AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Let them be,” I chided her, even though watching them was so painful, I wanted to scream.
That was me.
Or maybe it could have been.
For one short summer, I had been so,soclose. Eight weeks ago, I’d been in love too. I had a man to dance with, and my daughter, Sofia, had a father in her life. When Xavier Parker, dashing London restauranteur and prodigal duke, had strode back into my life with the force of a wind gale less than one year earlier, I certainly hadn’t intended to fall in love with him all over again. Honestly, I’d barely expected the man to like me again, after what I did to him. Hiding the fact that you had a man’s baby and didn’t tell him for five years isn’t exactly the way to his good side.
But somehow, the love we’d had for each other all those years ago had prevailed. Which was how Sofia and I had come to spend the summer in England with Xavier—both so she could continue building her new relationship with him, and he and I could determine whether what we thought we had between us was real.
Spoiler: it wasn’t.
They say love conquers all. They would be liars.
It took one short summer for the pressure of Xavier’s job, title, and absolutely horrible family to rip our tenuous to shreds and decorate it with a tinsel. I had left as suddenly as I’d arrived, chased back to Brooklyn with every intent of returning to my simple life as a third grade teacher and single mom.
Life, however, had other plans.
Specifically in the form of a pregnancy test.
Again.
“God, this is so good.” Kate inhaled a bowl of bolognese and couldn’t help but moan through her food. “Nonna, don’t kill me, but I think this might be better than yours.”
Our grandmother just turned from the next table, where she was enjoying a fifty-years-in-the-making cigarette with her sister and several cousins. She held her fingertips together as she gave a little shake of her hand, then went right back to gossiping in Italian with her family.
“That’s how you know she’s had one too many,” Kate joked in my ear. “Look at her. The cigarette, the wine, the big, big hair. She’s so Italian right now it hurts. It’s like watching a salmon return to its spawning grounds after the long migration.”
I was supposed to laugh, but suddenly all I could sense was the flavor of Kate’s breath, tinged as it was with red wine and meat sauce.
“Jesus, Katie,” I gasped.
I pushed back from the table and made a beeline for the restaurant’s bathroom, weaving in and out of tables, flapping my hands at stray relatives who wanted yet another kiss to the cheek, and barely finding my way inside the tiny bathroom at the back of the restaurant just in time to lose every bite I had just taken into the toilet.
I wretched again. And again. To the point where I thought it might actual turn my body inside out. But eventually, the nausea faded away, leaving me with a sweaty-faced and exhausted when I emerged from the stall only to find Kate leaning against the sink with her arms crossed over her chest.
My stomach dropped again, and this time it wasn’t because of the smell of ground beef.
“All right, what’s going on?” Kate demanded as I leaned over to wash my hands and splash my face with water.
I looked up from patting my face with a hand towel. “What do you mean?”
“You were about as green as a lima bean out there. I thought you were going to hurl all over the table.”
I turned on the sink and used a paper towel dab at my brow. “I almost did.”
“Yeah, I see that.” Kate reached back and yanked at her ponytail, then checked her sleek black dress which was almost certain vintage as if making sure I hadn’t splattered on it through the door. “That’s the third time I’ve seen you sprint for the bathroom today. Please tell me it’s just a virus. Or maybe food poisoning. Because the last time you had to you were…” She trailed off, clearly cut off by the look on my face. “Ah, shit.”
I gulped and managed to stand up straight so I could look myself over. There was no use hiding it from her.
I turned from side to side. I wasn’t showing yet. Not really. The peach-colored dress I was wearing for the day wasn’t exactly form-fitting, but the only thing that was different at all were my boobs, which were more than filling out the bust.
I sighed, then grabbed one of the complimentary bottles of water on the counter to swish around and cleanse my mouth. “Don’t tell anyone, Kate. Please. To start, I don’t want to mess up Mattie and Nina’s special day.”
My sister just looked me over, pity written across her delicate features. We looked so much alike, but Kate was always the stronger of the two of us. Taller, of course, but it was more than that. She had the no-nonsense sensibility of someone who had never lived in the throes of an existential crisis. She’d always known exactly who she was.
I sank onto the upholstered bench in the corner to wait for my face to return to a normal hue. Kate sat down with me and rubbed my leg.
“Is it bad?” she wondered.
