The last words Anthony had spoken to Edith were the most regrettable he would ever speak. I fucked Maude. Now, five months later, his next words were not much better.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
Edith's jaw set defiantly, and her hand traveled the breadth of her stomach, but she said nothing.
"Were you going to tell me at some point or wait until a stranger came knocking on my door to ask for a kidney?"
Anthony could hear himself shouting but he couldn't cool the anger that drove him on.
"What, exactly, do you think I owe to you?" Edith finally asked softly.
"Owe me?!" Anthony blustered. "That's my child in there, is it not?"
"Of the two of us, I am not the one who is disloyal," Edith sniffed, pulling her cardigan around her and folding her arms across her chest which—he hated himself for noticing—had grown considerably.
"Jesus Christ," Anthony huffed, drawing his palms over his face. His instinct told him to bolt until he could compartmentalize this unpleasantness and enjoy some blissful detachment again. Edith's expression suggested she was waiting for him to do just that.
Instead, and to their mutual shock, Anthony strode forward and caught up Edith in a massive hug. She didn't reciprocate, but he didn't know what else to say or do.
"Were you going to do it all alone?" he finally asked, trying to sort out what she was thinking. To this, she stiffened and pushed him away.
"What choice did I have?"
"Choice?" Anthony squeaked, lost.
"Not really interested in sharing custody with you and her," Edith said coolly.
Anthony shrank back at that. There was so much they didn't know about one another, and so much that needed to be sorted out. He was overwhelmed with it suddenly.
"We were never together," Anthony tried to explain. He wanted Edith to know that it was never about Maude, that he needed only Edith, always. Too cowardly to throw himself at her feet, he turned the tables instead. "I thought you were on birth control."
"Yes, well, you of all people should know it isn't perfectly reliable, Doctor."
The room was heavy with tension, and not the pleasant magnetic kind that used to hum between them. It was a tension borne of so much hurt, so many disappointed hopes.
"I'm sorry," Anthony finally said.
"Yes, well," Edith mumbled.
The whole situation was sorry.
They stood in silence for a time, Edith staring at the floor and Anthony staring at his child housed within her.
"How far along?" he finally asked.
"I'm due in January."
"Oh."
Edith looked at Anthony for the briefest moment with watery eyes, but just as soon as he had noticed them, she turned away. "Alright, I'd like you to leave please," she said.
"I'll go, Edith, but I'm not leaving. I'm staying in town and I'm going to be back tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. I have a lot of things I need to say to you."
"I don't want to hear them."
"I don't really want to say them. But I have to. It's about more than the two of us now," he added, feeling a bit guilty for playing that card so heavily.
Edith's sadness turned back to ire in a flash. "Don't you darelecture me."
With that, she stormed past Anthony, leaving him to show himself out.
The next morning, Anthony was shown to the dining room where Edith was eating some fruit and cereal. She ignored him completely, and the housekeeper left quickly to flee the awkwardness.
"How are you feeling?" he asked timidly. When she didn't respond, he moved closer to the table. "I don't really know where to begin, but I know I'd like to try."
Edith sighed but still said nothing and wouldn't look at him.
"I have to try," he said again. "I have to understand what happened. Because I don't understand, Edith. We started with such a sense of…" he struggled. "Of commonality. And somehow the walls came back up. I had mine, and I think I built yours as well. I want to undo whatever it is that I did. There's so much we don't know about each other."
"I know you better than anyone," Edith grumbled.
"Yes, well, that's not saying much," was his reply.
"What do you want me to say Anthony? I have so much anger for what you did, and what I did, I don't know where to begin. And I don't want my baby to grow up with a bitter mother."
"Our baby," Anthony said softly, daring to take the seat next to Edith.
"I'm not afraid to do this alone. I'm actually tempted to think it might be easier."
"Maybe," Anthony agreed. "But when have we made things easy?" Flirting was natural to them, and he noted her smile briefly before it faded again. Talking about the baby seemed safe enough territory so he tried again. "Do you feel it move?"
Edith shrugged, clearly reluctant to share details. "I'm almost to my third trimester."
"Did you have morning sickness?"
"Nothing too terrible. More of a constant low-grade nausea than anything."
For every little crumb she dropped, Anthony felt a tinge of relief. Any progress was to be celebrated.
"Do you know the gender?" he tried.
Edith sighed heavily and rose from the table. "When did this all get so complicated?" she asked. "You and I have always been a little off-kilter, but I never thought we'd be like this."
