by L. B. Dunbar
“Girl, what are you doing?” Ester admonishes as she comes out of the bathroom. Her apron is removed, and she’s staring at me as I set out ingredients.
“I’m just going to—”
“No, girl, what are you doing?” Ester’s accent comes out with her emphasis.
“I’m going to stay here tonight.” I speak quietly, preparing for Ester’s wrath. Instead, she steps over to me.
“You’ve worked hard today. What happened?” Ester’s cappuccino-tan hand covers my arm. She didn’t miss the red rim of my eyes earlier, and she wanted to talk, but with Julia present, we just didn’t. Ester has had a rough relationship in the past. I sense she fears something she shouldn’t.
“We just had a fight. Or more like I dealt out words, and Brut said nothing.”
“Chica?” Ester presses.
“I said some things I shouldn’t have. I told Brut I didn’t want to marry him.”
Her dark brows pinch as her eyes narrow. “You what?”
“Not in so many words. It was more like I don’t think I should marry him.” Wanting to marry him was a different definition.
“Why?” Ester’s breath mixes with the question, and I look over at her.
“I’ve already told you. Brut likes to do the right thing, and in his head, the right thing is to marry me. And I’m being a romantic fool at forty-one and want him to love me instead.” I shrug as if it’s that simple.
“But he does.”
“He hasn’t said that.” Another month has passed, and the man still hasn’t expressed any feelings about me.
“Lily, anyone watching that man as he looks at you knows he’s all over you like flour on fresh bread. He loves you.” I stare at my friend and her strange metaphor.
“Why do I question it then?” Is it just the hormones? Or am I really an emotional mess?
“A lot has happened so fast.” Ester holds out her hand, ticking off the items on her fingers. “Your sister. His son. The pregnancy. Moving in together. Mind-blowing sex. Or at least I assume you have that kind of sex, but you refuse to tell me details, and you know this girl is desperate over here.” She lets out a deep phew and an exaggerated wipe of her brow to finish off. I shake my head with a humorless chuckle. She’s always probing for details about sex between Brut and me, but Brut and I haven’t connected sexually over the past week. I cringe with the thought as I’ve been too busy avoiding the marriage discussion, which means avoiding him.
“Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones.” I laugh it off although I don’t like to use the pregnancy as an excuse. Lima Bean is already the reason Brut wants me to marry him, and therein lies another sliver of the issue. Brut didn’t actually ask me to marry him. He suggested we get married, and then hit the ball for a home run without popping the question. But we’re far enough along in the game now that I’m too embarrassed to call foul. I haven’t told anyone he didn’t officially ask me, and that piece of the puzzle bothers me.
“You need to go home,” Ester says, looking at the containers spread around the prep table. “Talk to him.”
I nod, but I know I won’t go.
“Avoiding isn’t healthy,” she tells me, and again, I know she’s right, but still…
“It’s just one night. I promise. Things always look better in the morning.” It’s cliché, but it appeases her. She pats my arm and picks up the container of flour.
“No more cupcakes,” she says, returning the jar to the counter where we store our dry goods. “Bed.”
Drudgingly, I climb the stairs after locking up and fall on the couch. My feet are so swollen, I don’t trust myself to stand in the shower, so I lie there sweaty and sticky. I prop my elephant looking ankles up on the armrest, and my hand goes to my belly, rubbing over the swell.
“We’ll get through this,” I say, my heart clenching at the words. The truth is, we will. Brut won’t let the baby lack, but I can’t live without him loving me. My tired eyes finally have no more tears, and I close them with relief. I think I hear my phone but lying on the couch feels so good. I’m too exhausted to get up, so I ignore it the second time it rings. I will myself into a happy place. The beach. Lima Bean. And sleep.
