Paxton
I watched Gabriella peculiarly as she talked on her phone, pacing back and forth with her fingers moving through her hair. The frown on my face was instant, wondering who she could be talking to, and why she seemed so upset. I could hear Rowan’s dance instructor calling out French instructions, and then Vander saw me. He jumped from the church pew that is being used for a bench in the lobby to me.
“Uncle Paxton, are we going to work now?”
“In a minute buddy, Phi get down from there before you fall through the window,” I scolded while moving Vander to the side.
Gabriella looked up from her call, distraught expression changing to a smile. “I’ll call you later, Paxton’s here to get the kids.”
“Who was that?”
“Mi, you’re going to take them home to change before you let them work, right?”
“Yeah, what’s going on, Gabriella?”
The frown and the fake smile did little to ease my trepidation. Something was up. Gabriella was hiding something and I knew it. “What do you mean?”
“What were you talking about? You looked upset.”
“Yeah, I was. Nick is taking a job in Connecticut. Mi’s going to leave me.”
“Oh,” I said with only that. I’m not going to lie and say I wasn’t happy about that. That chick was weird as shit. I was more than okay with that.
“Oh? That’s it?”
“Well, I mean by the way you looked I thought something was wrong. We have two houses up for sale in our neighborhood, and two more about to be built. I’m sure you’ll find another friend.”
“Not like Mi.”
“Thank God. I’ll see you at home. I should be there by five.”
I gave her a quick kiss and gathered my little employees who would be more in the way than anything, and left. We may have celebrated a little with ice cream before supper. Mi moving out of state was definitely celebration worthy, just not with my wife. Of course, Phi was about to blow my cover. I should have got them ice cream after they changed clothes. Ophelia had a nice streak of pink down her chest and belly. All I did when I tried to clean it back at home was make it worse. I hid it in the washer, on the side, she wouldn’t see, and hoped it came out.
Nonetheless, that didn’t work. Gabriella went nuts over a lost sock. Thinking a missing shirt would slip past her was stupid on my part.
“Where did you take it off, Phi? It couldn’t have gone that far,” she complained while Phi half paid attention. She was busy with our own back yard project, too busy for mundane lost shirts.
“I dunno.”
“You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know? It’s a shirt. Where did you take it off?”
“Uncle Pax put it in the washer because it got ice cream on it.”
“Oh,” she said in that tone.
My eyes snapped to Vander as I handed him a heavy piece of stone. One that didn’t allow talking while carrying. Big mouth.
“Paxton?”
“What, it was just a little snack. They’ll eat their supper or I’ll tie them up by their toes and feed them peanuts.”
The attempt to make her laugh failed, but my troops laughed. Then again it was their toes we were talking about.
“We had to celebrate,” Phi announced with an even bigger mouth than her cousins.
“Celebrate what?”
I didn’t tell them why we were celebrating for that exact reason, because they both had big mouths.
“The good news,” Vander spouted while stacking the stones where I directed him to.
“What good news Paxton?”
Great. I hated that tone. She knew. Gabriella knew exactly why I had taken them for ice cream. “Can’t a guy just want a scoop of ice cream once in a while? Maybe we were celebrating the first day of school.”
“No, you said mommy gave you good news.”
“Ophelia, you’re not helping child,” I assured her busy little body, and then turned back to Gabriella walking away. No, stomping away. She was pissed.
Supper was eaten on the patio with three motor-mouth little ones, all talking about school, trying to up the other one. Even Vander. He got to erase the chalkboard and Rowan and Phi didn’t. Gabriella talked as well, just not to me. All I got were dirty looks, and an angry scoop of mashed potatoes, plopped onto my plate with a scowl.
I even helped clean up, trying to get back on her good side while Rowan and Vander got baths, and Phi watched Sponge Bob. That didn’t work either.
“Gabriella, stop being mad at me. You’re mad over nothing.”
The glare would have killed me if at all possible. Gabriella jerked the broom from the closet and walked out of the kitchen. Not one word, just the mean, hateful stare my way, narrowed, evil eyes, and pursed lips.
“What are you doing? Stop cleaning and talk to me.”
“I can’t. I have to go sweep up all the sand that you and your kids left for me. Don’t you have work to do?”
“I always have work to do.”
“So do I,” she snapped while moving past me and to the more important, sand on the steps. That wasn’t even my fault. I didn’t tell them to dump the sand out of their shoes right there. Geesh.
