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“Horrible.” He shakes his head.
There’s no way.
“You love golfing.”
“I love winning at golf and I can’t play a fair game when Jake’s…”
“Being Jake?” I finish for him. I love my boss in that platonic, I’d-be-devastated-if-anything-caused-his-demise sort of way. However, I’ve also known Jake long enough to realize he is the most likely candidate to cause his own downfall. Trig didn’t like me at Sweet Caroline’s during daylight hours, but he never barricaded the entrance either.
I smooth my hand over his chest, patting down his biceps.
“Go another day. Ask Carver to play a round. Take Morgan. Take Byron as a thank you. Don’t give up on something you love because Jake’s made it an obligation you can’t stand… Just don’t include him.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Say no next time. Use me as an excuse. Jake won’t fight you about me.”
“The man really needs his own wife to run his bar instead of mine.”
“Fat chance of that. Hell would freeze over before Jake ever fires me. He can’t stand the club. I’d have to quit first.” I smirk. “Enough of the shop-talk. Come on. There’s an excited little boy waiting outside to show his new dog his big backyard.”
________________
It’s brisk and damp, but we spend most of the afternoon outside. Owen and Tallulah take turns chasing one another around the yard. Both have their tongues hanging out of their mouths. They collide a time or two and Owen rolls on the grass. The dog pokes her wet nose to his cold, red cheeks, enticing giggles from my toddler. Trig redirects her when she gets too playful for his liking, and I’m impressed with how easy Tallulah takes to his commands.
Aidy comes home from her shift at Baked Beans while Morgan is showing Owen the finer points of fetch. She’s been teaching Owen how to pitch softballs, and my son tells my daughter’s boyfriend he’s throwing wrong. While trying to fix his stance, Owen mispronounces Morgan, dropping the g.
The three adults snicker.
“He’s going to grow out of that, right?” Morgan asks.
“I don’t know, Moron,” she says. Aidy thinks it’s adorable.
There was a change in my daughter I couldn’t quite understand after her Freshman year at Pinewood. She was sullen, but that’s also when she began dying her hair that beautiful shade of lilac. There were a few months where my concern grew. It seemed like she was avoiding her mom and dad. Around the same time, she began dating Morgan, and bit by bit my beautiful girl came around. Her confidence has grown as she’s fallen more and more in love with him. I like watching their reliance on one another and seeing them interact; sometimes as the cute young adults and others when they pretend to be entrenched in the seriousness of an old married couple. It’s nowhere close to the type of relationship I had at her age. Aidy’s biological father left me when he discovered I was expecting. I’m so glad she’s found someone who makes her happy.
The sun sets early and we head inside. Tuckered out, Tallulah finds her bed in the living room. Morgan and Aidy go up to the attic to make a quick change. They’re meeting Jasper and Hailey at the mill in an hour. Trig tries to entertain O while I start dinner. He fusses and cries, banging on the gate, trapping him downstairs, and bellowing for his sister.
I swallow hard. My knuckle wipes at my eyes. I nearly cut my nose off with the knife I hold in my hand to chop an onion with. Thankfully, Owen’s tantrum drowns out the sound of my sniffing.
He’s a sucker for his big sister and lucky that Morgan and Aidy care for him the way they do. In essence, he’s their practice kid. Though my daughter could have made me a grandmother a few times over already, from what I’ve gleaned, the couple is waiting to take the rest of the steps in a traditional order. I’ve pondered if I’m being impatient about a baby. I’m not jealous of Aidy. Along with every person under this roof, she means the absolute world to me. But if Owen wants her, is what he really wants a younger, more energetic mom?
I manage a lot of young women at Sweet Caroline’s. I connect with them and their interests and hadn’t considered myself old until I saw “advanced maternal age” scribbled on my chart when I was pregnant with O. The abbreviation mocks me now.
Any children Aidy and Morgan have won’t be too far off in years from the baby I’ve had with Trig. Am I too old to be raising more children alongside my daughter? Or am I supposed to be showering a grandchild with the attention I want to give my own baby?
Maybe this is why nothing has worked so far. I’ve thought every why-not? scenario through a dozen times. This one is nothing new.
My husband gives up on our toddler and sits down on the couch. Tallulah decides she’ll snuggle him and hops up beside Trig, curling into the cushion with her head on his lap. He strokes her head and leans his neck back, trying to relax.
Good girl. I think. She’s here for when Trig needs her. This afternoon was great. But I’m sure the morning’s events haven’t been cast aside in his mind. Underneath an exterior that screams he doesn’t have a care, my husband’s trouble is he cares so deeply.
I’m plating the skillet dinner that is coming off the stove when Aidy and Morgan come back downstairs.
“Donne-go-ho-ho!” Owen wails.
Aidy picks him up, and he tucks his head to her neck. Morgan rubs his back.
“We can stay?” She offers.