38
Man up or go home…or both
[Brut]
“Why isn’t she answering?” I grumble to myself as I cross the bar. I head back to the table where Tommy Carrigan has joined Hank and me. Hank doesn’t drink, and I blame a lot of his prior wayward behavior on the man to his left, Tommy Carrigan. He’s a charismatic character with his Southern drawl and his permanent rock star status—even though they aren’t rock stars anymore. That ship had sailed, and with it came a huge relief for me. I watched my brother spiral downward too many times. Hank claimed the band was his family, but the only family picking him up when he hit bottom was me.
Yet somehow Tommy and Hank have reconnected. Their friendship is different now—more mature. Maybe it’s because they are both married.
I want to be married.
I want Lily to be with me forever, but after this morning, I’ve realized she doesn’t feel the same way.
“Another round,” I announce, setting down two shot glasses. My brother’s eyeing me. I’m not typically the wild one. I drink a beer a day, maybe two, but I don’t typically let loose like this. Only tonight, I’m wound tight. I don’t understand what Lily wants, but I know one thing—when she said don’t kiss her, my heart dropped. Correction, my heart fell out of my chest, thumped on the floor, and waited to be stomped on. Then Chopper interrupted us, and there was the awkward moment when I was ready to beg her to stay, take the day off and talk, but Chopper waited. I love my kid, but I wanted to smack him upside the back of his head. He watches Lily like a hawk, protective of her to a fault. Then again, can I blame him? He loves her. I love her. I don’t understand.
“How’s Lily?” Tommy mocks. I excused myself for the bathroom, tried to call for the millionth time, and rerouted to the bar for another round of shots.
“Fine,” I grunt, slamming back the fiery liquid in one swallow.
“That doesn’t look like fine,” Hank implies, eyeing my empty shot glass before his eyes meet mine, narrowing in question.
He’s right. We aren’t fine. We’re an emotional roller coaster, and to top it off, we haven’t had sex in a week. For a woman with pregnancy hormones in overdrive, the slammed brakes should have tipped me off. Things are definitely not fine.
“Trouble in paradise, perhaps?” Tommy jabs, and I glare back at him.
“Paradise is just heavenly, thank you.”
“What the fuck are you two talking about?” Hank interjects, his head swinging back and forth between the two of us. “What’s going on with Lily? Fine is a female word. What’s wrong?”
I gaze at my brother, and Tommy bursts out laughing. “A female word?”
“If Edie says to you ‘I’m fine,’ you know you’re in trouble, right?” Hank pauses a second while Tommy stares back at him unblinking. “Never mind. Just tell me what’s happening?” Hank ignores Tommy and speaks to me.
“We had a fight. Or rather, she told me off and then told me she didn’t want to marry me.”
“What?” Tommy and Hank respond in unison. I shrug. What more is there to say?
“Is it because you asked Midge and me to be witnesses, but you two haven’t gotten married yet? Are you rethinking the wedding thing?”
“What wedding thing?” Tommy asks. I ignore him.
“No, I said we could have a wedding later, but we need to get married now.”
“You said?” Tommy parrots, mocking me, but I dismiss the question in his voice. Hank glares at me.
“You asked her to marry you, right?”
“Yes,” I hiss, glaring back at my brother.
“How?” Hank snaps
“Not this again. What do you mean how?”
“I mean, I heard the lame excuse of asking her in the tub, which didn’t sound all that romantic, and as women love to share that
shit, Lily didn’t seem too excited to share what went down. So why don’t you tell me how you did it?”
“What, are you the romantic police all of the sudden? Got married at a courthouse yourself and now you’re the judge of how others do it?” I reach for Tommy’s untouched shot and slam it back.
“I already told you not to compare yourself to Midge and me. And I’m still waiting for an answer on how you asked her because I’m thinking you pulled a Brut and told her how things would be. You told her to marry you. You told her a date. You told her we’d be witnesses.”
“I didn’t,” I defend, but as what he’s saying slowly sinks in, my heart cowers in my chest. A hand wipes down my face.
“Brut, I love you, man, but you can be so dense. And your need to control things…” Hank drifts off and shakes his head.
“Control things? You think I asked for the garage? Asked to take charge of your life? Asked to get the wrong girl pregnant and have a child without her?”
