Isa

If I told Lorenzo that I was pregnant, would he stop making me hand wash the dishes?

I rolled the thought around my mind, absently as I lay in bed. Lorenzo had left for the day, and I hadn’t gotten up yet. I was awake, but I felt fatigued to my bones. I didn’t want to move. He hadn’t even tried to get me out of bed, surprisingly. Carlotta was coming, so she would be able to help him with breakfast, but he didn’t even try to wake me up so I could do it. I was readying myself to—at the very least—be scolded...but nothing. He had woken up and kissed me.

Kissed me. On my forehead...he kissed me before he went to the bathroom.

I didn’t know what had gotten into him, but I hoped it lasted. Especially because of my condition.

The fatigue I was feeling was likely due to the pregnancy. It was strange, though, how I didn’t start feeling any pregnancy symptoms until I learned that I actually was pregnant. I couldn’t wait for the morning sickness. That should be starting any day now. And then I won’t have to tell Lorenzo that I’m pregnant because he’ll hear me heaving into the toilet at six in the morning one day and connect the dots himself.

I rolled onto my stomach and buried my face in the soft, cotton sheets. How would Lorenzo react? It wasn’t as if I could hide it from him. After a while, pregnancy was a secret that would just tell itself. We slept in the same bed. We lived in the same house. It wasn’t as if I could take up in a different room or move out because that was as dead a giveaway as anything was. I didn’t want to wait until he happened to stumble across my pre-natal vitamins or notice a pregnancy and childbirth website on my computer by accident. The longer I waited, the worse it would be. He would have questions about why I had waited so long, why I wouldn’t tell him as soon as I found out. It was his baby, after all. There was a level of assholery to keeping the news of a man’s first child from him.

God, was I even the first girl that he had gotten pregnant? Was I jumping the gun thinking I was giving him this great gift? We hadn’t said a single word about children, and we hadn’t—up to this point—really discussed our exes. Why would we? The only ex I knew that he had was Elissa, and she got on my nerves, and none of my exes were in my life anymore. They were non-issues. With the way that Elissa touched him and looked at him, it wouldn’t be surprising to think that maybe, just maybe, I was the mother of his second child and not his first. The thought was depressing, but at least it gave me a good reason as to why Elissa and Lorenzo needed to see each other so much.

I needed to stop stressing about that woman. Jealousy was pathetic. I had the ring. Me. I had the baby, too. The baby who wasn’t even here yet but was succeeding at driving me crazy. I was already such a disappointment to Lorenzo at this point. This news would be the perfect catalyst for him to get rid of me. The sudden thought that he would ask me to get rid of the child made me sick to my stomach. He had all the money in the world, even if I said no and didn’t want to, he probably had ways to make me do it. I hadn’t been to Mass in years, but there was no way I wasn’t giving birth to the child. No way. It wasn’t even an option. I wasn’t going to pretend that I knew the exact point at which the baby started being alive. The point was, whether it was two weeks old or twenty weeks old, after nine months, it was going to be born as a human child. My human child—and that was enough. Lorenzo wouldn’t ask that of me, would he? It shamed me a little to realize that I truly didn’t know.

How were we supposed to raise a child together when we didn’t even know each other? What the hell kind of parents would we be? We hadn’t even had the discussion of whether and when we wanted to have kids. Of course, that didn’t matter now because the decision was made for us, but Lorenzo was still in the dark.

What if I had the child and he took the baby away from me? The whole mob thing was a family-style business. If it was an heir that he needed, he’d only need to wait about nine months and he would have one. If he didn’t want it, he could just give it up for adoption, on my behalf. He could make sure I delivered by caesarean, and while I was still under, he could ship the kid away to some couple who actually wanted a child and then bring me back home to resume our lives of misery.

