Page 5 of Heartless
“But it’s happened since she’s been with Spencer. No sooner than they got together. After all, Bryan had a vasectomy and didn’t tell her. So, it’s not like she was having fertility issues after all. I am.”
“Or maybe you’re not. Look, all I’m trying to say is that I want a family just as badly as you do, but we cannot allow it to stress our marriage, our lives, and our intimacy. We have to let nature take its course, babe. And I firmly believe when we stop stressing about it, it will happen. And if it doesn’t, that’s for a reason too. We just have to stay positive.”
I close my eyes and smile. “Maybe you’re right.”
“You know I am. Now come on, let’s go inside and let me love up on my wife.”
I force a smile to my lips and open the door to get out of the car.
2 – ONYX
“Boy, get out of that cake! You haven’t even eaten yet,” Mama says, smacking my hand and forcing me to put down the cake knife.
“Ma, I’m not a little kid anymore. I promise you that if I eat this cake, it won’t destroy my appetite,” I say.
“He’s telling the truth, Mom. He’ll eat whatever you put on his plate, mine and yours too, if you allow him,” MJ says, coming into my mother’s kitchen behind us.
My mother laughs and shakes her head. Pointing the spatula at me, she says, “We’re about to sit down for dinner as soon as your sister arrives. I hope you’ll be ready to eat.”
“I will,” I say, picking up the cake knife and slicing a piece of the caramel cake that she had baked from scratch.
“How do you put up with him?” Mama asks Meadow.
“Easy. He’s the center of my world,” my wife says, looping her arms around my waist and resting her head against my back.
As I slid the cake onto a saucer and put the lid back over the cake, Mama smiles at us.
“I love how you love my son. That’s one thing I always prayed for my kids; that they would find someone who loved them as deeply and unconditionally as their father and I do.”
“Onyx makes it easy loving him,” Meadow says.
Spinning around with my plate in one hand, I loop my other arm around my wife’s waist. Leaning down, I kiss her forehead and then her lips. “And you make it easy loving you, babe.”
My mother inhales deeply and then shakes her head.
“What, Ma?”
“Nothing,” she says, fanning her face.
“You’re thinking about Dani, aren’t you?” Meadow asks intuitively.
“Aren’t I always?” Mama says.
The topic of my sister always makes my mother emotional. Something is going on with Danica, but she keeps us all at arms’ length.
“Well, she gives us something to think about,” my father says, walking into the kitchen. “How much longer do we have to wait for her before we can eat? I’m starving and haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“That’s your fault, John. I told you to grab you a bite to eat for lunch earlier, and you said you weren’t hungry.”
“I wasn’t, but that was seven hours ago. I didn’t eat breakfast until ten, so of course, I wasn’t hungry two hours later. That girl should’ve been here an hour ago. Have you called her?”
“I did,” Mama says, gazing away from my father because we all know that she doesn’t want to see the recrimination there. “Meadow and Onyx, when are you two going to give me some babies to have running around here?” Mama asks, changing the subject.
Meadow glances at me, and I roll my eyes. Before I can utter another word, my wife speaks up.
“Let me try calling Dani. I’ll be right back.”
I watch as MJ pulls her phone from her pocket and leaves the kitchen. Mama looks between MJ and me, but I see Dad shake his head subtly.