JENNIE
"Do you want to grab pizza at the bar for dinner?" Lisa asked. "Or hit the diner for a burger?"
I took in her profile from the passenger seat. She was driving my Tahoe, relaxed and sexy behind the wheel. Her hair had grown out in the last two months since she'd come back.
The sweater she'd pulled on this morning was bunched up, revealing her forearms. Her wrist hung carelessly over the steering wheel while her large fingers dangled above the dash. The sight of her in that seat, driving me around, was one I'd never get sick of.
She looked over and raised an eyebrow. Busted. I drooled over her a lot these days and most times she caught me.
I smiled but didn't look away. "Let's just go home."
Over the last two months, Lisa and I had been playing house. From the outside, we looked like a happy couple blissfully awaiting the arrival of our twins. The inside wasn't far off from that image either.
Lisa had even lifted her ban on socializing. She took me to the bar to hang with Rosé and Jisoo on the weekends when they were working. When I didn't feel like cooking, we went to the only other restaurant in town, Dave's Diner. And on occasion, Lisa and I would drive to town for dinner at a nice restaurant.
Just like she'd done for our first date.
She'd flirted with me over candlelight and pasta at this quaint Italian restaurant. Then she'd taken me to a movie. It was simple and sweet, a cliché even. Dinner and a movie. Lisa hadn't planned anything extravagant or over-the-top. She'd just planned an evening where I was the center of her attention.
It was the best date I'd had in my life, and I'd had a near-constant smile on my face ever since. There hadn't been another time in my life when I'd felt so cherished.
Lisa cherished me.
I forced my eyes away from her beautiful profile and looked outside to the trees covered with ice crystals. My first winter in Montana hit earlier than normal for the region. It was only the middle of October and every day this past week had been below freezing. We hadn't gotten a huge snowfall yet, but the thought of it made me shiver.
Lisa saw my shoulders shimmy and turned up the heat on my side of the car.
Cherished. I wasn't all that cold, but I left the dial alone.
"What do you want for dinner?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Whatever. We can just scrounge around for leftovers."
I rubbed my belly. I didn't look pregnant yet, just more like I'd eaten too many large meals for the last month. Which, of course, I had. Now that I was past the first trimester, my appetite had come back with a vengeance. I'd gained all the weight I'd lost from my months of puking and surviving on saltine crackers.
"I'm hungry."
Lisa chuckled and reached into one of the bags she'd put on the floor behind her seat. Her hand came back holding a granola bar. Then shs dug around and found a bottle of chocolate milk.
"Where did you get these?"
"I went to the little coffee shop in the mall."
"You went to the coffee shop? When?"
"While you were trying on your hundredth pair of maternity jeans."
"Ahh." I nodded and tore into the wrapper of the bar. "Good thinking."
"Gotta make sure you're fed every hour, on the hour. Like a bear."
I just smiled and tore open the wrapper. A minute later, the bar was gone and I was still hungry. We'd gone to the doctor for an exam and ultrasound today, then gone to the mall to shop for nursery things. I'd spent an hour in the dressing room of the one and only maternity store, getting acquainted with more spandex than I'd owned in my life. With all the activity, I was famished.
"How much do you want to bet that my mom overnights us a package of blue onesies?"
Lisa reached across the console and took my hand, threading her fingers in mine. "She already did."
"What? When? We just found out we were having boys three hours ago."
I'd called my parents right after we'd left the doctor's office. And though my mother was surely best friends with the clerks at the shipping store by now, I was certain even she couldn't get something to Montana from Los Angeles in under three hours.
Lisa's thumb stroked the back of mine. "She sent me a box the size of Texas last week full of boy and girl clothes, along with a note to hide it from you until today. Then I could give you the right ones and send the rest back."
With my free hand, I clutched my heart. Not only was my mom incredibly thoughtful, but I loved that she and Lisa talked. She talked to my dad too. And my brother. It wasn't for long stretches, but they all knew her and on occasion, they'd chat if she answered my phone or we called them together.
"We should try your mom again," I suggested. "You can tell her about the mini toolboxes you found."
They were by far the cutest toys I'd ever seen. The boys wouldn't be able to play with them for a while, but Lisa had bought them from the toy store anyway.
"Maybe I should have waited on those," she muttered.
