Page 83 of Mismatched

Once he’s in her arms, he visibly relaxes, nestling into her chest. She closes her eyes, stroking his hair. Anton looks on next to me with a tranquil smile. I step back toward the door.

“Um, we’ll leave you if you’re going to—” I gesture around, trying to indicate things I’d rather not think of. Breastfeeding, diapers.

“You look tired, Lydia. You should go lie down.” I’m actually grateful to hear my sister’s more-familiar patronizing voice. It’s almost soothing. At least I know how to respond to it.

“I’ll do that,” I say, grateful for the excuse to hide from our mom. “Don’t wait up for me for dessert. I’ll have pie for breakfast.”

Celia’s eyes fall on my husband as she settles back in the rocking chair and starts pulling at her shirt. “Thanks again for your help, Uncle Anton.”

He nods. “Guess I’m going to need the practice.”

I’m in the next room, what must be our bedroom judging from the suitcases, before he finishes the sentence. The furnishings aren’t nearly as welcoming as the nursery, but the sleek, modern bed has a fluffy duvet which I climb under, trying to bury myself.

Anton closes the door and comes to settle beside me. And I guess this ought to feel comforting, but I’m surprised to find myself wishing he’d leave. I just want to close my eyes and make everything go away. I want to be back in Denver, with my dog and my job, with no more big announcements or major life events coming at me. I just wish things could be normal again.

“That didn’t really go the way I thought it would,” Anton says after a while.

“Yes it did,” I say into the pillow. “It was always going to go like that.”

He doesn’t seem to know what to say to this. Instead, he climbs under the covers with me, and we lie there a long time, until the last of the daylight fades and the room has gone dark.

Eventually, I sneak out to go to the bathroom, because pregnancy. I’m not sure what time it is, but I’m surprised to find the whole house quiet and dark. I’m actually starving now that the worst of the drama is over, but not enough to risk running into my mother downstairs. There’s every chance she’s lingering with a glass of wine somewhere.

Instead, I slip back into our room, removing my sweatshirt, leggings, and bra because I am now a furnace. Quietly, I slide back under the covers in my T-shirt and underwear, trying not to disturb Anton. But as I curl up next to him, seeking the reassurance of his steady breathing, his hand drifts lazily over, gently caressing my thigh.

I close my eyes. Wishing we were back in our own house, in our bed. Anton shifts closer, continuing to explore the way I wished he had yesterday. Sliding his hand over my hip and along my arm. Brushing my T-shirt lightly where my nipples stand out against the fabric. And as he does, the heat inside me reignites. My already-warm skin grows hotter, liquid arousal shooting through my core, bringing back that strong, insistent ache between my legs. My thighs clench together, and I know I’m ready for him. I don’t even need to check. I am slick and hot and yearning, no other foreplay necessary.

The problem is, this is not me. This isn’t who I am. I’ve always had to work at intimacy—with Anton’s help. Touching, exploring, warming me up. It’s become part of our process, something we’ve learned how to do. If we get my body started, then my brain will get on board. And I can tell that’s what he’s trying to do. But something has short-circuited. He’s hardly touched me, barely looked at me, and here I am, nearly ready to come.

I pull away, roll into the covers on the far side of the bed. As if, somehow, I could escape myself. Get away from this new, strange body that feels and acts nothing like my own. Once I am fully cocooned, wrapped up in the sheets like a mummy, not baring an inch of skin, I register the distinct lack of other movement. The silence in the room.

And I realize too late what I’ve done. Anton reached for me. I’ve been dying for him to touch me for weeks, and he finally did, but I pulled away. Shut him down. Rejected him exactly the way I always used to.

I open my mouth in the dark, trying to find words, to help him understand.

Except I can’t. I don’t even know myself.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Denver welcomes us home with cold and ice. The mild weather, so perfect for giving thanks and feeling grateful, was chased away by plunging temperatures and a frost advisory, coating the roads and the air on Black Friday with a bitter layer of ice.

Our flight didn’t make it in until eleven thirty, and by the time Anton and I navigate the holiday crowds in the concourse, take the underground train to the terminal, and trudge all the way out to the farthest walkable parking lot, it’s nearly midnight.

The sound of my suitcase wheels grinding across the pavement might be permanently ingrained in my ears, but at least it means there are a thousand miles between my family and me.

“Go ahead and start the car. I’ll load the suitcases,” Anton says, opening up the back of my Toyota. I think that’s more words than he’s said since we left Ohio.

He had gone for a run before I got up for breakfast, but returned in time to shower for my mother’s photo shoot. She came over early to rearrange my sister’s furniture, then determined she needed to be at the center of every portrait, as the family “matriarch.” Celia had to change Gabriel’s outfit twice to meet her specifications, but Mom didn’t say a word about my fluttery gray maternity top. Just eyed me up and down with a smug smile that seemed to say now it’s your turn.

Dr. Adam got an emergency call just as the photographer got started, so we wound up with a bunch of awkward photos of Celia and Gabe flanking our mom on one side, and Anton and me on the other. All of us little farther from each other than looked natural. For about half the session, the photographer joked about us pretending to like each other in an effort to move us closer together, but I think he eventually gave up.

There were a lot of teeth, and no smiles. Except from the baby. When he wasn’t screaming.

The whole car shudders as Anton slams the liftgate and climbs in the passenger seat. I can still see my breath under the dome light, but he got the ice scraper out and cleared the windshield, and the defroster is doing its job.

“Are you too tired? Do you want me to drive?” he asks.

I shake my head, pulling out of the parking space, honestly invigorated now that the Ohio trip is behind us. The Pooches are closed for the holiday weekend, so I’ll take a couple days to recover, but Henry and I have an expansion meeting Monday morning, and I plan to hit the ground running.

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