Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
“Something I thought you threw away, a long time ago.” God, I didn’t want to have to say it. “The, um, ultrasound.”
“Ah.” He looked down.
“It doesn’t bother me that you kept it.” I would have preferred that he hadn’t, but I also knew that, deep down, the choice we had made together had been more difficult for him than for me. “I know you had a different experience than I had. If you needed that to grieve—”
“No, not to grieve,” he said quickly. “Just to remember. We did what we had to do, at the time. If things had been different, perhaps you would have felt differently. Perhaps not. Do I have regrets? Of course I do. It’s one thing to say that you don’t want to have another, hypothetical child. When you’re faced with your actual child, when you think of it as a child—”
I took a deep breath. I didn’t mean for it to be so audible.
His expression softened into one of helplessness. “Sophie, this is an area where our thinking is— I don’t want to say it’s incompatible. But our perspectives aren’t the same. For one, I’m from an entirely different generation. To me, the subject of abortion is still fairly taboo. And I have a child. So, I’ll always think of the one we didn’t have as…well, as my child. That’s why I kept the picture. But that doesn’t mean I want to have a baby, now. Especially knowing how you feel about it.”
“Oh.” That was more of an answer than I’d been expecting.
“And I certainly wouldn’t have discussed something like that with Emma,” he went on. “I would come to you. But those days are behind me, Sophie. I’m speeding toward sixty like it’s a brick wall—”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re fifty-one, drama queen.”
“Be that as it may,” he said in the semi-stern tone he used when I wouldn’t humor his age-related hyperbole. “When we moved in together, and when we got married, it was always with the understanding that we wouldn’t have children. The only thing that would change my mind would be if you came to me and said that you wanted them.”
“And I don’t foresee that happening,” I said, wiping the rest of the lotion into my hands. “I’m sorry to bring this up, when you’re already under so much pressure about this gala.”
He nodded, then paused. “You know, I really don’t feel any pressure, at all. Everything I had any control over is too late to change, now. There’s no sense in worrying. All I have to do is remember my speech.”
If Neil had stood up and proclaimed that he was Jesus Christ returned to Earth in judgment, I would have been less surprised. “Are you feeling all right? Because this whole admitting that something is out of your control thing is concerning.”
“You’re very funny, aren’t you?” he grumbled. “Honestly, as this project has progressed, I’ve felt…lighter. Less caught up in the past. My need to control every aspect of my life, even the things I couldn’t possibly control, seems to be lessening. I don’t know if that’s the therapy, or the distraction the center has provided.”
“I think it’s a little of both. And because you’re making something wonderful out of something horrible that happened to you.” He needed to give himself major credit for that. “I know this is going to sound weird coming from someone half your age, but I’m proud of you.”
“It doesn’t sound ‘weird’ coming from my wife.” He dropped his gaze to my feet. “Did you, by any chance…”
I lifted a brow and handed him the tube of lotion.
“You know what the best thing about your foot fetish is?” I asked with a happy sigh as I wriggled back to get comfortable.
“All of the foot massages.” He rolled over to brace himself above me for a quick kiss, then crawled backward to sit at the end of the bed with my foot in his lap.
“No,” I corrected him. “The fact that you actually told me about it.”
A crooked smile tilted his mouth as he squirted some lotion into his hands and warmed it between his palms. “Yes, well, consider that a side effect of my increased emotional health. I’m far more comfortable talking about sex and all of my repressed desires.”
“Yikes! You were repressing stuff?” I laughed. Neil took my foot between his big hands, and I sighed with contentment.
“Don’t tell me there aren’t things you fantasize about that you don’t share with me,” he said, his cheeks going bright red. He kneaded my foot firmly, but not too hard, the lotion on his hands easing the slip of his skin on mine. “Even for as adventurous as you are.”
“I’m not repressing anything. I never really got a chance,” I reminded him. After he’d blown the doors off my sexual inexperience in one incredible night, I’d had a very hard time stuffing all my wants and desires back into a psychological box. “I mean, except for the liking girls thing. But I’m not repressing that, anymore.”