We’re both clothed again. I lie on the bench in the dressing room where my betrayal occurred. I have my legs raised against Connor’s chest and shoulder while he straddles the bench. He has the little shopping bag, and I wave my hand for him.
“Pass it here.”
“You rejected my peace offering. Did you forget already?”
I glare. “So you just brought the bag in here to show me what I missed?” I’m about to fling my legs off him, but he hooks them with one arm, keeping them in place. It’s actually more than that. He lifts them higher and forward, so his semen will move towards my eggs faster.
I’m serious.
He came inside of me, and we’re not squandering the opportunity to have another girl. Please, God. Give me a girl. I’ve been able to get pregnant fairly easily, but I still like over-preparing and putting in extra effort.
Connor already called me an excellent pupil, but I made sure to note that I’m not his pupil. We’re equals. And I am fucking excellent.
“Do you want what’s in the bag, Rose?” he asks.
“The bag can go to hell. I’ll take what’s in it.” I hold out my hand.
He smiles, and he reveals a garment. A black…lacy bustier, almost similar to the one I was sketching. It’s beautiful. I hold it up, my head still on the bench. It’s soft and the perfect shape for my body. Years ago, I would’ve shuddered in distaste at the idea of a man picking out lingerie for me.
Connor knows me so well, and the gift is never an overt suggestion. It’s simply: I saw this and knew it’s something you’d buy yourself.
“And?”
“It’s hideous.”
He gestures for me to give it back to him.
“You can’t have it back.” I clutch it to my chest. “You already gifted it to me.”
“You must love hideous things,” he banters.
“I do love you,” I snap back.
He runs his hand down the length of my legs, drinking me in. My hot words should sear him dead, but they only pool love in his eyes. I could set Connor on fire a million times over, and he’d never burn to ash. I suppose that’s why we’re made for one another.
He can withstand every single inexhaustible part of me.
Willow & Garrison Abbey welcome the birth of their baby girl
VADA LAUREN ABBEY
May 11th, 2024
[ 40 ]
August 2024
The Cobalt Estate Philadelphia
CONNOR COBALT
It’s 7:00 p.m., and after baths and story time with everyone in Tom’s room, Rose and I make rounds and tuck our six children into bed, each with their own rooms. I have to tell one of them something tonight, and to be truthful, I’m uncertain how he’ll handle it.
I pass Rose in the hallway, her hand on the door frame to Ben’s bedroom. “Tonight?” she asks.
“Tonight.” I nod. We’ve been putting off telling him because he won’t like it, but school starts soon. We can’t wait any longer.
“Just one of us should be in there,” Rose whispers. “I don’t want him to feel…”
“Picked on?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll do it.”
Rose tightens her ponytail. “Beckett gave Ben his tooth to put under his pillow, so who’s dealing with that tonight?”
My jaw tics at the subtle mention of the fictional Tooth Fairy. I have played into the charade for years, which has been the equivalent of chewing gravel. It’s been tolerable because all of our children treat Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and yes, the Tooth Fairy, as fables, not real creatures.
Everyone but Ben.
He believes he can actually meet the Tooth Fairy.
It makes the pretense a little more grating. I’d rather be upfront and explain to him that it’s not real, but I made a promise that I wouldn’t extinguish this childhood magic.
I haven’t, and I wouldn’t begin now.
Though I have to mention this, so I lower my voice. “It’s not Ben’s tooth. The Tooth Fairy shouldn’t reward selflessness.”
Rose glares. “You’d rather the Tooth Fairy promote greed?”
“We’re paying our children for their teeth. If anything, we’re teaching them they can sell their body for money. It’s linear to prostitution, but it’s acceptable because everyone does it, isn’t it?”
She scoffs. “You took it there.”
“Society took it there. I simply think about what everything means. It shouldn’t be a hard concept, using your brain, but so many people forget to do it. It’s why I’m better than them.”
Rose raises her hand to my face to shut down my narcissism. I’m not close enough, but I imagine kissing her palm. She whispers, “It doesn’t change the fact that one of us will be slipping money under Ben’s pillow tonight. You or me?”
“You, darling.” I willingly hand her this task.
Rose glances at the door that I need to head through. She tenses. “I’ll see you soon?”
“Yes.”
A moment later, Rose slips into Ben’s room. I keep walking to a different door, a different room. When I go inside, my five-year-old son is already beneath his green covers but wide-awake. He asked for a portrait of a raven for his fifth birthday, and the dark oil painting hangs above his dresser.
As soon as Eliot sees me, he sits up and pulls three old hardbacks from underneath his pillow. “One more story. Just one.”
“One more, but it can’t be long.”
Eliot smiles. He loves stories more than he loves physical books. It seems, at a glance, that there’s no difference between the two, but there is. His lamp casts a warm glow over his bed, and I take a seat next to him. He quickly pushes the hardbacks on my lap.
“Which book?” I hold them together and show him the spines.
Eliot has my brown hair color, the strands falling straight. He always has an impish look in his eyes, as though he’s seconds from a dramatic entrance and exit with folly swept frenziedly in between.
He takes a very long time examining the spines. “This one.” He points at Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems.
“What is that one?” I ask him.
“Poe.” He memorized the color of the book and remembered the title that was spoken to him before. He isn’t reading the words. It’s currently his favorite, which is why he asked for the painting of a raven. Rose is itching to give him Shakespeare, but we both think he’ll be overwhelmed by the words right now.
I set the other two books aside and open this one to the table of contents. “Which story?”
Eliot looks up at me. “Can you read The Black Cat again?”
I smile at his choice. He likes gothic tales, and while some parents would chastise me for letting a five-year-old read Edgar Allan Poe, I purposefully brush off societal constraints like ages. I always have. Every person is different.
So are my children.
I wouldn’t force Poe on a child that could barely sleep at night. Eliot isn’t frightened by the insanity and murder in tales. He sees them as what they are. Stories. At the very end of Little Snow White by the Brothers Grimm, the queen is forced to put on burning shoes and dance until she dies.
He’d rather hear the original versions than censored ones, and if asked, I’m certain he’d be able to recite a portion of Little Snow White.
In German.
“Find it in the table of contents,” I tell him, “and we’ll read it together.”
Eliot pouts. “But I want you to read it.” He crosses his arms and leans back away from me, already upset.
“Why don’t you want to read it with me?”
He kicks at his covers. “You’re better at it.” His speech is clear. He doesn’t stumble over words, but his handwriting is nearly illegible. He had trouble holding a pencil until I helped him switch to his left hand. We had three teacher-parent meetings in kindergarten because he refused to read aloud during group story time.
At one point, he chucked the book and started crying.