How she has tricked him into wanting her.
“You know,” he says, “Ava’s doing this Montessori parenting thing… Did I tell you about that? Maybe you two could talk.”
Elodie tries not to grind her teeth. She does not need to be compared yet again to his sister and her cherubic two-year-old who sleeps through the night and knows baby sign language and considers cleanup time a favorite activity.
“I’ll text her.” She will not. “But I have to tell Jude soon.” The words sound strained, her briefly won comfort at Bren’s touch already slipping. At sixteen weeks, she is starting to show. “He’s not going to take it well.”
“Hey, you never know.” Bren untangles himself and scoops up her hand, leading her down the hallway to the master bedroom. “He might be excited. Remember when we walked past that pet store last weekend? He was all about those kittens.”
She would love to rise to his optimism, but she couldn’t sound flatter as she says, “I’m not having a kitten.”
“Okay, but the concept—”
“Bren.”
He gives her a pouting face, but he’s teasing. While Jude cannotbe distracted from a spiral, Bren is the epitome of a bouncy subject change. He never lingers on a sour taste or a foul day—there is always a joke to slip in to placate a tense situation or a smile that can clear a thunderous sky.
The only mistake he’s ever made was marrying her.
There is no loving her the way she was, only the way she will be, and she is determined to mold herself into the beautiful wife he wants. She is different now; she is new. He thinks her a lovely thing he found while visiting Australia and she is desperate for it to stay this way.
In their huge mahogany four-poster bed, their legs tangle together beneath the covers, and she presses her mouth against his while Jude’s crying fades. It is a big house, hungry for sound, and it is so easy to shut a door and pull quiet over herself like a shroud.
Bren’s fingers slide into her tangle of dark curls as he murmurs into her mouth, “We’ll figure it out together. I am with you for everything.” He pushes up on one elbow, his fingers still in her hair as he gazes down at her. “I know the house is a bit creepy for a kid, but it’ll be amazing when it’s done. The bones are solid and it has so much personality. You feel it, right?” He presses his face into the nook of her shoulder, his mouth on her collarbone. “It’s the perfect place to start a family.”
“You are perfect,” she whispers.
Bren is so earnest, so sweet and considerate and kind, and when he pushes up her sweater to glide his palm over the bare skin of her belly, she cannot help but revel in the weight of his worship. It fills her up with delicious golden warmth, loosens the tight coils of her muscles like nothing else can. In his arms, she is a flower in full bloom, drinking him in like a sun-soaked sky.
She is obsessed with him and he is obsessed with their unborn child.
She will be a better mother this time; she will be perfect.
THREE
“This shouldn’t be allowed.” Shewill never be used to these fairy-tale mornings, being woken with a kiss on the forehead and a mug of coffee perched by her bed. Her limbs feel sluggish, her face puffy with sleep, but when she reaches out floppily to catch hold of Bren as he passes by the bed, his eyes are full of soft adoration for her.
He’s halfway through threading his belt through the loops of his pants, already full of boundless energy as he readies for work. “Which part? Seven a.m. or, like, consciousness in general?”
“The part where you’re a morning person and the bed is cold without you.” She has the blankets scrunched up around her face, but he still leans to kiss the tip of her nose. “And you also put on clothes.”
“Malicious crimes against you.” Bren moves to kissing her neck. “How dare I?”
“How dare you indeed.” A small smile tugs at her mouth.
“You’re such a cold frog. You’re not…” Hesitation enters his voice as he pulls away to search her eyes. “You’re not homesick, are you?”
“No.” She says it hard and firm and is rewarded by his face lighting up with that boyish giddiness that makes her heart swell. “I will never be homesick for that goddamn place.”
“Good, because you’re never going back there,” Bren says with cool, factual certainty. “Do you want to stay in bed? I can get Jude dressed for school.”
Elodie’s good mood unspools and slithers bloodily from her mouth. Last night is a haunt against her shoulder blades, and she knows she has to get up and face the fallout of that world-ending meltdown. If Bren went into the nursery right now, Jude would see it as a betrayal, her sending in the enemy to fumble around and mess up the predictability of his morning routine. His bed will be wet. Toys will have been thrown. He will be primed to relay his feelings in kicks and bites.
Best to not let Bren see that. Best to let him forget the fractious chaos of last night and the missing tools she’d be ridiculous to offer to replace when her bank account is empty. He is always full of an affable eagerness to pay for anything she wants, so she forces herself not to think about money. But it’s times like these when a sick spinning feeling starts in her gut over how she is so wholly dependent on him. It’s a ridiculous, unfounded fear.
He wants to give her everything. There is nothing to worry about.
“I’ll get him.” Elodie’s smile is wan, and Bren places a last fond kiss on her forehead before drawing away to finish buttoning his crisp white shirt. “You can continue being an insufferably cheerful morning person, and maybe it’ll wear off on me.”