If I continued like this, I would lose my mind. Lorenzo would come home and find me in the attic eating my own hair and mumbling incoherently. I needed to get a grip. It was not that bad. It was serious, but it was not a fucking movie. We were dealing with real life, not fantasy. Quentin Tarantino didn’t write this. I wasn’t going to have my baby snatched from me, and I wasn’t going to be forced into terminating the pregnancy. At the very worst, Lorenzo would be upset, but then we would have to work it out. Even if this spelled the end of my marriage, I wasn’t going to lose sleep over this. I couldn’t. I had to buck up and handle it. I would feel better after I told someone.

Looking through my phone, I felt cheated. Who the hell could I tell? Where was my big, happy pregnancy announcement? This was not the way I thought I would feel when I became pregnant with my first child. I didn’t really want kids, but in the event that I did become pregnant, I didn’t think I would feel this horrible about it. I should at least be happy about the cute parts of pregnancy. I wanted to post the pregnancy life event on Facebook. I wanted to pose for a cheesy maternity photoshoot. Instead, I was anticipating telling the father of the child that we were expecting like it was the end of the world.

I sighed thinking of the options I had. Mom was out. Dad was definitely out. Lorenzo’s parents were more out than Lorenzo himself. I tried Marina’s number, wondering whether she would ever get tired of these phone calls from me and just stop picking up.

“Marina?” I said when I heard the ringing stop.

“Hi, are you guys home yet? I’ve been waiting to hear from you.” I glanced at the clock. It was still morning, fairly early. I hadn’t caught her on the way to work, but there was a chance that I had gotten her when she was asleep, or going into the shower.

“Are you okay to talk right now? Sorry, I didn’t check the time before I called you.”

“Oh no, I wasn’t doing anything. Where are you calling from? Home?”

“We got home a couple days ago. I’m sorry for not calling earlier. How are you?”

“Better now that I know you’re okay. Is everything okay? What happened with the... you know.”

I had ended up telling Marina the whole truth about why we were at the different hotels and not our home. She had not taken it well, but ultimately, there was nothing she could have done differently from what we had been doing, sitting and waiting for news. I wondered for a minute whether Lorenzo would care that Marina basically had the scoop on every single thing that happened between us. I cringed a little hating the way that sounded, even to me. Maybe I did have to be careful not to overshare with her. We were best friends, but I was married. There had to be a limit. Fortunately or unfortunately for my husband, the limit was not here.

“Lorenzo never told me about it, but we are back in the house, so I suppose whatever the problem was, it’s gone now.”

“Lorenzo doesn’t seem to tell you much of anything, Isa.”

“What do you mean?” I asked defensively.

“I mean the man leaves the house every day to go someplace you don’t know. Besides the general idea of what it is that he does, you don’t know much else. This whole thing that had you hopping from hotel to hotel around the city is still shrouded in mystery.”

“He’s trying to protect me,” I said.

“From what?”

Everything. Nothing. The truth. Himself. All the above.

“I don’t bother him about it. I don’t want to be part of that world; I just want this marriage to work.”

“Mm-hmm,” said Marina. She didn’t buy it. “Sounds like an equal exchange to me.”

“We just got hitched. And not only that. We just met. We’ve only been able to stand each other for the last few weeks. We’ll get there. Besides, it isn’t as if he knows everything about me. That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh yeah? What?”

I took a deep breath. If I just blurted it out, I could give the impression that it wasn’t a big deal. She wouldn’t freak out, and she would calm me down about it. There. Perfect. I began.

“I have some news. Marina, I’m pregnant.”

The silence that came down the line made me think for a second that she had hung up.

“Hello? Marina?”

“Pregnant? With what?”

“Don’t be silly, Marina. I’m going to have a baby.”

“With your husband? Is it his?”

“Of course, it is his. Who the hell else could be the father?”

“Isa. This is terrible. This is awful. Now you’re trapped.”

Funny. Those were my exact sentiments when I found out too, but it took a dramatic retelling from Marina for me to realize that, actually, I didn’t have to have a nervous breakdown. I could just relax and talk through it like a normal person. When did I become so irrational? I blamed the pregnancy hormones.

