“Do you think you can stay here?” I asked Dan.
He looked up at me in that slack-jawed way that filled my heart with pity. “Yeah.”
“Well, girls,” I said. “Your daddy has spoken.”
I would have sooner dropped those Fabergé eggs out the window, one by one, with tiny, experimental parachutes than admit that they had been right. I guess, at eighty-seven, I’d never expected a fresh start.
Annabelle
Be Like Lovey
Leaving your husband for too long is dangerous. According to Lovey, that’s when affections stray. But I disagreed with her. I thought that being apart, at least every now and then, gave people a chance to miss each other. And I had missed Ben like I didn’t know you could.
When I pulled back into the driveway of my pool house, I heard, “Oh, thank the Lord, my girl is home!”
That’s probably something you would expect your husband to say when you return from a five-day trip with your grandparents. Instead, the first person to greet me at my temporary pool house residence was my mother-in-law, Emily.
I gave her a hug and said, “I missed you so much!”
“I missedyouso much,” I heard from behind me.
I turned and jumped into Ben’s arms, wrapping my legs around his waist and kissing him.
“Wow,” Emily said. “I’m a little jealous. His greeting seemed more enthusiastic than mine.”
I laughed. “Maybe it seemed that way, but what I think I actually missed most was your warm quinoa cranberry salad.”
Emily started backing away, grinning like her scratch-off ticket was the five-thousand-dollar winner. “Well, then I’ll go whip some up right now!”
“I’ll come help you in a minute,” I called after her.
“I don’t think so,” Ben said, taking my hand in his and raising his eyebrows suggestively.
I smiled, thinking that I was the luckiest girl in the world. A husband love stories are written about, a doll of a mother-in-law and a home so gorgeous I didn’t think I’d ever want to leave it. Who would ever want to have their own house when the one they were in came with a pool and three free meals a day?
“Let’s go celebrate your return,” Ben whispered in my ear, sending shivers down my spine.
I lit up and then, remembering, scrunched my nose. “I’m having my period.”
I could see the disappointment in his face, and I knew it was about more than just sex. “Oh,” he said. “Again?”
“Yeah, again,” I said, hearing the irritation rising in my voice. “Every month.” Then, trying to take the edge off, I asked, “Did you miss that day of sex ed or something?”
He ventured a half smile and said, “I guess I was just hoping...”
I shrugged, trying to remain unflustered, trying to ignore the fact that my calm, relaxed, adoring husband was putting an undue amount of pressure on me. I probably should have said something of that nature to him, because I’m sure he didn’t mean it. But I didn’tbecause I didn’t want him to think I was being silly. Instead, I replied, “Well, obviously I was hoping too.”
I couldn’t help but hear my mother’s voice in my head.Annabelle, it’s too soon to have a baby. I know you think he’s the love of your life, but, for heaven’s sake, you two barely know each other. Give it time, get in your routine, build that strong foundation. That is the most important thing. A baby needs totally committed and completely ready parents.
I gritted my teeth even thinking about that, of how skeptical she and my dad had been about the fact that I had married Ben three days after I met him. If I was honest, I’d yet to find anyone—even Cameron—who wasn’t a little leery of it. But to us, it was a great love story, the mark of how unutterably sure we were that we were the one and only to each other.
I had said to my mom, “It took you and Dad like a decade to have me. I don’t want Ben and me to have to go through that.” I had crossed my arms. “Why can’t you just be like Lovey? Why can’t you see what we have? Can you not just be happy for me?”
Sure, I was acting like a child, but, in reality, I sort of was one. And it pierced right through me when she had said, “Lovey isn’t happy that you threw away your perfect life on some fly-by-night guy you barely knew. She just has the sense to know that you’re going to figure out what a mistake it was in your own time.”
I had walked out then, tears burning in my eyes, crossed between the indignation that no one could see how perfect Ben and I were and that far-off fear that, oh God, what if she was right?
As I walked through the door of the pool house, Ben kissed my neck, and all of that worry and all of those ugly moments floated away. Ben. I even loved to say his name. I turned and kissed him.
