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“The last name and most of the blood on my father’s side is Chinese, but there’s some Mexican and Sicilian in there, too, I think. There were lots of different ethnic groups working on the railroads, fighting forest fires and mining out west. My mom’s a hundred percent Chinese, though.” She let the silence consume the oxygen in the car and extinguish her fear. “Would your mom like me more if I had Polish blood?”
She didn’t want to care what his mother thought, but this was his baby, too, and that woman was the baby’s grandmother. If the baby’s grandmother couldn’t get past her nonwhite skin, well…well, she’d figure out something. She always had.
“It would give her something to hang on to until she got to know you better. Being Catholic would work just as well.” Her leather seat creaked as she turned from the window to look at her husband, but the darkness swallowed his expression—if he had one.
She turned back to the window, disappointed in his answer and disappointed in herself for caring. “The Mexican and Sicilian parts are probably Catholic.”
She started when his hand rested on her knee and squeezed. She’d touched him once or twice, but he’d steadfastly avoided initiating any contact with her since putting his hand on her back as they’d left the library that day. She’d noticed that he watched her when they were in the apartment together—whether out of suspicion, curiosity or some other emotion she didn’t know and his expression didn’t reveal—but he never touched her.
“It’s not about you. My mom is mad at me for marrying someone she doesn’t know and didn’t get a chance to approve of, first. Since I am otherwise the golden child, she’s not used to feeling disappointed in me and her disapproval is landing on you. She’ll get over it, and you shouldn’t feel that you need to put up with it. If she continues, I’ll tell her to knock it off. Or you can opt out of future family dinners. Attendance isn’t a requirement for my help.”
If she hadn’t been staring so intently at his expression, she wouldn’t have noticed the slight lift of his mouth when he said “golden child.” As it was, she wasn’t sure she believed her own eyes. She ticked off her memories on her fingers, a laugh, two smiles and a touch all in the span of a couple days.
But the hint of a smile disappeared as quickly as it had come when he continued talking. “I don’t know if that helps. I’ve never been—”
“Anything but the perfect man all mothers dream their beloved daughter will marry?”
He laughed. If she wasn’t careful, she might have to take off her socks to keep track of the number of times she got a reaction out of him. “I was going to say ‘on the receiving end of a mother’s interrogation,’ but we can let your statement stand.”
“How your mother feels about me doesn’t matter in the long run, I guess. I’ll get a job, get my own health insurance. We’ll have a baby and get a divorce. You’ll be free to marry a Polish Catholic girl your mom has known since birth.”
Karl didn’t respond. But neither did he remove his hand from her knee until it was time to get off the freeway.
CHAPTER FIVE
VIVIAN WAS SHIFTING, trying to get comfortable in the waiting room chair and filling out yet another form with her medical history, when Karl came in.
“Hi,” she said, surprised. She’d told him the time and date of her first doctor’s appointment, and he’d said he’d come, but she’d expected some work emergency to conveniently detain him. Despite his touch of her knee on the way home from his mother’s and his promise they would be friends, he’d been the same distant man of the previous week. And he still seemed to work all the time. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I’m sorry. Scheduling my own doctor’s appointment made me late.” He put a heavy hand on her head, smoothing down her hair before giving her neck a reassuring squeeze and sitting down. No, she wasn’t being honest with herself. He hadn’t been quite the same man. Instead of going straight to work after the gym, he’d come home and eaten breakfast with her yesterday and today. They’d talked about how her job search was going, and she’d reminded him of today’s appointment.
