Chapter 71

Gennie sat in her seat; her mind lost in the dull roar of the engines. In a few short hours they would be in Buffalo. What started out two days ago, as an exercise in futility, now seemed like a pilgrimage of necessity.  She shivered to think of the heated debate they had on the subject of buying a home in New York. To call it a debate was being kind. In truth, it had been an all out battle. Not that she loved California. She didn’t. But she didn’t see any point in moving so far away from everything that made up his livelihood.

 Although she would never admit it, her main objection to the move, short of being loath to live in a city where she assumed the ground was white for six months out of the year, was that she knew if they lived there then he’d always be gone. Her motives were purely selfish, so she used every altruistic reason she could think of to supplement her argument, disguising her real fears. She told him that he couldn’t leave Robby to do everything all by himself. She told him he needed to stay in contact with the business, lest he be ‘out of the loop’. She said they had a perfectly beautiful home and they didn’t need another one. She even tried to argue about how they would move four cats across the country- it wasn’t fair to them, for Pete’s sake! Desperately, she pulled all the shots she could think of, some better than others, but ultimately, he wouldn’t buy it.

 To think of it now, his reasons were almost prophetic, and that was a little scary. Even though she insisted that there was no hurry, he kept mentioning this thing about ‘family’. He needed to be closer to his family. He wanted her to be a part of his family. He didn’t want to raise his family so far from home. It drove her crazy when he did that! She'd had no intention of being a mother any time in the near future, but he felt so strongly on this point of raising ‘their family’ far from LA, that she knew she couldn’t win. In the end, what got her reluctant agreement was the pleading look in his eyes as he told her that he needed to get away from the plastic unreality and become a normal guy again.  That was something that she wanted for him too, and if it took buying a house in Buffalo to give that to him, then she would do it, gladly.

 Like pieces coming together in a puzzle, the picture all became so clear to her now. Could her selfish need to keep him by her side have been more of an instinctive urge to stay near the father of her child? She wondered now, were his counters of  ‘what if’ to her every protest like some kind of paternal sixth sense? As if deep down inside he really knew more than either of them were fully aware of at the time. Though the idea of being a mother hadn’t yet sunk in completely, she did take some comfort in knowing that they would be near his large family. She knew she could count on his sisters if she needed their help. Somehow, at the moment, moving seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

What did seem to her to be totally unreasonable still was the fact that they were going to be parents. She wasn’t prepared for this kind of thing. They hadn’t had enough time together by themselves yet. Now was not the time for them to be doing this! She wished she could have the calm confidence that John had. He seemed to be completely at peace with this fact; as if it were the plan all along. Even the fact that he could peacefully doze off right now indicated to her that he wasn’t worried in the least about their impending life changing event. She envied that in him.

 Not that she showed it on the outside, but she was an emotional wreck right now. She loved him and she was fine with getting married. But this final leap to becoming a parent scared her to death. It was going to change her life forever. She glanced over at him once more, but instead of the heartwarming, loving thoughts that she would’ve ordinarily had, she let loose an indignant huff. Of course he’s going to be unruffled and serene. He’s not going to have his midsection stretched out ten times its normal size! No one’s going to ask him to pass an object the size of a watermelon through any orifice in his body! Right now she wasn’t sure if she was scared, angry, nervous, happy, or sad. All she knew was, it just wasn’t right. Not for her. Not now.

 One thing that she was certain of was that she was tired. And she had been for a while now. Once again, it was like things were coming into focus. It hadn’t really seemed odd to her before, she just knew that she felt like being lazier than usual. But now that she knew why she felt that way she felt like a complete idiot for not noticing before.

With a sigh she attempted to slide back in her seat to take a nap. But sleep would evade her; at least for now. Her mind was racing too quickly. The thing that puzzled her the most was exactly how this had happened when she’d been so diligent about taking her pills. It had been so much a part of her daily ritual that she hadn’t forgotten once. Not even when she was sick.  Wait! She was sick! Her doctor had prescribed antibiotics. She thunked herself on the forehead when she realized how stupid she had been. She knew perfectly well that antibiotics had the ability to render birth control pills ineffective. It hadn’t occurred to her before because the bed hadn’t seen much action during that whole time period- two sick people, no matter how much in love, are not feeling affectionate, to say the least! The tag-team illness had left one or the other of them dead to the world for a span of time covering nearly a month. Except for the awards show. Gen recalled now how the adrenaline of winning had added the extra oomph that her cold medicine needed to make her feel as good as new… at least for a little while… long enough to have a romantic rendezvous by the fireplace. Although it had been cozy and passionate, she wondered now if it had really been worth it.

