Marital Bitch(23)
“How’d you find out?” she asks giving Brad the stink eye.
“I’m a detective, sweetheart. You don’t think I’m gonna know when my favorite girl is off sharing her cookies with some strange kid?”
“Well, you married Aunt Colleen!” Lilly retorts but Brad isn’t letting it go. The man takes his cookies seriously and at least in five year old Lilly he’s found someone to argue with.
“Well, you’re sharing your cookies with a kid who’s named after a dog!” Brad smirks at Lilly as she opens and closes her mouth several times before responding.
“I want cookies,” she says and he agrees that he wants cookies, too. They walk off in search of the dessert table. I know it’s around here somewhere. Grammy says she doesn’t show up unless there’s a dessert table. Darla shakes her head and laughs.
“He’s going to be a great father,” Darla says. I nod my head and look for a distraction. I can’t wait to get my hands on my little buddy, even if he is sleeping away in James’s arms. James notices that I’m fixed on the sleeping boy and he hands him over to me which effectively ends his slumber. Alex’s blue eyes pop open and he squirms in my arms.
“Hey, Monkey,” I say, adjusting him to a more comfortable position on my hip. For being just barely two, he sure is stocky. With James as his dad, it’s no wonder.
“Auntie,” he says, laying his head on my chest. I smile down at him and kiss him atop his head.
“So, how long do you think you can keep this up for?” James asks. I shrug.
“I don’t have the heart to tell everyone it’s not real, especially Grammy,” I say, mindful of who might be near.
“Yeah, okay,” James says, “but what if she lives for another five or ten, hell—fifteen years? You just gonna pretend to be married to Brad? That’s pretty fucked up, sis.” My eyebrows knit together and I consider James’s point. The honest answer is that I just don’t know. I’m taking it day by day and minute by minute here. This whole thing spiraled out of control because my friends couldn’t leave well enough alone. They had to butt in and broadcast the one evening of my life that I’d rather keep quiet, all over the internet.
“Don’t even go there, James,” I walk toward him and lean in. “You stood back and let them tell the world about this. Where was your opinion then?” James is speechless. He has no defense and he knows it. I glare at Darla next. She won’t even look me in the eye. Good.
“And you,” I whisper-shout while running my hand through Alex’s hair. “You’re treating this like it’s a game. We’re adults, Darla. I have a career to worry about, not that you’d understand my position.” I snap and walk away.
It was a low blow using my career against her. Darla’s been a stay-at-home mom for years, and a stay-at-home wife before that. I don’t have the right to judge her anymore than she has the right to judge me. But deep in the back of my mind I’ve always judged her. I’ve always wondered why she didn’t want more for herself than to just be a cop’s wife. Even in high school while I talked about going to college, she talked about getting married after James graduated from the academy.
“Sissy!” Alex shouts, spotting Lilly and Brad across the room.
“Hey Monster, you want a cookie?” I ask. Alex’s eyes grow wide and he grins up at me. I love Lilly and Fitz is such a cute baby, but Alex is my favorite. I know I shouldn’t be playing favorites, but I can’t help it. Since the day he started crawling, he’s been a terror. Alex will climb on anything and anyone he can get his little hands on. I didn’t think much of it when Darla told me she was pregnant with him; but then the day he was born, I got it. I understood that maternal tug. I had never and have never been as jealous of another human being as I was of Darla the day that Alex was born.
“Cookie!” he chants, bouncing on my hip. Brad looks up and sees us approaching. He grins at us and chomps on a large cookie of his own.
”Husband,” I giggle when I say it and I’m not sure why. But it feels right. He lights up.
“Wife,” he says with a nod and leans in kissing me on top of my head. I hand Alex a chocolate chip cookie and take a good look at us. With Brad holding Lilly in his arms and Alex on my hip, we look like a real family. Brad wipes chocolate off of Lilly’s face and cleans his finger off on his pants without a second thought. He isn’t the slightest bit worried about walking around with chocolate on his clothes. I look down at Alex covered in chocolate and suddenly I don’t care about getting messy, either. Here with Brad, surrounded by our family and friends; I’m starting to think that I want this; that after everything, I might really want this.