Hi all.
I know I've been away a while. Long story. Short version is my grandma passed away and the weeks before and after have been...a lot. I've missed writing and reading and I'm hoping to be back (to both) soon. It felt really damned good to get a chapter edited tonight. I need normalcy again.
"Well," Florence said as she leaned against the doorframe and looked from the bathroom to the bedroom, "I'm not pregnant. That's the good news."
Sylvester was studying himself in the mirror above the dresser. It was Vasectomy Day. He'd already done the consult, and they had been able to get him in just a few days later. "What's the bad news?" He turned to look at her and immediately answered his own question. "Oh no, cramps?"
"You sort of forget how bad they are when you go years without having them." She closed her eyes, resting her head against the doorframe. "I took about twelve Tylenol but if I don't start with that before they do, they take forever to go away."
"I will go ahead and assume you can't drive me to the procedure," he said, "and will call Happy. She's also off today."
"No, no," she said, "I can take you."
"Please do not take this the wrong way, Lori, but you don't look like you're in condition to go anywhere."
"Sly, we go about our lives all the time when this is going on."
"And it's ridiculous that you're expected to," he said. "Trust me. It's fine."
Her face softened. "You have to call me as soon as you're done."
"It's not a dangerous procedure," Sylvester said, "but I sure will." He cocked his head at her. "But will you be okay? By yourself today?"
She gave him a thin smile. "Not my first rodeo." He came over to kiss her forehead, and she grabbed one of his hands. "Please though," she said. "Call me when you're out."
"What kind of appointment is it?" Tad asked. "Uncle Sylvester?"
"I'm going to get a vasectomy," Sylvester said. "So Aunt Florence and I do not have any more kids."
"Why?" Ellie asked.
"Because we have a perfect little girl in Tilly and we know we would never have another child as perfect as her."
"Ha – ha," Ellie said. "I was born because Tad wasn't perfect."
"No," Tad said, "you were born because I was so good they wanted a sequoia."
"A sequoia?" Sylvester said to Happy.
"He means 'sequel'," Happy said. "I'm ignoring it because we know for a fact he's making that mistake on purpose to annoy us. Toby's suggested we pretend we don't notice."
"Do you have kids with Aunt Megan?" Ellie asked.
"No, stupid," Tad said. "Where are they?"
"Tad," Happy warned.
"No," Sylvester said. "No children with Aunt Megan. She was very sick all the time and we never talked about it."
"She went to space and died," Tad said.
Sylvester noticed Happy glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. "No," he said. "The other way around. When she died we sent her ashes up to space."
"Do you miss her?" Ellie asked.
"Yes," Sylvester said. "I love her very much."
"As much as you love Aunt Florence?" Tad asked.
"Yes, Taddy."
"Oh. So like a lot."
Sylvester smiled. "Yes, that's right."
"Kids," Happy said. "Can we be a little less intense back there?"
"Uncle Sly?" Tad asked.
"Yes, bud?"
"If Aunt Megan came back alive would you divorce Aunt Florence and marry her again?"
"Fortunately," Sylvester said, "that is not a situation we will ever find ourselves in."
"You," Happy said through gritted teeth as she looked at her friend, "are a goddamned saint."
Florence heard Sylvester come home. Heard him set things down. Heard the jingle of his keys. They were all familiar sounds, and they were comforting to her as she lay in bed trying to convince her uterus not to kill her. "Hey," she said, her voice sounding crackly, as he walked inside the bedroom. "How'd it go?" He'd said he was fine in the text he'd sent, but she wanted to hear it from him.
"Perfectly," he said. I have to wear the compression shorts for a few days and ice the area. But it was fine. Just twelve minutes."
"Good."
"How do you feel?" He asked.
"Gross," she said. "So gross."
"I have to get the bag of frozen peas," Sylvester said, "but do you mind if I join you?"
"Of course I don't mind," she said with a smile. She held up the bottle she'd been holding in her hand for the past hour. "I've even got the Tylenol."