 She figured this ‘eureka’ moment was worthy of waking him. With her face scrunched up in a cross between a smile and a scowl, she elbowed John in the ribs waking him from his nap, justifiably, she thought.  “You had to go and win that stupid award, didn’t you?”

 He pressed his brows together in confusion. “Huh?”

 “When I was sick.  You won the award. That’s when this happened!”

 Still puzzled, his eyes darted back and forth, either trying to make sense of things or trying to figure out if this was, in fact, a dream. “Gen, what are you talking about?”

 “Argh!” she groaned in frustration. “Wake up, would ya?”

 He sighed and looked her in the eyes. “Make sense, would ya?”

  “That night after the awards show,” she smiled patiently. “That’s when you… when we started work on your latest production.” She took a deep breath. “Am I making enough sense for you?”

 He took a moment to process what she said. After briefly replaying the night in his mind, he looked at her with eyebrows raised. “Really?” he asked with a sly smile.

 Gennie nodded.

 “You’re sure about that? Cause if that’s true, then it’s pretty cool, y’know. That was a… really good night for me.”

 “Oh please,” she rolled her eyes at his manly pride in his accomplishments, as though he thought he had some magical touch. “Don’t look so smug. This happens all the time. It didn’t take any special talent to do this to me.”

 He shrugged but didn’t surrender the attitude as he grinned at her. “You don’t know that. As far as I’m aware, nobody else’s done this to you before.”

 “No. They haven’t,” she deadpanned. “And you’re pretty proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

 “As a matter of fact, I am.”

 “Great.” She gazed at him with her tired eyes. “Are you planning to tell people?”

 “Well…I…” he stuttered. “Um, Gen, don’t you think it’d be a bit presumptuous to just show up next Thanksgiving with a kid? I mean, what do you plan to tell people? That you’re just getting fat?”

“No,” she laughed. “I meant today. Do you plan on telling people today?”

 “Oh. Well, I didn’t exactly tell anyone that we were coming home today, y’know. So they don’t even have to know that we’re there I guess. Why?”

 “I’m just not ready to say anything, that’s all. I haven’t gotten used to the fact myself yet.”

 “True. We can wait a while if you want, darlin’” He took her hand and smiled lovingly at her.

 “We should. And we have so many other things to discuss, you know. Like, my god Johnny, we’re getting married!” She said it as though the fact still astonished her. “When, where? We’ve never even talked about that yet.”

 “I don’t know. You want to do it while we’re here?”

 “That soon? Really?” she asked, wide eyed.

 “I don’t see why not.” He said it all very nonchalantly like it was as easy as ordering a pizza.

 “That’d be a pretty big surprise for people, I’d say. Don’t you think we need to think it out even a little? Y’know, cause that’d be real convenient for your family… but for mine, not so much.”

 “We can wait a little while. But I don’t wanna wait too long, either. You know what I mean? We should do it now while we can still enjoy ourselves, y’know. I’ve seen what you’ll be like. You’ll be miserable and your ankles’ll be all swollen and your back’ll hurt… I’d rather our honeymoon wasn’t like that.”

 She was glad that these things didn’t seem to faze him because they scared her to death! She gave him a panicked look, “I don’t want to be that way. I’m worried, John. I don’t know what this is gonna be like, and it terrifies me.” Tears started to form in her eyes as she looked at him for some comfort.

 He pushed back the armrest and pulled her closer to him to she could rest her head on his chest. “It’s gonna be fine, Gen. You’ll be alright,” he whispered as he stroked her hair. “We’ll go through this together.”

 Peacefully, she snuggled up to him, taking comfort in his words. Somehow, his voice soothed her and made her feel much better; maybe everything would be Ok after all. She was thankful that she had him by her side. Enclosed within his warm embrace, she drifted off to sleep.

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