“You got someone else pregnant?” Tommy interjects.
“Shut up,” I snap. “Lily’s pregnant.”
“I know, but who’s the wrong girl?”
“Her…just never mind. I don’t ask to be in charge, Hank. It just seems to happen.”
“Because you take it upon yourself to be in charge.”
“Well, what else was I supposed to do? Throw Pop out? Let you hit rock bottom and die? Reject my child?” I’m coming unraveled, and my voice has risen in the public space, but I don’t care. I’m at loose ends here, and I want Lily to return my goddamn phone calls.
“Brut, calm down.”
“Calm down? Calm down! I want Lily to marry me. I want us together. We have a second chance, which I might add, you aided in happening, and now she’s walking away.”
“Brut, answer the fucking question about the proposal,” Tommy demands, and it’s almost as if his asking me pisses me off enough to admit what happened.
“I didn’t ask,” I blurt out, and the reality hits me. I didn’t ask her. My romantic Lily who wants to dance in the rain and make love under the moonlight didn’t get asked. She doesn’t even have a ring or a memory or… “Fucking Christ.”
My hand comes to my forehead, pressing at the wrinkled skin. Silence falls between us.
“I didn’t ask her,” I admit, my voice strained and quiet. I don’t know what else to say. “But she doesn’t want to marry me anyway.”
“How do you know? You didn’t ask her.” Tommy snorts, and if I didn’t think he was right, I’d punch his smug face.
“Since when did you two become experts on women?” I chuckle without humor.
“When I fell in love,” Tommy says.
“When I married the woman of my dreams,” Hank adds.
When did we become the chicks discussing this shit?
“You realize you two sound like chicks.” I tip my beer at them and notice the bottle is empty.
“You realize you sound like a dick,” Hank amends. “But I’m thinking you’d rather sound like a chick, too.”
I stare at him a moment before bursting out in laughter. “You know how stupid that sounded?”
“Do you know how pathetic you look?” He glares at me, and for a moment, I feel like we’re ten and eight again, tit-for-tat fighting. “Man up, Brut. She’s the woman you’ve wanted back for twenty-two years. She’s here. How you gonna keep her?”
I hate when my brother’s right.
+ + +
Lily isn’t home when I get there, so I decide to sleep on the couch. Isn’t that what a man in the doghouse does anyway? I figure I’d give her space when she came home. But I sleep fitfully despite the drunken haze. I don’t like sleeping without her, and when I wake to find our bed still untouched, I panic. After all the calls I made last night, only a text from her graces my phone in the morning.
I stayed at the bakery.
The tone of a text can be difficult to read, so I hate to make assumptions, but this is cold. Simple. Direct. No additional information. I don’t know how to respond.
I miss you.
I love you.
Come home.
I’m more confused than ever on how to make things right with Lily. I want to ask her to marry me, but if she’s only going to refuse me, I don’t think I can handle the rejection. On the other hand, I don’t even know if she’ll still live with me. I can live with her, if she’d want that instead. I’d prefer she be my wife, but I understand she’s a modern woman, and she doesn’t need a legal document to prove I want to be with her. I also know my romantic Lily wanted marriage one day. Call me old fashioned, but I’d still like her to be legally joined to me. I want us to be a family. We aren’t playing house like Hank said yesterday morning. My house is her home.
Several weeks ago, Midge told me to stop wasting time. Hank told me to man up. Hours later, I have a plan. I will myself to stop checking my phone every five seconds and eventually leave it in my SUV as I run errands. The phone is close to dead, so when I return to the SUV, I plug it in and watch as the screen blows up with text after text. Some are from Lily’s phone, but it’s not her.
Brut, this is Ester. Call Lily’s number.
Brut, this is kind of an emergency. It’s still Ester.
Brut, don’t be the dick I think you shouldn’t be and call this fucking number.
Texts from Midge intermix with Ester’s growing frustration.
Call me.
Call Lily.
Get to the doctor’s office.
