I was living in a nightmarish parody of a marriage.
And I opened my mouth and screamed.
Present day
Astrid and Ambrose were both standing in their driveway staring at me, Astrid looking like she’d stepped in shit and Ambrose’s face drained of all color.
It had taken many months for me to be able to look at him without a pang of pain. At first I had only stayed in the house because I wanted to finally do the backyard garden exactly like I wanted.
Then, as I began to transform the yard, I didn’twantto go anywhere.
He was not going to chase me out of my own home.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“How—when?” Ambrose started, raising his hand, then belatedly realizing it was not polite to point at a pregnant woman’s belly. He dropped his hand abruptly, pursing his lips together like a pig’s asshole.
He looked like such a stuffed suit, drawing himself up poker-straight. God, what had I ever seen in him? Was I blinded by his height? The fact that he had this attractive thick salt and pepper hair with one romantic curl falling across his forehead?
Did I have some sort of professor fetish?
“We’re both pregnant at the same time,” I said, because they were just staring at me. “Isn’t that fun! How many weeks are you along, again?”
“25 weeks,” Astrid said, her mouth barely opening, like if she barely opened it she wasn’t responsible for her words.
“Me, too,” I said brightly. “25 weeks on Saturday. We’re due at the same time. Isn’t that crazy?”
“Is there a. . .father?” Astrid broke in, her too-big blindingly white veneers barely fitting in her mouth. “Or sperm bank we can congratulate?”
“I’ll pass your congratulations along to the father,” I said. “He’s on a business trip now.”
Ambrose’s face flushed and he tightened his lips.
He never liked to be bested in anything, and I could read the signs that he was getting annoyed at feeling knocked off his balance.
“Congratulations,” my ex-husband said. “I am—sure that was a surprise to you.”
“On the contrary,” I retorted sweetly. “I wasn’t even trying to get pregnant. My baby daddy is just particularly virile.”
“Who is the father?” Ambrose asked abruptly.
His fingers went to the knot in his tie, worrying the silky fabric like he wanted to yank it off.
“None of your business,” I said coolly. “My pregnancy is none of your damn business. And don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”
CHAPTER 3
Ambrose
“She is gaining alotof weight,” Astrid said after we had gone inside. “Getting really big all over. I suppose some women don’t care thatyou’re eating for two nowis just a myth.”
I kept my eyes carefully averted from the window where I knew Indigo was still outside.
Her belly was certainly bigger, but all I had noticed was how happy she looked. Her face pink and flushed with working in the garden, her hair thick and glossy. Even her full lips were looking pinker and more plumped-up.
Even though I had personally read several books on pregnancy, and distilled the information to Astrid, including the myth ofeating for two, it was so self-evidently true that Indi was in the bloom of health that I didn’t bother to reply.
Astrid must be suffering from emotional upheavals common to the second trimester.
