Page 80 of Drunk on You

“I thought mac ’n’ cheese was Julian’s favorite,” I say when I notice all the meat and veggies spread all over the counter.

“He has a few favorites,” Helen notes with a wink. “When he’s sick, he loves homemade chicken noodle soup—heavy on the noodle, light on the veggies. At barbecues, he loves mac ’n’ cheese with a good burger, but his favorite home-cooked meal is lasagna. So, we’re making lasagna tonight with a salad.”

She washes her hands, so I follow suit.

“Lasagna is actually super easy to make,” she says. “The first thing we want to do is make the tomato sauce.”

When she pulls out a bunch of spices and sets them next to fresh tomatoes, I immediately know I’m in over my head. This woman doesn’t even use tomato sauce out of a jar.

I watch as she adds all the ingredients to a pan, explaining what each one is, as if I’m seriously going to remember this later. Once that’s simmering, she goes about cooking the ground beef. When she notices that I haven’t said a word in several minutes, nor have I attempted to help, she stops what she’s doing and looks at me.

“Ana, are you okay?”

I try to nod, but instead, I shake my head, and then I lose it, right here in my mother-in-law’s kitchen.

She pulls her apron off her and envelops me in a hug, and I cry softly in her arms, not wanting to alert Julian that I’m a sobbing mess.

When I’ve calmed slightly, she sits us at the table and says, “Talk to me, dear.”

“I can’t cook,” I choke out. “I can’t cook or clean or do laundry. I mean, I’m smart. I have a degree and a master’s, and I can do numbers all day, but I can’t even follow along with a simple lasagna recipe while you walk me through it. And the truth is, I don’t want to. I hate cooking. I don’t find it fun or enjoyable, and I have no desire to do it,” I admit, the words flowing out like a therapeutic river.

“Oh, Ana. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It wasn’t you.” I sniffle. “It’s me. I wasn’t supposed to be a wife or a mom. I was meant to run numbers, and now …” I shake my head, not ready to admit that I’m pregnant yet. Julian should be the first person I tell. “I’m not good at this, I don’t want to be good at this, and Julian deserves to have a wife who’s good at this. I’m going to suck at it, and he’s going to resent me, and I’ll resent him right back, and where will that leave us?”

Helen hands me a tissue, and I wipe my face and blow my nose.

“You don’t suck at anything,” Helen says kindly. “But regardless, my son is in love with you, and that’s not going to change over who cooks and cleans.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I agree noncommittally as more thoughts fill my head, like, Who’s going to stay home with the baby?

My mom raised me with very little help from the nannies, and while I didn’t mind the nannies, my fondest memories are of the time spent with my mom.

Can I give it all up, everything I’ve wanted for my future, to be the mom this baby deserves?

And what about Julian? This is exactly what my dad was talking about when he said he wanted to hire a family man. Someone who knows how to balance work and family. Something neither of us knows how to do.

With the flooding of thoughts and questions, I start to cry again, my emotions in overdrive. Helen hugs me tightly, telling me everything will be okay, and once I’ve gotten myself together, we make dinner. And by we, I mean she makes it, and I watch while we talk about nothing of substance.

By the time dinner is ready, I barely look like I’ve been crying, yet from the look on Julian’s face, I can tell he suspects something is wrong. The way he’s in tune with my thoughts and emotions is kind of crazy.

Thankfully, he doesn’t comment on it, and we have a nice dinner with delicious lasagna, garlic bread, and salad. After dessert, we say our goodbyes and head home. And when I tell Julian that I’m tired and I’m going to head to bed, he insists on joining me.

As I fall asleep in his arms, I vow to figure this out soon. Julian and I are both so much like my dad, and I can’t allow what happened with my parents to happen to us.

chapter thirty-one

ANASTASIA

“Hey, Josie. Is Julian in his office?”

He’s been in back-to-back meetings all day, but I’m hoping to catch him to see about leaving early tonight so we can talk. I’ve decided that I’m going to tell him about the baby tonight. And then I’m going to tell my dad that I’m taking a step back. Being a mom isn’t what I planned for, but now that it’s happening, I want to be the best mom I can be. The same way my mom was to me.

“He should be,” she says as I stride past her desk and straight toward his office.

His door is slightly ajar, and before I knock to let him know I’m coming in, in case he’s in a meeting, I hear my father’s voice, halting me in place.

“I know you’re just the man for the job,” Dad says as I peek in and watch him extend his hand to Julian.

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