?”

  “You know I can't answer that question for you,” she tells me, and I know, somehow, that she's thinking of our mother, wondering where we'd be if Angelica had done a better job by us.

  “Beth, I suck at being a mom.”

  “I don't believe that for an instant,” she says as my hand drops and traces my dog's velvety ear. She seems to sense that something is wrong and sits right on my feet, looking up at me with her head tilted to one side, leaning into my stroking fingers. “It's all about love. You know that. Just be the opposite of mom, and you'll be alright.” Beth chuckles, but I don't.

  “How is everyone?” I ask, phone tucked between my ear and shoulder, so I can hold my cigarette. I stare at it for awhile and imagine what Beth would say if she knew. I'm pretty damn sure she'd crucify me. Suddenly, I hear footsteps on the stairs and end up chucking the burning cherry through the air. It spins end over end and comes to rest on the pathway leading up the house. “Shit, sorry, hold that thought. I gotta go.” I hang up before she can answer and rush down the steps, bending down to grab the cig and snub it out in the gravel.

  “Um, can I respectfully ask that you get your ass the fuck over here?” Ty asks, looking at me bent over with no panties on in the front yard. Oops. I stand up and throw him a glare, walking back to the porch nonchalantly.

  “What's your problem?”

  “My problem,” he says, coming down to meet me, grabbing me around the waist with one arm and hiking my shirt up so the cool air kisses my naked cheeks. “Is that I don't want any motherfuckers driving down the block and scoping out my wife's tight, little ass.”

  “Say it again,” I warn him as he drags me close, presses his mouth to my temple and exhales in a hiss. My body goes limp. See, this is what he does to me. I can't think. Okay, well I can think but only about him bending me over right here and now and fucking the shit out me. Condoms? What condoms?

  “Wife,” he growls and my heart thumps painfully against my chest, comes up against my ribs to meet his. I can hear it pounding from here. He breathes molten lava against my neck, teasing my jaw with his teeth, kissing my mouth so hard that it hurts. A car drives by, and I'm pretty damn sure it slows down. I would, too, I think if I saw too gnarly little demons making out in the front yard – one, shirtless, the other, pant-less.

  I push away and close my eyes, trying to contain myself.

  “The baby?” I ask him, keeping my gaze focused on the screen door.

  “Awake and ready to see you,” he says in his charcoal voice. We don't bring up the pregnancy yet. It's too early in the AM for that. I smile sadly and pull away reluctantly. I feel like I'm letting Noah down by being pregnant again, like somehow I'm taking something away from him. I think of my sisters and how close together we are in age. Like mother like daughter. My sad smile becomes a scowl, and I'm glad Ty's behind me and can't see it. My sisters are blessings and curses both. I can't imagine not having them, yet I can also imagine that if I had gotten more attention, had loving parents, how easy my life could've been. Ugh. I just want to pull out my fucking hair.

  “Hey there, Mr. Ross,” I say, reaching into the crib and pulling out the little warm body, tucking him under my chin and breathing in deep.

  “McCabe,” says Ty from the doorway. He doesn't mention the cigarette I smoked, but I know he knows. I can't hide anything from the man.

  “Ross-McCabe,” I correct. I turn to look at him, and we both smile. Mine turns into a sigh which turns into a nagging worry and that horrible feeling of not being good enough. Not enough. I am not enough for these two wonderful boys, so how can I add someone else into this mix? How can I, in good conscious, bring someone else into this world when I'm not even sure how to navigate it anymore? I hold Noah close and rub his back in small circles.

  “So, I was talking to Beth last night,” Ty begins, and I have to raise my eyebrows and give him a look.

  “You two best friends now or something?” I ask and he smiles.

  “She's the mother-in-law I always wanted,” he says, no hint of a joke in his voice. I step up to him and tug on his nose ring. “I refuse to acknowledge the bitch that gave birth to you.”

  “Good,” I tell him, leaning in and letting him hold us both in his strong arms. “I have to agree with that. Maybe one day, if she comes to me and apologizes, I'll forgive her. For now, my best bet is to pretend she doesn't exist.” Ty's fingers squeeze my arm gently and his breath exhales in a rush. I know that he's thinking about his mom now, that he thinks about her almost everyday that we're here. I believe that living in this house is helping to come with things, like he's communicating with her by just being here. The house was a wreck, but I know there are little things, picture albums and dress shirts and crocheted pillows, that speak to him in a soft voice, tell him she wasn't all bad. I think he likes that. And I know there are horrible memories here, despicable ones, but he's dealing with that, too, paving over them with new ones – me, Noah, the farmer's market, the stupid tabby cat. “So what did you talk with Beth about?”

  “Going down there,” he says, and before I can protest that he doesn't have the money, that we don't have the money, he adds, “Permanently. Or at least for a little while, until we figure out what we want to do next.”

