Once we’d had our fill of the tigers, apes, reptiles and giraffes, Luke took my hand again. “You have to see the Arctic Ring of Life,” he told me. “It’s my favorite. I think you’ll really like it.” He led me along a winding outdoor path through the exhibit. After a few moments without a sign of life around us, I started to feel slightly disappointed. “Just wait,” Luke promised.
We entered a dark building and followed a group of school-aged kids into an underground gallery. There were windows spaced along the walls, allowing us to see out into the enclosure we had just walked through. Luke led me deeper into the room until we reached what appeared to be a brightly lit hallway.
As we stepped through the doorway, I gasped: it wasn’t a hallway at all, it was a glass tunnel. We were surrounded by water and swimming right over our head was a huge, white polar bear. I couldn’t help but let out a little squeal. “Oh, Luke,” I cried. “Look!”
I was completely enthralled. I led him as close to the glass walls as we could get and stared in awe as the bear continued to swim around us. “This is amazing!” I breathed. “I’ve lived here all my life, how have I never known this existed?”
“Ginny,” Luke whispered. There was something in his voice, something heavy and tense. I looked up at him in surprise to see him staring intently at my face. I wondered how long he had been watching me like that. “I think you’re amazing.”
Luke was going to kiss me. I knew it. And I wanted him to.
He leaned down and I tilted my face toward him, closing my eyes just as his mouth touched mine. His lips were soft against my own, but I could feel heat there, just below the surface, as he pressed closer to me.
He was a wonderful kisser, perfect really. So I couldn’t figure out why it was Josh’s face that flashed, with perfect clarity, before my closed eyelids, in the moment that Luke kissed me.
Chapter Twenty-three
Twenty-eight Weeks: Get ready for the third trimester! In the coming weeks you’ll start to notice some big changes as you move ever closer to that due date! You may begin to experience itchy skin, swollen feet, leg cramps, and heartburn. Not fun! But I promise none of this will matter to you once you’re holding that precious baby! Dads—this is a hard time of the pregnancy for Mom—make sure you help her as much as you can. Foot massages and belly rubs will improve her outlook considerably!—Dr. Rebecca Carr, A Gal’s Guide to a Fabulous First Pregnancy!
“How ya doing?” Luke asked, looking over at me in the passenger seat.
“Not too bad,” I muttered, rubbing at my chest.
“I guess barbeque was a bad idea, huh?” he said sheepishly.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I laughed.
Luke reached across the gear shift to hold my hand. “Sorry, Ginny,” he said, brushing my palm with his thumb. “That was stupid of me. I should have picked somewhere else.”
It was a rainy Saturday afternoon in early May. Luke had taken me down to the city to try his favorite restaurant, Slows, an amazing barbeque place. The food had been wonderful, and I’m afraid I made a bit of a pig out of myself. After we ate, we spent the afternoon wandering around the Detroit Institute of Arts. It was lovely, the perfect date.
Until my feet had decided to swell up to double their size and a wicked case of heartburn had overtaken me.
“It’s not your fault, Luke,” I said, squeezing his hand. “I’m the one that should have known better.” I sighed. “Honestly, I’m not very good at this whole thing. I bet most moms-to-be would know that eating a huge lunch with tons of sodium and spices is not a good idea, especially when you follow it up with a few hours of walking.”
Luke glanced down at my feet. “Maybe it’s time to stop with the heels,” he added.
I glared at him. “This pregnancy may take away my figure and my ability to eat what I like, but it will not take away my shoes.”
He grinned at me quickly, before turning his eyes back to the road. “Well, we’ll be home soon and you can put your feet up and take some antacids.”
It should not have felt weird to me that Luke referred to my place as home. I knew he didn’t mean it literally, and besides, in the last two weeks Luke had gotten very comfortable in our little yellow house.
