I step aside as he makes his way in.
“Allysa said you were painting a mural?”
I follow him down the hallway toward the nursery.
“It’s taken two days to finish,” I tell him. “My body feels like I ran a marathon and all I did was walk up and down a step ladder a few times.”
He glances over his shoulder and I can see the concern in his expression. He’s worried that I was here doing it all on my own. He shouldn’t worry. I’ve got this.
When we make it to the nursery, he stops in the doorway. On the opposite wall, I painted a garden. It’s complete with almost every fruit and vegetable I could think of that grows in a garden. I’m not a painter, but it’s amazing what you can do with a projector and transparent paper.
“Wow,” Ryle says.
I grin, because I recognize the surprise in his voice and I know it’s genuine. He walks into the room and looks around, shaking his head the whole time. “Lily. It’s . . . wow.”
If he were Allysa, I’d clap and jump up and down. But he’s Ryle and with the way things have been between us, that would be a little awkward.
He walks over to the window where I set up a swing. He gives it a little push and it begins moving from side to side.
“It also moves front to back,” I tell him. I don’t know if he even knows anything about baby swings, but I was pretty impressed by that feature.
He walks over to the changing table and pulls one of the diapers out of the holder. He unfolds it and holds it up in front of him. “It’s so tiny,” he says. “I don’t remember Rylee being this tiny.”
Hearing him mention Rylee makes me a little sad. We’ve been living apart since the night she was born, so I’ve never been able to see him interact with her.
Ryle folds up the diaper and puts it back in the holder. When he turns to face me, he smiles, lifting his hands to motion around the room. “It’s really great, Lily,” he says. “All of it. You’re really doing . . .” His hands drop to his hips and his smile falters. “You’re doing really well.”
A thickness seems to form in the air around me. It’s suddenly difficult to take in a full breath because for whatever reason, I feel like I need to cry. I just really like this moment and it saddens me that we couldn’t spend the entire pregnancy full of moments like these. It feels good sharing this with him, but I’m also scared I might be giving him false hope.
Now that he’s here and he saw the nursery, I’m not sure what to do next. It’s glaringly obvious that we need to discuss a lot of things, but I have no idea where to start. Or how.
I walk over to the rocking chair and take a seat. “Naked truth?” I say, looking up at him.
He exhales a huge breath and nods, then takes a seat on the sofa. “Please. Lily, please tell me you’re ready to talk about this.”
His reaction eases my nerves a little, knowing he’s ready to discuss everything. I wrap my arms around my stomach and lean forward in the rocking chair. “You go first.”
He clasps his hands together between his knees. He looks at me with so much sincerity, I have to glance away.
“I don’t know what you want from me, Lily. I don’t know what role you want me to have. I’m trying to give you all the space you need, but at the same time I want to help more than you possibly know. I want to be in our baby’s life. I want to be your husband and I want to be good at it. But I have no idea what’s going through your head.”
His words fill me with guilt. Despite what has happened between us in the past, he’s still this baby’s father. He has the legal right to be a father, no matter how I feel about it. And I want him to be a father. I want him to be a good father. But deep down, I’m still holding on to one of my biggest fears, and I know I need to talk to him about it.
“I would never keep you from your child, Ryle. I’m happy you want to be involved. But . . .”
He leans forward and buries his face in his hands with that last word.
“What kind of mother would I be if a small part of me doesn’t have concern in regard to your temper? The way you lose control? How do I know something won’t set you off while you’re alone with this baby?”
So much agony floods his eyes, I think they might burst like dams. He begins to shake his head adamantly. “Lily, I would never . . .”
“I know, Ryle. You would never intentionally hurt your own child. I don’t even believe it was intentional when you hurt me, but you did. And trust me, I want to believe that you would never do something like that. My father was only abusive toward my mother. There are many men—women even—who abuse their significant others without ever losing their temper with anyone else. I want to believe your words with all my heart, but you have to understand where my hesitation comes in. I’ll never deny you a relationship with your child. But I’m going to need you to be really patient with me while you rebuild all the trust you’ve broken.”
He nods in agreement. He has to know that I’m giving him much more than he deserves. “Absolutely,” he says. “This is on your terms. Everything is on your terms, okay?”
Ryle’s hands come together again and he begins to chew nervously on his bottom lip. I sense he has more to say, but he’s doubting whether or not he should say it.
“Go ahead and say whatever you’re thinking while I’m in the mood to talk about it.”
He tilts his head back and looks up at the ceiling. Whatever it is, it’s hard for him. I don’t know if it’s because the question is hard to ask or because he’s scared of the answer I might give him.
“What about us?” he whispers.
I lean my head back and sigh. I knew this question would come, but it’s really difficult to give him an answer I don’t have. Divorce or reconciliation are really the only two options we have, but neither is a choice I want to make.
“I don’t want to give you false hope, Ryle,” I say quietly. “If I had to make a choice today . . . I’d probably choose divorce. But in all honesty, I don’t know if I would be making that choice because I’m overloaded with pregnancy hormones or because it’s what I really want. I don’t think it would be fair to either of us if I made that decision before the birth of this baby.”
He blows out a shaky breath and then brings a hand up to the back of his neck, squeezing tightly. Then he stands up and faces me. “Thank you,” he says. “For inviting me over. For the conversation. I’ve been wanting to stop by since I was here a couple of weeks ago, but I didn’t know how you’d feel about it.”
“I don’t know how I would have felt about it, either,” I say with complete honesty. I try to push myself out of the rocking chair, but for some reason it’s become a lot harder in the past week. Ryle walks over and reaches for my hand to help me up.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to last until my due date when I can’t even get out of a chair without grunting.
