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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AS FAR AS Karl was concerned, the only pleasant part of this shopping experience was spending time with Vivian and watching her fingers trail over the pale wood of the crib. But because the world had a mean sense of humor, watching Vivian’s long fingers touch every item in the store was also the worst part of shopping for baby furniture.
His wife bent a little at the waist to read the tag on the crib. “It says this crib converts into a bed, which would be nice. I like the color, too.” She straightened. Her lips were puckered and shifting from side to side.
“But?”
“But it’s a bit too big for your mom’s house.”
This entire shopping experience was proof that Karl could lie to himself. Watching Vivian’s fingers was not the worst part of buying baby furniture. Listening to her assess each piece of furniture in terms of his mother’s house was.
“It will fit fine in the second bedroom in my apartment.” They were a broken record. She would say it wouldn’t fit in his mother’s house and he would remind her of the cavernous space in his apartment.
She assessed the crib again, then shook her head, her long black hair swinging against her shoulders. “I think the crib and the guest bed would be a tight fit.”
At the first crib they’d looked at, Karl had managed to say, “We can get rid of the guest bed,” before Vivian walked away. Now, in a series of cowardly moves at odds with her character, she scurried away each time he tried to bring up the idea of them living together, baby in one room, parents in the other.
And each time he’d opened his mouth to call her on her cowardice, he remembered his conversation with Malcolm and his lips slammed shut. She wouldn’t move back in with him until he released his judgment of her near felony. He couldn’t release his judgment because, well, because there wasn’t much left of him if he wasn’t judging people.
Is that all I am? God, what a horrible thought. He hurried to catch up to her before he lost any more of the precious time they were spending together. He at least wasn’t so cowardly that he couldn’t continue after his wife in the baby store. Malcolm was sure to be impressed, Karl thought wryly.
“Maybe we can buy a bassinet now and a crib later, when we figure out how much space we really have.” She was fingering the fabric canopy of the bassinet and not looking at him at all. Two people, having a baby together, picking out baby furniture, and they couldn’t be further apart if she were still in Las Vegas. “Of course, there’s still the changing table and the rocker that we need to get. I guess we don’t need a rocker. Your mom has something I can use, and anyway I can’t imagine my dad had much more for me than a dresser drawer when I was a baby.”
Karl seized on the possible change of subject. Anything to stop the scratch of the needle on whatever album of broken relationships they were playing. “What was your childhood like?”
“Besides moving in the middle of the night because my dad was caught up in another failed scheme?” She gave the bassinet a little push, but it didn’t rock.
“You never imagine your parents excitedly looking at baby stuff?” Not that Karl could imagine his father ever stepping into a giant, baby-stuff-filled store like this one, but his father had enjoyed his children. He’d been strict with the boys and a little afraid to break the girls, but Karl had never doubted that his father had wanted them. Catholic prohibitions on birth control hadn’t been the reason his parents had had four children.
Vivian bent to look at the tag on the bassinet. It was on the tip of Karl’s tongue to tell her to stop looking at the price—that he could afford whatever she wanted for their baby—but he stopped himself. He wanted to know the circumstances that had made her who she was, and being frustrated with her for being frugal—clearly a result of her childhood—wouldn’t help.
“Maybe buying a bassinet first and a crib later is a waste of money,” she murmured. “But we have some time to think about it.”
When he caught up to her, she was ready to respond. “My parents got married because my mom was pregnant.” She smiled wryly. “I mean, at least we got married on the same night I got pregnant. The marriage even came first, really.”
