“He’s trying to protect me,” I said.
“From what?”
Everything. Nothing. The truth. Himself. All the above.
“I don’t bother him about it. I don’t want to be part of that world; I just want this marriage to work.”
“Mm-hmm,” said Marina. She didn’t buy it. “Sounds like an equal exchange to me.”
“We just got hitched. And not only that. We just met. We’ve only been able to stand each other for the last few weeks. We’ll get there. Besides, it isn’t as if he knows everything about me. That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh yeah? What?”
I took a deep breath. If I just blurted it out, I could give the impression that it wasn’t a big deal. She wouldn’t freak out, and she would calm me down about it. There. Perfect. I began.
“I have some news. Marina, I’m pregnant.”
The silence that came down the line made me think for a second that she had hung up.
“Hello? Marina?”
“Pregnant? With what?”
“Don’t be silly, Marina. I’m going to have a baby.”
“With your husband? Is it his?”
“Of course, it is his. Who the hell else could be the father?”
“Isa. This is terrible. This is awful. Now you’re trapped.”
Funny. Those were my exact sentiments when I found out too, but it took a dramatic retelling from Marina for me to realize that, actually, I didn’t have to have a nervous breakdown. I could just relax and talk through it like a normal person. When did I become so irrational? I blamed the pregnancy hormones.
“Marina, would you please relax? It’s a baby we’re talking about. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Isa—”
She cut herself off and went silent again. I could imagine her in her apartment, standing and pacing as she talked to me. Part of me felt wrong about telling my female best friend about the baby before the man whom I was having it with, but I couldn’t go to Lorenzo. Not just yet. I wanted comfort. He wasn’t going to give me that. Marina was hardly a neutral third party, but she was the closest thing to one that I had. Who knew, it might even have to be her couch that I crashed on when Lorenzo kicked me out finally. I wasn’t going to start going to therapy. The therapist would likely recommend that I take Lorenzo with me. I wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t unpredictable.
“Isa, what are you going to do?” she asked. “Have you thought about all your options?” she asked.
I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t roll them. Was this something I would have to brace myself to hear from everyone? Why was it that the first thing someone thought to ask a pregnant woman when she revealed that she was pregnant was whether she had considered getting an abortion? If anybody knew that I wasn’t planning on becoming a mother, it was Marina…but good God. She should have at least waited for me to express that I didn’t want to keep it before she started talking about termination.
“Marina, if that is your way of asking whether I am going to get rid of it, no. I haven’t considered my options.”
“What about adoption? There are agencies that can take the child when it’s born and place it with a family. You won’t even have to look at the child when it gets here.”
“Marina, do you hear yourself right now?”
“Isa…what did you expect to hear when you called me to tell me that you were pregnant? Given the circumstances of your relationship, did you really think I was going to jump for joy at the news?”
“No, but I didn’t think the first thing out of your mouth would be to tell me to get rid of it.”
“So you’re keeping it?”
“Of course, I’m keeping it. The problem is not with the child. Sure, it’ll be a huge adjustment, but the only reason I’m even nervous about having the baby is because of Lorenzo. I can’t have an abortion.” I whispered the last word like it was a slur.
“Are you sure you can’t, or do you just not want to?”
“I can’t. I couldn’t. You want me to be eternally damned? How many ‘Hail Marys’ would I have to say to make up for something like that?”
“Come on. The last time you attended Mass was at your wedding, and the last time before that was when you were still too young to legally drink alcohol.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not getting rid of it. That’s my final decision. It is not up for debate.”
Silence again.
“Isa, don’t turn this child into a trap to keep Lorenzo with you,” Marina told me quietly. In that moment, I felt something. What was it? Insulted. How dare she? I wasn’t trying to trap anyone, especially not Lorenzo. Neither of us were willing parties in our wedding. What the hell was she thinking? Did she think I was going to use the baby to make Lorenzo stay with me? That presupposed too many things about Lorenzo that neither of us knew about him, the first thing being that he would even give a shit that I was pregnant. Maybe I’d tell him and he’d just nod and be on his merry way. He’d hire a doula to live with us and help me, and then he’d check back when the kid was born.
I wasn’t wrong to want my husband to stay with me. He was my husband, but lately, he had actually been feeling like a husband, whatever that was supposed to feel like. I didn’t have the reference of having been married before, but I knew what it was like to feel like another person cared about you and wanted you around. That was how I had been feeling about Lorenzo and I hoped it was how he had at least begun feeling about me.
“Marina, I know our marriage is built on an arrangement between our fathers, but forgive me for hoping that we have more reasons than just that to stay together. With or without a child.”