I started to walk away before I got angry myself. She was mad over nothing, acting like a spoiled brat, just because I was happy about her friend leaving. To me, that was dumb.
“You took them to eat ice cream to celebrate Mi leaving. That’s so fucked up, Paxton. She’s my friend. My only friend. You’re the most disrespectful man I have ever met in my life.”
I started to say something about meeting my dad, but refrained, knowing that wasn’t the right thing to say. It was the truth. That man didn’t care about anyone’s feelings, but now wasn’t the time to disclose that information. “I’m sorry, but I can’t lie and say I’m not happy.”
The look on her face and the pain in her eyes changed my tune. Jesus. Where the fuck did all the crying come from all of a sudden? Gabriella didn’t cry.
“She’s my only friend, Paxton. I need her in my life. Whether you want to admit it or not. Mi’s the only reason I’m here, the only reason we’re even still together. No other woman on this earth would put up with you and the things you’ve done.”
That pissed me off. I had bent over backwards for her for months, trying to make things right. Her throwing it in my face every time she got mad was ridiculous. I couldn’t change it. There was absolutely nothing I could do to take it back, and her bringing it up every chance she got didn’t help anything. “So now we’re talking about more than ice cream? You want to go there over something silly? It’s okay if I don’t like your friend, Gabriella. That’s my right, and you have no business acting like this over something so trivial.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Go work, or do whatever it is that you do in your office all night.”
“What the fuck does that mean? That door is always open, and I’m always working.”
“Yup, and you—”
The broom, sweeping in a frantic motion toward the street, suddenly stopped.
“Isn’t that Mr. Jandt? Rowan’s teacher?”
I stepped out, glancing toward the house, the young teacher, and the agent. Great. I didn’t like him either. Gabriella sat on the front step first, and I sat beside her, watching the agent walk around the house with Rowan’s second-grade teacher.
“I like him. I hope he buys it,” Gabriella expressed, and I lied.
“Yeah, he seems like an okay guy.” I didn’t think he was an okay guy at all. He was a ditz, some young punk that would never fit into this neighborhood. Of course that was all gone. I thought we had a good thing going there for a while. Gabriella seemed to fit in fine with the other girls. Then again, I didn’t really give her a choice, and for whatever reason, she fought that one, tooth and nail. She didn’t like our neighbors anymore, post-accident, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to change that. Nothing. Not that I wanted to. Not anymore.
“That was very inconsiderate of you, Pax, and when are you going to learn that these kids all have really big mouths. You can’t tell them secrets.”
“That’s the thing. I didn’t tell them anything, I mean, I did, just not that. The only thing I said was, I just got some great news and we needed to celebrate with ice cream, that’s it.”
“That was enough. I don’t know what I will do without Mi. I love her.”
I took her hand in mine and kissed her knuckles, feeling like an ass. Of course, this was hard for her. I was such an idiot. “When is she leaving?” I questioned as we watched the young teacher and the agent walk through the front door.
“Nick wants to be there before Christmas.”
The expression was hidden, along with the unnoticed snort. Christmas was nearly four months away. Why would you worry about something before you had to? This woman…
Ophelia’s scream kept me from saying something else that would offend her. “Dad, something broke on the toilet. Hurry. It’s going on the floor.”
Phi wasn’t lying. Toilet water flowed out around the ring with a big glob of paper right in the middle. “What did I tell you about using that much toilet paper? Your butt’s not even that big. Stop it,” I scolded while more water sloshed out with the plunger. What a mess.
I turned to tell Phi to go grab the mop, but she was gone and Gabriella stood in her place. Mop in hand.
“She left. You made her cry.”
“Jesus Christ. I’m never going to survive girls.”
“Well, you yelled at her. What do you expect?” Gabriella asked in an accusing manner while she mopped, cleaning up the mess Phi left behind. If this was the first time, I might not have been so mad. It wasn’t. It was the fifth time.
“I’m going to work for a little while. You put them to bed,” I said as I sidestepped her, needing the hell away from females for a minute. Christ almighty. That worked for as long as it took me to see Ophelia, face down on the cold tile, right in front of my office door. I’d say she was more than likely, begging for attention. Girls…
I scooped her from the floor and carried her across the threshold, placing her on my lap as I sat in my chair, waking up my computer. She heaved in my chest like she was nearly dead, crying out like I had beaten her within inches of her life.
