Chapter 78

Chapter 78
Cheyenne

By late August, I’m swollen in places I didn’t know could hold water and be irritated by sounds that used to qualify as harmless.
The refrigerator hums too loud, and the dryer buzzer sounds personal. My own shoes feel like a threat if I look at them long enough.
Pregnancy with Sawyer was hard because fear sat in the middle of everything, because my body didn’t feel like mine and I didn’t trust the world enough to hand over any softness without expecting a bruise back. This one’s different. This one’s wanted and easy in all the emotional places, but physically she’s making up for lost time; my lower back hurts, my hips ache, and I’m hot no matter what the air conditioner says. If I drop something on the floor, it’s staying there till Dallas gets home or Sawyer decides it looks interesting.
Right now the thing on the floor is a clean dish towel, and I am pretending not to see it.
“Mommy.”
I look down at my son, who’s planted himself against my leg, holding a board book in one hand and a plastic truck in the other. His curls are damp from the heat even inside. His cheeks are pink. He points the book up at me and says, with all the authority in his tiny body, “Read.”
“You’re bossy.”
He grins because that wasn’t a no. I ease myself down onto the couch with more effort than dignity, and Sawyer climbs up beside me, then immediately across me, then finally settles half in my lap and half under my arm like he personally invented lounging. The baby shifts low and hard when his knee lands near my side.
“Ow,” I mutter.
Sawyer pats my stomach. “Baby.”
“Yeah. Your sister’s in there, and she’s being dramatic.”
He nods like that tracks. I read the same truck book three times because toddlers respect nothing, least of all narrative closure. By the end of it I’m thirsty again, my bladder’s full again, and the baby’s turned herself into what feels like a sharpened elbow aimed at my ribs.
Motherhood is beautiful and also rude. The phone on the cushion beside me buzzes with a text from Dallas.

Dallas: How’re my girls doing?

I smile before I can help it and thumb back one-handed while Sawyer turns pages with all the grace of a raccoon in a pantry.

Cheyenne: One of us is sweet. One of us is sticky. One of us is using my lungs as a kickboxing gym.

Three dots appear almost immediately.

Dallas: So you’re all thriving.
Cheyenne: Absolutely not.
Dallas: Need me to bring anything home.

I look toward the kitchen where the towel still lies abandoned on the floor like a challenge, and the watermelon I cut earlier sits in the fridge calling my name.

Cheyenne: Sonic ice. Extra. And if you love me, fries.
Dallas: Thought that went without saying, Baby.

That warmth in my chest still hasn’t gotten old.
It probably never will. I set the phone down and kiss the top of Sawyer’s head while he flips to the back cover and announces “Done,” even though he asked for the book in the first place.
“Want lunch?”
He only nods once. “Want me to stand up and make it?”
He nods again, which feels disrespectful. I lever myself up with a sound that would embarrass me in front of almost anyone but my own kid, and he immediately trots behind me into the kitchen talking to himself in half words and engine noises. Life’s gotten small in the best way these last few months. Not small as in less. Small as in close. Specific. Full of tiny rhythms that matter more than anything that ever looked impressive from a distance.
Dallas leaves early for the shop and comes home smelling like green soap, stencil paper, and summer heat. Sawyer wakes before the sun and wants whatever breakfast involves the most mess. We do daycare some days when our schedules demand it, but with me this close to leave and Dallas guarding every extra hour like he can stretch time by force, we’ve been keeping Sawyer with us more. He helps me fold washcloths badly. He sits in the pantry and steals pretzels while I make lists of things that still need to be packed for the hospital, even though the bag’s been by the door for two weeks.
I know exactly where it is. I’m just pretending not to. By noon, the ordinary starts stacking up the way it always does. I swap laundry. I wipe down the counters. I text Brooklyn back about what she’s bringing to family dinner tonight.

Brooklyn: Tell me somebody else is making dessert because if i open my oven in this heat i’m filing for emancipation from adulthood.
Cheyenne: Ashlynn’s doing cobbler. Apparently she wants the whole house to smell like a county fair.
Brooklyn: She’s a better woman than I am.

Then Aspen sends one too.

Aspen: If any of you judge how many wipes, snacks, cups, and emergency shirts I’m bringing for three babies and one preschooler, I’ll key your car.
Cheyenne: No one’s judging you. We’re all scared of you.

