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Prologue
For Old Time’s Sake
Zinnia’s POV
“You have the cupcakes?” I asked my grandmother.
“I have them,” she laughed. “Stop worrying. Your mother’s been driving me nuts trying to get me
to tell her before the party. She hasn’t changed — even when she was a little girl, I’d catch her
sneaking into my closet to try to find her Christmas presents.”
“I’m not sure how I’m going to make it through dinner knowing that once we get to dessert, Dash and I will know if we’re having a boy or a girl.”
Dash’s hand reached over and squeezed my thigh.
“You’ll make it just fine,” she said. “Is he in the car with you?”
“Yeah. He’s driving. He was actually able to get out of the hospital on time for once.”
“Well, I’ll see you two soon for the big gender reveal,” she said and ended the call.
~
Everything had come to a screeching halt when I’d stood up so fast that my chair went flying backwards. Not an easy feat for a woman one month from her due date, but the chair was flat on the grass.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked my husband sharply, and everyone around the table and standing around us in the backyard quieted, realizing that the pregnant woman wasn’t laughing.
“Nothing,” Dash said. “It was a joke.”
“A joke? You think something like that’s a joke?”
“Yeah, Zinnie, a joke.”
“I didn’t think it was very funny to joke about getting my sister pregnant.”
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“Zinnie —”
I looked at my sister next. “And I don’t think it was funny that you went along with it and brought up ancient history.”
Dash and Iris had dated in their senior year of high school and broke up when they went to college. Looking between them, ignoring the uncomfortable silence in the backyard, I had a horrible thought, one that I’d never worried about before, but now, after their comments…
“Or is it ancient history?”
There were gasps all around the table, and my mother said my name sharply.
“Zinnia, you need to stop. It was just a joke.”
Instead of sitting down or answering her, I turned to Dash. “I want to leave. Now.”
——
“Zinnie, stop being ” he said, his face flushed from anger.
Stop being what?
“Now, Dash! I want to leave now.” I looked at my grandmother. “Thank you for making the cupcakes.”
I walked out of the backyard to the front, not bothering to see if he’d follow. If he didn’t, I had my own set of car keys and I’d leave his ass here. Maybe tell him it was just a joke. Ha, ha, fucking ha. Maybe my sister could give him a ride home, and he could get her pregnant in the backseat of her
car.
But he was right behind me, angry, and he let me know that without saying a word by not opening the car door for me like he always did. Not a problem. I slammed his precious car door a little too hard, and although I felt his eyes snap at me, he didn’t say a word.
The time to have kept his mouth shut would have been after everyone was watching us bite into our cupcakes, waiting in anticipation to see if we were having a boy or a girl. I saw the pink filling and immediately squealed. Honestly, I would have squealed either way — I was just excited knowing what we were having. We’d decided to wait for the gender reveal until everyone on both sides could make it, which is why we were only finding out a month before I was due.
Seeing that pink filling, I turned to Dash, only to see him with an odd look on his face — disappointment? In fact, everyone around the table was quiet and no one seemed excited except
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G
ME
for my grandmother.
“We’re having a girl!” I enthused, although it sounded awkward. I wondered if that would shake
him out of his funk.
“Yeah,” he said, and now the disappointment wasn’t just on his face but in his voice, too. He’d put the cupcake down and pushed the plate away as if it offended him.
My mother stepped in. “Well, if at first you don’t get it right, try, try again.”
Get it right? What? Who said that at a gender reveal?
Dash gave a half smile at my mother, then he looked at my sister and grinned. “Why wait another two–and–a–half months? I’ll just get Iris pregnant.”
Unbelievably, all my relatives roared at that. They couldn’t rejoice in a little girl, but they could
laugh uproariously at a horrible, tactless comment. For a minute, I hoped I’d been adopted so I
wasn’t related by blood to these people, but then I was distracted by the feeling that my stomach was going to revolt.
“I’m game,” Iris joined in. “Ready when you are, Dash! For old time’s sake.”
Then she puckered her lips and made a kissy sound at him.
She’d actually brought up the time when she and Dash had dated almost fifteen years ago? What was going on here?
That was when I’d stood up abruptly and sent my chair flying.
Part 2–
An Open Invitation
Zinnia’s POV
I didn’t say a word to my husband all the way home, even though once we pulled out of the driveway, he decided to talk to me. Inside my head, however, was a different story.
“You’re overreacting,” he kept saying when I refused to say a word. “Zinnie, it was a joke.”
You’re supposed to laugh if it’s a joke.
“I wouldn’t actually try to get your sister pregnant.”
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You used to date her. You saying you’d try to get a boy with her means you’re unhappy we’re having a girl. And talking about cheating on me with my sister? So nasty. So inappropriate.
