“The night of the gala.”
“Why didn’t you use protection?”
“Because I didn’thaveprotection!” I groaned. “I didn’t plan on sleeping with him. I was fully prepared to hate him until the end of time, but then he ambushed me in the elevator with his heavy breathing and his proximity and his stupid—” I dropped my voice, lowering it into his deep, accented baritone—“‘Do you want this, Lillian? Do you want me?’” I threw my hands up. “And I—I’m a middle-aged virgin, Sarah! I couldn’t help myself!”
She burst out laughing, clutching her stomach. “Oh my God. Was that theonlytime?”
My brain, thetraitor, immediately cued a montage of the three weeks after the gala, where we’d basically regressed into two feral, hormonal teenagers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other. It was like my body had suddenly realized it had spent three decades asleep and was now making up for lost time. We’d had more unprotected...shenanigans in twenty-one days than I assumed most reasonable people managed across all four seasons. The only moments I wasn’t touching him were the ones where I needed the bathroom, and even then, I’d briefly considered giving up liquids altogether.
I knew it was stupid, and irresponsible, andblah, blah, blah,but how could I remember protection when my gorgeous husband’s naked body was rightthere? My common sense had packed a bag and fled the scene. All I had access to were frisky chemical impulses and poor decision-making skills. The thoughtalone sent a hot, annoying curl of longing through me.God, I missed him.
Heat crept up my cheeks. “Not exactly.”
Her laughter doubled. “You dirty little minx. I wish you could see your face right now.”
“Hey,” I said defensively. “He’s my husband. It’s all perfectly respectable and clean.”
Sarah was practically in tears. “So during those—I'm assumingseveral—times, you never considered condoms? Birth control? Accidental pregnancies? You are aterribleOB.”
“Yeah, I know,” I muttered, collapsing onto her couch. “The irony is deep and poetic.”
She sat beside me, still chuckling. I pressed my palms over my face.
“This is your fault, by the way,” I said through my hands.
“Myfault?”
“You’re the one who said I needed to open up, take risks, let someone in. Well, congratulations. I opened up. I took a risk. Someone got in.Literally.”
Sarah finally stopped laughing long enough to breathe, brushing a tear from her cheek. When she looked at me again, her expression was concerned. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know.” I sank deeper into the cushions, staring at the ceiling like it might hold an answer. “I never thought about having children. I don’t know if that’s something I ever wanted.”
Her frown shifted into something warmer, thoughtful. “Lilly, you deliver babies for a living. You spend your free time hanging out in the hospital nursery like it’s a spa. If anyone in this world wants to be a mother, it’s you.”
“Then why did I never think about it?” I asked. “Don’t people usually dream about it? About pregnancy and motherhood and...family?”
She paused, like she was choosing each word with care. “You never thought about it because of your mom.”
My throat tightened. I looked down at my hands, twisting the hem of my sleeve until the fabric pinched my skin.
Sarah leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees. “Being a bad mom isn’t genetic, Lillian.”
“We don’t know that,” I whispered. “I can’t bring a child into this world and end up hating it. I can’t bring a child into this world and make it feel the way I felt.Unwanted.”
“You could never do that,” she said simply, as if saying it enough could make me believe it.
“Couldnever?” I gave a soft, humorless laugh. “Who says it’s conscious—hating your child?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s easier sometimes,” I admitted, “to convince myself she didn’t realize what she was doing. That she didn’t know what it meant when she’d look at me like I was a mistake she couldn’t take back. Or when every word out of her mouth seemed to translate toyou’re too muchornot enough. She made me think love was conditional—that you had to shrink yourself to deserve it, to be grateful just to be tolerated.” I swallowed hard. “It’s easier to believe she didn’t know what she was doing than to believe my mother was knowingly, purposefully, cruel.”
“You could never do that,” she repeated. Then, quieter, “I’m sorry for what I said before—about you not being capable of loving anyone but yourself. That wasn’t fair. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know.”
I smiled faintly. “I’m sorry, too. For lying. I was...embarrassed. And I didn’t think you’d understand my reasoning.”
Sarah shrugged. “It’s fine. I didn’t let you explain and was probably a jerk about it.”