"Why?"
"No reason."
There was a reason. Lisa was worried that something bad might happen to the babies. I'd caught her lost in thought many times over the last two months. I'd find her in the nursery, holding a white baby bootie or a soft blanket, staring blankly at a wall. She'd be completely lost in her own head, battling her fears.
Every time, I did the only thing I could think of.
I hugged her.
Not once had I promised her that everything would be okay. Life was unpredictable and harsh—something she understood better than anyone.
"Call her." I knew talking to her mom would help ease some of her fears.
Suzanne Manoban had become a solid presence in our lives. I'd never met the woman. I'd never seen her picture, so I had no idea what she looked like. But she'd become one of the most important people in my life.
Because she was so important to Lisa.
She called her every day, trying to make up for the years lost. She talked to her about the babies and her work. She'd introduced her to me on a phone call the day after she'd told me about Shannon and their daughter.
Lisa brought up her phone on the Tahoe's system. She drove it so often, it was basically her vehicle. Whenever I had to go down to Jisoo's house for work, she drove me and would then come and pick me up. She took me to dinner or to the grocery store. Rosé teased me about being the only person in Livingston who had a chauffeur.
The sound of a dial tone filled the cab. We'd tried Suzanne after leaving the doctor's office but hadn't gotten ahold of her. I was afraid we'd miss her again when the fourth ring came, but at the last second, she answered.
"Hello," she panted.
"Hey, Mom. You busy?"
"Hey! No, I was just out in the garage, putting the flower pots away before it snows."
Lisa frowned. "I should have done that for you when I was there."
"The mums were still blooming. And it's not like I haven't done it before."
"Sorry." Lisa tightened her grip on the steering wheel. I'd lost count of her apologies these last two months.
"Hi, Suzanne," I chimed so she'd know I was there.
"Jennie! What a nice surprise. So . . . did you guys find out?"
I smiled and looked at Lisa. She was smiling too as she delivered the good news. "Boys."
"Boys!" Suzanne cheered. "Twin boys. Having two kids is so much fun."
My head tilted to the side, replaying her words. Suzanne sounded like she knew what it was like to have two kids, but as far as I knew, Lisa was an only child.
I opened my mouth to ask, but Lisa cut me off.
"Sounds like you're busy, Mom. I'll let you go and call you later."
"No, I'm—"
She hung up on her. Her eyes stayed glued to the road as I gaped at her. With one push of a button, she'd thrown a wet blanket on the special day.
In so many ways, she'd been remarkable these past couple of months. She was opening up and talking more. She didn't brood or sulk like the person I'd met this summer. When we hadn't seen one another for a few hours, she'd seek me out.
She'd come into my office and say hello. If I was cooking dinner, she was sitting across from me at the island, listening to me talk about work. Each night, we'd sit on the couch together, watching television, and when I'd inevitably fall asleep an hour into a movie or show, she'd carry me to bed.
In so many ways we were a couple. We didn't have sex. We didn't kiss. But Lisa touched me often. She held my hand. She massaged my shoulders or my feet when I was tired. She was still the rugged mountain person I'd fallen for, but she was showing me her softer side, the one that was caring and attentive and present.
Things would have been perfect, except for the fact that she didn't trust me. She was holding something back.
Which meant I was holding back something too. My heart.
How could I trust her with my heart when she didn't trust me with her past? How could I love her completely when she kept her secrets locked away?
I'd let myself believe that my marriage had been blissful and happy, ignoring the problems piling up at Kai's and my feet. I wasn't doing that again.
I'd given Lisa time—two months, to be exact. I'd been patient, hoping that the rest of her confession would come. But after this long, I was giving up hope. There were times when Lisa would talk to her mother in hushed whispers from the guest room. Just like now, she never let me speak to her for long. Whatever she was hiding had everything to do with her family.
What had happened to them? Why had she disappeared to the mountain for three years?
I refused to beg for answers. Refused.
I'd asked once and she'd blown me off. She'd hung up on her mother to shut me out. Well, I was fairly adept at staying silent too.
I slipped my hand out of Lisa's and crossed my arms over my chest. As I turned to the side window, she just sighed.
But did she speak up? No. She just drove us to my house.