“Marina, would you please relax? It’s a baby we’re talking about. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Isa—”

She cut herself off and went silent again. I could imagine her in her apartment, standing and pacing as she talked to me. Part of me felt wrong about telling my female best friend about the baby before the man whom I was having it with, but I couldn’t go to Lorenzo. Not just yet. I wanted comfort. He wasn’t going to give me that. Marina was hardly a neutral third party, but she was the closest thing to one that I had. Who knew, it might even have to be her couch that I crashed on when Lorenzo kicked me out finally. I wasn’t going to start going to therapy. The therapist would likely recommend that I take Lorenzo with me. I wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t unpredictable.

“Isa, what are you going to do?” she asked. “Have you thought about all your options?” she asked.

I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t roll them. Was this something I would have to brace myself to hear from everyone? Why was it that the first thing someone thought to ask a pregnant woman when she revealed that she was pregnant was whether she had considered getting an abortion? If anybody knew that I wasn’t planning on becoming a mother, it was Marina...but good God. She should have at least waited for me to express that I didn’t want to keep it before she started talking about termination.

“Marina, if that is your way of asking whether I am going to get rid of it, no. I haven’t considered my options.”

“What about adoption? There are agencies that can take the child when it’s born and place it with a family. You won’t even have to look at the child when it gets here.”

“Marina, do you hear yourself right now?”

“Isa...what did you expect to hear when you called me to tell me that you were pregnant? Given the circumstances of your relationship, did you really think I was going to jump for joy at the news?”

“No, but I didn’t think the first thing out of your mouth would be to tell me to get rid of it.”

“So you’re keeping it?”

“Of course, I’m keeping it. The problem is not with the child. Sure, it’ll be a huge adjustment, but the only reason I’m even nervous about having the baby is because of Lorenzo. I can’t have an abortion.” I whispered the last word like it was a slur.

“Are you sure you can’t, or do you just not want to?”

“I can’t. I couldn’t. You want me to be eternally damned? How many ‘Hail Marys’ would I have to say to make up for something like that?”

“Come on. The last time you attended Mass was at your wedding, and the last time before that was when you were still too young to legally drink alcohol.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not getting rid of it. That’s my final decision. It is not up for debate.”

Silence again.

“Isa, don’t turn this child into a trap to keep Lorenzo with you,” Marina told me quietly. In that moment, I felt something. What was it? Insulted. How dare she? I wasn’t trying to trap anyone, especially not Lorenzo. Neither of us were willing parties in our wedding. What the hell was she thinking? Did she think I was going to use the baby to make Lorenzo stay with me? That presupposed too many things about Lorenzo that neither of us knew about him, the first thing being that he would even give a shit that I was pregnant. Maybe I’d tell him and he’d just nod and be on his merry way. He’d hire a doula to live with us and help me, and then he’d check back when the kid was born.

I wasn’t wrong to want my husband to stay with me. He was my husband, but lately, he had actually been feeling like a husband, whatever that was supposed to feel like. I didn’t have the reference of having been married before, but I knew what it was like to feel like another person cared about you and wanted you around. That was how I had been feeling about Lorenzo and I hoped it was how he had at least begun feeling about me.

“Marina, I know our marriage is built on an arrangement between our fathers, but forgive me for hoping that we have more reasons than just that to stay together. With or without a child.”

“Do you hear yourself right now? Having a child will not change things between you. A baby isn’t a secret weapon or ingredient that you can add to a sham marriage to make it all better. Since your marriage, I thought your only hope was the fact that you and Lorenzo could divorce somewhere along the line.”

“I thought that, too. With the child, it doesn’t matter if we do split up because we’ll be co-parenting, divorce or no divorce.”

“So, what are you saying? Do you want to try? You want to treat Lorenzo like a real husband?”

