And it felt heavy.
Violet didn’t say anything as she got dressed, they walked out together and she made an appointment with the scheduler on the way out as she’d been instructed, and they didn’t speak again until they were in the car.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Everything went as expected.”
Except, he hadn’t actually known what to expect. Because he just didn’t... He didn’t know what the hell all this was about. And he didn’t really know what to feel about it. What to think about it.
“It feels more real now,” she said. “July fifteenth.”
He cleared his throat and started the truck engine. “About when I was thinking.”
He had not been thinking. Not at all. He hadn’t projected any sort of math. He hadn’t...anything. On anything.
“That gives us time.”
“The cabin’s not good enough,” he said.
“The cabin is fine,” she said.
“It’s not. I got to start building an add-on. Hell, we gotta modernize the whole place. I don’t know how the hell old the electrical is in that. Can’t babies get electrocuted by chewing on wires?”
“Babies are not mice,” Violet said. “I think it’s from sticking their fingers into the sockets. But also, he isn’t going to be born mobile.”
“Doesn’t matter. There’s a lot of stuff to take care of. I should probably head back to Four Corners as soon as possible. I have to make some plans.”
She put her hand on his thigh. “It’s fine, Wolf.”
“Look, I can’t cook the baby. I don’t have any control over that. But I can make sure that the house is ready. I can make sure that we have everything we need.”
“Right.”
“We should get married soon,” he said.
“I agree. My mom... My stepmom... She wants us to have a real wedding. But it doesn’t actually matter to me. I don’t care about weddings. I just... I just want to get started with our life.”
“Same.”
“But let’s just chill. We don’t need to freak out. We can spend a few days here. My family is expecting us now. And I’m enjoying being here around Christmastime. I’m happy to spend Christmas with your family...”
“Well, as far as my family goes they don’t really do much for Christmas. So...”
“You don’t think it’s going to be different now with your sister-in-law?”
“Oh, I’m sure it will be,” he said.
“Well, maybe I’ll enjoy that. Being there at the start of new traditions.”
Traditions. Andbabies. Andfamily. It was a hell of a thing.
It was a whole different set of vocabulary words to the ones he was used to.
Every night that week her entire family had been at dinner. Her uncles, her aunts, the little cousins, but tonight it was him sitting around the dinner table with her stepmother, her dad and the two little half brothers.
It felt... It felt as disconcerting as the doctor appointment, quite frankly.
“When Violet was really little,” her dad said, “she used to hold her breath until she about turned blue if she didn’t think she was going to get her way. And that is why I ended up calling her Violet Beauregarde the Blueberry. After Willy Wonka. And that’s why she’s Bo.”