  “What?” I ask, stepping back, looking up into his face. “I thought you wanted to stay here? Keep this house? Make a life?”

  “I have a life wherever I am, as long as I'm with you Never Fontaine Regali-Ross-McCabe. We'll sell the house, if we can. It's free and clear, so whatever we get would help. And I know you've been missing your sisters like crazy. I'm such a fuckwad for making you stay here. I wanted to be in the house out of some
screwed up quest for redemption or some shit. Like, if I could make it work here, I could make it work anywhere, and I'd be free of all the guilt for … everything. I kinda made this house an analogy for my soul, you know? Fix it up on the outside and on the inside, everything will fall into place.” Ty touches the side of my face with his knuckles, flutters the orange and black butterfly on the back of his hand against my skin. He smiles and his brown eyes twinkle, making me feel weak in the fucking knees. He might be a dad now, and a married man, but he still has that power to drop women to their knees with a single glance. I do my best not to sigh contentedly. That wouldn't exactly be in my character, now would it? “It took me awhile, but even a dense shithead such as myself gets it after awhile. If I'm with you, and Noah, and whoever it is that this may or may not be.” Ty puts his hand on my belly and gives me a smoldering look. “I am fucking whole and everything else doesn't mean shit.”

  “Eloquently put,” I tell him, but despite all the cursing and the sexual ardor infused into his words, Ty always makes sense. He's profane but wise. I love that about him. I think that's one of the things that set him apart from the other boys I was with, the ones who had pasts just as hot, just as vulnerable and unstable, crackling like a soon-to-be explosion. They still didn't get it, not even after all they'd been through. They cussed, too, (in the few, small brief conversations I ever had with any of them) though probably not as much, but all they talked about where parties and drinking and drugs and girls and fucking and sports. They didn't have bracelets and they didn't wear rings and they sure as shit didn't speak in quotable quotes worthy of slapping onto the side of a mug or the front of a T-shirt.

  Ty watches me, watches these thoughts move across my eyes and then kisses me gently on the lips before I can protest.

  “I know what you're going to say, but don't. This isn't my dream; you are. I don't care about this house; I care about you. Let's sell it and start over, wherever you want. In the South, the West, the North fucking Pole. Despite my previous, precarious position, I have sick ass fucking credit. I can buy you another house. You can go back to school.”

  “Promise me you'll never do a job that kills your soul, one that breaks you, promise me you'll never … ” I don't need to finish that sentence. Promise me you'll never use your body to get by in this world. It isn't worth it. It never was. I know Ty said he was done with that, and I believe him, but I know his love delves deep and if it came down to feeding his family, he'd do whatever it took. He looks at me for a long, long while.

  “I promise,” he says, easy, just like that. I smile. Noah starts to cry. Ty grins and kisses his head, grabbing me by the hand and pulling us down the stairs. Neither of us speaks while he prepares a bottle and hands it to me. “I had fun here, though,” he tells me, and I know that's true. He points down at Chuck Norris. “And I'm taking the cat.”

  I smile back at him.

  “And the dog.” We both glance over at Angelica. My mother must know by now that we named a bitch after her. Fitting, I think, she is one. I'm sure my little sisters delighted in telling her, unaware that they were probably pushing her to the edge of a tantrum.

  “So you're in?” he asks. I think for a minute, gazing at my son, his cheeks, his pretty hazel eyes. I was almost positive he was going to end up with copper hair, but I guess Ty's genes felt the need to bully in there, mark him with a bit of that beautiful blackness that's in both of our souls. I wonder if this move would help me feel better, if I could get over this stupid fuck ass slump and figure out why I'm not as happy as I should be. If it will help me decide whether or not to keep my second baby. I don't have to think very long.

  “I'm in.”

  8

  We pack up all the stupid shit we had shipped out here in the first place, get ready send it back home with Beth's blessing. I can't help but wonder how my mother feels about all of this, if she even cares. She hasn't asked once about her grandkid.

  Ty's already spoken with a realtor, and they have somebody that wants to see the house. One week on the market and the old rambler is drawing attention. Not too fucking shabby. This house does have character, I think, as I glance up at the tin ceiling, the crown molding, the fading wallpaper. If someone with money were to come in here and flip it, it would probably be pretty fabulous. As of right now, it's kind of a shack. But it's our shack. I put a hand on my lip and try not to get nostalgic. We're only been here, what, ten months? Eleven? I shake my head and go back to my task.

  I'm cleaning out our closet, pulling my boxes of belly dancing costumes out and pausing to wipe a hand across my face. I still haven't danced for Ty yet. I've meant to, but I just haven't had the opportunity. Now that I'm pregnant again, I don't know if I'm going to be able to for awhile. Scratch that, going to want to for awhile. It's not like I couldn't, but I doubt that I will.

