by L. D. Davis
“Hmm.” Grant leaned down to kiss my bare shoulder and back. “Yellow wings.”
I giggled before falling silent for a few moments. He waited patiently as he went back to drawing butterfly wings on my back.
“We had a big fight last night,” I finally said. “All of them against me.”
His brow came down and his hand froze for a few seconds before he continued again. He may not have felt the need to be my hero, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t get angry on my behalf.
“As usual,” I went on, “everyone was patting themselves and each other on the back for being sensationally successful. The law firm is raking in high profile clients and money. Tabitha’s books are getting made into movies. Emmya is in demand around the world, and everybody wants to eat at one of Leo’s establishments. Not to mention, they all feel super accomplished for producing ankle biters and having leaky breasts and whatnot.”
Grant tried unsuccessfully not to smile, but I ignored his amusement and recounted the argument in detail. He listened intently and patiently. He didn’t attempt to draw any conclusions or make meaningless statements; he remained quiet and attentive, watching my face carefully.
“For many years, I’ve felt some small separation between my cousins and me, but I have never felt it as acutely as I did last night. I felt so disconnected from them,” I whispered. “So isolated. What made matters worse is that I think that for the first time, they really saw the gulf between us, too. I think they saw it the way I saw it, that there was them, and then there was me.”
Grant wordlessly pulled me close, wrapping me in his warm body.
“Things were super tense this morning, and my feelings hadn’t changed. I still felt alone. When I saw you and the kids come inside…” I let out a shaky sigh. “I wasn’t alone anymore, and I was so damn relieved and so damn grateful.”
“And that’s why you cried,” he murmured and kissed my forehead.
“And that’s why I cried,” I confirmed.
We were quiet for a couple minutes, and then Grant asked, “Do you want to stay?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.” I looked up at him suddenly, questioningly. “Was I wrong? Was I wrong last night?”
“I think,” he started slowly, “that who you are friends with is your business, but you should have told your family about the drugs. They’re probably devastated, Mayson—not because you did drugs but because they weren’t there to help you. They didn’t know that you even needed help, and maybe in a way, that’s their fault. Maybe they do have their heads up their own asses, but do you really believe that they don’t care? That they don’t love you? Do you really think that if they knew about the drugs and all the other shit you’ve been through that they wouldn’t want to help you? So, do I think that you were wrong? Not really. You were right to call them out. They needed to know how you felt, but you should have come clean a long time ago about a couple things. Do you want to know what else I think?”
“If I say no, are you going to tell me anyway?” I asked dryly.
He pinched my bare ass, making me yelp.
“Yes, smartass,” he said, rubbing the spot he had pinched. “I also think that you could have told them if you really wanted to. I think that you didn’t tell them because you wanted them to know you well enough to figure out that something was wrong on their own. Even if they did have an idea that something was wrong, you probably hid behind your sarcasm and inappropriate comments. I think that you wanted them to want to look beyond that. It’s like a sick game of Hide-and-Seek. You want to hide, and maybe you don’t want to be found right away, but eventually, you want someone to find you. You want them to want to find you.”
I wanted to slide away from him and his x-ray vision that gave him an unobstructed view of me, right down to the marrow. I had never thought of things in the way he had just described, but it felt like it was true. It seemed more accurate than almost anything else about me.
Stubbornly refusing to admit anything, I grumbled, “I didn’t know that you got your Ph.D. in psychoanalysis while you were in Texas.”
“Judging by your smartass comment, I’m going to assume I am right and let it go.”
“Smart man.”
He tickled my side, making me giggle and yelp as I struggled to get away from him.
“What did you say, smart ass? Have any other smart ass comments, smart ass?”
“Please stop,” I cried.
He did stop and kissed me gently despite the fact that I was still giggling.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I told him again, cupping his cheek in my hand.
“I’ll always be here,” he promised.
For the first time ever, I believed him. One-hundred percent.
Chapter Nineteen
We stood clustered together in the kitchen, staring out a window with a view of the back yard. The men stood around a big grill, drinking beers, holding babies, and shooting the shit as the kids played in the yard. Our focus, however, was on Grant.
“Heavens that is a good-looking man,” Tabitha said.
Donya sighed. “Those lips.”
“That beautiful brown skin,” Emmy added wistfully.
“And he’s not just good looking,” I added. “He’s funny and intelligent.”
“And he’s such a good father,” Tabitha crooned.
“He doesn’t mind holding babies,” Emmy said with too much excitement.
“Those lips,” Donya repeated.
“Yeah, but,” Sam started with exasperation, “How big is his penis, and does he know how to use it?”
My cousins and I all looked at Sam, as if we were all surprised when we shouldn’t have been at all.
“Mom!” Emmy whined. “Now every time any one of us looks at him, we’re going to inadvertently look at his junk! What the hell is wrong with you?”
Samantha shrugged nonchalantly. “It was a reasonable question.”
“Not for nothing, Emmy,” Donya cut in. “You bragged about Luke’s um, bountiful manhood once upon a time. Do you really believe that our eyes didn’t occasionally and inadvertently look down?”
