Page 37 of Bar Down Baby!
Barry’s mouth opened then closed. It was a trick question—I was baptized Catholic but had no recollection of the last time I stepped into a church for something other than a funeral or a wedding.
“God, Barry, what if you married me and then I told you I wanted twelve kids? One every eleven months for the next decade.”
“Do you?” Barry asked.
“No!” I was back to pacing. “But you can’t spontaneouslyjump into things like that. I could be anyone,youcould be anyone.”
“I’d have wanted to date you if you hadn’t ghosted me in May. Or at least would have seen where things went,” Barry defended. “Did you even like me?”
I guffawed and reeled back. “Of course I liked you, are you kidding?”
“You never texted. Even before you were pregnant.”
“I—I couldn’t, okay?” I sealed my lips into a line and shrugged, no further explanation available. After a silent moment when it became apparent I had nothing else to give, Barry shut his eyes and exhaled.
“We could have been two months deep into a lovely long-distance relationship when you found out you were pregnant, if you weren’t, what? Scared of commitment?”
“Woah,” I said.
Barry already looked penitent.
“I didn’t mean that.”
“You did.” He was right, I’ve always had a thing about commitment. I knew this, and so did he after our little game of never have I ever. It would be unfair to blame it on my parents. When they were married, they were always committed to each other, they just didn’t always love each other. That’s what was so alarming, I think, the fact that two people could stay together for so long when they were so positively unhappy together. They’d been happy once. I think they really loved each other when I was little, and to be fair, they quite liked each other now, but not romantically. They didn’t want to kiss, they just shared three beautiful children and a below-average bowling league. They had a lot in common.
“I don’t trust this,” I said. “You want to be with me because you think it’s the right thing. The baby is clouding your judgment.”
“Hannah—”
“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you’d want to marry me if I wasn’t pregnant.”
“That’s not fair,” Barry said. “Of course I’m considering the baby. I want to give her everything she needs.”
“She needs parents who aren’t married out of obligation,” I said. “I don’t want to marry someone who doesn’t totally love me. What would that show her?”
“I—”
“Barry, if you fucking say you love me, I swear to God.”
“No,” Barry started, then stopped. He took a breath and let it out through his nose. Out of the window behind him, the tree I used to climb as a kid swayed in the wind, its branches moving back and forth. “I was going to say I could love you. You wouldn’t be difficult to fall in love with. I’m not opposed to it.”
“Well, I am.”
Barry looked hurt at this admission, but I didn’t know how to qualify it. It’s not that I didn’t want someone, him even, to love me. But I’d meant what I said; I couldn’t trust any romantic feelings from him when he was trying to be father of the year. Of course I wanted him to care about the baby, and I wanted him to be a good dad if he was to be one at all. But introducing romance got sticky. How could I ever know if it was real and not an act? Or even, if not an act, then something he had to convince himself of? An obligation?
The church bell rang out down the street, three loud rings we could hear with the wind outside. I plopped down next to him on the stool again. Junior tried to get me to pet him, but I nudged him off the counter until he dropped to the ground and sauntered to his water bowl like that had been the plan all along. Barry still looked like a kicked puppy, so I put my hand tentatively on his forearm.
“I think you’re wonderful,” I said. “I loved spending time with you in New York, and the?—”
I almost told him how much I liked having sex with him,how I’d gotten off to the memory of his dick more times than I care to admit over the last six months. Too many times.
I cleared my throat.
“Hanging out with you was the best time I had in the city.”
Maybe the best time I had all year.
Barry looked at me and I didn’t look away.