“Do you hear yourself right now? Having a child will not change things between you. A baby isn’t a secret weapon or ingredient that you can add to a sham marriage to make it all better. Since your marriage, I thought your only hope was the fact that you and Lorenzo could divorce somewhere along the line.”
“I thought that, too. With the child, it doesn’t matter if we do split up because we’ll be co-parenting, divorce or no divorce.”
“So, what are you saying? Do you want to try? You want to treat Lorenzo like a real husband?”
It was my turn to be silent. Was that what I wanted? I didn’t want a divorce. I always comforted myself with the thought that I could always get one, but I didn’t want to be a divorcée. I didn’t want a failed marriage under my belt. There was no shame in leaving a marriage that was hurting the people in it or was abusive, but Lorenzo and me, we were just new. We were just new. We hadn’t had a fair try—and that was not something I was going to let get the best of us. Once we had tried and then failed, then maybe, but not without a fight. With the baby, Lorenzo was going to be part of my life whether I wanted him to be or not. He wasn’t a monster. I knew that firsthand. He could be gentle. He could be loving. Maybe a child would bring out the best in him. Just because the situation was fucked up, didn’t mean we could just continue not caring and let it get worse.
“Marina, the two weeks we spent away from home were the best two weeks of my life. He was attentive and sweet. We didn’t have to be drunk to have sex. I’ve seen what marriage to him can be like…and I liked it.”
“That was two weeks. This is forever.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? That means you have to stop hating him.”
“I don’t hate him.”
“You don’t love him either, though. Do you? You have to try.”
“How am I supposed to learn to love my husband?”
“You said yourself. He isn’t terrible all the time. Focus on that. What do you like about him?”
I bit my lip, thinking.
“Well, he’s very handsome.”
“The entire female population of New York City thinks that. Try again.”
“He’s rich?” I attempted. Marina barked out a laugh.
“Lots of men are rich. That’s not a good enough reason to love h
im. Try harder.”
“The sex is good.”
“Again, the entire female population of New York City thinks that.”
I laughed at that. Lorenzo was no virgin. That seemed like a pretty well-documented fact.
“He’s protective,” I said.
“Alright, what else?”
“He’s generous. He’s strong.”
“Good, good. Okay. There you are. You have a foundation to build upon. Focus on the things that you like about him. Draw them out of him.”
“Marina, do you think this is a bad idea?”
“It’s not what I would do personally, but it doesn’t matter what I would do. I’m not you. And I’m not the one married to Lorenzo.”
“You hate him, don’t you?”
“Yes, but that’s beside the point. You don’t.”
I thought about her words. I didn’t hate Lorenzo. I wouldn’t go all the way to the other extreme and say that I loved him, but I sure didn’t hate him. He was…or at least he could be…a good man. Our marriage thus far hadn’t been great, but it wasn’t as if it was all his fault. He wasn’t married to himself, he was married to me.
“I just want to try. I don’t want to call it a day and give up without letting there be a chance for something.”
Marina sighed.
“Well, it’s lucky you have a lot of the guesswork taken out of this. You’re already married. All you have to do now is date.”
I laughed and thanked her, hanging up the phone.
Sometimes I got jealous of Marina. She had it easy, or at least it certainly seemed that way. She always said that dating women was exhausting, but at least she had the luxury of also being a woman. That was at least half the guesswork taken out of the deal. When girls were mad, they let you know, whether it was directly or by being passive aggressive and bitchy. When men were mad, they started wars.
She was right.
I didn’t want to give up on Lorenzo, not when we had the option of trying to make it work. I had dreams for my life, but I had to make new ones now. I had wanted to be the next Lidia Bastianich, but now that would have to wait. I was no longer in it alone, and I couldn’t act as if I was. If I wanted him, I had to show him that I did.
What did wives do for their husbands? Take care of them. I could do that. I could go to the cellar and open up a nice wine for us… or for him since I couldn’t drink anymore. I could cook something for dinner and we could sit at the dining table and we could talk about it, like married adults. Like a date, but in the house. Perfect.
There were loads of things I could do. I could be more appreciative when he got me gifts. I could ask him more questions. I could suck his dick more often. Loads of things. The sit-down dinner idea was pretty good. It was exciting. We ate together sometimes, but a lot of the time we didn’t. I made him breakfast most days, but I had usually had a plate or some coffee by the time he was coming downstairs so it wasn’t a couple activity. He was always out of the house for lunch, and dinner was the same, I had sometimes eaten already when he came home, or—especially in the early days—I would sit at the table with him, but I wouldn’t say anything besides maybe asking him whether he liked the food or how his day was. Nothing.
