Chapter 18 - One Christmas Later
For five full minutes, I stared at the pregnancy test.
Then I took another.
Positive.
I sat on the closed toilet.
The bathroom seemed too bright.
Too quiet.
Outside, Roman knocked.
"Savannah?"
"I'm fine."
"You've been in there twenty minutes."
"I said I'm fine."
Pause.
Old Roman would have opened the door.
New Roman said, "Okay. I'll be downstairs."
That made me cry.
"Wait."
The footsteps stopped.
"Yeah?"
"Come in."
The door opened slowly.
Roman saw me sitting.
Then saw the tests on the counter.
His face went blank.
"Are those—"
"Yes."
He closed the door.
"You're pregnant?"
"Apparently."
He stared.
Then smiled.
Then immediately stopped smiling.
"Are you happy?"
The question hit me harder than any reaction could have.
Not We're having a baby.
Not This is amazing.
Not even Are you sure?
Are you happy?
He was asking me first.
"I don't know."
Roman nodded.
"Okay."
"Aren't you going to say anything?"
"I'm trying very hard not to make your answer about mine."
Tears spilled over.
"You're irritating."
"I've heard."
I held out my hand.
He came closer.
I placed his palm against my stomach.
There was nothing to feel yet.
Still, his eyes filled.
"I'm happy," I whispered.
Roman exhaled.
"Thank God."
I laughed.
"You're happy?"
"So happy I'm trying not to scare you."
"You look terrified."
"I am also terrified."
"Good."
He laughed.
Then knelt in front of me.
Not proposal kneeling.
Just bringing himself level.
"What do you want?"
"I don't know."
"Do you want me here?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to get married?"
I froze.
Roman quickly added, "That wasn't a proposal. It was a question about what you imagine."
I thought.
"I don't know."
"Okay."
"Does that disappoint you?"
"Yes."
His honesty made me smile.
"But I'll survive."
I touched his cheek.
"I don't want to marry because I'm pregnant."
"Neither do I."
"I don't want Evelyn—or this baby—to be the reason."
"They aren't."
"Then what is?"
Roman looked at me.
"You."
Three months later, he moved into my mother's house.
Not permanently at first.
A drawer.
Then two.
A toothbrush.
Shoes near the door.
The invasion happened gradually.
I teased him.
"You once lived in fourteen thousand square feet."
"Terrible commute."
"You had six bathrooms."
"I have survived."
"You complain that our water pressure is weak."
"It is objectively weak."
"Leave."
"No."
He grinned.
Normal life fit Roman strangely.
Then beautifully.
He still had money.
Still ran Northline.
Still appeared in business magazines.
But he came home.
Not always at five.
Not perfectly.
He texted when late.
He knew pediatrician appointments.
He attended prenatal visits.
At our twenty-week ultrasound, Roman cried before I did.
"It's a boy," the technician said.
Roman stared at the screen.
"A boy?"
"Looks like it."
His hand tightened around mine.
I knew what he was thinking.
Arthur.
Legacy.
Fathers and sons.
"He's not you," I whispered.
Roman looked at me.
"What?"
"He gets his own story."
Roman's eyes filled.
"Yeah."
"And you get to be his father. Not yours."
He kissed my hand.
"Yeah."
We named him after no Carter.
No Hart.
No one.
Miles.
A name that belonged entirely to him.
As my belly grew, Evelyn became fascinated.
She kissed it.
Patted it.
Once tried to feed Miles crackers through my belly button.
Roman laughed until he cried.
Life became absurdly ordinary.
And I discovered ordinary was what I had wanted all along.
One evening in October, Roman found me sitting on the porch.
"What are you thinking?"
"Christmas."
He sat beside me.
"Bad?"
"Not exactly."
Two Christmas Eves had passed since Claire.
The first ended with me leaving.
The second with a key.
This would be the third.
Pregnant again.
Evelyn nearly two.
Roman living with us.
"What do you want to do?" he asked.
"Something different."
"Travel?"
"No."
"Hotel?"
"No."
"Then?"
I looked at the snowless yard.
"Walk downtown."
Roman frowned.
"On Christmas Eve?"
"Yes."
"Pregnant?"
"I'm pregnant, not porcelain."
"Noted."
"I want to see the city."
Why?
I couldn't fully explain.
The photograph had frozen downtown Chicago in my mind as a place of betrayal.
Roman.
Claire.
Snow.
Black car.
A woman in red.
I wanted another memory.
Not to overwrite the first.
To stand beside it.
Christmas Eve arrived cold and clear.
By evening, snow began.
We dressed Evelyn in cream.
I wore a warm ivory dress beneath a taupe coat.
Roman looked at me too long.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That's not nothing."