"I think maybe it's not so bad," Anthony said.
Edith laughed at that. Now her usual airy laugh of pure joy, it was bitter and a little sad.
"What have you been doing these past months?" Anthony asked, but Edith didn't even seem to hear him as she picked up her dishes and brought them through to the kitchen. "I have been working of course," Anthony said, following behind, "And I, I've been in AA."
Edith turned at that, unable to hide her surprise.
"It was a real bitch of a time, if I'm honest. At first. But I'm sober three months now. It's not even the drink I miss, really, so much as the not thinking. My therapist seems to think I have anxiety and depression which any fool could probably have figured, but I was too thick to understand. He also thinks I need to forgive my parents and forgive myself and that I'm carrying a bit of anger around."
Edith's arched eyebrow stopped Anthony's rambling.
"I know, I know. I'm an idiot you know, always have been," Anthony replied.
Still Edith remained silent. She didn't say anything as he rambled about his recovery, his recognition of reliance on the habit of drink, or his deep regrets about his emotional constipation (though she did scoff at that).
Anthony followed Edith around the house like a ghost, quietly but earnestly shedding himself of everything he'd ever buried within. He told her of his confusion over love, romantic and platonic, as he'd never experienced it properly from his parents. He told her of long-forgotten childhood dreams, the scar on his knee from an attempt at cricket, the embarrassment of losing his virginity. Anthony confessed to Edith that he never cared for brussels sprouts but ate them anyway whenever she cooked them. He did, however, love her morning buns and missed them terribly whenever she was away. "And that is not a euphemism," he added, causing her to giggle.
Every chink Anthony created in Edith's armor seemed massive, but she appeared to cover them up as quickly as he created them. One step forward, two steps back.
By three o'clock, Edith was at a drawing table in an upstairs library, trying to complete some sketches. Anthony was sitting in the windowsill, talking about the time he'd been propositioned by a prostitute in a bar in Amsterdam and was too dull to realize what was happening. "I had a newfound appreciation for "Norwegian Wood" after that night, I'll tell you."
Edith let out a little growl and slapped her pencil to the table. "You're very annoying," she snapped.
"I understand," Anthony said gravely, taking in her flushed cheeks and new roundness and the glow of her hair in the afternoon sun.
"You don't deserve to unload all your shit on me, you know."
"I know," Anthony sighed, "But I am going to keep annoying you until we have nothing left to wonder about. And I hope you'll unload too. We need to talk, Edith. Even if it is about Dutch hookers for now. Because this thing is worth it. Nothing we had is worth giving up on."
Edith sighed. "Sometimes I think maybe we were just a delusion. I wanted so badly to be understood, and you were so lonely. Maybe we were an idea."
"Maybe," Anthony said, and Edith looked a little wounded. "But then I think about that terrible party your parents threw, and how I felt when I saw you, and I know it was real."
Edith shrugged and sighed before standing. "I'm really tired. I'm going to take a nap," she said, gesturing toward the door. Anthony rose.
"I'll go. We could probably both use some rest now."
They walked to the landing in silence, pausing where Anthony would go downstairs for the front door and Edith would turn left for her room. "Thank you," Anthony said. "Sleep well." He eyed Edith's belly, longing to touch the foreign, strange thing. He wouldn't dare.
Edith nodded, turned, and Anthony watched her go for a moment before heading down the stairs. He was a few steps down when Edith said, "Anthony?" He turned, saw her wrestling with herself. "You'll be back tomorrow?
Anthony's chest nearly burst with triumph, but he simply said, "I will."
As soon as Edith was in the safety of her room she heaved a deep breath. She was alarmed at how easy it was, having him there at her side again. They didn't move with the same familiarity they had once done, but there was something homey about him, about his voice. There was an uneasiness in her, though, as if it was a farce. Like a stranger in an Anthony suit. Or perhaps it was herself she didn't know. Aching with sleepiness, Edith climbed into the broad, soft bed and pulled the covers up over her shoulders. Afternoon naps were the new norm, and as usual, as soon as Edith was still her baby began pushing and rolling against her. Such a strange sensation, the tugging and stretching of little limbs, the third stranger in the equation.
Edith hated herself for asking him to come back. She'd spent months building up the courage to be alone, picturing a life with just her and her baby against the world. Now, a palm against her baby's nudges, that life was seeming less ideal.
But then Edith remembered that night, the look on Maude's face, and her stomach turned thinking of what they'd done.
"What a mess," she muttered before exhaustion took over and she fell asleep.