When she parked, I didn't wait for her to open my door like she usually did. I pushed it open myself and hurried inside. I went to the kitchen pantry and dug around my cracker stash for another snack.
My mouth was full, chomping angrily on Cheese Nips, when she came through the door. Her arms were overloaded from our shopping haul.
"Seriously?" I rolled my eyes, swallowing my bite. "Take two trips."
"I can get it all in one."
"Whatever." I shoved more crackers in my mouth.
Lisa would do just about anything to avoid multiple trips from the car. When we got groceries, she'd load up every single plastic bag on her forearms, then cradle a gallon of milk and a box of ginger ale against her chest. She risked my groceries' well-being on a regular basis because she didn't want to take two trips.
She took the bags down the hall to deliver them to my bedroom and the nursery. I continued to work out my frustration with her by eating.
When Lisa returned to the kitchen, an apology was written on her face. "She was busy."
I glared at her, telling her exactly what I thought about her bullshit excuse. "You have to give me something, Lisa."
"I'm trying." She braced her hands on the counter. "Things are complicated with my family."
"And things were complicated with me, but I told you everything. I opened up to you about all of that stuff with Kai."
She cringed at my ex-husband's name but didn't say anything.
"Fine." I went back to the pantry in search of more food.
The space was big enough I could stand inside the door. I was scanning the cabinets for something sweet when two strong arms wrapped around my shoulders and the heat from Lisa's hard chest pressed against my back.
"Ask me something," she said softly.
"No."
"Please."
I sighed. "Why didn't you talk to your mom for three years?"
"Ask me something else," she murmured into my hair.
Disappointment settled on my shoulders, but she didn't let me go. So I asked another one of my unanswered questions. "Where is your dad? You never talk about him."
"He and Mom got divorced when I was just a kid. He was a good dad when he lived in Bozeman, but then he moved. He worked for a company that did some development overseas. He was living and traveling through Asia a lot but did his best to call and check in. It was just too expensive for him to come home and visit much. When I was thirteen, he got pancreatic cancer. He died eight months later."
"I'm sorry." My heart broke for her, and I wished I hadn't asked.
"It was a long time ago." She let me go, and I followed her out of the pantry.
All of the skeletons in Lisa's closet caused her pain. Did she have any pleasant memories from her past? Because I couldn't think of a single happy story she'd told me from her youth.
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay." She shrugged. "If I didn't want to talk about it, I wouldn't have told you."
No kidding. I'd figured that out the hard way. When Lisa wanted to avoid a topic, she did so wholeheartedly.
"So . . . dinner?" I asked.
She held out her hand. "Take a walk with me first."
I placed my palm in her and let her guide me to the door. I hadn't bothered to take off my coat or my shoes when I'd come inside, so we went right out into the cold. I gripped her hand harder as we started down the path between our houses. My heels weren't ideal for traipsing in the forest.
Lisa grumbled, letting go of my hand so she could take my arm. "You and your damn heels."
"I like to look cute for the doctor."
"You're always beautiful, no matter what you wear. I don't know why we need to risk breaking your neck with those extra three inches."
I leaned into her side. "Soon I won't be able to even see my feet. You can pick out my shoes for me."
"Thank fuck."
I giggled, letting my bad mood slip away as we walked. It was hard to stay mad at her when she called me beautiful and fussed over me.
"Should we check on progress?" I asked, pointing to the cabin.
She nodded and escorted me up the porch steps. Since her return from Bozeman, she'd finished staining the chair she'd built to replace the one she'd murdered by chainsaw. It was now situated by the other, both facing the trees.
She opened the door and we were assaulted by the smell of fresh paint as we stepped inside.
"Looks like they got done early today." Lisa let me go and went to the laundry room while I inspected the living room.
The couch had been trashed because of the fire, along with one of her end tables. Most of her other belongings had been saved, including her clothes, which had been safe in the closet along with the box of her daughter's things. Though I'd had to wash all her pants and shirts about five times to work out the smell of smoke.
"Looks good." Lisa stepped up behind me, inspecting the new walls and flooring.
The crew had completely rebuilt the exterior and interior walls on this side of her house. It would probably always be obvious where the new logs had been placed from the outside because their color was brighter than the original ones. But inside, you couldn't tell what was new.