  I kick the box aside and it jingles. Noah coos happily, and I can't hold back a smile. I'm pretty sure his reaction as more to do with his father than anything else. The jingling of the belly dance costumes mimic the ring of Ty's bracelets, and I think the reason he falls asleep so fast when Ty rocks him to sleep is because of that jewelry. The soft clatter of metal is actually pretty fucking comforting. Hey, it works for me and my black soul just fine.

  I push my way into the closet and reach behind the row of old coats that Ty's mom left, back to a plastic garment bag that's hanging behind them. I manage to wrangle it out and notice that it's not covered in dust like the rest of the crap. It's as clear and clean as the belly dance boxes I put in there a few months ago.

  “What the fuck is this, Mini McCabe?” I ask as I unzip it and reveal a dress. A white dress. A wedding dress. Holy shit. Holy shitting shitting shit. I fling the bag on the bed and scoot past the baby who's sitting on the floor in a car seat. The plastic spreads open and the dress comes out, draping over my hands like water, fluid and liquid, pure as freshly fallen snow. Angelic. Virginal. Until I turn it over and see that the lacing on the back is red, blood red. It's the most beautiful fucking thing I have ever seen (as far as inanimate objects go).

  More tears come, and I have no choice but to blame them on the pregnancy, so I can keep my dignity and my tough as nails badass bitch persona.

  When I hear Ty coming up the stairs, I stash the dress under the bed turn Noah so that he can watch me as I run into the bathroom and throw up. Apparently, I'm going to get blessed with morning sickness again. Nice. Anything that stirs up my nerves for any reason gets me to upchuck in the damn toilet. Jesus.

  “You okay, baby?” he asks me, coming in and sweeping my hair back, smelling like the cigarettes we're both supposed to be giving up now. I nod, but say nothing. I'm afraid I speak, I'll blurt some Hallmark card bullshit, something that belongs in cursive pink text. “I was thinking, if you wanted, we could probably leave as soon as Friday.” Again, I nod. “We'll get some kennels for the animals and maybe toss your son in there to save on airfare. I don't think he'd mind riding down with the cargo, do you?” I nod. I'm not really listening, and Ty knows it. He flushes the toilet for me and helps me to my feet. When I make eye contact with him, he raises his brows.

  “What?”

  “You're not all there. What's wrong? You just told me it was chill to throw your son in a kennel with the dog.” I roll my eyes and push away from Ty, stepping back into the bedroom, watching the sunshine stream through the window and across our bed. Ty grabs me around the waist and leans down to whisper in my ear. “You're hiding something from me. What is it?” I shake my head. Whatever it is that Ty was going to do with that dress is important to me. I don't want to spoil the surprise.

  “I'm just … curious. To see where we're going, where we'll end up.”

  I move towards the window and look down, into the yard and across the street, at the copse of trees that block our view of the neighbor's house and yard. Ty follows me over and trails his fingers across the skin on my upper back, my neck.

  “As soon as you have this baby, we've got to get you a t
attoo, one that says Property of Ty McCabe.”

  “Go to hell,” I tell him as he steps back and pauses. The way he freezes tells me right away that something's wrong. For a second, I think something's wrong with Noah, that he's just suffered from SIDS and is gone forever. Pain crashes over me, but when I spin around, I see that he's okay, that Ty isn't even looking at him. Nausea sweeps over me.

  Ty bends down and grabs the bit of fabric that's poking out from under the bed. Shit. The white dress follows and then he's smiling, looking up at me, eyes half-lidded.

  “Never.”

  “I found it when I was cleaning,” I say.

  “Never.”

  I cross my arms over my chest, prepared to argue. I don't know why. Maybe it's just conditioned in me, put there by having too many sisters. Argument is a fact of life, a daily occurrence when you've got that many girls in one house.

  “What is this, Ty?”

  “What do you think it is?” he asks me, setting the dress down, glancing at Noah. The baby is now fast asleep. He moves forward and grabs the hem of my shirt. I clamp my hands down on his wrists, right over his bracelets and glare.

  “But why do you have this?” I ask. Ty's smile becomes a grin and then the shirt is just coming up and over my head. Before I can protest, he's got the dress back in his hands, lifting it up, looking coy as hell.

  “Try it on?” he asks. “For me.”

  “That's cheap.”

  “Talk's cheap. I thought you loved me?”

  “Haha,” I say, shaking my hand, raising my hands up with a sigh. The dress comes down and kisses my skin, fucks me softly, teases my flesh. “Happy? Now explain.” Ty takes my face in his hands and kisses me.

  “I was going to build an archway, cover it in black roses, and marry the shit out of your ass in the yard. But since we're moving, I guess I'm going to have to settle for fucking the shit out of you in it instead.”