Totally and Completely Fine(40)

I was half worried that Lena was going to fall off her chair. Her back was as straight as a knitting needle, and it seemed like she was holding her breath.

At least I had her complete attention.

Eve’s as well.

“I’m sure you have all talked about sex,” I said. “Or that you’ve seen things. Online. Or in the movies, or whatever. But I want you to know that there is a big difference between what our society is willing to show you and what sex actually is.”

Lena relaxed—just the tiniest bit—and I could tell there was some genuine interest crouched behind her usual teenage nihilism. Good. I could work with that.

“What have they taught you in school?” I asked, that guilt bobbing back to the surface. Because that was something I should know.

She shrugged. “Just, like, don’t do it.”

I was pretty sure that was the equivalent of my school-mandated sex ed as well. Extremely not helpful.

“And the chewing gum thing,” Eve said.

“The chewing gum thing?”

“Like, how you’re a piece of gum and no one wants an already-chewed-up piece of gum.” Lena’s cheeks were bright red. “Or whatever.”

I closed my eyes. For. Fuck’s. Sake.

“Okay,” I said. “That. That is absolute bullshit.”

Both girls looked stunned at my language.

“Sorry,” I said. “But you are not a piece of gum. You are not a piece of anything. You’re a person.”

I was so mad, I wanted to scream. Weren’t things supposed to be better for kids now? Wasn’t there more information available to them? Real information?

“Okay,” I said. “I think we need to start from the beginning. What do you know about your vagina?”

Chapter 24

Then

My bladder felt like it was constantly being stepped on, everything from my ankles to my neck was swollen, my heartburn was out of control, and I couldn’t tie—or untie—my shoes. I was so tired of being pregnant.

It didn’t help that Spencer—who’d never done well in moments of heightened emotion—thought that the most helpful thing he could do was to never. Leave. Me. Alone.

“Do you want a glass of water?”

“Are you hungry? Craving anything?”

“Maybe you should put your feet up.”

“Should you be lifting that?”

It was sweet at first and then, after a while, I wanted to smother him in his sleep just so I could get some peace and quiet. Because even at night, when I was trying to sleep, I’d hear him whisper: “Do you need another pillow?”

“I can’t take it anymore,” I told Gabe.

He was somewhere in the UK filming a World War II movie. Apparently, he had the perfect look for a soldier during that era. One that tended to appear in the first fifteen minutes, bright-eyed and eager, only to be shot dramatically and cinematically for someone else’s character development. We’d seen a lot of movies where a “dead” Gabe was lying in someone’s arms while they cried over him and gave their Oscar-reel speech about life and death and how it wasn’t fair to lose someone so young.

I watched these movies, and Gabe did a great job, but it sometimes felt like the people who were making them only had a passing relationship with death. That they didn’t really know what it was like.

These roles had become Gabe’s bread and butter. He made good money, but I could sense that he was getting tired of playing the same part over and over again.

“There’s no telling what I’ll do if he wakes me up in the middle of a nap to ask if I want another blanket,” I said. “Help.”

I rarely asked for help. It was a Parker family trait for sure—don’t let anyone know you’re struggling—but I’d reached the end of my patience. It was, however, a testament to my growth as a human being that it took a lot longer to reach that point than it had in the past. Apparently, impending motherhood did change a person.

Or maybe I just didn’t want to go to prison for murdering my husband when he was just asking if I needed more water, while I was in the middle of drinking water.

“What can I do?” Gabe asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Can’t he come visit you, or something?”

“You’re due in a month,” he said.

“I. Don’t. Care,” I said. “Get him out of the state or neither of us will make it that long, and this baby will be an orphan, and you’ll have to take care of it. How will a BabyBj?rn look strapped to your historically accurate uniform?”

It took a lot of convincing, but I managed to get Spencer to go to Scotland for a week to see Gabe. I made it seem like Gabe needed him more, but I could tell that Spencer knew I was desperate for a break. That was the only reason he didn’t argue with me in the end and made me promise to call him immediately if I felt any signs of labor.

I didn’t feel a thing, and the week he was gone was one of the most blissfully peaceful times of my pregnancy. I lay on the couch after my shifts at the grocery store with a bowl of ice cream balanced on my enormous stomach, watching movies on TCM.

When Spencer came back, I was happy to see him, even though I expected the mother-henning to continue. Instead, he was quiet and aloof, which was unusual for him in the most normal of times, but after several months of his constant circling around me, trying to figure out what I needed, the change was startling.