We spent most of our evenings there now, whether we had worked together or not. It was pretty much understood that Luke would meet me there as soon as we were both free. Sometimes we went out, exploring restaurants and cafes. Luke took me to a few low-key concerts, but the heat in the clubs bothered me, so oftentimes we would just stay in so Luke could cook for me. Later, we would snuggle on the couch and watch TV or head out to the movies. It felt comfortable, natural.
The girls loved having him around. Annie continued to flirt unabashedly, and Jen had recently managed to say several words to him without blushing or stammering.
Luke seemed completely enamored with me. He doted on me all the time. Whenever we were together he was doing things for me: cooking meals, bringing me drinks and snacks whenever we were watching movies. He was constantly touching me, his hand absently brushing against my arms, my hair, my hands. On the rare occasions we were apart, he would call or text just to chat or check in with me.
We had only been together for a few weeks, but he was the perfect boyfriend. And I should have been thrilled.
We arrived at the house and Luke, ever the gentleman, insisted on opening my door and helping me out and up the front steps. Once we got inside he deposited me on the couch—the man literally put a pillow under my feet, can you believe it? He then proceeded to hunt down some antacids and make me a huge glass of chocolate milk (he thought he read somewhere that milk helped heartburn).
Once I was all settled, Luke joined me on the couch and transferred my feet from the pillow over to his lap. Rubbing them gently, he smiled at me. “There. How’s that?” I smiled back, though I felt a little overwhelmed by his perfection.
“Great. Thanks, Luke.”
As he rubbed my tired feet, I looked down at my body. I felt huge today. My stomach continued to take over my entire figure and I was noticing my face and arms were swelling out as well. And my ass was just out of control.
“Why do you put up with this?” I wondered out loud.
“With what?” Luke asked.
I gestured at myself. “With this,” I said. “You’re a gorgeous guy, Luke. Why on earth are you spending your time with someone like me?
Luke looked puzzled. “I don’t get it,” he said.
“Luke, in my experience guys who look like you prefer to spend their time with girls who are pretty. I don’t know of any other guy who would want to be with a girl as gigantic and disgusting as me.”
He rolled his eyes. “First of all, I don’t want to hang out with ‘girls who are pretty,’ ” he said. “Not when I can hang out with a girl that is beautiful.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes.
“I’m serious!” he exclaimed, offended. “You have to know that you’re beautiful.”
“Luke,” I said distinctly. “I’m pregnant.”
“No, really?” he gasped. “I never would have noticed!”
I tried to slap his arm, but he merely grabbed my hand and held it tight.
“Listen to me, Ginny, okay? I know you don’t feel like yourself. But you are beautiful. You have been since the day I met you. And just because your belly has gotten bigger since then, it doesn’t make you less gorgeous to me. Okay?”
I stared at him. How could anyone be this perfect? He leaned in closer to me and whispered in my ear. “I know we have to take things slow, because of the baby. I’m fine with that, Ginny.” His voice was low and intense in my ear, making my tummy feel funny. “You’re not going to be pregnant forever. And when this is over, I’ll still be there. I promise.”
He moved to lean back again, but I caught his face in my hands and kissed him. I wanted to show him how amazing I thought he was, how thankful I felt that he was here with me. He must have picked up on some of that, because he smiled
warmly at me when he pulled away.
“We on the same page now?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Good. Let’s find something to watch while you rest.”
Luke flipped through the channels until he found a travel documentary on Eastern Europe. “This look good?” he asked.
“Whatever,” I murmured, closing my eyes. “I’m actually pretty tired. Would you mind…?”
“Not at all,” he said, leaning over and kissing my forehead. “You just rest. I’ll be right here.”
I dreamt of Josh.
We were up in the northern part of the state at the Straits of Mackinac, the stretch of water connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. We had gone there for vacation one summer, staying at a cheap hotel on the water. We ate at hole-in-the-wall restaurants every night, walked around the little town of Mackinac and swam in the freezing water each day.