The girls’ thread stays active like that all afternoon, with little jokes and grocery checks and exhausted motherhood layered over the deeper thing underneath it all. We’re okay, we’re busy, and we’re still here. Nobody says that part because we don’t have to. You know, when a group of women has made a home with one another, the practical talk never stops carrying the bigger stuff under it.
Sawyer helps me water the potted herbs on the back patio after lunch, which mostly means he dunks the watering can too deep and splashes both of us. I should get irritated. I don’t. He laughs so hard at the water on my shorts that I end up laughing too, and then the baby shifts low and mean enough to make me brace a hand on the railing.
That catches my breath. “Mommy.”
“I’m okay.”
Braxton Hicks.
Just another one.
Tight and annoying and gone almost as fast as it came.
Still, I stand there a little longer than I need to, breathing through the thickness of late summer air and the way my body keeps reminding me it knows more than I do about what’s coming.
By the time Dallas gets home, the storm clouds are building purple over the neighborhood, and my patience is hanging by one thin, sticky thread.
He walks in with Sonic ice, fries, and the exact face of a man who knows bribery works on his wife.
“Marry me,” I tell him.
He sets the bag on the counter. “Already handled that.”
“You should do it again.”
“Can if you want.”
Sawyer barrels toward him, yelling something that sounds like “Daddy fries,” and Dallas crouches automatically, catches him mid-launch, and kisses his cheek before he even gets all the way up. Watching him do that still rearranges something in me. It always will.
“How was your day?” he asks.
I take the drink from him and press it to my neck before answering. “Long, loud, and sweaty. Your daughter’s trying to tunnel out through my pelvis.”
He smiles and leans in to kiss me. “Sounds like family.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He gets one hand under my belly while Sawyer roots through the fry bag like he personally paid for it. “You having more contractions?”
“Nothing regular.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Yeah, a few.”
“How many is a few?”
“Don’t get bossy.”
“That means too many for your liking.”
That’s the problem with being married to a perceptive man. He doesn’t take the easy answer just because you hand it over with confidence.
I sigh and lean against the counter. “More than yesterday. Less than a crisis.”
He studies my face for one second too long, then nods. “We’ll still go to dinner if you want to, but if you say the word, we stay home.”
I smile a little despite myself. “You can’t say it like that. It makes me want to prove something stupid.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
“Rude.”
“True.”
I eat half the fries standing there in the kitchen while Sawyer steals the other half and Dallas moves around both of us, getting the diaper bag, the extra outfit, the wipes, and the casserole dish I made this morning packed up for dinner at Collin and Ashlynn’s. Domestic competence looks ridiculously good on him. I tell him that. He tells me I’m delirious from sodium. Neither of us means it.
Later, once I’m dressed in the loose green sundress that still fits and sandals I can slip on without crying, I stop in front of the hallway mirror and just look for a second.
Late pregnancy doesn’t make me feel polished; it makes me feel lived in, rounded out, pulled thin in some places and fuller in others, tired, loved, and ready and not ready in equal measure.
Dallas comes up behind me and meets my eyes in the mirror.
“You’re staring,” I say.
“Can you blame me?”
I snort softly. “I’m swollen.”
“You’re gorgeous.”
“I’m one inconvenience away from violence.”
His hands settle over my hips carefully, then one palm slides up over the front of my belly. The baby kicks right into him. His face changes.
That gets me every time. The way his whole body softens when she makes herself known. Like she already belongs to him so completely it humbles him.
“Hey, little girl,” he murmurs.
I cover his hand with mine and let myself lean back into him. For one quiet second, the house stills. No toddler noise, no dishes, no dryer, and no phones, just us.
Then Sawyer yells from the living room, “Go.”
I laugh. “There’s your cue.”
Dallas kisses the side of my head. “You sure you’re up for this?”
“I’m not missing family dinner because my body’s being dramatic.”
“That answer worries me.”
“It shouldn’t.”
He gives me the kind of look that says it definitely should.
I grab the hospital bag from beside the hall tree on impulse. Not because I think we need it. Because I’m tired of walking past it and pretending I’m above superstition.
Dallas notices immediately. “Chey.”
“Don’t start.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
He takes the bag from me anyway and carries it to the truck without another word.
That should tell me something. Maybe it does. By the time we pull into Collin and Ashlynn’s driveway, the first cramp of the night catches low and hard enough that I close my eyes till it passes.
Dallas puts the truck in park and looks over at me.
I force a smile. “Don’t.”
“Didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He watches me breathe through the last edge of it, and even in the fading light I can see the exact second his attention sharpens.
Ordinary has been running all day. I’ve got a feeling it’s almost done.