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Vivian was family. She was his wife. She was carrying his child. She should be in his apartment, with him.
* * *
THE HOUSE HAD fallen increasingly silent as each of the Mileks had left for their own homes. Now, only Susan, Vivian and Karl were left and Karl was about to leave. Only he wasn’t leaving. He was standing in the doorway wearing his coat, scarf and hat saying, “Vivian, I think you should come home.”
Did he think she was going to grab her coat and walk out the door with him?
Vivian couldn’t help recalling a similar scene in his apartment, while he stood, bundled in his winter clothes, telling her where to live….
Wherever she was, she was never in the right place, as far as Karl Milek was concerned.
She wouldn’t cry, not when he was looking like somber business-Karl even though they were talking about where she should live. It wasn’t business, but she could pretend it was just as well as he could. The emotion he’d shown over Easter breakfast, little touches and that familiar kiss, made treating this conversation like business harder, but not impossible.
Now he looked detached from the emotional world and she was back to wondering where—as his pregnant wife—she fit into his life. She turned her back to him and walked to the couch, leaving him to shut the door and follow. “When I first showed up at your apartment, you insisted my home was Nevada. I can’t go back there, so where do you mean for me to go?”
She sat on the couch, trying to lounge, as if this conversation was no big deal. As if he couldn’t break her heart again. When she lifted her head to consider him with what she hoped was the ease of a woman regarding a painting of fruit on the wall, his face had tightened and the little tic at the base of his jaw had started. Reading all of his emotions from that barely visible twitch was getting tiresome. “Home with me, Vivian. I think you should come home with me.”
Maybe if he had shown more emotion—maybe if he had asked her while making an inappropriate and macabre joke or while she could see what the silly pattern on his boxers was tonight—she would’ve said yes. But everyone said “yes, sir” to Karl when his jaw tensed, and so she lifted her elbow to rest on the arm of the couch and said, “Why?”
“The doctors have told us repeatedly that it’s fine for Mom to live by herself again.”
“That’s only a reason for why I don’t need to live with her anymore. Why should I move back into your apartment?” She wanted him to say the words. To say he wanted her and that he not only understood why she’d nearly cheated, but also that he didn’t care.
“You’re my wife.” He stepped farther into the living room and reached out for her thickened stomach, but didn’t come close enough to touch. “You’re carrying my child.”
Vivian could no longer distinguish between heartburn and anger, but Karl was causing one of them. “Until we get a divorce…”
His hand recoiled back to the side of his body. The tic in his jaw sped up and his face darkened. At least his emotions were strong, even if he would never reveal them.
She repeated herself. “Until we get a divorce, I am your wife no matter where I live. This baby—” she put her hands over her belly as if she could protect the growing child from a father who would never laugh with it “—will always be your child.”
Karl didn’t say a word. He just stood in silence and she didn’t have the patience to wait him out. “Besides, I like your mom. I like living with your mom. I like working at Healthy Food. Why should I leave a place where I’m content to go where I’m not completely welcome?”
“For God’s sake, Vivian!” The vehemence in his voice pushed her back into the cushions. “I just asked you to come home with me. How much more welcome can you be?”
He was right. If she continued to live with Susan and work at Healthy Food, she and Jelly Bean would be fine. If they got a divorce, the Mileks wouldn’t stop being a family to her just because she wasn’t married to Karl. He would provide child support, she could slowly build up her savings again, and she would have a measure of security and family.