"Looks like they're almost done." I frowned, hating the idea of her moving back here. I'd gotten used to her in my house. "Not long now and I guess . . . you'll be home."
"Yeah." Lisa scowled.
Her angry look gave me butterflies. Did she not want to come home? Because that would be awesome.
"I'm going to be sad when you move back here." I was fishing now. I might not beg for her to share information from her past, but I wasn't above begging to keep her incredible woodsy scent in my home.
"Me too." She stepped closer and cupped my jaw in her hands. "I like being at your place."
"What are we doing?" I whispered.
"Going backward."
My eyebrows came together, but before I could ask what she meant, Lisa leaned in and kissed my forehead. "Let's get you out of here. It smells. Got something to show you in the shop."
I savored the smell of fresh paint, taking every breath a bit deeper, but she'd deemed it unhealthy. She'd kicked me out of the house the day she'd painted the nursery, delivering me to Jisoo and Rosé's house for the day.
Lisa took my arm and led me outside, then down the slope to the shop, letting us in through the side door. "I've been working on these for a couple of weeks."
I reveled in the smell of sawdust as she flipped on the lights. "Working on what?"
"You'll see. I still need to sand them and get them stained, so use your imagination for what they'll look like when they're done."
"I can do that." I walked behind her to a canvas tarp at the back of the shop.
She gripped the cloth and paused with a long breath. Then she met my eyes before whipping the tarp clear.
My hands flew to my mouth, my eyes instantly filling with tears.
She'd made bassinets for our babies.
Each cradle was rounded, like an oval nest. They reminded me of nutshells, but with slots. They sat on pedestal bases that allowed the top to rock and sway.
"Lisa," I whispered, trying to blink the tears away, but they were too overwhelming.
Her face softened as she came over and pulled me into her arms.
"Damn hormones." I sniffled into her sweater. I'd cried more in the last few months than I had in the last few years, including all the nights I'd cried during my divorce.
Lisa rubbed my spine gently until I got the tears under control. Then I stepped out of her arms and gingerly touched each of the bassinets.
"They're perfect."
"I was going to do a darker wood to match the changing tables you ordered online."
"That sounds great." I nodded. "Now I know why you told me to wait on ordering the cribs."
She chuckled. "I wanted to have them completely finished before I showed you, but I could tell you were getting antsy. I didn't want you ordering cribs tomorrow when I wasn't looking."
I smiled. "You know me too well. How did you come up with this design?"
I'd looked at probably a hundred different crib and bassinet designs over the last couple of months, and nothing had this much character.
"I made one of these when Shannon was pregnant."
My god, this person was strong. How hard had it been for her to make these for our babies? How many painful memories had she relived just to give our boys something special?
My love for her doubled in that moment. Maybe even tripled. And I realized that I had to cut Lisa some slack.
She was still dealing with the grief of her baby's loss. She was still coming to terms with us becoming parents. So what if I didn't understand the complexities of her family dynamic? I'd learn about it in time. When she was ready.
Walking to her side, I slid my arms around her waist. Her arm automatically snaked around my shoulders.
Our babies will be okay.
I didn't say the words, but I felt them. I just hoped she could feel them too.
We stood there for a while, holding one another until the rumbling of my stomach was so loud we both laughed.
"My boys are hungry," she declared. "Let's get some dinner."
As we walked back to my house, I felt the craving for a cheeseburger. So instead of eating leftovers like we'd planned, Lisa took me down the mountain to Dave's Diner. After a huge meal that would last me at least two hours, we came back home.
I changed into my pajamas, then settled into the couch next to Lisa, letting my feet go into her lap. She worked her hands on them both, digging her thumbs into the arches.
"Magic hands," I murmured.
Magic hands. Magic sperm. Magic woman.
When Lisa touched me, I wasn't able to think about much else. My worries melted away with the tension in my muscles, and I drifted off to sleep not twenty minutes into the movie she picked.
Hours later, my eyes fluttered open as she carried me to bed, but they didn't stay that way for long. She set me down on the bed, tucking me under the heavy blankets. Lisa's fingers brushed away a lock of hair from my forehead right before her lips took its place.
"Love you," I murmured into the pillow.
I was asleep by the time Lisa had backed out of the room.
Asleep and dreaming that she said it back.
