Until I left again. If I left again. My interview at Harvard had gone well. Of course, there were a few peculiar looks about my advanced pregnancy. Federal law forbade questions about my child-rearing plans, but people clearly wanted to know about my support system and if a baby would interfere with my research. The idea of being alone in Boston with my child scared me, but being here in Jason’s backyard and witnessing his life without me, scared me more.
“Just four more weeks until we meet the little one. Jason must be so excited.”
I tightened my grip on the spoon. “He is.”
We were still texting, the stiff, daily check-ins that were our normal during the times when we weren’t getting along. When He was Mad and I was Stubborn: The Jason and Franky Story.
“I’m surprised he hasn’t been around.”
“We’re in touch. That’s what we agreed to.”
Violet remained placid. “Agreed to?”
“In the contract. Regular check-ins, attendance at doctor’s appointments, if available, but on the whole, we both do our own thing. He’s his own person. I’m my own person.”
“Okay.”
They expected me to be like them. Anxious for a life partner, lonely without a man. If I’d made a baby with Jason, I must want something to happen with him.
I hated that they were right. That underneath it all, I was absolutely conventional, craving the white picket fence and a life of domestic banality.
“Vi, I hope you’re not wishing for something to happen with Jason, other than what’s already occurred?—”
“Well, I?—”
“Because that’s not in the cards. We both went into this arrangement with clear ideas about what we wanted out of it.” My voice had risen slightly there, which was not good for the baby. I fought for calm. “And it’s all going according to plan.”
“Good to hear it,” she said cheerfully.
“And now I need to review the proofs for my article on the role of sexual selection and the courtship rituals of the Arion Vulgaris.” I slid off the stool, carefully, and steadied myself before taking a step.
“Gotcha.”
I caught her eye. “He didn’t hurt me. I’ll admit that I might have let my imagination stray to ‘what if,’ but I quickly realized that anything more than our current contractual obligations would never work. We have different requirements of a mate.”
Violet let me ramble. She knew what I was like when I was nervous.
“I don’t need a partner in my everyday life. I have so much love and support. So much.” My voice broke on those final words.
“I know, cariño.” She gave me a hug, holding on a little longer than necessary. “So I’m heading out to yoga and then a grocery store run. Anything I can get for you?”
I shook my head, my mind already straying to my article proofs and longing to bury myself in my work. Classic avoidance, but at least I recognized it.
Violet turned back and said casually, “By the way, Jenny, Elle, and Theo are throwing you a baby shower tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Usually, it happens earlier but you were out of town, and everyone wants to give you gifts and welcome you home. It’ll be small. Intimate.”
“Let me guess. A hundred people or so?”
She winked. “At least.”
I spent the next hour working on the article galleys and checking in with the snail-cams at Lakeshore U. Rusty and Billy Bob had mated over the weekend. Good for them. I was musing on how life always found a way, to paraphrase the great chaos theorist, Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, when I got a text.
Dad
Can you meet me in the kitchen?
