“I’m thriving.”
The dress goes in the cart. Alongside a cardigan that smells faintly like cherry pie. I snag a pair of maternity jeans with an elastic waistband and belly panel.
“How’s Tristan?” she asks.
“He’s great. Our schedules don’t match, but he came really early for breakfast last Sunday morning. And he says my new stretch marks are sexy.”
Ami snorts.
“He did! While flipping pancakes. Though maybe he was trying to distract me from how badly he was burning them.”
I hear her smile through the phone. “Are there somefeelingsthat go with those burnt pancakes?”
I glance down at my belly and remember Tristan kissing across its ever-widening circumference.
“It’s hard not to feel closer to him, obviously. Which is terrifying.”
“Terrifying how?”
I hesitate, thumb grazing the edge of a sequined maternity tunic. Hard no.
“I hadn’t told you this, but he . . .” I start.
“What?”
“He asked me to marry him.”
“Hedid?”
“No lead-up. Mid-spoon. Postcoital insanity.”
“Please never say postcoital again. What did you say?”
“I told him we need to focus on the pregnancy. Which is true. I mean, I’m not going to waddle down the aisle.” I lower my volume to a murmur. “I don’t know if he’s here permanently. He hasn’t sold his house in Denver, where he originally thought he would finish his career. If he can’t commit to the city or the hockey team, is he really serious about committing tome? Am I just the tagalong to him and the children?”
My sister sighs. We’re both quiet for a beat too long.
“Well? Any words of wisdom for me?”
She clears her throat. “It also solidifies his right to the children.”
“What do you mean?”
“If he has to move away, a custody battle would take into account what’s best for the kids. He’s obviously more than a baby daddy. It would display his commitment to a stable home for them if he married you.”
And there it is, the crux of my problem. When Tristan said it “made sense” to get married, I had been hit by glee and dread in equal measure.
Do I want to raise our kids in a home we create together? Of course I do.
But I also want something more than a convenient and logical arrangement. When I walk down the aisle and promise myself to a person, offering my heart for eternity, that’s not about convenience or logic.
Perhaps it isn’t practical to hold out for true love. But I’ve been practical about everything else in my life.
Marrying the person I love—who is equally crazy about me with impractical, all-consuming, never-ending love—that’s not something I’m willing to compromise on.
“Tristan would never take the children away from me.” I nearly choke at the words.
“I know. I know. Sorry, I’m doing the paranoid worst-case scenario thing.”