“Everyone but you took it as a joke.”
It still doesn’t mean it was an appropriate joke to make. It was completely gross.
He gave up trying to talk with me after he told me he didn’t know why I was so upset about a joke.
I couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping next to him, so I got ready for bed in the guest bathroom
and went to the tiny third bedroom where we had a full size bed. Exhaustion hit me as he followed
me into the room.
“You’re taking this too far,” he accused me. Me!
Pulling back the covers, I lay on my left side, my back to him.
“Come sleep in our bed,” he tried coaxing me. “You’re spiraling out of control for what was
nothing more than a joke. Do you honestly think I’d sleep with your sister?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” I said in reply to that opening he gave me. “Thanks to
your so–called joke, I’m now thinking you may be cheating on me with my sister or at the least thinking about it or her since you’re talking about getting her pregnant. I now know you’re disappointed we’re having a girl. I now have to wonder if you never really got over my sister and you married me to stay close to her. I now know neither of you gives a damn about my feelings since you sided together against me to make the joke.”
“Do you hear yourself, Zinnie? All that from a motherfucking joke? Not sure when you lost your sense of humor, but I’m not going to keep trying to defend myself when you’re the only one who didn’t get the joke.”
Keep fighting your corner. I just told you how I felt, and you’re dismissing what I said and everything I felt.
In case I missed it from the exasperation in his voice, he slammed the door to the bedroom to let me know how displeased he was. Since I couldn’t sleep, I rested my body but my mind was getting
a workout.
I was married to a man who thought it was funny to share his disappointment that our baby was a girl, a disappointment that I never knew about.
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I was married to a man who thought joking about cheating on me with my sister, who was his ex, was a joke. My own sister thought it was funny to go along with it and ask if he wanted to get started after dinner. I was the spawn of two people who chastised me for getting mad at my husband and sister for making such a horrible, tasteless joke.
Maybe it was the hormones but I remembered another so–called joke, this time made by Dash’s very drunk father, at our rehearsal dinner.
“We’re glad the two of you have found happiness in your own way. We never thought he’d get over his first love, but hey! Even if he didn’t, you’re the one he’s marrying so that’s just about first place!”
While everyone was laughing, I’d gotten up from the table and walked away, knowing Dash’s first love was my sister. Dash had hurried after me, apologizing for what his father said, but then he’d told me it was just a joke, and I needed to come back in so I didn’t ruin the evening and make his dad feel bad. Since the wedding was so close, because I didn’t want there to be strained relations at our wedding, I went back and made amends.
Now, I was tired of jokes. I was tired of being told I was the one with the problem. I was tired of having to swallow down so–called jokes to keep the peace. I should have walked away after that rehearsal dinner and not married Dash. Then I wouldn’t be in this situation right now.
No, I was the peacemaker, the one who put up with shit so I wouldn’t rock the boat. So no one would feel uncomfortable. So everyone would be happy. So someone else — namely Iris — could shine with her more outgoing, demanding personality.
It wasn’t OK when it just me but I’d allowed it like a chump since I never wanted to make waves. Now, however, I was thinking about my daughter – apparently, I was the only one who wanted her – and what my lack of a spine would teach her. No lesson I wanted her to learn.
Think, Zinnia. What if she came to me and told me this, that her husband had made a terrible joke about impregnating her sister?
“I’d tell her to stop taking it and leave him until he could change his attitude and see why it was wrong,” I whispered out loud in the darkness.
A whisper in the dark can be more powerful than a shout in the daylight.
Where could I go? Not to my parents. Not to my sister. I was going no contact for a while with them. I was one month from my due date, and since I worked from home as a medical Chapter1
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transcriptionist, I was portable. I could work anywhere. I suddenly realized where I could go if my husband wouldn’t leave our home.
The next morning, I was sitting at the kitchen table with my morning tea. I’d never been much of a coffee drinker, which my husband couldn’t understand. He came into the kitchen about half an
hour later, ready for work, tie straight, the young doctor ready to see patients.
He immediately spied his phone on the table.
“I took it while you were in the shower,” I explained.
Yeah, I figured that I’d admit it right up front, and I didn’t even care if it was wrong. If he was going to make jokes about impregnating his former girlfriend and then try to minimize how much
it had hurt me by saying it was a joke, I was going to search for answers on my own.
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into it since you changed your passcode.”
“Why are you trying to go through my phone?”
“Why wouldn’t I be able to go through your phone, Dash?”
“You’d have a fit if I tried to go through your phone.”
Avoid. Deflect. Not helping to reassure me.
“No, I wouldn’t because I have nothing to hide.” I pushed my phone across the table to him. “You know the passcode. I haven’t felt the need to change it.”