“Stop it. You don’t have to cry, just stop using so much toilet paper,” I coaxed while stroking her hair and rubbing her back.
She finally stopped when I let her help with a 3D design of an outside kitchen I was about to build. Thank God. Twenty minutes later, she was bored, off to get her bath. I watched them from my office, listening to the banter between them, shaking my head. Never a dull moment in the Pierce house.
Not even once they were in bed. I could tell Gabriella still had a stick up her ass when she went up to shower herself.
“They’re all waiting for you. I’m going upstairs,” she said from the door, and not from my side like she normally did.
“I’ll be up as soon as I say goodnight to the hellions.”
“They’re not hellions, and you don’t have to hurry. I’m tired.”
I tried to gaze at her through squinted eyes like I did before, intimidate her into my way of thinking, but it didn’t work. She tapped the doorframe with the tips of her fingers and walked away from me. The instant anger filled my chest like it had every other time in our marriage. I hated when she defied me, walked away like that. Who the fuck did she think she was? But then…I remembered, she didn’t know who she was, and it was this strong, unfamiliar Gabriella that I fell in love with, not the week one who stood before me and looked at the floor.
“They are too hellions,” I quietly said to myself, letting the anger relax, and turning back to the screen on my computer. Fine, she wanted me to work and not be with her, I’d show her I could do just that. She wasn’t hurting me, only herself.
That lasted for as long as it took me to say goodnight to the kids, and settle back into my work. The work that I no longer could get into. My wife was upset with me, and for the first time in our marriage, I gave a fuck.
My brain worked on overload, trying to come up with something nice to do for her, something to carry upstairs with me as a piece offering. The only thing I could think of was the one yellow rose that had bloomed for some odd reason and a drink. I did my best to mix the drink like she would, and walked out the backdoor, snipping the stem of the one lonely rose.
I walked upstairs, thinking about making her happy, maybe with my mouth. Three or four orgasms should get me out of the doghouse and back on speaking terms with her. I held the long stem between my teeth and quietly opened the door, expecting her to be covered in lavender bubbles. She was covered in bubbles, but not in the tub. She stood in front of the mirror, sideways, with her hand covering her belly. That confused the hell out of me, and an instant surge of adrenaline surged my body.
“Gabriella?”
She jumped, at least, a foot and grabbed a towel. “Jesus, stop doing that.”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing, going to bed with a book. What are you doing?”
“Why were you doing that? Why were you standing sideways with your hand on your stomach like that? Why, Gabriella?”
She wrapped herself in the towel and tried to step around me. Fuck no. I wasn’t about to let her walk away. The last time I watched her do that was through the screen on my computer, in her bathroom downstairs, pregnant with Rowan. Could she? No, that wasn’t possible.
“Will you stop? Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage for one day?”
I still didn’t let her past me. I handed her the drink instead. She wouldn’t dare touch alcohol if she thought she was pregnant, but she took it, and squeezed past me. Of course, I followed her. Gabriella sat the untouched drink on the stand and slid into her robe, eyeing me without a word. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t read her. Something was up and she was no doubt, hiding it from me. I didn’t like it one bit.
The yellow rose fell to the bed and I followed her to the balcony and the dark night. I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there, watching her place her hands on the railing and look down, shaking her head like she was about to tell me something crazy. Surely not.
“I took a test in Mi’s office today.”
“What kind of test?” I asked, idiot heard in my tone.
Gabriella blew out a puff of air and turned to me, arms crossed and one ankle folded over the other. “A pregnancy test.”
“Why? You can’t get pregnant.”
“I’m pregnant, Paxton. I’m very pregnant. Mi thinks I’m close to four months.”
It just didn’t sink in. Four months? We were going to have a baby in five more months? No way, that couldn’t be right. “But I thought you couldn’t get pregnant. You told me that. The doctor that delivered Ophelia. He told you that. I remember.”
“Well, it happened, Paxton. I’m as shocked as you.”
Anger hit me once again when I realized what she said. “Four months. You’ve been hiding this from me for four months?”
“God no. I just found out today. I wasn’t even thinking like that, not at all.”
“Then why did you take a test? Don’t you think you should have told me? That this is something we should have done together? Not with your weird ass friend.”
“Paxton, I had no intentions of taking a test. Mi made me. She was the one who insisted. I did it to shut her up, not thinking for one second that I was pregnant. Jesus, Paxton. I’m pregnant.”