Her mom started looking at apartments for retired people. The more she looked, the more enthusiastic she seemed.“No more mowing. No more shoveling.”She was tired of the neighborhood, too. Everyone was ready for something a little easier.
Eighty
Shiloh had acted unimpressed with the ocean, but Cary thought maybe it scared her.
His apartment in San Diego had never seemed as empty as when he was showing it to her for the first time.
She brought him a framed photo of her sitting on his lap at her table. “So you have a picture of us.”
Cary already had their picture from college—when he was just out of boot camp—shoved into the frame of his bedroom mirror.
He was making headway with Juniper and Gus. It was probably only going to get harder with time—Shiloh said the only way out was through. He didn’t tell her how much he still didn’t want to be called anyone’s stepfather. He already loved these kids, and he didn’t want to be the person they hated most.
She finally told him about her divorce during a San Diego visit. She was humiliated. He wasn’t sure if the kind thing to do was to look away from her while she talked—or to show her that hecouldstill look at her.
Her ex-husband was a sociopath. Cary didn’t want to know him at all; he never wanted to see that guy in Junie and Gus.
He didn’t know what to say to Shiloh. He couldn’t tell her that he’d never cheated on anyone—he had once, years ago, though the circumstances were gray. He hadn’t always been perfectly honorable.
Shiloh didn’t ask.
They were sitting on Cary’s black Ikea couch. He kept his armaround her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know how you got through that first year, when Gus was a baby.”
“I don’t know, either. My mom helped a lot.”
“Is that why you got your tubes tied?”
Shiloh looked at him, surprised. “No—I had them tied when Gus was born. Ryan and I planned it. We were tired of birth control, and I was terrified of getting pregnant again accidentally. Two was already a lot.”
“So you’d never wantthree...” Cary said.
Shiloh looked speechless. “My tubes aren’t actually tied, Cary—they’re cauterized.”
He shrugged. “Doctors don’t really try to reverse tubal ligations anymore. They suggest in vitro.”
She stared at him. “You’ve been googling myuterus.”
“No.” Cary shook his head. “I’ve been educating myself.”
Shiloh was biting her lip. “Is this something that’s important to you?”
“If it was important to me,” he said, “I would have brought it up sooner.”
She nodded. “Good.”
“I am merely setting it on the table for discussion.”
She was upset. “I didn’t know you wanted kids.”
“I’m already going to have kids.”
“You know what I mean,” she said.
Cary rubbed her shoulder, refusing to flinch. “If you’re asking whether I would like the experience of having a child with you—yes, I think I would. But I’m already getting what I really want, Shiloh. I want you.”
“I’d like to set this question aside,” she said.
“Okay.”
