Darkmoon(23)
That sounded good, and refreshingly normal. That was probably what most expecting couples did — ask their friends and family who was best equipped to take on such an enormous responsibility.
The waitress came by with our food then, and conversation ceased for a few minutes as we made some serious inroads on the plates piled with food in front of us. After I’d demolished about half my burger, though, I stopped and said, “But I guess all that is moot if we don’t figure out what Marie was talking about.”
“Well, you need to see a doctor no matter what — ” He stopped himself there, but I knew what he’d been about to say. Curse or no curse, we needed to make sure everything was all right with the baby, although I had a feeling it was fine. In general, it wasn’t until after the Wilcox heirs made their appearance in the world that their mothers needed to start worrying.
“I know,” I said. “And I will. But if she wants us to go back to the beginning….” I stopped, picking up a french fry and dipping it in some ketchup. After taking a bite, I chewed thoughtfully for a minute. She’d said there were things I needed to find out for myself, things she couldn’t tell me. That made me think she must be referring to my own beginnings, which were mostly shrouded in mystery. I knew I’d been born in California and that my mother had brought me back to Jerome when I was barely two months old, but I knew nothing beyond that. I’d never even seen my birth certificate; Aunt Rachel had taken care of the paperwork when I got my driver’s license.
“What is it?” Connor asked, setting down the last bit of his burger. “You look like your brain’s going a mile a minute.”
“The beginning,” I said slowly. “My beginning. There has to be something…something important. Maybe it’s something I need to figure out in order to break the curse.”
His eyes begin to gleam. “That makes sense. You really don’t know all that much, do you?”
“Hardly anything. I tried asking a few questions when I was younger, but my aunt said she really didn’t have that much to tell me, that my mother had barely said a word about what she’d been doing in California.” Talking about it now, I realized how strange that was, how little Aunt Rachel had claimed to know.
“So what’s the plan?”
“Finish lunch,” I replied, pulling the dish of mac and cheese toward me now that I’d thoroughly killed my burger and fries. “Then I think we need to go back to Jerome.”
* * *
We took my car, and Connor packed his beat-up old Northern Pines athletic bag with some toiletries and a couple changes of clothing, just in case. As I drove us back to the highway, he called Lucas and let him know where he was going. I could tell Lucas was more than pleased about the reconciliation, but Connor ended the call before his cousin could wax too effusive.
“I think he’s ready to start planning the wedding now,” Connor remarked, slipping his iPhone back into his pocket.
“He’d probably have to arm-wrestle Sydney for the privilege.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Connor’s mouth turn up in a grin, but then it faded. “I want that, too,” he said quietly. “I want to make this official.”
Something in my chest seemed to turn over. Maybe it was just that everything seemed to be happening so fast. Then again, Connor and I were meant to be together. We’d hit a bump in the road — a little parting gift from Damon, I supposed — but we were back on track now. Marriage was just the next step, a practically foregone conclusion.
“I do, too,” I told him. “But I think we need to focus on — on making sure that we’ll have a real future. You and me and the baby. The wedding can come later.”
Talk about your role reversals. Usually it was the woman charging gung-ho into wedding planning and choosing flowers and menus and bridesmaids dresses and all that, but as much as I wanted to be married to Connor, I also wanted to make sure our marriage would last. And that meant breaking the curse so it would no longer be a threat to us…or to our child’s spouse, or any more of the Wilcox wives.
“You’re right, of course.” He turned to look out the window, at the ranks of ponderosa pines flashing past. Here there weren’t many wildflowers yet, but grass gleamed green between the dark pine trees.
Spring. A time for beginnings…including my own.
It was not quite four o’clock by the time we pulled into my garage. I’d left the house just six hours earlier, and yet it felt as if everything had changed in those few short hours. Then again, I supposed it had.