“That doesn’t explain why he told us to go,” I said, still stung by the rejection. “Is he angry?”
“If I had to guess . . .” The corner of Manning’s lips quirked, and after a moment, he chuckled. “I’d say yes—only because angry is your dad’s default emotion. But I’m sure it’s more that he didn’t want you to see his concern and regret. That’s the way he’s programmed. I think we got through to him, though.”
“You did,” I said, raising my hand to touch Manning’s cheek. “I’ve never seen him back down to anyone but you.”
“Because I’m more like him than I sometimes want you to realize.” He focused his full attention on me, and demanded the same from me, so I noticed as his eyes subtly set with determination. “But I promise, the mistakes he’s made, the ones my dad’s made, and even my own, too, will only serve as lessons to me. They’ll shape the father I become for the better.”
My stomach fluttered the way it always did at the thought of Manning as a father. This time, though, the butterflies were more severe. Because I knew Manning could already be a father. We’d ceremoniously thrown away my birth control after our marriage talk and had already started the process of turning the idea of a family into reality.
I curled my fingers a little into Manning’s cheek. “Then I don’t regret a thing,” I said. “If any of our heartache will make us better parents, I have nothing but gratitude for it.”
“Same.” He winked. “But enough with the difficult lessons. I’m ready to put what I’ve learned into practice.”
So was I. A small part of me wanted to get pregnant quickly, before one of us realized we’d gotten the order of things all wrong. We’d only been at it weeks—but I couldn’t help hoping that was all it would take.
6
Even after years away, I moved seamlessly around the kitchen with my mom. She handed me the turkey roast from the oven that she’d made many times throughout my childhood, then complimented my tamales, even though they were a completely untraditional dish for my family.
As I washed my hands, I watched Manning in the backyard through the window over the sink. A cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth, he squatted to fix an uneven patio chair. When he and I had first moved in together, I’d been able to coax him away from his pack-a-day habit with baked goods, blowjobs, and backrubs. After that, I rarely saw him with a cigarette. But he’d lit up between every meal yesterday, on the drive down today, and now—had he been smoking the entire half hour he’d been in the backyard?
“Always needs to keep his hands busy, that one,” Mom said as she moved pots and pans into the sink. “Especially when he’s nervous.”
Manning had been smoking and moving around non-stop the past few days. Confronting my family might have been his idea, but that didn’t mean it was easy for him. “You can tell?” I asked.
“Sure. He’s spent a lot of time around here. I wouldn’t say he’s easy to read all the time, but he has his moods.” She smiled a little at me. “Wouldn’t you be nervous in his position?”
Manning hadn’t seen much of Tiffany since their divorce, although they spoke now and then. I never stayed in the room for their conversations, but according to him, they didn’t cover much more than formalities. Manning didn’t like hiding our relationship from the people he cared about any more than I did.
Manning moved from a patio chair to what looked like a busted wall sconce. I was still standing at the window when the front door opened and the telltale click of heels crossed the foyer. It happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to call for Manning or even my mother, who had disappeared into the pantry.
I seized the nearest bottle of wine and was already pouring myself a refill as Tiffany walked in. She stopped when she saw me, and I froze mid-pour. Just the island sat between us. Her hair, long and curled, covered the shoulders of a burgundy shrug, and she held a pie tin in her hand. She glanced at my blueberry pie on the countertop and then at me. “You’re spilling wine.”
“Shit.” I set down the bottle and ripped off a paper towel to mop up the overflow.
“I didn’t know you’d be here tonight,” she said. Her short black dress and high heels wouldn’t normally have been out of the ordinary, except that as far as she knew, it was plain old dinner with the family—and Manning and his date.
“Well, I am,” I mumbled, glancing over my shoulder at Manning, who’d left me high and dry when this had been his idea. I willed him to look up and come inside, but he continued to tinker with the lighting fixture.