"You look beautiful."
I smiled.
"Better."
We drove downtown.
Not to the hotel where Claire had waited.
Close, though.
Lights wrapped the trees.
Cars moved slowly along wet streets.
Snow glittered beneath streetlamps.
Roman carried Evelyn until she demanded to walk.
She held my hand.
Then his.
For a while, the three of us walked like that.
People passed.
No one knew our story.
That felt freeing.
We stopped across from a luxury hotel.
I recognized it.
My chest tightened.
Roman followed my gaze.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Do you want to leave?"
"No."
"You sure?"
I nodded.
We stood where Julia had taken the photograph.
Almost exactly.
Roman looked pale.
"I was right there."
"I know."
"I held her beside that car."
"I know."
"I kissed her before—"
"Roman."
He stopped.
"I remember."
Snow landed on his hair.
Evelyn tugged my hand.
"Mommy, cold."
I picked her up.
Roman looked at us.
A pregnant woman in cream.
A little girl bundled against the snow.
For one strange second, I imagined how we might appear to someone across the street.
A photograph.
A frozen story.
Two years ago, one image had destroyed the lie protecting my marriage.
Now this moment contained no lie at all.
Roman stepped closer.
"Can I?"
I knew what he meant.
I handed him Evelyn.
She wrapped both arms around his neck.
"Dada warm."
"I'm useful."
"Occasionally," I said.
He smiled.
Then looked at the hotel.
"I'm sorry."
I touched his face.
"I know."
"Do you wish Julia never sent the picture?"
The question surprised me.
I thought for a long time.
"No."
Roman nodded slowly.
"Neither do I."
"Really?"
"It destroyed my life."
"And?"
He looked at Evelyn.
Then my stomach.
"No. It destroyed the life I was pretending was working."
My eyes filled.
He continued.
"I wouldn't choose what I did."
"Good."
"But I wouldn't go back to being that man just to avoid the consequences."
I kissed him.
Right there.
Snow.
Streetlights.
Passing cars.
Evelyn between us complaining because our kiss squished her hat.
When we separated, Roman laughed.
"Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas."
We returned home before dinner.
Margaret had already arrived.
So had Marianne.
Julia.
Elena.
The house became loud.
Warm.
Alive.
Near midnight, Roman and I stood alone in the kitchen.
Same hour.
Different kitchen.
Different marriage.
Except we weren't married.
Roman checked his watch.
I froze.
He noticed.
Then realized why.
His face fell.
"I was checking whether it's midnight."
I started laughing.
He did too.
"That may be permanently dangerous."
"Probably."
The clock changed.
12:00.
Christmas morning.
Roman kissed my forehead.
"Two years."
"Two years."
"What do you want for Christmas?"
"I have everything."
"Cliché."
"Fine. Stronger water pressure."
"Finally."
I smiled.
Then my stomach tightened.
Roman noticed immediately.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Savannah."
"Braxton Hicks."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Miles wasn't due until January.
Roman watched me suspiciously.
"Stop."
"I'm not doing anything."
"You're mentally calling the hospital."
"I am absolutely mentally calling the hospital."
I laughed.
The contraction passed.
Then another came twelve minutes later.
I stared at Roman.
He stared at me.
"No."
"Maybe."
"Not Christmas again."
Our unborn son apparently had inherited his sister's sense of timing.
By 2:00 a.m., we were driving to the hospital.
This time Roman was beside me.
No secrecy.
No other woman.
No unanswered phone.
He held my hand at every red light.
And when Miles was born shortly after dawn, Roman cried openly.
So did I.
Evelyn met her brother that afternoon.
She stared at him.
Then looked at us.
"Mine?"
Roman smiled.
"Your brother."
She considered.
"Mine."
Close enough.
That evening, with our children asleep, Roman sat beside my hospital bed.
He pulled something from his pocket.
I immediately narrowed my eyes.
"If that's a ring—"
"It's not."
He opened his hand.
A tiny folded piece of paper.
I took it.
One sentence.
Would you go on one more first date with me when you're ready?
I laughed.
"We have two children."
"I know."
"We live together."
"I know."
"We've been dating for more than a year."
"Technically."
"You're ridiculous."
"Is that a yes?"
I looked at him.
Maybe I finally understood.
Roman wasn't asking me to go backward.
He wasn't asking for the old marriage.
He was asking whether we could keep beginning.
"Yes."
His smile looked like sunrise.
And I knew then that someday, perhaps soon, I would marry him again.
Not because we shared children.
Not because history demanded it.
Because this time, I would be choosing with my eyes open.
And the last chapter of our story would begin with a question Roman once never knew how to ask.
May you like
What do you want?
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