A few years later
* * *
I bring the fork to my mouth, moaning around the crumbles of strawberry and goat cheese. Now this is pie. Decadent and delicious and mine to relish without shame.
Sweetie Pies is closed for the night, which means no customers around to judge the taste-bud orgasm sounds slipping from between my lips.
“This is sinfully delicious.” I groan again and sink deeper in the plush cushion seat at one of the new booths Gigi ordered last spring. Beside me, Mom makes a similarly contented sound.
Ah, to be comfortable and eating dessert with dear ones at the same time. Is there anything better?
Another bite. Another moan.
Gigi arches a brow from the other side of the booth. “Sounds like you’re making love to that pie.”
I’m aghast that she’d say that with the woman who gave birth to me at the table. “Don’t say that in front of . . .” I stage whisper, “. . . my mother.”
Mom huffs and rolls her eyes. “I figured it was sex that got you into your present situation, sweetheart,” my mom says, shooting a pointed look at my ginormous stomach.
Yes. Ginormous. Honestly, I could barely squeeze into the booth.
It’s the size of a yacht, and this yacht is about to dock in the harbor any day. But in the meantime, there are pies to eat.
I’m pretty sure everything has zero calories when you’re forty weeks, six days, five hours, and twenty-three minutes pregnant. I’ve narrowed down the conception date and I know this kid is overcooked, no matter what my doctor has to say about “letting labor come in its own time.”
“This child clearly intends to stay inside me forever,” I say. “So there’s only one thing to do . . .”
Gigi laughs. “Eat pie?”
“What can I say? I like pie. It tastes good. Takes a girl’s mind off tiny feet kicking her in the spleen. Also, you made this amazing, irresistible strawberry and goat cheese creation, so this sugar rush is at least seventy-five percent your fault,” I say, taking another bite and adjusting myself in the seat.
Because I’m not comfortable.
I haven’t been comfortable in months.
How could anyone in my position be comfortable right now?
I’m ready though. Ready to meet our baby. Ready to take this next step with Jesse.
The last few years have been so magical and wonderful. My business has flourished and so has his, but more than that, our life together has been everything I imagined it would be, and then some—filled with love and intimacy and laughter and honest conversations.
We’ve taken road trips. We’ve tried new restaurants. We’ve gone swimming in the ocean. We’ve camped out at the Four Seasons. Literally. For our first wedding anniversary, Jesse surprised me with a gorgeous suite and a tent set up on our balcony overlooking the city. We made out in the tent and slept in the super-fancy bed and didn’t put clothes on for two days straight.
It was perfect.
We do perfect things all the time. Perfect, unexpected things, and mini adventures every time we have the chance. Whether it’s trying paddle-board yoga for the first time in Hawaii on our honeymoon, or going to a showing of The Cat Who Ate Cincinnati and adopting our own two smoky-gray kittens—Mushroom and Magic—at the animal shelter event after the movie, we seize the day.
We embrace the new and the unexpected.
It’s the opposite of how I felt for the years right after we lost Claire. This is a life well lived.
My back seizes up for th
e second time in ten minutes. “Oof. Ow. Wow,” I say with a groan. “That’s not a good feeling.”
My mother straightens. Gigi’s antenna goes up. And they both say in tandem, “Is this it?”
“God, I hope so.” I smile through the pain knifing through my lower back. “Call Jesse. Tell him to bring my hospital bag.”