However, there’s one text from Hank.
You’re fucking this up.
Screw Hank, I go back to Midge’s and call her number.
“Thank God, Brut. You need to call Lily’s doctor.” My heart races as Midge announces this through the SUV.
“What happened?”
“She called me frantic. I didn’t want to make any assumptions, so I told her to call the doctor. I could hear the stress in her voice that she was in pain. Brut, I don’t think it’s good. She needs you.”
“Lima Bean,” I whisper, but Midge hears me.
“What?”
“Never mind. Can you text me the doctor’s address? I’m already driving, and I’ll put it in maps.”
“Got it. Call me back when you know something. I haven’t heard from her, and I’m worried.”
“Will do.” I hang up before I’ve finished speaking, calling the doctor’s office next.
“Brookes and Wadden OB/GYN.”
I explain I’m looking for Lily Warren and how far along she is in the pregnancy.
“And who are you?”
“I’m her husband.”
“I’m sorry, we don’t have a husband on record. I can’t offer any information to you.”
“Damnit. Can you just tell me if she’s there?” I bang against the steering wheel.
“I’m sorry, sir—”
“Just tell me if the baby’s okay, then? Just a yes or no.” My knuckles pale as I grip the wheel, making an illegal turn onto the next street.
“Sir, I can’t divulge any information. I suggest you contact the patient.”
“So, she is a patient, and she was there today?”
“Sir.” The frustration rings in her voice.
“Is she still there?”
“I’m sor—”
“Never mind.” I click off and dial Lily’s number. It rings and goes to voicemail. Immediately, I try again. And again.
“What the fuck?” The slight accent catches me off guard until I realize Ester has Lily’s phone.
“Ester, please tell me she’s okay.”
“I think she’s been better.” I bang the steering wheel in response, my palm pounding down as I run a yellow light.
“Is she at the doctor’s office? I’m on my way unless she’s home.”
“They already released her.”
“What happened?”
“I think it’s best if she tells you.”
My chest clenches, and I grip my shirt o
ver my heart. “The baby. Ester, tell me the baby is okay.”
“Brut, you and Lily have a lot to discuss. Maybe you could start by being a man and tell her you love her.”
What the fuck?
“Thanks, Ester. And how about you tell me where the fuck she is?” Tires screech and I’ve nearly missed a car trying to cut into my lane. Not today, buddy.
“She went home.”
“Thanks.” I hit end and then realize I’m not certain if she’s gone to our home or back to the apartment above the bakery.
I make a quick decision, hoping I’m not too late…for anything.
39
Lima Bean and bucket lists
[Lily]
I wake after a restless sleep. I’ve missed several calls from Brut and a few texts but decide I still don’t know what to say to him. The day ahead at the bakery will be busy, and I’m ready to throw myself into baking to distract myself again. Ester is already setting things up, and Julia has come in early. She’s come out of her shell a little bit with questions about dating and kissing, and Ester’s all over her like a mother hen. I find it funny she’s asking Ester for advice, but I don’t judge her. I wish someone had taken me under their wings when I was her age and been open about sexual activities. Julia doesn’t want information about sex, though—not yet, she says—and I smile with pride that she’s willing to wait. At her age, I was so hungry for Brut I’d have done anything for a taste of him. Foolish heart.
We’re in the middle of one such discussion when my back cramps. I bend forward, feeling as if I’ve been stabbed in the kidneys.
“Jesus,” I cry out, gripping the base of my spine. The pain returns almost instantly, wrapping around to the front of me, and I cup the small bulge finally protruding from my belly. My legs tremble, and my other hand grips the stainless steel island in the center of the kitchen.
“Lily?” Ester questions, but I can’t find words to answer her. I groan out the word, “Stomach,” as my knees collapse, and I lower to the floor. I’m almost twelve weeks, and the doctor has assured me I’m progressing well. I’ve gained a few pounds as I should, and the ultrasound I had showed a steady heartbeat. Ester folds to her knees before me, yelling at Julia to call 911.
