Page 76 of Restored Dreams

“Control things? You think I asked for the garage? Asked to take charge of your life? Asked to get the wrong girl pregnant and have a child without her?”

“You got someone else pregnant?” Tommy interjects.

“Shut up,” I snap. “Lily’s pregnant.”

“I know, but who’s the wrong girl?”

“Her…just never mind. I don’t ask to be in charge, Hank. It just seems to happen.”

“Because you take it upon yourself to be in charge.”

“Well, what else was I supposed to do? Throw Pop out? Let you hit rock bottom and die? Reject my child?” I’m coming unraveled, and my voice has risen in the public space, but I don’t care. I’m at loose ends here, and I want Lily to return my goddamn phone calls.

“Brut, calm down.”

“Calm down? Calm down! I want Lily to marry me. I want us together. We have a second chance, which I might add, you aided in happening, and now she’s walking away.”

“Brut, answer the fucking question about the proposal,” Tommy demands, and it’s almost as if his asking me pisses me off enough to admit what happened.

“I didn’t ask,” I blurt out, and the reality hits me. I didn’t ask her. My romantic Lily who wants to dance in the rain and make love under the moonlight didn’t get asked. She doesn’t even have a ring or a memory or… “Fucking Christ.”

My hand comes to my forehead, pressing at the wrinkled skin. Silence falls between us.

“I didn’t ask her,” I admit, my voice strained and quiet. I don’t know what else to say. “But she doesn’t want to marry me anyway.”

“How do you know? You didn’t ask her.” Tommy snorts, and if I didn’t think he was right, I’d punch his smug face.

“Since when did you two become experts on women?” I chuckle without humor.

“When I fell in love,” Tommy says.

“When I married the woman of my dreams,” Hank adds.

When did we become the chicks discussing this shit?

“You realize you two sound like chicks.” I tip my beer at them and notice the bottle is empty.

“You realize you sound like a dick,” Hank amends. “But I’m thinking you’d rather sound like a chick, too.”

I stare at him a moment before bursting out in laughter. “You know how stupid that sounded?”

“Do you know how pathetic you look?” He glares at me, and for a moment, I feel like we’re ten and eight again, tit-for-tat fighting. “Man up, Brut. She’s the woman you’ve wanted back for twenty-two years. She’s here. How you gonna keep her?”

I hate when my brother’s right.

+ + +

Lily isn’t home when I get there, so I decide to sleep on the couch. Isn’t that what a man in the doghouse does anyway? I figure I’d give her space when she came home. But I sleep fitfully despite the drunken haze. I don’t like sleeping without her, and when I wake to find our bed still untouched, I panic. After all the calls I made last night, only a text from her graces my phone in the morning.

I stayed at the bakery.

The tone of a text can be difficult to read, so I hate to make assumptions, but this is cold. Simple. Direct. No additional information. I don’t know how to respond.

I miss you.

I love you.

Come home.