Page 91 of F*ck Marriage

“Oh, I didn’t take it to heart. I don’t even have a heart, Woods got that in the divorce.”

There’s a moment of silence before my father’s face cracks into a smile, and then he laughs his famous belly laugh, holding onto the counter for balance. I glance around the room and see that everyone’s smiles are painfully relieved. Billie just did what most of us are incapable of doing: working her way into my father’s heart. I can already tell he’s besotted.

“Let’s go, Billie,” he says, swinging his arm around her shoulders. “I can tell you some shit about our Satcher here, really good shit—embarrassing.”

She winks at me as she allows herself to be led out of the kitchen.

“Who would have thought…?” Julian dries his hands on one of my mother’s dish towels. “All we had to do was insult him back and he’d accept us.”

“Bro, no—” Nora’s husband, Chris, emerges from the fridge holding a beer. “I tried that once and he threatened to kill me.”

We all laugh and then things get quiet. I can hear Billie’s voice from the living room and then my father’s booming reply. They’re quipping back and forth.

“You know she’s not there yet…” Julian is a shrink. He says shrinky things and I want to punch him in the face.

“I’m not in this for her to bethere,” I say. “Not everyone does things with expectations.”

“No, man, no. I know you’re not like that. Beatrice said—”

I cut him off. “I don’t care what Beatrice said. She’s a meddlesome first child. Hands off Billie. She’s not up for discussion.”

“Damn,” I hear Chris say as I leave the kitchen. “He’s really in love with this one.”

I grit my teeth. Isn’t that the truth?

We leave late, after my mother has piled our arms with Tupperware containers of food. The containers are still warm to the touch as I stack them on the backseat.

“They’re going to fall over,” Billie says, coming up behind me.

I stand back to let her arrange them. When she straightens up, she gives me a look that says she’s amused with me.

“Can arrange websites, business modules, and—” I smack her on the butt before she can finish and she yelps playfully. Once we’re on the highway she swivels in her seat to face me and says, “Okay, let’s discuss…”

I glance at her and see that she’s grinning.

“What would you like to discuss?”

“So, I love them,” she says, and suddenly my heart feels huge and warm like someone poured gasoline on it and lit a match. “What? Why do you have that look on your face?” She reaches over and sticks a finger in my dimple.

Instead of pulling her finger away, she keeps it there in the recess of my cheek.

“Heartburn…” I hit my chest with my fist like it’s especially painful.

She reaches into her purse as she speaks the names of my family members, each one sounding like a different key on a piano. As she speaks, she pulls out a bottle of Tums and shakes two of the pastel circles into her palm. I expect her to hand them to me, but she reaches over and puts them between my lips instead. I close my eyes when her fingers touch my mouth, fighting the urge to put them between my lips so I can taste her. She’s babbling on, giving me a rundown of each person in my family.

She ends her little speech with: “And no one agrees with anyone else, but it doesn’t matter. Everyone says their piece and there is so much love. So much.”

I recall her mother in the hospital sitting at her bedside, quiet and stiff. If that’s what she grew up with, my family would definitely be a culture shock: loud, abrasive ... and like she said—full of love.

When I pull into the parking garage underneath my building, Billie is slumped in the passenger seat, asleep, her full lips pursed like she’s asking for a kiss. I watch her for a minute, her breathing steady, her eyelids still. I’ve never been in love, not until her, and I never want to be again—it hurts. Love hurts in the way a toothache hurts: you can’t ignore it, and it’s always there throbbing and aching, reminding you ...of what?I think desperately.What is it reminding you of?

That you’re human. That you have weakness. That your weakness is another person.

Goddammit. I run my hands over my eyes, my cheeks, my chin. This is bad. This is very bad. My ex-girlfriend is having my baby, and I’m in love with a woman who isn’t available. Life has many flaws, but the most prominent of them is the unpredictability.Plot twist!I think as I reach over to wake Billie up. I touch her hand, running my fingers over the puckered skin of her knuckles and saying her name. She breathes deeply and opens her eyes, focusing on me.

“We’re home,” I say.

She smiles faintly, stretching.

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