That was then. The weeks away had changed things between us. We ordered room service a lot, but we also went down to the restaurants sometimes to eat. We had been nice to each other. We had talked and enjoyed each other’s company.
With my fatigue was appetite loss. I just wasn’t hungry, and though the more relaxed, friendly atmosphere had stayed with us, we hadn’t been doing a lot of sit-down dinners.
But we would tonight.
Lorenzo was a chef’s dream because not only did he eat and enjoy a large variety of foods and flavors, he wasn’t picky. He didn’t eat only boiled food or red food, or reject anything because he didn’t like the taste of it. The one thing he disliked, surprisingly, was oatmeal, but that wasn’t on the menu tonight.
I was a chef because I loved cooking and loved food, but I couldn’t deny that one of the perks of being able to cook was it was a fantastic manipulation tool. Maybe manipulation was a strong word, but people needed to eat and people liked you when you could feed them. Everyone was happy when their bellies were full, and in all my years interacting with food, there was not a single problem I had encountered that comfort food couldn’t fix. He never said no to anything I prepared, but he would love the baked rigatoni with cream sauce. If that didn’t get him, the walnut and coffee cake would.
He had sounded surprised when I called him. Pleasantly surprised. At least that was how I had interpreted it. Ideally, I would have wanted the dinner to be a surprise, but I could risk him having eaten already by the time he got home. His baby was taking it out of me, and I had slaved over a hot stove for him. The least he could do was bring his appetite home with him tonight.
I also made the effort to dress up a little. Not really dress up, but at least change out of the sweater and shorts I had been wearing all day. He would be wearing a suit as he was usually, so I wanted to at least match him in terms of attire. He got me so much stuff. I knew he liked seeing me in the things. The names Givenchy and Zanotti meant a lot more to him than they did to me, but I could at the very least wear them. A nice cocktail dress and some heels weren’t too much to ask. A little lipstick and blush weren’t too much to ask either.
He let himself in as I walked down the stairs. I found him in the kitchen, staring at the set table as if he didn’t know what was going on.
“Lorenzo,” I said brightly. He looked up at me and then did a double take.
“Isa, you look nice. Are you going somewhere?”
“No, just coming down to join you. I hope you’re hungry.”
“I am, did Carlotta do all this?”
“Nope. I gave her the afternoon off. You don’t mind, do you?”
“You made this?”
“Mm-hmm. Don’t look so shocked Lorenzo…I was a chef before I became your wife.”
“When you called I thought you didn’t want me to eat out so we could go out to eat somewhere. I thought we had reservations.”
“Would you rather go out?”
He paused as if he was thinking about it.
“What did you make?”
“Baked rigatoni with cream sauce. I dug some wine out of the cellar, and there’s cake.”
The look on his face was enough. He didn’t want to go out.
***
I sliced the cake and drizzled cream over the slices before bringing them to the table. Lorenzo smiled at me.
“Did you buy this?”
“Nope. It’s walnut and coffee. Do you like it?”
He would never give me a straight answer when I asked him that. He would just grunt noncommittally or say it was ‘okay’ or ‘alright.’ Sometimes he even used the word ‘decent,’ which was completely insulting.
“It is,” he said. “I love it.”
I smiled, satisfied. I wasn’t hungry. I could barely eat even a few bites of both the main course and the dessert. He had asked during the meal whether I was okay, and I had given the tired ‘Oh, I tasted it lots while cooking, so I’m not really hungry anymore’ excuse.
“I’m glad,” I said.
“What’s the occasion?” he asked.
“No occasion,” I shrugged.
“You’re all dressed up, you cooked, and you sent Carlotta home early. What is it? Tell me.”
“It’s nothing. Honest. I just wanted to have a nice sit-down dinner with you. Maybe wear some of those gorgeous dresses you keep getting me.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said playfully.
“If you don’t like it, I guess I could just not do it again. I’m sure there’s a Little Caesar’s menu in this place somewhere.”
He laughed.
“No, I like it. It’s nice. Like a date.”
Everything was going great. He had asked for seconds of the cake and was eating it with a cup of espresso. I peered
over at him. His eyes were down. The line of his profile was flawless. Smooth. No weird bumps or crags. Perfect. If our baby was a boy, I wanted him to grow up to look like Lorenzo. Even if he ended up taking after me, I hoped he at least got Lorenzo’s eyes. They were so deep. Every emotion was intensified through them. Was it shallow to sit there and be happy that my husband was so attractive? If I was going to focus on the positive, then I had to start somewhere. At the very least, unless something went wrong, our baby would be beautiful. Lorenzo was strong and solidly built, so maybe our baby would be robust too. Nice and fat with golden skin and dark eyes.
Going Once, Taken Twice: A Dark Romance Page 26
