“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” he said.
“Are you going to class every day?”
More telling silence.
“Every. Day,” I said. “And wear that cute repentant expression you used to try on me when you would get into some scrape or another.”
“Mom!”
“What? It’s a cute expression. Like a puppy dog. No professor will be able to resist it.”
“Fine. But that’s enough about me. I’ll go to office hours if you’ll get out and enjoy New York.”
Oh, no. Did not want. I’d already taken off my pants and bolted the door. “How about if I get out and enjoy New York tomorrow?”
“Fine. And Mom?”
“Yes?”
“More content.”
“All right, all right. More content.”
A voice in the background announced, “Sandwich run!”
“Gotta go, Mom.”
My heart cracked open a little. It sometimes felt as though “gotta go” had been Dylan’s default mode since he’d started walking.
“Be careful. And I love you.”
He whispered his “I love you, too” so no one else could hear it, but I was thankful for it nonetheless.
Chapter 28
That night I dreamed not of Manderley but of the first time I got pregnant.
It was one of my recurring dreams, maybe because my subconscious thought I should’ve done something different? I didn’t know, but every so often, I would dream that I was back in college, living in the Andy Holt Apartments, and looking down at a second positive pregnancy test.
I called Mitch—landline, of course—to tell him I had urgent news. Back then, he didn’t brush me off like he would later in life. I’d like to think he grew to believe me capable of handling things, but I really think he was still unsure of himself and didn’t want to lose me back then.
How odd he would later come to take me for granted.
He picked me up outside the apartments and drove me over to his apartment off Gallaher View Road. He had a couch of questionable origin, and I perched on the edge of it, not sure how to say what I needed to say.
He paced the apartment until finally asking, “Is everything okay?”
No, everything was not okay. We’d conceived a baby in this very apartment about a month ago, and I wasn’t sure how because he’d used a condom. The sex hadn’t even been that good since I was a virgin. There ought to be a law that only good sex could lead to pregnancy. It didn’t seem fair at all that bad sex could—
“Vivian, what is going on? You’re scaring me.”
“I, well, I’m late.”
“How could you be late if I picked you up? You’re not making any sense.” His irritation melted into a pale-faced realization. “Oh.”
It was funny watching the moment of truth travel over his features even before he finished the second sentence.
He stood there frozen, so I had time to study those features, to really consider the father of my child. He had a strong chin and nice eyes. His hair was already thinning to the point that I knew he’d be bald by forty, but this was a man who’d asked me to marry him.
