“Are you sure? Because when I was pregnant with Chloe, the smell of meat cooking was enough to make me hurl.”
Lilly shook her head, the messy bun wiggling from side to side. “No. I mean, yes. Yes, I’m sure, and no, I’m not pregnant. I couldn’t be.” She stopped to look at the porch ceiling and started counting on her fingers. My guess was she was tabulating her period and the calendar. She shook her head again, leveling a gaze at Emily. “Yeah, no. I could not be pregnant. Especially since Tag had a vasectomy years ago.”
Emily sat down on a chair across from us. “Sometimes those things don’t take.”
Ryan opened the door and extended his arm outside, Emily’s charcoal-gray wool jacket dangling from his fingers. “Want your coat? It’s cold out.”
She accepted it, slipping it on and blowing him a kiss. “Thanks, babe. Want to come sit out here with us?”
He shook his head. “Nope, have some girl time. Chloe is about to whip my ass in some Xbox game.”
“What’s Leo doing in there?” I asked. If he wasn’t talking to Ryan, he could be fair game for my father.
“He’s fine. He’s watching the game with the chief.”
I nearly jumped up but resisted. “He’s sitting with Dad? Are they talking or just watching?”
Ryan looked at me as if the question was a dumb one, but it wasn’t. It was a perfectly logical and reasonable question.
“Um, I think they’re talking about football. While they watch football.”
“Okay,” I said, when what I really wanted to say was please go sit with them and run interference. Ryan went back inside, Emily wiggled in between Lilly and me, and the blanket was tucked once more.
“Okay,” Emily said. “So you’re not pregnant, but what else is going on? What’s the latest with Tag?”
Lilly fiddled with the tassel on the sofa pillow for a second. “It’s good. Pretty good. You know.”
“Hmm, not sure I do. What do you mean?”
“We’re just having fun. We’ve been to some amazing places, and I love being with him. I love him, but . . . he’s got kind of a retirement frame of mind. I think I’m starting to realize what everyone was saying about the age difference. It’s not that we don’t fit together well, because we get along about virtually everything, but he’s leaving his career in the past, and I haven’t even had one yet. As much as I love the traveling and the fabulous restaurants and the galleries, being perpetually on vacation can get kind of monotonous. I realize that’s a super first-world problem to have, so I feel bad about complaining, but I just always expected my life to have a bit more substance to it. I need to spend some of my life doing something useful.”
“Have you talked to Tag about this?” Emily asked.
“Sort of. I think he understands, but he thinks I should try volunteering for something. He thinks that will make me feel more validated, and maybe he’s right, but I can’t shake the feeling that I should have a job. A real job. But when I told him that, he said he was sure he could find something for me to do at Taggert Property Management. We actually had a huge fight about it because I told him I didn’t just want to be handed some job designed to keep me occupied. It’s not that I’m bored, it’s that I want to do my share. I want to do something that matters.”
That made perfect sense to me. I could totally relate. I reached around Emily and squeezed Lilly’s shoulder. “I understand that feeling,” I said.
“Me too.” Emily nodded.
“I know when I worked here at the preschool on the island it wasn’t some big, significant job, but I was good for those kids. They learned stuff from me. And I could see how relieved the parents were to drop them off in the morning, and then how happy they were to see them again at the end of the day. I served a purpose, and not to toot my own horn, but I was a damn good caregiver. Those kids loved me.”
“That’s true. Kids have always loved you,” I said. Realistically, everybody loved Lilly. She was sweet and good-natured and generous to a fault. Bubbly and beautiful, so it’s no wonder John Taggert had fallen for her. But also, no wonder that the relationship was starting to struggle. I saw Lilly dash a tear