“What do you mean?” I asked, stalling for time, because I need to haul myself up and out of this chair and away from this conversation.
This had been a mistake.
I didn’t want to hear his answer. Did I?
“I know you must hate my goddamn guts,” Ambrose said, and his voice was still hoarse from being throttled, “and maybe that poetrywaskind of shit. But I just want you to know even though I’m a colossal asshole, I love you and I was delusional to think I couldstoploving you. I don’t think I can ever stop. I’m so sorry I fucked us up like I did.”
He turned sideways and I clenched my fists to resist the urge to pop him right in the nose.
“What gives you the fuckinggallto tell me in my third trimester that you still love me?” I hissed furiously at him, and that was only the beginning of the fury I intended to unleash on his head when a stately Rolls-Royce glided smoothly down our street and parked directly in front of Ambrose’s house.
His mother (oh god) and father got out of the car.
Millicent always had her lip curled up and a cat’s-asshole expression on her face and today was no exception.
“Hello, Mother,” Ambrose said, wiping his hands on his pants and standing up. “What are you doing here?”
“It Is Your Father,” she said in all capital letters, enunciating each word carefully. “I believe he is due for A Little Visit with you. Perhaps you can be a good influence on him, son.”
Oh, god. Millicent had often done this when Ambrose and I were married. When Harold would fall afoul of one of her many insane dictates, he would be sent in disgrace to visit us.
And Ambrose did as he always had done. Nodded like a prissy little saint and promised to do his best, then took his mother’s arm to guide her back to the car, with barely a glance spared for his own father.
“I hate how Ambrose treats you,” I said tightly, as I watched my ex-husband’s ramrod-stiff back and shoulders accompany his mother to the car.
“Ah well,” Harold said, “What are you going to do? He’s a Sagittarius.”
I tsked, torn between affection that he still remembered all the astrological charts we’d done together and frustration that he wouldn’t stick up for himself.
“That is no excuse. He needs to pull his head out of his ass.”
I glared at Ambrose’s back, annoyed at myself for feeling anything in regards to him. I hadn’t felt a thing for months. Why was the old frustration at his inability to see how fucking toxic his mother was creeping back?
I had tried to tell him so many times. But he would never listen.
That was just another reason that it was a good thing Ambrose and I had divorced. He had a pig-headed insistence that his own godlike judgment must be right.
At any rate, Harold seemed perfectly happy to be deposited in Applewood Subdivision, ripping off his toupee and rubbing his freed head contentedly.
“Need any help around here?” he asked.
“I wish you would leave Millicent,” I sighed. “It’s not OK how she treats you. You must know it isn’t.”
For a moment, pain crossed his face, and he looked weary, even his mustache drooping in defeat.
“She keeps a tight hold of the money,” my ex-father-in-law sighed. “I couldn’t afford to live on my own. I’ve had to do some outlandish things just for a little pin money to buy a cigar now and again. Like sell plasma.”
“You sold plasma?” I asked sharply, feeling horrified.
Ambrose’s parents were absolutelyloaded. To think of him in his 70s having to go down and sell plasma just for a little freedom!
“Yes. . . among other things,” he said. “But I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Wait, whatother thingsdid you sell?” I asked, but Harold didn’t answer, only patted my hand reassuringly. “Don’t worry about me, honey. Let’s just have a nice visit. Want me to make you a cup of rose tea?”
“All right. Rose tea sounds divine. But you shouldn’t have to sell plasma. Anytime you need money, come to me. Please.”
He helped me up and we started to walk back into the house when I noticed a few envelopes had fallen out of Ambrose and Astrid’s recycling bin and into my lawn.
