“No, you’re trying to hurt me by making me face these truths right now. Penny, you and I are not the same. Our lives are vastly different. I feel like I ruined mine. I’m lonely as fuck and my dad is going to die in this house, and I’ll be the only one here for him. This is why I told you to have another kid. Milo will be it. It will all be on him. I know how it feels.”
He was hitting below the belt now. “You know I tried to get pregnant again.”
“Did you?”
I stood up to leave.
“Wait. I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
“No, it wasn’t, and by the way,Iwill be here for you. Me!” I pointed to my chest hard. “As always, Gavin. Maybe you can even order a hot nurse when your time comes.”
“Not funny, Penny.”
I smiled. He could see my face in the TV light, and I could see a small smile playing on his lips, too. “It’s a little funny,” I said. We were the only people we could be this way with.
He shook his head. “I’ll walk you home.”
“No, I’ll be fine. You’ll hear my ankles crack all the way down the street.”
“Fine. Bye.”
“Bye,” I said. When I got to the bottom of the steps, he jumped and landed beside me, grabbing my hand at the same time.
Pulling me along, he said in his typical fast-talking way, “I’m walking you home so shut up. You’re a sitting duck with those noisy ankles. There’s wild animals around here, like Tanya Fairmore in that blue house and Barrette Kiels next door to her.”
“We do have some weirdoes on this street.”
“That’s why I hate suburbia. We’re safer in the ’hood. There’s a nurse coming on Saturday. I doubt she’ll be hot.” He squeezed my hand. “But at least I’ll have a break. You want to go see The National with me at Red Rocks? I have an extra ticket.”
We were at the front door of my house. “You know I can’t do that. Is it just you going?”
He nodded.
“Ask Mike,” I said.
“Yeah, no, it’s fine. I’ll figure it out.”
“But, God, I would love to see them there,” I said.
“That’s why I bought them, Penny,” Gavin replied.
The door swung open, and the air grew thick with silence. We’d had many uncomfortable moments like this, with me and Gavin on one side of the threshold and my husband on the other. It was like getting caught kissing your boyfriend good night in high school. In this case, my husband was the strict dad who waits up all night. It wasn’t fair to think of him that way, but in moments like these, I couldn’t help it.
“Hi, Gavin. I’m so sorry to hear about your dad.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that, man.” They shook hands.
“So what did you buy for our Penny here?”
I answered for him. “Oh, Gavin has a nurse coming over on Saturday to cover for him, so he asked if I wanted to go see The National at Red Rocks with him.”
My husband frowned. “What’s The National?”
“A band,” I said.
“Oh,” he replied.
We were all standing in the doorway awkwardly. “Milo has that project thing anyway, so I told him I couldn’t go.”