In my dream, we were having a picnic. We were stretched out on the grass at the state park, right along the shore. In the distance we could see the Mackinac Bridge, connecting the two peninsulas. The sun felt warm on my skin and Josh was brushing my hair away from my face.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, and even after all this time, the memory of his voice was crystal clear in my head.
This was the feeling I could never properly explain to my girlfriends, to the people who wondered why someone like me would want to settle down so early. Josh loved me. He honestly and truly loved me. It was like he could see inside of me, he could see the bits of my heart that no one else had ever noticed, not even the girls.
Being around someone like that was intoxicating, and that’s how I felt in my dream. Delirious with the knowledge that someone as smart and honest as Josh could love me in the way that he did. I felt like a better person than I really was, like all of the crap I had done in my past just didn’t matter anymore.
With Josh, everything was simple. He loved me, I loved him. We enjoyed every moment that we spent together. We showed each other new things, taught each other, made every day about laughter and kindness to each other. It was beautiful, what we had together, and I could feel that beauty so clearly in my dream.
“I love you, Josh,” I whispered—but Josh was gone. The dream was shifting, the scene changing. I was no longer sitting with Josh, basking in the sun and in his love. Instead I was sitting next to the water, watching the waves crash around the boats out in the straits. The sun had gone down and I was completely alone.
I woke up with such an intense pain in my heart that it took my breath away.
“You okay?” Luke asked, leaning toward me.
“Yeah,” I gasped. “Bad dream, I guess.”
He resumed his rubbing of my feet. “You’re okay, sweetie. Everything’s fine.”
I told myself he was right. Of course everything was fine. I had wonderful friends, a great job, a baby on the way, and a beautiful man sitting next to me, a man who gave every indication that he was crazy about me. There was no reason, absolutely no reason at all, that I should feel such a pang of longing for the one thing that I had lost.
Chapter Twenty-four
It was true what those damn baby books said: I was feeling much worse these days. I had officially entered my third trimester and it brought with it swollen feet, an overactive bladder, achy joints, and an alarmingly large stomach.
Work was starting to become more of a strain. I felt like I had to pee every five minutes and it was getting harder and harder to pull myself up from whatever chair I had plopped in to talk to customers or make a sale. I noticed Luke was spending more time in the store than was completely necessary. I had a feeling he was trying to help me out as much as possible, and I appreciated it immensely.
I returned home one Wednesday, exhausted and looking forward to nothing more than a warm bath and an early date with my bed. Jen was sitting in the living room when I opened the front door, and her expression told me the bath was going to have to wait.
“Catherine called,” she said without preamble.
I groaned. I hadn’t spoken with my mother since I had broken the news about the baby and subsequently hung up on her. “What did she want?” I asked.
“She asked about you, wanted to know how you were.”
“How nice of her,” I sneered.
“She wanted you to call her. I told her I would tell you.”
The last thing in the world I wanted to do was talk to my mother, but I figured I may as well get it over with so I could enjoy my night. I took my cell phone up to my room and sat on the bed, sighing dramatically before dialing her number.
“Hello, Mother,” I said when she had answered. “Jen told me that you called.”
“Virginia.” She sounded surprised to hear from me, as if she had expected I would ignore her. “I’m glad you called.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. I so badly wanted her to apologize for the horrible thing she had said to me. Since I had fallen so completely in love with my son, her insult had only rankled me more. However, I knew from long experience that if I waited for her to say sorry first, I would be waiting for a very, very long time.
“Mom, I’m sorry I hung up on you,” I said in resignation. “And I’m sorry I told you the news the way I did.”
She cleared her throat several times. “I’m sorry, too,” she finally replied. “I was just shocked, that’s all.”
“I know. I should have handled it better.”
I couldn’t say it was a breakthrough conversation, but at least it didn’t end with us screaming at each other. She asked how I was feeling, if I had the things I needed for the baby. I explained that I was saving up a bit at a time but that I had a lot of the basics—which wasn’t strictly true. Outside of the crib, I was pretty much screwed.