Once I’m standing, he doesn’t immediately release my hand. We’re just a few inches apart, and I know if I look up at him I’ll feel things. I don’t want to feel things for him.
He finds my other hand until he’s holding both of them down at my sides. He threads his fingers through mine and I feel it all the way to my heart. I press my forehead against his chest and close my eyes. His cheek meets the top of my head and we stand completely still, both of us too scared to move. I’m scared to move because I might be too weak to stop him from kissing me. He’s scared to move because he’s afraid if he does, I’ll pull away.
For what feels like five full minutes, neither of us moves a muscle.
“Ryle,” I finally say. “Can you promise me something?”
I feel him nod.
“Until this baby comes, please don’t try to talk me into forgiving you. And please don’t try to kiss me . . .” I pull away from his chest and look up at him. “I want to tackle one huge thing at a time, and right now my only priority is having this baby. I don’t want to add any more stress or confusion on top of everything that’s already happening.”
He squeezes both of my hands reassuringly. “One monumental life-changing thing at a time. Got it.”
I smile, relieved that we’ve finally had this conversation. I know I didn’t make a final decision about the two of us, but I still feel like I can breathe easier now that we’re on the same page.
He releases my hands. “I’m late for my shift,” he says, tossing a thumb over his shoulder. “I should get to work.”
I nod and see him out. It isn’t until after I’ve shut the door and am alone in my apartment that I realize I have a smile on my face.
I’m still incredibly angry with him that we’re even in this predicament to begin with, so my smile is simply due to making a little headway. Sometimes parents have to work through their differences and bring a level of maturity into a situation in order to do what’s best for their child.
That’s exactly what we’re doing. Learning how to navigate our situation before our child is brought into the fold.
Chapter Thirty-Five
I smell toast.
I stretch out on my bed and smile, because Ryle knows toast is my favorite. I lie here for a while before I even attempt to get up. It feels like it takes the effort of three men to roll me out of bed. I eventually take a deep breath, and then throw my feet over the side, pushing myself up from the mattress.
The first thing I do is pee. It’s really all I do now. I’m due in two days and my doctor says it could be another week. I started maternity leave last week, so this is my life right now. I pee and watch TV.
When I make it to the kitchen, Ryle is stirring a pan of scrambled eggs. He spins around when he hears me walk in. “Good morning,” he says. “No baby yet?”
I shake my head and put my hand on my stomach. “No, but I peed nine times last night.”
Ryle laughs. “That’s a new record.” He spoons some eggs onto a plate and then tosses bacon and toast on it. He turns around and hands me the plate, pressing a quick kiss to the side of my head. “I gotta go. I’m already late. I’m leaving my phone on all day.”
I smile when I look down at my breakfast. Okay, so I eat, too. Pee, eat, and watch TV.
“Thank you,” I say cheerfully. I take my plate to the couch and turn on the TV. Ryle rushes around the living room, gathering his stuff.
“I’ll come check on you at lunch. I might be working late tonight, but Allysa said she can bring you dinner.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m fine, Ryle. The doctor said light bed rest, not complete debilitation.”
He starts to open the door, but pauses like he forgets something. He runs back toward me and leans down, planting his lips on my stomach. “I’ll double your allowance if you decide to come out today,” he says to the baby.
He talks to the baby a lot. I finally felt comfortable enough to let him feel the baby kick a couple of weeks ago and since then, he stops by sometimes just to talk to my belly and doesn’t even say much to me. I like it, though. I like how excited he is to be a father.
I grab the blanket Ryle slept on the couch with last night and wrap it over me. He’s been staying here for a week now, waiting for me to go into labor. I wasn’t sure about the arrangement at first, but it’s actually been really helpful. I still sleep in the guest bedroom. The third bedroom is now a nursery, which means the master bedroom is available for him to sleep in. But for whatever reason, he chooses to sleep on the couch. I think the memories in that bedroom plague him just as much as they plague me, so neither of us even bothers going in there.
The last several weeks have been really good. Aside from the fact that there’s absolutely no physical relationship between us at this point, things feel like they’ve kind of gone back to how they used to be. He still works a lot, but on the evenings he’s off, I’ve started having dinner upstairs with all of them. We never eat alone as a couple, though. Anything that might feel like a date or a couples thing, I avoid. I’m still trying to focus on one monumental thing at a time, and until this baby is born and my hormones are back to normal, I refuse to make a decision about my marriage. I’m sure I’m just using the pregnancy as an excuse to stall the inevitable, but being pregnant allows a person to be a little selfish.
My phone begins to ring, and I drop my head into the couch and groan. My phone is all the way in the kitchen. That’s like fifteen feet from here.
Ugh.
I push myself off the couch, but nothing happens.
I try it again. Still sitting.
I grab hold of the arm of my chair and pull myself up. Third time’s the charm.
When I stand, my glass of water spills all over me. I groan . . . but then I gasp.
I wasn’t holding a glass of water.
Holy shit.
I look down and water is trickling down my leg. My phone is still ringing on the kitchen counter. I walk—or waddle—to the kitchen and answer it.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Lucy! Quick question. Our order of red roses was damaged in shipment, but we’ve got the Levenberg funeral today and they specifically wanted red roses for the casket spray. Do we have a backup plan?”
“Yeah, call the florist on Broadway. They owe me a favor.”
“Okay, thanks!”
I start to hang up so I can call Ryle and tell him my water broke, but I hear Lucy say, “Wait!”
I pull the phone back to my ear.
“About these invoices. Did you want me to pay them today or wait . . .”
“You can wait, it’s fine.”