I shake my head, frowning, unable to joke about biteable olives with our break status tugging me down. “You’re not going to get that out of me.”
She tuts. “Please, do an old woman a solid.”
“You’re not old. You’re . . . what? Sixty-two?” I ask, hoping to divert her attention away from Liam and me, especially since I don’t think there is a Liam and me anymore. I don’t know how to cross our impasse, and it’s breaking my heart.
“Please. I am sixty-one. Don’t age me up.” She moves the hose over her peonies, drizzling a little bit of water on them before she sets it down on the lawn, heads to the faucet, turns it off, then joins me again. “I had my daughters young. Just like you with Wednesday. And we’re close too.”
“That is true.” Missy often tells me how well she gets along with her mom, since they’re only twenty-three years apart.
Betty wags a finger at me. “But I want to know about the olive scale.”
I don’t want to go there, so I sidestep. “Your lawn looks great.”
She narrows her eyes. “Are you having trouble in paradise? Missy and I were glad that you were the one who got him.”
But does that matter if I can’t keep him? “I’m not sure it’ll last.”
She gives me a look of utter disbelief. “How could it not last? You can fix anything in the house, and he can take care of all your pets. You’re both hot to trot for each other. What problems could you possibly have?”
Problems like life goals.
Like wants.
Like the future.
I give an easy shrug. “Who knows?” I try to keep it light and breezy. This isn’t the time or the place to break it all down.
“Oh,” she says, as if the light bulb has flicked on. Like she’s figured it all out. “Kids. You want more and he doesn’t?”
I let out a long breath, wishing she hadn’t nailed it in reverse, but weirdly glad that I have an outlet. “More like the other way around. But I think maybe I should change my mind.”
“Ah,” she says with a sage nod. “You thought you were done, but now you aren’t sure?”
I didn’t intend to have this conversation with my neighbor, but sometimes it’s easier to voice deep truths to someone who’s not regularly in your life. Who only appears in it tangentially. Saying these words to Betty helps me understand them. Helps them take shape.
“I’m thirty-seven. It’s not that I’m too old to have kids. I might be able to, but I also don’t know . . . and there is so much to consider.” I take a beat, collecting my thoughts. “And yet he’s kind of amazing.”
“But you have a career to think about now too,” she points out, drawing up her shoulders like she’s calling on all her woman strength. “You’ve started building your business. I had my girls when I was young, and by the time I was forty-one, they were out of the house and I was able to start my flower shop. That had been my dream, something I’d always wanted to do. Would I have been able to do that if I’d had another baby? Who knows? There are all sorts of things to think about. But I’m glad I opened my shop and glad I had something of my own.”
“Glad, too, that you didn’t have to bring a baby with you to the store?”
She flashes a sympathetic smile. “Yes, dear. That too.”
What would it be like to have a baby again? How would I get any work done? Would I take the baby to jobs? Get a nanny? Would Liam stay home? The practical stuff is so daunting and terrifying.
But it’s worth considering because he wants it.
I try to picture what it’d be like to be pregnant again.
Would he want to start right away? What if we wanted to be together just as a couple for a few years? Then I might not be able to get pregnant. Would he resent me if I couldn’t?
I don’t share all of this with Betty. It’s too personal. I don’t have the answers to any of these questions.
But then, an adorable towhead toddles from inside the house onto the front porch, stretches, and says, “Nana, I woke up from my nap. Can we draw?”
Betty turns around, her smile lighting up her features. “Of course, sweetheart. Anything you want, my little lovebug.”
As Betty walks over to the porch, I can’t resist. I join her. When she picks up her little granddaughter and brings her close, nuzzling her hair, I get that feeling in my chest, the one I get when I’m holding a baby.
A feeling a lot of women get. That feeling of wanting them.
Betty must see it in my eyes because she turns to me and says, “Nora’s a sweetheart. Do you want to give her a little hug?”
