Page 116 of Must Have Been Love

“What about Cora?” I ask.

“James has her. They’re having some father and daughter time.” She presses her lips together. “And we’re having sister time. Possibly a sibling one if Jesse can make it over.”

“You asked him to join us?” I feel stupidly touched by that. “I thought you didn’t like him.”

“I never said that. I just said I didn’t like the fact that you’d found your home and it wasn’t in California.”

I give her a weak smile. “It turns out I was wrong.”

“Oh honey.” She pulls me into another hug. “Maybe you weren’t wrong. Maybe this situation is.” She takes a deep breath. “Has he called?”

I shake my head.

“That rat bastard.”

“He’s just trying to protect his daughter.” I walk with Lee to the kitchen where she unloads the food she’s brought with her. My stomach gurgles at the sight of the chips. When was the last time I ate? I can’t remember.

But instead of opening them she grabs the whiskey and two glasses, pouring in a generous amount. “Giant’s fingers,” she says. “Two of them.” She passes me one of the glasses.

I stare at it for a moment, trying to figure out how to tell her. “I can’t drink this,” I say, handing it back.

“Of course you can. It tastes like crap but it does the job. And I don’t have to breastfeed for four days, which means I have approximately ninety hours in which to indulge in every vice I can find.” She takes a long sip and then promptly starts coughing.

“Go on,” she says. “The first mouthful is the worst.”

I let out a long breath, looking at my big sister. The one who usually has everything together. She has a job, a husband, a house, a baby. She even did it in the right order.

“I can’t drink whiskey,” I say to her. “Or anything alcoholic, Lee. I’m pregnant.”

* * *

It’s almost ten o’clock. Lee managed one more shot of whiskey before she declared it the drink of the devil and decided to move onto sweet tea. We’re sitting on the porch of the Airbnb I rented for the week, in rocking chairs that make the floorboards beneath us creek every time we move.

We’re only about twenty feet away from the ocean, though there’s no beach here, just cliff and water. The ocean is dark and inky, and Liberty is a little sparkling jewel among the blackness. I’m not good enough at geography to work out exactly where the Captain’s House is on the island, but I know it’s there and I knowhe’sthere.

I feel empty inside. I miss him. I think I might be mourning him.

Mourning the future I thought we’d have together.

“You know you need to tell him,” Lee says out of nowhere. I thought she might be asleep. She left her house in the middle of the night to get here.

“I know.” And I’m not looking forward to it. “I just need to come to terms with it first.”

“How do you think he’ll react?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I guess I see it going one of two ways. Neither of them seem palatable.”

She shifts in her seat, and a squeaking sound comes from the deck boards. “Are you scared he might be mad?”

“That’s option one. And he has every right to be.”

“You have sex, you play the roulette table,” Lee says. “He wasn’t wearing a condom, was he?”

“No.”

“If he was that worried, he would have been. It takes two, Sky.”

“I know.” I swallow hard. “And the weird thing is, that’s not the worst reaction.”

---