“I want to be upset!” She hated how backed into a corner she felt. She pushed past him and strode to the middle of the room only to spin around and confront. “But I’m not allowed to be upset, am I? There’s no such thing as emotion in your world, is there? I’m supposed to fit into a tiny little box labeled Wife and Mother.” She made a square with her hands. “And uphold the family image, except I’ll never be able to do that because I’m forever going to be a blotch.”
“Calm down,” he ordered.
She flung out a hand in a silent, There it is.
He heard it, too, and sighed. He gave her a stern look. “You’re not a blotch. We’ve been over all of this. You contribute. I don’t know why you struggle to believe that.”
“Because I’ve been a burden my entire life, Rico. My grandparents were planning to do things in their retirement. Take bus tours and travel and see things. Instead, they were stuck raising me.”
“It didn’t sound to me like that was how your grandmother felt.”
“That’s still how it was. That’s how I wound up working in your mother’s house. I couldn’t bear the thought of asking them for money when they’d supported me all those years. Then I came home and bam. Pregnant. Back to being a parasite. Gramps didn’t want to sell that house because he was afraid I would go broke paying day care and rent. I was supposed to pay Gran back after all those years she took care of me, but now you’re supporting her. And me. That feels great.”
“You are not a parasite. Eleanor is my daughter’s great-grandmother. I want to look after her. And you.”
“See, that’s it.” She lifted a helpless hand. “Right there. You don’t want to look after me.” She pressed her hand to the fissure in her chest where all her emotions were bleeding out and making a mess on the floor. “You want to look after Lily’s mother. Exactly the way they took in their son’s daughter for his sake. You don’t want me, Rico.”
“You’re upset. Taking things to heart that don’t require this much angst.”
Her heart was the problem. That much he had right. It felt like her heart was beating outside her chest.
“Do you love me?” she asked, already knowing the answer. “Do you think you’re ever going to love me?”
Her question gave him pause. The fact a watchful expression came across his face as he searched for a response that was kind yet truthful was all the answer she needed.
“Because I love you,” she admitted, feeling no sense of relief as the words left barbs in her throat. Her lips were so wobbly, her speech was almost slurred. “I love you so much I ache inside, all the time. I want so badly to be enough for you—”
“You are,” he cut in gruffly.
“Well, you’re not enough for me!” The statement burst out of her, breaking something open in her. Between them. All the delicate filaments that had connected them turned to dust, leaving him pallid. Leaving her throat arid and the rest of her blistered with self-hatred as she threw herself on the pyre, adding, “This isn’t enough.”
His breath hissed in.
“At least my grandparents loved me, despite the fact I’d been dumped on them. But I waited my whole childhood for my parents to want me. To love me. I can’t live like that again, Rico. I can’t take up space in your home because your children need a mother. I need more. And what breaks my heart is knowing that you’re capable of it. You love Lily. I know you do. But you don’t love me and you won’t and that’s not fair.”
* * *
He let her go.
He shouldn’t have let her walk out, but he didn’t know what to say. He knew what she wanted to hear him say, but those words had never passed his lips.
From his earliest recollection of hearing the phrase, when he realized other children said those words to their parents, he had instinctively understood it wasn’t a sentiment his own parents would want to hear from him. They weren’t a family who said such a thing. They weren’t supposed to feel it. Or want to feel it.
So he let her walk out and close the door with a polite click that sounded like the slam of a vault, locking him out of something precious he had only glimpsed for a second.
Which seemed to empty him of his very soul.
He looked around, recalling dimly that he’d thought to enjoy an afternoon delight before joining their daughter on the beach for sand castles and splashing in the waves.
Not pregnant. He had to admit that had struck harder than he would have expected. It left a hole in his chest that he couldn’t identify well enough to plug. He knew how to manage his expectations. He’d spent his entire life keeping his low, so as not to suffer disappointment or loss. Despite that, he was capable of both. He wanted to go after Poppy and ask again, Are you sure?
She was sure. The bleak look in her eyes had kicked him in the gut. He wasn’t ready to face that again. That despair had nearly had him telling her they didn’t have to try again ever, not if a lack of conception was going to hit her so hard it broke something in her.
He wanted a baby, though. The compulsion to build on what they had was beyond voracious. How could Poppy not realize she was an integral part of this new sense of family he was only beginning to understand?
Family wasn’t what he’d been taught—loyalty and rising to responsibility, sharing a common history and acting for the good of the whole. That was part of it, but family was also a smiling kiss greeting him when he walked in the door. It was a trusting head on his shoulder and decisions made together. It was a sense that he could relax. That he would be judged less harshly by those closest to him. His mistakes would be forgiven.
Forgive me, he thought despairingly.