“I run the market research department at Andrew's company.”
“Yeah?” Grateful for a less fraught topic, he looks at me. “What's your company do?”
I just blink.
“I'm the head of Anterdec.”
Zero recognition.
“What do you guys do?”
I play it safe. “Real estate.”
“Gotcha.” Uncertainty makes his eyes shifty, until finally he looks at Amanda and says, “I don't know what to do next.”
Her hand flies to her throat, nervous and flittery. “Oh, Dad. I think you're doing it.”
“But I'm not doing anything.”
“You're here. That's more than you've done in decades.”
“Jesus, Mandy. I owe Pam one hell of a life debt. She raised you right.”
And then Leo's shoulders begin to shake, all pretense of holding it together draining away. His butt plunks down on his seat, the umbrella tilting slightly from the force. Head down, the bill of his hat covering his eyes, he rests weathered elbows on his knees and cradles his face. I'm sure he's crying.
Guys like this don't sob in public. I'm embarrassed for him.
Admire him a little, too.
The guy I thought I had to protect my wife from turns out to be more complex than I ever expected.
Maybe I'm the one who needs some lessons in all-or-nothing thinking.
Amanda's crying now, and gives me a look that says, What do I do now?
I shrug. I squeeze her hand. I look at Leo.
How the hell do I know?
Abruptly, he wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands and stands, red-rimmed irises the color of Amanda's own staring at her.
“Look, Mandy, I–I gotta go. Not to be rude or anything. I'm–I'm breaking patterns, you see? And right now, this is me making amends. Sorta. But I have to confess, I want a drink right now, real bad. Awful bad. And when I get like this, I have to go call my sponsor and talk it out. Do the work. So I need to leave. Not because I don't–I don't...” His voice cracks. “Not because I don't care, but because I do. I need to change, Mandy.”
“You have changed, Dad.” She stands and waddles over to him, taking his hand. He jerks, eyes going down to where their skin meets. “And I understand. This isn't the last time we'll see each other.”
“It's not?”
“Of course not.” She holds her arms out. “Can I have a hug?”
Leo pulls her in, hard. He whispers something I can't hear.
“Yes. Of course,” she says.
And then he lets her go and offers me his hand. I shake it.
And Leo Warrick turns abruptly on one heel, walking like a man with ghosts chasing him.
We walk slowly back to the car and climb in. Amanda lets out a huge sigh of relief, but her hands are on her knees, forearms pressing against her belly, head down, eyes wide.
“He didn't ask for money,” I comment as I turn on the car and the air conditioning kicks in. Amanda's turned toward the halfway house, staring at it.
“What?”
“I thought he would.”
She tilts her head. “I can see why. But he didn't. All he asked for was a chance to see the babies after they're born.”
“All,” I murmur.
Her voice is shaking now. I reach for her hand, the fragile shell of my wife needing me.
“He spent all those years not seeing me. And now all he wants is...”
All that my wife can do now is cry. And all that I can do is hold her.
Because all I can do is this:
I can give her my all.
Chapter 20
Amanda
I'm drinking my one and only daily breve when my back starts aching like crazy.
And for someone carrying fifty-eight pounds of extra weight around, back pain has to be bad to be worse than baseline.
“Ohhh,” I say, the little pity sigh leaking out, then turning into a longer, lower, deeper groan. Andrew's head pops up from the report he's reading on the couch, lounging in sweat pants and no shirt. I’ve told him his new reading glasses give him a hot-geek look, and he thinks that’s silly, but I find it incredibly arousing.
But not now.
“What's wrong?”
“I'm fine,” I start to say, but as I lean forward to start the arduous process of getting up out of a soft chair, all I can say is, “Fi–”
Followed by another “Ohhh.”
The frown he gives me makes his glasses slide slightly down his nose. He takes them off, stands, and offers me his hands to help me up. As I stretch, I roll my pelvis forward and realize I can't.
I can't move.
“My back,” I gasp.
“The doctor said this might happen. Back labor can be the start.”
“But I'm not supposed to labor at all! The c-section is scheduled for Thursday!”
“Maybe the boys decided Sunday is a better day to be born.”
“They need to listen to their mother!”
“They are. Just not the right mother. Mother Nature has entered the game and she has a different mission.”
I walk slowly to the kitchen, Andrew right behind me. I'm reaching for a water bottle when my hips turn into wrenches. Bones grind against each other as the contraction pulls on my swollen midsection with a fierceness that is nothing like the contractions that hit me nine weeks ago. I grip the edge of the counter.
All the air in the world is sucked away, my body unable to so much as blink.
And then I'm wet.
Andrew looks down at the ground, eyes widening. “That's–you're–your water broke!”
“I have to call Shannon,” I gasp as the grip on my womb lessens. I'm wearing light socks, now soaking wet around my ankles.
Giddy laughter chokes my throat.
“It's time,” I tell him, the look we share too poignant to describe. Then he starts texting as I pick up my phone and hit Shannon's number.
This is really happening.
“Hey,” she says, sounding bored. “Did you know that there is an actual, quantifiable number of times you can tolerate picking dropped cups off the floor from a toddler who’s discovering object permanence? It's 238, for the record.”
“My water just broke.”
“What?”
“My water just broke.
