Jack picked up the bottle of lemon oil aromatherapy and read the back of the label. “May irritate skin,” he said. Subtext: You might not have nearly blinded me if you’d simply read the label, you idiot. Sub-sub-text: Can’t you do anything right?
That night, I stupidly asked Jack if he wanted to light a fire and snuggle under the cloud of a comforter. “Lucy, my dick has no top layer of skin. I’m not exactly in the mood right now,” he said rolling over.
Believe it or not, the next night we had amazingly passionate sex. It wasn’t making love. It was sex compliments of an excellent bottle of red wine our waiter insisted we try. Our night was release stress, really, but I wasn’t about to complain. I was so grateful for the contact that I just played the hand I was given and hoped it would grow into something better eventually.
I think that’s the night I got pregnant. In fact, I’m sure it is because it was the only time we’d been together in months.
Nearly five months later, I prepared Jack’s favorite meal — prime rib and garlic mashed potatoes and Caesar salad, and planned to tell him about the baby over a glass of red wine. Here’s how the fantasy goes: I look ravishing, stunning, really. As I put Jack’s dinner on the table, he says something lovely about my cooking, the effort I made and how much he loves me. I pour a glass of wine for him, and tell him that I know we’ve had a tough road of it over the last few years, but that I want to get our marriage back on track. My eyes well with tears of joy and I tell him I have some exciting news. He asks why I’m not drinking any wine then, in an instant, he knows. He jumps from his chair, this time knocking nothing over and starting no fires, lifts me in his embrace and tells me he’s overjoyed.
Here’s how the reality goes: I look pretty good. Not bad. I’m bloated but relieved that it’s because I’m four-and-a-half months pregnant, and not just a cow, as I’d originally suspected. I don’t have quite as much time to primp as I’d planned because I keep repeating the home pregnancy test and calling the people at Planned Parenthood, asking them to please check my test results again to be sure they hadn’t accidentally switched my results with someone younger and more fertile than me. The clinician assured me that since I’d peed directly onto the stick that we both watched turn pink, a lab mix-up was impossible. Anyway, just as I was about to tell Jack the news, he blurted out that our marriage has run its course and he wanted a divorce. “So what did you want to tell me?” he asked. It was a home pregnancy test commercial gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Tales From the Crib
The Wife of Reilly Page 32
