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Amy glared at him. “I get out of the house plenty.”
“I haven’t seen you at the main house in weeks.”
“Adriano doesn’t want me over there.”
“Now, what gave you that idea?”
Amy couldn’t rightly explain what had given her that idea. It was just something she knew intuitively. It was obvious at this point.
For a while after that first doctor’s appointment, things had seemed normal. Better than normal, even. There had been more casual touches between them than there ever had before. Adriano had smiled whenever he saw her. She’d caught him looking things up on the internet—which car seats were the safest, books on parenting, advice for how to deal with multiples when you hadn’t anticipated them. Packages had started arriving and the staff had begun to transport them into the room that would, eventually, be converted into a nursery.
At least, Adriano hadsaidit would be converted into a nursery. In all actuality, nothing of the sort had happened.
The walls were still bare. Everything that had been ordered was still packed away in boxes. There were cribs, but they hadn’t been set up. The babies were due to be born any day now, and yet nothing was ready.
Adriano spent all his time at work now. The stolen moments the two of them had shared, once upon a time, had completely vanished. There were no more casual touches or smiles—in fact, they rarely saw each other, except for medical reasons.
At first, Amy had worried that he wasn’t feeling well. She had asked him if the symptoms of his treatment were becoming too unbearable.
He had denied that. “I’m fine,” he’d said. “It’s been getting easier, actually.”
He hadn’t met her eyes when he’d said it, and she hadn’t known what to think. She had taken him at his word.
And she thought she’d been right to do that. The symptoms did seem to have gotten better. What was more, the progression of his disease had slowed considerably. At their last check, the markers in his blood work that indicated Barks-Howard’s had all but vanished. It was unmitigated good news, but when she had delivered it to him, Adriano had thanked her like she was a stranger.
That was how he treated her all the time these days—as if she was a stranger. As if they had a working relationship and nothing more.
It was agonizing. Amy had no idea what she had done wrong. She didn’t know what could have driven him away.
He’d been so excited, knowing that he was going to have these babies. He’d been so eager to be a father. And he had been so supportive of her. Now he was supportive in his own way—Amy never lacked for anything, and the staff took wonderful care of her all the time. But when it came to emotional support, he was nowhere to be found.
She had been so relieved, the day she had told him of her pregnancy, when he’d assured her that they would handle things together. Now she felt constantly devastated. It didn’t seem like he wanted to handle things with her at all. She was sure she was going to be on her own in all of this—a single parent after all.
He seemed like he had lost interest in the babies.
Amy didn’t want to believe that such a thing was possible. He’d been so determined to start a family! How could he just lose interest? How could he not care anymore, when she and the babies were right here, just a few feet from his house—when they were due to be born any day now?
But if he cared at all, he wouldn’t be acting so distant. What other conclusion could she possibly draw?
Tony was watching her. “I think you should come over to the house,” he said.
“I think that’s a terrible idea.” Amy wouldn’t be able to bear it if she went over there and tried to talk to Adriano only to receive the cold shoulder from him yet again. For the last couple of months, she had kept to herself as much as possible, just because that was easier than facing him and dealing with the fact that he so clearly wanted nothing to do with her.
“Amy,” Tony said gently. “You two have to talk eventually, you know.”
“I’m not the one who hasn’t been talking,” she said, though she knew she was being childish. There was no room for her to be defensive about this, no excuse for avoiding the father of her children. He might have decided to be that way about it, but that was just more reason for her to try to bridge the gap. She owed that to the babies.
But she couldn’t face it. She couldn’tforcehim to see sense, and it was beyond obvious that he’d decided to put a wall up between them.
“He can talk to me,” she told Tony. “I’ve been flat on my back every day. I’m as big as a house. If he wants a conversation, he knows where I am. It’s crazy to expect that I should be the one to get up and go over there when I don’t even knowwhyhe isn’t speaking to me.”
“He’s scared, Amy.”
“And I get that! Becoming a parent is scary! Especially to four babies at a time! I mean, my God, do you think I’m not scared?” She gestured to her belly. “I’m the one carrying these kids. I’m the one who’s about to give birth. He should be supporting me right now, and instead he’s avoiding me like I’m a leper. I don’t know what I did to deserve this.”
“You didn’t do anything,” Tony said.
Amy sighed. “I shouldn’t put you in the middle.”
