Greg wants halvsies, and I’m not sure I want to share.
“I don’t know when. Soon. Just . . . not yet.”
Every other day he asks about the wedding, the one he’s been talking about since high school, the one he gave me a ring for months ago, the one he wanted before we moved in together, before we got pregnant. The wedding he wants because he says he loves me.
I have no good reason to put it off, and yet I do. Over and over and over again. Of course I love him, how could I not? He buys me flowers and takes me places. He’s handsome and smart and going to be rich. But my love is a pale thing compared to the love he expresses for me. His feels too hot, too bright, like a fire that might consume me if I stand too close.
Whatever I give him, it never seems to be enough.
He wants all of me, including the bits that I’ve managed to keep for myself, hidden away from my mother. I’ve learned from her how demanding love can be, with all the expectations I can never live up to, and something inside me rebels at the idea of surrendering my inner self—or the tiny baby growing inside me—to Greg.
Mom wants me to marry him, and she doesn’t even know about the baby. My secret. Still a part of me and nobody’s business but my own.
She wants me to marry him because he’s solid, whereas I am flighty. Focused, whereas I am scattered. Successful. Safe and law-abiding and going to earn more than enough money to support me in comfort. She says he will help me grow into the woman I’m capable of being. What she means is that maybe I’ll finally stop being flighty and indecisive and irresponsible.
All my life my mother has made my decisions for me, not trusting I can make my own. And I’ve let her do it. I’ve let her decide everything from the color of the ribbon in my hair as a child to my choice of university and my journalism major. We all know I am terrible at making decisions, so why am I resisting both her wishes and Greg’s now?
But whenever Greg asks me to marry him, I choke on the word yes. I say maybe, and later, and of course “I love you,” because I do, I must, what is wrong with me if I don’t?
But now there is a baby, or at least the promise of one, and that changes everything.
Greg takes a long quavering breath, and then another, and his shoulders begin to shake. In quiet horror, I realize he is crying, that I have caused him to cry.
My hand butterflies onto his shoulder and rests there, tentative. He stiffens beneath my touch, the muscle going from soft to rock-hard, and my hand flies back to the comfort of my belly and the baby swimming secretly within.
“I can’t do this,” Greg says.
I think I’ve heard him wrong, but he straightens up and turns his head to look at me. His face is wet with his tears, his dark lashes glued together, his features taut with pain and determination.
“This is the last time I’m asking, Maisey. Give me a solid answer tonight. Say yes. Say when. Hell, tell me the word, and I’ll drive us all the way to Vegas, and we can tie the knot tomorrow.”
My throat is dry, but the sensation of tiny wings flitting against my ribs is not grief or fear. I don’t answer. Can’t answer.
“I mean it,” he says, desperation hardening his voice. “Tell me now, or it’s over between us.”
Fear comes barging in, a big old clumsy bear of it, crashing and rattling the corners of my life. I moved in with Greg before I finished college. I’ve never lived alone. I don’t have a steady job. I sure as hell don’t want to move back in with my parents. How do I think I’m ever going to be qualified to take care of a baby when I’m not capable of taking care of myself? I have to say yes. I’m going to say yes. What other choice do I have?
I open my mouth on the words that want to choke me.
“I . . . can’t.”
Greg’s face turns a mottled shade of red and white. His hands clamp around my shoulders, the fingers digging into my flesh so hard they feel like they’re going to meet, going to separate my bones.
I try to twist away. “Stop it. You’re hurting me.”
He doesn’t stop. Instead, his fingers tighten more, and he shakes me. “You can’t do this. It’s my baby, too. Just as much my baby as yours. Say yes. Say it.”
“No.” My voice is small. It’s hard to get my breath. I say it again, louder, using all my strength. “No!”
He lets me go, and I draw a quaking breath, thinking it’s over. My eyes are closed and I don’t see what’s coming. An explosion of pain jolts my head sideways, lights flashing behind my eyes.
I hear myself sobbing before I’m aware enough to stop it, to clamp my teeth together and breathe against the pain.
“You can’t raise a baby by yourself, Maisey. Let’s face it. You’re a ditz. And nobody else is going to want my seconds, so if you think you’re going to find another father for her, you can forget that idea. You’re pretty enough for a small-town girl but not pretty enough to bank on. This is your last chance.”
“Maisey?”
Not Greg’s voice. Tony’s.
I take a breath, and then another. My hand goes to my face, remembering the shape of the bruise that lingered there for weeks, the one I accounted for by my general tendency to walk into doors.
When I open my eyes, I recognize the expression on Tony’s face. I’ve seen it a hundred times plastered over other sets of features.
“Don’t,” I say.
“Don’t what?”
“You’re about to deliver some sort of lecture or advice or whatever.”
“Are you a mind reader or something?”
“I just know that look. Go ahead and tell me. What did I do now? Or fail to do?”
“You?” Tony looks genuinely befuddled. “You haven’t done anything. I’m just . . . worried. About you and Elle.”
“Greg isn’t going to fly up here and beat me up. He doesn’t do that.”
He only hit me once.
The words flash on my visual screen like one of those LED signs. I cringe, recognizing a phrase I’ve heard on TV, on Facebook, from some of my friends, but never recognized as a resident in my own psyche. I press my back to the door, one knee drawn up on the seat. My arms are folded tight around that ongoing quivering so deep inside me I can’t touch it.
Tony clears his throat. “Good to know. But I was going to tell you about something else. I asked about your mom and the gun at the shooting range on Tuesday. Owner said she started coming in a few months back. Showed up every day and asked questions about stopping intruders and shooting to kill.”
“And?” He’s had this info for a couple of days and hasn’t told me.
“And, put that together with your sister’s hostility—”
“Marley? You think Mom was scared of Marley? She was cold, I’ll grant you that, but I doubt she’s a mass-murdering psycho.”
“You talked to her for all of five minutes. How would you know? You said she knew about you. What if she just now found your mom and was coming after her? Don’t you think it’s a little too coincidental that they played a concert here tonight? That band is too good for Northern Ales. They’ve got bigger gigs to play.”
I can’t think of words to respond to this. The first thing that comes to mind is that Tony is paranoid. What he’s suggesting is something out of a movie script, not the sort of event that happens in a well-ordered, structured life like my mother’s.
But then, maybe her life wasn’t so well-ordered and structured after all.
Tony shifts in his seat. “Look. All I’m saying is, be careful, okay? Lock the doors. Sleep with the phone by your bed. If Marley shows up at your door out of the blue, call me before you let her in.”
“I can pretty safely promise you that, since I’m more likely to get a visit from the pope than from my sister. If either one of them knocks on the door I’ll call you, too.”
“I’m serious.”