Play On (Play On 1)

“I promise.” He kissed me. “Nora?”

“Mmm?”

“I want ye tae stop taking the pill.”

He might as well have thrown an ice-cold bucket of water over me. Shivering suddenly, I pulled out of his arms and sat up. Cold sweat broke out under my arms, across my palms, and my heart rate increased. “What?”

Please tell me I didn’t hear right.

“I think we should start trying for a baby.”

What the ever-loving fuck?

“Nora?”

He’d lost his mind!

“Nora?”

“Have you lost your mind?” I whipped around to glare at him.

A mulish expression fell over his face and he threw back the covers to bounce out of bed. As he pulled on a pair of clean underwear and jeans, he bit out, “I want kids, Nora.”

“I’m twenty-one,” I argued immediately.

“So?”

“So?” Now I threw myself out of bed because if I didn’t, I think I might have killed him. Moving around the room gathering my clean underwear and work clothes, I said, “I’m not ready to have kids.”

“Why not? I never wanted tae be one of those older parents who doesnae have the energy for their kids.” He followed me into the bathroom. “Twenty-one isn’t that young.”

“If you really think that, you and I are living on two very different planets right now, Jim,” I warned. “I’m not ready to have this discussion with you.”

His expression darkened. “Now? Or ever?”

Fear gripped me.

And I suddenly saw my fear mirrored in his eyes. “Nora, I love ye. I want kids with ye.”

“I am too young to be a mom. And a child is not the answer to our problems.”

His eyes flashed. “That’s no’ what this is.”

“Oh, that’s exactly what this is.” It was him trying to trap me for life.

The thought made me flinch, like I’d smacked into a pane of glass, not realizing it was there.

It was him trying to trap me for life.

Something must have given the thought away. Jim staggered back, looking pale. “Is it that ye dinnae want kids or ye dinnae want kids with me?”

Feeling nauseated, I lifted a trembling hand to my forehead and focused on my feet. “You sprung this on me. That’s not fair.”

“I want a baby,” he said, toneless. “Ye need tae stop taking the pill.” He walked out of the bathroom as if the discussion were over.

It took me a minute to process what he’d dared to say to me. To demand. And then a fire lit inside me and I rushed out of the bathroom after him. “Don’t you dare dictate to me, especially about my own body!”

He whirled in the doorway of our bedroom, eyes blazing. “Aye, well, ye promised that body tae me when ye married me, so I have some say in it tae. This is the only way we can keep our relationship moving forward.”

His possessiveness felt like a vise around my rib cage and the words were out before I could stop them. “No, it’s a desperate attempt to keep me.”

An awful silence swept into the room, like cold snow suddenly falling upon a hot desert.

We looked at one another, opponents waiting for the other to make the first move.

“Why?” he said, his voice thick, cracking. “Why would I need tae keep ye? That would only be true if I felt like I was losing ye.”

Unable to see the anguish in his eyes, I lowered my eyes back to my feet.

“And if we’re being honest here, Nora, I’ve felt like I’ve been losing ye for a while. Sometimes I wonder if I ever had ye or if ye only used me tae get out that dump of a town back in the States.”

Pain scored across my chest, the guilt, the shame, the fear overwhelming. I stumbled back toward the bed, sensing my legs couldn’t hold me up under the weight of the horrible truth.

“Yet I dinnae care,” Jim whispered, “I dinnae care, Nora, because I love ye that fucking much. I dinnae care that ye stopped saying ‘I love ye’ back tae me months ago. All I care about is waking up next tae ye every morning and falling asleep every night with ye in my bed.

“I don’t want tae be the arsehole who cannae trust his wife tae talk tae other men. I dinnae want tae worry about coming home one day tae find ye’ve packed up and left, like ye packed up and left yer family before me.”

Suddenly, he was on his knees in front of me, his arms around my waist. And he looked up at me with such a terrible love, I felt something crack inside of me. “Ye don’t have tae love me, Nora. Just keep caring about me, like I know ye do, and promise tae stay. For good. Stay with me. Choose me. Choose me. Choose us as a family … including kids.”

This time as we looked at each other in silence. His expression was one of longing and mine was of guilt. Because I’d give anything to be able to return the depth of his love.

Anything.

But you can’t force love.

He stood up, and as he did, he leaned down to kiss me softly. When he pulled back, he whispered, “Otherwise we cannae go on like this. Tonight, I want yer answer.”

Tonight, I want yer answer.

I flinched, almost dropping the cereal box I was stacking on the shelf at work.

I dinnae want tae worry about coming home one day tae find ye’ve packed up and left, like ye packed up and left yer family before me.

“Shit,” I breathed, and then bit my lip, remembering where I was.

I glanced around but there was only one woman down the other end of the aisle, not paying me any attention.

The truth was I hadn’t felt such turmoil since I’d left my parents in the first place. I’d taken a risk running away with Jim, hoping the love I felt for him was enough and that with him, I’d find a better life. Instead, I’d found a not-so-dissimilar life to the one I’d led in Donovan, and a husband who didn’t get me, didn’t know me, and yet loved me all the same. Or whatever version of me he thought he knew. He loved me to the point it was breaking him. Because we both knew now what I’d felt wasn’t love when we met. It was naïve infatuation. And infatuation dies if it isn’t nurtured into love.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

This relationship was making me hate myself.

And I already pretty much hated me before Jim and I got to this point. Because leaving my parents had not been easy at all. I’d emailed my mom a number of times once I’d arrived in Edinburgh, but she never responded. After six months of emailing and no response, an email bounced back because the email address was no longer in use.

Although I was the one in the wrong, I couldn’t help feeling deeply hurt by my mom’s refusal to talk to me. I let that hurt simmer too long. About a year after our marriage, I wrote my mom a letter, but a month later, it was returned to me unopened.

Molly and Dawn, my only contacts, were no longer living in Donovan. Not long after I left, Molly returned my apology email to tell me that I’d inspired her. For a while we exchanged emails but soon we stopped, both busy with our new lives. Last we talked was about eighteen months ago, and Molly was living in San Diego with her boyfriend Jed. He owned a bar, he hired her as a bartender, and they thought they hated each other because they argued so much, but it turned out there was a fine line between love and hate.

I feared staying with Jim would draw him over the line. Right into Hateville.

There was no way you could stay with someone and not have them love you back the way you loved them, and not have that turn to poison.

I’d been selfish enough, surely. I couldn’t let Jim do that to himself. I couldn’t do that to Jim.

Yet I was scared too. Scared to be without him here. Scared I’d lose Seonaid and Roddy and Angie.

But they were his first.

The truth was I didn’t know if I was capable of love. Maybe everything that happened with my dad and Mel had closed me off, made me disconnect. Did that mean I’d be better off staying with Jim if it wasn’t possible for me to love him that way? Or was that even more selfish than staying with Jim out of guilt?

“Excuse me, I’ve been looking all over the place and I can’t seem to find syrup.”

The speaker sounded like a gravelly Ewan McGregor, an accent that was more anglicized and refined than Jim’s. The deep, coarse lilt jolted me out of my thoughts, and I turned around to face the customer.