"Well look at that perfect setup," he said with a smile.
While he went and got the peas, Florence went to the bathroom for what seemed like the millionth time that morning. And also for the millionth time that morning, using the bathroom didn't make her feel any better.
She found her way back to the bed and crawled onto it, shifting the heating pad back into place, just as Sylvester re – entered the room. He eased onto the bed, laying on his back and placing the peas close to the same place on his body as the heating pad was on hers. "Look. At. Us." She said, shaking her head. "This is a sad picture."
He chuckled. "It is, isn't it?"
She rolled over to face him. "It's like how they say you can't know what being kicked in the nuts AND what menstrual cramps feel like. And here we are, together possessing the collective knowledge of both experiences in real time."
"You just made that sad picture seem even sadder."
It was her turn to laugh. "This reminds me of when we were all quarantined for the coronavirus and we somehow managed to sleep for two days straight and Toby did a welfare check."
"At least in this case we both should be feeling better in less than that amount of time. Though we're still getting checked up on, Happy's coming over tomorrow. She's making Toby promise that he can't make any neutering jokes."
She raised an eyebrow. "Am I allowed to make any neutering jokes?"
"Also no."
She snapped her fingers, feigning disappointment. "Rats. I get restricting Toby, he can be a little much, but you'd think with your wife it'd be a whole different ball game."
Sylvester put his hand over his eyes. "Oh my God."
"Come on that was pretty good, you have to admit."
"Quality of your jokes make no deferens to me."
Florence snorted, then put her hands over her mouth. Sylvester tipped his head toward her, grinning. "Am I allowed to make menstrual cramp jokes?"
"Can you think of any?"
"No, but I'm sure I'll think of something at some point. You're easy to get to laugh so I shouldn't have to think very hard."
"I'd smack you, but surgery."
"They didn't do surgery on my entire bod – ow!" Sylvester yelped when she reached out and play slapped him on the cheek. He scooted closer to her, swatting at her shoulder. She smirked, her hand holding the heating pad in place. "You still look kinda pale, Lori."
"This is going to be my face for the next approximately twenty hours. Love it or leave it. I also think I did something to my back earlier when I was throwing up into the bathtub, so that's fun."
"You should probably ice it," he said, reaching around her to run his hand down her back, pausing right over the spot where it hurt. "Little spoon?"
"Oh," she said, "that's mighty fine multitasking." She smiled. "That's not doing to hurt you?"
"I mean, I'd prefer it if you don't start twerking."
"I would also prefer that." She rolled over, and they shifted until her back was against his belly, the makeshift ice pack cooling the both of them. Sylvester's arm was around her, resting on her hand which held the heating pack in place.
"My belly should be so big right now," she said.
He was quiet for so long she began to doubt she'd said it out loud. But then he spoke. "Aching feet, swollen ankles, constant back ache…"
"I know," she said. That didn't help. But she appreciated his attempts to make her feel better.
So maybe it did help.
She must have fallen asleep, because the next time she looked at the clock, it was three hours later, and the ice pack was becoming less solidified. The heating pad had also clicked off, but the medication was starting to kick in. She felt a little better. In body and in mind.
She rolled over, careful not to jostle Sylvester's incision, and shifted up on the bed until they were eye to eye. "I fell asleep."
He nodded. "Me, too."
She smiled, reaching a hand out to rest on his cheek. They stared at each other, silently, for what she swore was another three hours, and then she leaned in and kissed him on the forehead.
Then he kissed her on the cheek.
Then they kissed each other on the lips.
She scooted closer, he wrapped his arms around her, she kept her legs bent at the knee and angled backward to make sure she didn't accidentally bump him where he hurt. They kissed so deeply and for so long both of them gasped when they needed air, and then they kissed again.
And then she rested her forehead against his. "Sly, I know I haven't said this in a very long time." Florence squeezed her eyes shut, fearing she might cry. "But I love you. I love you so damn much."