“This is bullshit.”
“Open your phone and let me see your texts.”
“No. It’s the principle of the thing. I’m not letting you see my texts.”
As I’d expected. Still a blow, but not altogether surprising. People only protected their phones when they had something to hide.
“I wanted to talk last night over with you. See if you’d realize how awful your so–called joke was and give you a chance to apologize.”
“You’re the one that blew up at Iris and me, Zinnie. You’re the one that couldn’t take a damn joke and ruined the night for everyone.”
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He was making it sound like he and Iris were the couple, like they were an entity and I was the
outsider.
“So, basically, to summarize, you’re telling me no self–reflection went on and you’re making this your hill to die on,” I said because I wanted this stated out loud.
“I’m saying it was nothing to get upset about, but I’m trying to be patient and keep your
condition in mind.”
“You’re ignoring that I was upset. Extremely upset and I’ve already told you the reasons why. But your entire reaction to my feelings being hurt was to tell me I couldn’t take a joke.”
“Because it was a joke! Why can’t you just let this go? It’s not that serious.”
“It was to me,” and I hated that my voice still sounded small. No wonder no one took me
seriously.
“You’re going to laugh about this after the baby comes and your sense of humor returns.‘
“No, I won’t ever laugh about what was said last night. Even if you didn’t take time to think last night after we got home, I did. I did a lot of thinking, and I realized I want some space, Dash.”
“Is it the pregnancy that’s making you act like this? What does that mean, you want space?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. I want you to move out for a while. Go home to your parents. Go stay with my sister and use this time to impregnate her with the boy you clearly want. I don’t even care right now. All I know is I don’t want to be around you.”
I can’t be around you. That’s how mad you
made me,
“Now you want us to separate? Zinnie, that is not a normal response to what was nothing more than a joke. I want you to call your doctor today, get in to see her immediately and see if there’s something off in your bloodwork because the Zinnia I know would never act like this.”
“No, you wouldn’t know this version of me because I always accepted whatever was thrown at me to keep the peace, but last night I realized that’s not the example I want to set for my daughter – you know, the baby you’re disappointed is a girl? I want her to stand up for herself and say no. So I need to do that for her sake.”
Dash glanced at his watch.
“I’m not moving out, so get that out of your head. We’ll talk more tonight if you really feel that
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strongly about it. I have to get going to make my shift.”
He leaned down to kiss me, but I reared back so his lips didn’t connect with mine, and he sighed as
if I was the problem.
“Is that your final decision about not moving out?” I asked.
“Yeah. I’m not moving out of my own home because you suddenly lost your sense of humor about a lighthearted joke. That’s way over the top, Zinnie.”
“I needed you to care about how I felt over this, Dash,” I said, resigned.
“If it was something serious, I would have cared, Zin. But this is you getting bent out of shape about a joke.”
If I had any reservations about my course of action, that parting shot from Dash wiped them away.
He must have made some calls on the way to the hospital because both my mother and Iris called me multiple times. I didn’t pick up because I was too busy packing, which meant they started texting me. The fact that he felt like it was a good idea to call my sister and my mother didn’t help his cause, and it just made me angrier. As a person who was used to pushing her anger aside, that bubbling, boiling sensation I was feeling inside felt good. Strong.
If Dash wouldn’t leave, then I would because I hadn’t been kidding when I said I needed space.
Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe my response was extreme. But maybe all my years of underreacting in the past had come to a boiling point and this joke suddenly and without warning became my line in the sand. I needed to think this through calmly and since I couldn’t be calm around my husband, I wouldn’t be able to think.
Putting three small carry–on suitcases in the trunk, I headed out to the only person in the world who might have my back, and I didn’t even know her all that well but instinctively trusted her. She was my great aunt – my paternal grandmother’s sister. She lived on a commune, and I’d met Aggie several times growing up, liking her hippie vibe and direct attitude. My grandmother had taken me for a week every summer, but Iris and my parents never joined us because Mom and Dad thought communes were places where hippies lived to avoid being productive members of society. They never wanted to hear when I tried to explain what the commune was actually like.
The last time I’d seen Aggie had been when I was fourteen, at my grandmother’s funeral. She’d been killed in a car accident, and Aggie had come for her service. A quiet woman, Aggie had been reserved with my parents and sister, but she gave me a hug and told me I was welcome to come
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visit time I wanted. Even then, I think she knew my parents wouldn’t allow me to go now that
any
my grandmother wasn’t there to insist it would be good for me to get away. Looking back, Gram
was trying to give me a break from my parents and the perfect daughter.
Aggie had given me an open invitation so I was going to RSVP.
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.