hate to see it so hard for you,” she says, her voice softer, still warm with laughter.
“Life isn’t supposed to be easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it.”
“Smartass.”
“My ass has never been smarter.”
We banter like this for a few more minutes and talk about my cousin’s baby’s party and how it’s been rescheduled because of the storm, and while I keep up the prattle I’m entertaining my mother’s question to me: Would I choose Michael if it meant giving up having babies?
Shortly after Michael proposed, we were up late flipping channels while the kids slept. The fire was lit and the room was dark and the ruddy light danced across his face. I kept turning the ring around and around on my finger.
Steel Magnolias was on. Julia Roberts and Sally Field were fighting over Julia wanting to have a baby, despite her character’s delicate medical condition. Michael was about to flip past, but I took the remote out of his hand.
“I understand that,” I told him. “Wanting to have a baby of her own.”
“Real subtle, Casey,” he said, smirking at me and taking the remote back.
“I was just talking about the movie.” Such a reporter. Always suspecting ulterior motives.
“But you do want to have a baby.” He said this matter-of-factly, flipping to a poker tournament on one of the ESPNs.
I shrugged, trying to act like I could take it or leave it, like he’d asked if I wanted some popcorn. It had taken a lot for Michael to risk getting married again. I feared if I pressured him, he would bolt like a skittish horse.
He playfully nudged me. “C’mon, you have baby radar. If there’s a baby within a mile of you, you’ll find it and start playing peekaboo.”
“I’m practicing for the peekaboo championship.”
“So you don’t want a baby with a broken-down old man like me?”
I was almost afraid to look at him, but I dared it. He was smiling at me softly.
“Well, I guess if you can manage it,” I said.
He kissed my forehead. “I think I’d manage just fine.” He moved on to my neck. “I’ll have a baby with you.”
I shivered with delight as he continued kissing my neck.
Then he said, “It would make a nice change to make a baby with someone not crazy.”
The delicious shivers evaporated, and I moved away from the reach of his lips. He looked at me with a wrinkled brow.
“I think I hear a kid on the steps,” I lied.
I know it was a favorable comparison. I know I should have ignored it and kissed him back. But his ex-wife, his old life, seeped always into our most intimate moments.
And now she’s here. In our house.
I hang up from my mother and return to the fridge to rummage for some dinner. The children will be hungry soon, and life must go on.
Chapter 26
Michael
The leather interior of my dad’s Navigator makes me feel like a dwarf. I’m not short, but compared to how cramped I feel in the hand-me-down Honda, there could be a conga line in here.
“Go on, lean the seat back,” my dad tells me. “Get some rest.”
At the push of a button the seat glides down soundlessly.
I jerk back to consciousness with my mouth feeling pasty and my stomach roiling with the confusing motion of rolling along while everything in my sight is stationary. For a few seconds I don’t understand any of it.
Then my nap amnesia wears off. Dylan. Casey and Mallory at home with the girls.
“Where are we?” I ask Dad.
Now I understand what woke me up. We’ve slowed dramatically, and can see little through the windshield but taillights and snow so thick it’s like a wall.
My father is tense on the wheel, his mustache twitching, eyes narrow as he searches for passage.
The appeal of a big vehicle has never been clearer.
“We’re only to Ann Arbor,” he says.
He was right to drive me. I never could have been alert enough to manage this alone. I’d have caused a hundred-car pileup by now.
I consider telling him this, but he knows he’s right. It must be nice to have such confidence.
My cell phone rings, and I snatch it up, visions of disaster at home flicking to life.
It’s Evelyn. My boss.
“Hello, Evelyn. Sorry I didn’t come in today.”
“That’s fine, Michael, we understand. Any news?”
“Yes, he’s in Cleveland and we’re going to get him now. He’s fine.”
“Thank God,” she says, but she says it without emotion. I know her mind is already on the very next thing she has