“I would appreciate it if you all could keep your eyes above my man’s waist,” I said.
It had been two days since Grant’s arrival. To make space, we moved the little girls into the boys’ room and the boys to the living room. It was a perfect arrangement for the boys, who stayed up late into the night playing video games, or until some parent yelled at them to go to sleep.
The tension between my family and I hadn’t gone away, but with an unspoken agreement, we had put the fight on hold. Well, I had put it on hold, whereas they had probably believed it was over. It’s not that I wanted a fight, but I didn’t want to sweep it under the rug. If I did that, nothing would change. They would continue to treat me as they always had. For a long time, I was fine with my position in the family, but for the first time, I really began to see myself, to understand myself, and to know that I deserved more.
“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell us about him before,” Emmy said after Sam went outside.
She took a long sip of a freshly made margarita and sighed with contentment.
“Are you allowed to drink when your nipples are on loan to a little person?” I asked doubtfully.
“There’s bagged breast milk in the fridge.”
“Ew…”
She gave me a chastising look. “Don’t change the subject. Why didn’t you tell us about Grant?”
I sighed. “It’s been…complicated.”
No one said anything, which was fair since they’d all had their own share of complications with their spouses. Emmy and Luke’s difficulties didn’t end when Kyle was out of the picture. Tabitha and Leo were secretly in love for fifteen years before they finally got together, and even then, the beginning of their relationship had been bumpy. Donya once told me that Emmet was her soul mate, but it took them more than twenty years, and both having disastrous marriages to other people be
fore they pulled it together.
“Well…” Emmy sighed as she glanced out the window again. “He is a good man, as far as I can tell. I’ve never seen you as content and happy as I have seen you in the past few days.”
“I can’t believe you’re with a guy with kids.” Tabitha chuckled. “I know you love our kids, but you’re otherwise not very fond of them.”
I shrugged. “Sometimes I can’t believe it, either.”
“They’re good practice,” Emmy said, raising her eyebrows suggestively. “You know, for when you have your own. God, your ovaries must be screaming to make babies with that man. My ovaries are screaming for you to make babies with that man.”
I rolled my eyes. “My ovaries aren’t really interested.”
“That man has some good genes,” Emmy went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “His kids are gorgeous, but the kids that you two can have together would be striking. How many more kids does he want? Have you guys talked about it?”
“We’re not having any kids,” I said, pulling produce out of the fridge to make a salad. “Aren’t we supposed to be making stuff for dinner?”
“You still have a few childbearing years left,” she said with a shrug. “You might change your mind.”
“I’m not going to change my mind.”
I handed her the lettuce to wash. Donya peeked into a simmering pot and poked at the rice inside with a spoon before covering it back up as Tabitha began to open cylinders of dough for biscuits.
“I didn’t think I was going to have another kid after Kaitlyn,” Emmy continued.
“Emmy, let it go,” Donya said. “Having another kid is entirely different from having any in the first place. I think she knows what she wants and doesn’t want.”
“Sometimes what we think we want, we don’t really want. Sometimes what we don’t want, we really want,” Emmy argued. “We all know that. You know that probably more than any of us, Donya.”
“Let it go,” Donya sang, shaking her head.
“She didn’t think that she’d ever date a guy with kids, and yet she’s practically a stepmom to Natalie and Alex,” Em said, apparently not letting it go. “Who knows how she’ll feel a year from now?”
“They haven’t been together that long,” Tabitha reminded her.
“But they were in love a long time ago. The time Luke and I spent apart was much shorter than yours.” She looked from Tabitha to Donya. “But if any of our histories are indicative of what’s to come for Mayson…” She shrugged smugly.
“Emmy, stop it,” I said, frustrated. “I’m not having any babies, so you may as well accept it.”
“Never say never,” she scolded.
“I can say never,” I snapped, slamming my knife down on the cutting board. “Why can’t you get it through your thick skull that I’m not like you? I don’t have to push a few babies out of my cunt to feel validated. You need to accept my decision and move on.”
Emmy stared at me wide eyed. “Okay, fine.” She held her hands up to placate me. “I’m just saying that you might change your mind later. Nothing is carved in stone.”
My tone was bitter and angry. “It is carved in stone. I am sterile. I had tubal ligation when I was twenty-seven. I won’t be having any damn children, Emmy. So, now you can erase the idea entirely from your mind.”
Three sets of eyes stared at me in shock. I wished that I could go back several seconds and take my words back, but it was too late. They were out there.
I turned away from them and resumed hacking at the tomato.
“Why?” Tabitha asked in a small voice. “Were you sick? Was something wrong with your reproductive system?”
“Wow,” Emmy said. “When you said you didn’t want kids, you weren’t playing.”
“No, I wasn’t playing,” I said stiffly, answering Emmy, but avoiding Tabitha’s questions.
Emmy sounded genuinely baffled when she asked, “Why would you choose to do something so permanent at such a young age?”
I put the knife down again. Sighing, I turned around to face her. She looked horrified and confused.
