“What would happen if we had sex without an orgasm?” she asks with horror. “We don’t know, and we will never find out.” I shake my head and walk over to her, bending and kissing her lips as she sits in the middle of the bed watching a clip of something on her computer. “By the way, your mother called.”
“Lovely,” I say, looking at her. “What did she want?”
“She wanted to know how we were doing,” she says, and I know she’s lying to me. The first time she met Frances, she told her that she wouldn’t bother remembering her name since she would be gone soon. Since then, she has decided to kill her with kindness, and at this point, I think she’s just too stubborn to admit that my mother will never ever be that mother she has.
“But really?” I ask, and she rolls her eyes.
“She has a friend going on vacation.” I groan.
“How much did you give her?” I put my hands on my hips.
“It’s your fault. If you had let me pay you for half the house, I wouldn’t have extra money lying around.” I glare at her. Even if I had let her give me money for the house, she would still give my mother money.
“I forbid you to give her another penny.” I can tell right away that was the wrong word to use, especially with my wife. It was two days after I proposed when she turned to me after drinking more mai tai and said, why don’t we just get married here? That was all it took, and a week later, on the beach in the middle of her family, we got married. She slipped on my wedding band, and I have to say the minute she did, I felt more alive than ever, I felt so complete.
“Forbid me?” She gets up on the bed, crawling over at me. “Forbid me?” She laughs, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Is that any way to talk to the mother of your child?”
I look at her, and my eyes go big. “No,” I say, shocked. “We just started trying.” My eyes go to her stomach.
“Started trying is a stretch.” She laughs. “I forgot my pills when we were up north for five days, and you couldn’t pull out.”
“It was too late.” I smile at her. “The pre sperm was already all up in there,” I tell her.
“Are you sure?” I ask. She goes to the side table and opens the drawer, taking out five tests.
“All these say I am, so …” I smile, holding one in my hand. “Can you not touch them? They have my pee on them.”
I sit on the bed, my eyes on the word pregnant on the screen. “A baby,” I tell her, and she sits next to me. “Our baby.”
“Besides our wedding and meeting your grandfather, this is the happiest moment of my life,” I say, and she laughs.
“Thank God, I’m up there with Grandpa,” she says, and I look at her.
“He’s my hero,” I reply to her. “Remember the first time I met him?”
“You called him sir,” she reminds me, laughing. “And then you threw up in the garbage.”
“I was nervous,” I say, closing my eyes. “He’s a legend.”
“Well, good thing he loves you,” she says, and I can’t help but smile.
“He called me son,” I remind her.
“I know, you got teary-eyed.” She laughs.
“We had just gotten married. I was full of emotion.” I get up, my phone beeping at the same time as hers.
I pick up my phone, and my eyes go big as I look over at Franny, who has her phone in her hand.
“Shit,” she says. “This is not good.”
* * *