We hung up on polite, if not amicable, terms. I headed down to tell Jen how things had gone.
She was sitting on the couch with a pile of blue and brown in her hands, her head bent over the fabric as she worked. “What are you doing?” I asked, and she jumped in surprise.
“Shit!” she exclaimed. “I thought you’d be longer. You weren’t supposed to see this!”
“What is it?” I walked over to the couch to get a closer look. The fabric was patterned in blue and brown stripes and it looked vaguely familiar.
She sighed. “It’s a baby blanket.”
I could only stare at her.
“Look, I know it’s not as good as what we saw in the store that day.” She looked uncomfortable. “But I went to the fabric store and I saw this, and it looked pretty similar. I knew you would never just let me buy the bedding for you, but I thought if I made it you might—”
Before she could say another word, I grabbed her, pulling her into a tight hug. “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” I said softly against her shoulder as my eyes filled with tears. “This is, like, the nicest thing ever.”
Jen squeezed me back, briefly, before pulling away and averting her eyes. “It’s not that big a deal,” she said, but her voice shook and gave her away.
“It is a big deal, Jen,” I replied, wiping my eyes. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling slightly as she busied herself with the blanket once more. I curled up against her on the couch, all thoughts of my bath gone. She was playing soft music while she worked, and it was so comfortable and nice to be sitting there with her. I’d been spending so much time with Luke, I felt like I wasn’t seeing her enough lately.
“So, how’s the hot man?” she asked, as if reading my thoughts.
“He’s good,” I replied. “He’s working the late shift tonight.”
“Is he coming over after?” she asked. I shrugged, but we both knew he probably would. He always did.
“How are things going with the two of you?” she asked, and I thought I caught a bit of a tone in her voice.
“It’s going good,” I answered carefully. “He’s really nice to me.”
She didn’t say anything for
a moment. “It’s pretty clear he’s crazy about you,” she finally said. I shrugged again. “How do you feel about him?”
I looked at her closely. She continued to sew, as if she had no idea I was watching her, but I had a feeling she understood a lot more than she was letting on.
“I’m not sure,” I sighed. “I mean, on paper, this is perfect. He really likes me, he treats me great, we have a lot in common…”
“He’s totally gorgeous,” she added.
“Yeah, that. But…I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel.”
“That was kind of the feeling I got,” she said.
It was true, what I told her—on paper, Luke was perfect. And I was having a lot of fun with him. I couldn’t deny his attention was flattering…But sometimes, it all felt like too much. Could a person be too perfect?
It was great that Luke wanted to spend so much time with me, but every once in a while, it grated on me. Like when he always wanted to pick the places we would go to. Or the few times when I said I wanted a quiet night in and he invited himself over anyhow. But I’m sure I’m just being silly.
“That’s okay, you know that, right?” Jen continued, drawing me from my thoughts.
“What?”
“To be unsure. To not fall head over heels just because some gorgeous guy likes you.”
“It feels like I’m being really spoiled,” I muttered. “I mean, what else could I ask for?” Jen raised her eyebrows at me. “Come on,” I said. “What are the chances that any guy would be interested me in my current state, let alone someone so perfect? Don’t you think turning him down would be pretty ridiculous?”
“Ginny,” she said slowly. “You’ve been through a lot this year, you know? Your life is totally in upheaval. I’m glad you can have fun with Luke and he treats you so nice. But honestly, I’d be a lot more worried about you if you did tell me you were crazy about him.”
“Really?” I asked. “Why?”
“Because I would assume you were trying to bury your problems in a guy,” she said quietly, looking up from the blanket at last to meet my eyes. I felt my breath catch. I knew what she was talking about—it’s what I always used to do, before Josh. When I was upset about my parents, or feeling lonely, or unhappy with my life, I would find some random, gorgeous guy to hide in for a while.
Three Girls and a Baby Page 11