It’s like a sick game of Hide-and-Seek, Grant had said. You want to hide, and maybe you don’t want to be found right away, but eventually, you want someone to find you. You want them to want to find you.
Emmy wanted to find me. Judging by the similar expressions on Donya’s and Tabitha’s faces, they wanted to find me, too. They knew that something was wrong, but they couldn’t even begin to guess at it.
It was time for me to come out of hiding, to push through the walls of my cocoon a little bit more.
“You’ll recall my move to North Carolina eleven years ago.”
Tabitha and Emmy nodded, but Donya shrugged helplessly. She hadn’t really been around back then, but I didn’t feel the need to get into that aspect of the story. I went on, knowing that one of the other girls would fill her in later.
“The last time I got high before I went into recovery, I got high with the wrong group of guys,” I said, my voice whisper soft. “While I was in and out of consciousness, they r-r-raped me. All of them, or, at least, most of them. I don’t really know.”
Closing my eyes to avoid looking at their reactions, I said, “I felt so dirty, so polluted and tainted. It’s been years and I still don’t feel clean. I could not even imagine having a child growing inside my defiled body. I know that it sounds insane, but…I felt like anything that grew inside me would be tainted, too. I could not risk getting pregnant and subjecting an innocent life to this…filth inside me.”
I opened my eyes and met each of their teary and stunned gazes. “I don’t regret what I did. I don’t ever want to have a life inside me. I don’t regret it.”
Emmy opened her mouth, shut it, and opened it again. Tears raced down her cheeks and dripped onto the lettuce still in her hands.
“Mayson,” Tabitha started, her voice broken.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said hastily. “It’s not something I want to dissect and discuss and answer your fucking questions. It happened. It changed my life. It fucking sucks, but I can’t change it. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I’m sorry.” Emmy sniffed.
I couldn’t take the hardness out of my voice. “I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to wash your tears off the lettuce and help me make the damn salad.”
As if it were a live explosive, Emmy carefully put the head of lettuce down on the counter. Without another glance or word, she walked out of the kitchen. I heard her go up the stairs and a door close a moment later.
Tabitha averted her eyes when I looked at her, but Donya didn’t. She stared at me unflinchingly for a moment before her gaze suddenly moved beyond me. Both her eyes and her mouth opened and I heard her suck in a quick breath. My brow creased with confusion before I turned around to see what she was looking at.
It wasn’t a what. It was a who.
Grant stood on the other side of the sliding screen door, staring at me as if I had just kicked him in the face.
He slid the door open without taking his eyes off me and stepped inside. He didn’t even look away from me when he spoke to Donya and Tabitha in a low, tight voice.
“Can you ladies do me a favor and keep an eye on Alex and Natalie? Mayson and I are going for a drive.”
“Sure,” Tabitha hurriedly agreed.
“Of course,” Donya said at the same time.
He finally looked away from me when he walked out of the kitchen. I didn’t immediately follow him, but glanced over at my ogling cousins.
“You didn’t tell him?” Donya mouthed incredulously.
I shook my head once before catching up with Grant on the front porch.
My stomach was in knots during our silent, short drive to Avon by the Sea. He didn’t even look at me until we pulled into a parking space and he turned the engine off. I stared ahead at the boardwalk and the sand and water beyond that, unable to meet his eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” h
e finally asked after a couple minutes.
I knew I should have told him about my decision not to have children, but I felt defensive and angry. It was my body! My life! And he hadn’t been there for me.
“There just didn’t seem to be a good time to mention it.”
His anger was instantaneous.
“We’ve been together for two months, Mayson! There have been plenty of opportunities to ‘mention’ that you had your tubes tied.”
“Technically, they were burned, which seems way more effective than tying.”
Grant firmly grasped my chin and turned my head, forcing me to look at him. I tried to pull away, but he refused to let go.
“Don’t do that. Don’t do that sarcasm shit. Not with me. Not now.”
“Let me know when it will be a good time for my sarcasm shit.” I succeeded in pushing his hand off my face and snapped at him. “What do you want from me, Grant? I told you I didn’t want to have children. Why should I have to even say anything more than that? Why didn’t you just believe me when I said it?”
“Why couldn’t you tell me then?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me then that you had surgery, that you had made a decision that was so final?”
I threw my hands up in frustration. “What other kind of decision is there? Now you’re castigating me for not being irresolute in my decisions? All this time I thought that sticking to my resolutions was an admirable quality. Now that I know you want me to be all wishy-washy, I’ll try to be an indecisive moron from here on out.”
His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, and his jaw tightened. “When you said that you didn’t want to have children—”
“You should have believed me!” I shouted, cutting him off. “I meant what I said and you should have believed me.”
Most of his anger seemed to ebb as he took a deep breath and paused long enough to speak more evenly. “I did believe you, but believing that you didn’t want children and knowing that you can’t have them are two different things. I’m not mad that you had the surgery. I’m mad because you didn’t tell me about it. You know how I feel about you, Mayson. You have to know that despite what you said about kids that I’d…I’d thought about it.”