It was my turn to be silent. Was that what I wanted? I didn’t want a divorce. I always comforted myself with the thought that I could always get one, but I didn’t want to be a divorcée. I didn’t want a failed marriage under my belt. There was no shame in leaving a marriage that was hurting the people in it or was abusive, but Lorenzo and me, we were just new. We were just new. We hadn’t had a fair try—and that was not something I was going to let get the best of us. Once we had tried and then failed, then maybe, but not without a fight. With the baby, Lorenzo was going to be part of my life whether I wanted him to be or not. He wasn’t a monster. I knew that firsthand. He could be gentle. He could be loving. Maybe a child would bring out the best in him. Just because the situation was fucked up, didn’t mean we could just continue not caring and let it get worse.

“Marina, the two weeks we spent away from home were the best two weeks of my life. He was attentive and sweet. We didn’t have to be drunk to have sex. I’ve seen what marriage to him can be like...and I liked it.”

“That was two weeks. This is forever.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? That means you have to stop hating him.”

“I don’t hate him.”

“You don’t love him either, though. Do you? You have to try.”

“How am I supposed to learn to love my husband?”

“You said yourself. He isn’t terrible all the time. Focus on that. What do you like about him?”

I bit my lip, thinking.

“Well, he’s very handsome.”

“The entire female population of New York City thinks that. Try again.”

“He’s rich?” I attempted. Marina barked out a laugh.

“Lots of men are rich. That’s not a good enough reason to love him. Try harder.”

“The sex is good.”

“Again, the entire female population of New York City thinks that.”

I laughed at that. Lorenzo was no virgin. That seemed like a pretty well-documented fact.

“He’s protective,” I said.

“Alright, what else?”

“He’s generous. He’s strong.”

“Good, good. Okay. There you are. You have a foundation to build upon. Focus on the things that you like about him. Draw them out of him.”

“Marina, do you think this is a bad idea?”

“It’s not what I would do personally, but it doesn’t matter what I would do. I’m not you. And I’m not the one married to Lorenzo.”

“You hate him, don’t you?”

“Yes, but that’s beside the point. You don’t.”

I thought about her words. I didn’t hate Lorenzo. I wouldn’t go all the way to the other extreme and say that I loved him, but I sure didn’t hate him. He was...or at least he could be...a good man. Our marriage thus far hadn’t been great, but it wasn’t as if it was all his fault. He wasn’t married to himself, he was married to me.

“I just want to try. I don’t want to call it a day and give up without letting there be a chance for something.”

Marina sighed.

“Well, it’s lucky you have a lot of the guesswork taken out of this. You’re already married. All you have to do now is date.”

I laughed and thanked her, hanging up the phone.

Sometimes I got jealous of Marina. She had it easy, or at least it certainly seemed that way. She always said that dating women was exhausting, but at least she had the luxury of also being a woman. That was at least half the guesswork taken out of the deal. When girls were mad, they let you know, whether it was directly or by being passive aggressive and bitchy. When men were mad, they started wars.

She was right.

I didn’t want to give up on Lorenzo, not when we had the option of trying to make it work. I had dreams for my life, but I had to make new ones now. I had wanted to be the next Lidia Bastianich, but now that would have to wait. I was no longer in it alone, and I couldn’t act as if I was. If I wanted him, I had to show him that I did.

What did wives do for their husbands? Take care of them. I could do that. I could go to the cellar and open up a nice wine for us... or for him since I couldn’t drink anymore. I could cook something for dinner and we could sit at the dining table and we could talk about it, like married adults. Like a date, but in the house. Perfect.

There were loads of things I could do. I could be more appreciative when he got me gifts. I could ask him more questions. I could suck his dick more often. Loads of things. The sit-down dinner idea was pretty good. It was exciting. We ate together sometimes, but a lot of the time we didn’t. I made him breakfast most days, but I had usually had a plate or some coffee by the time he was coming downstairs so it wasn’t a couple activity. He was always out of the house for lunch, and dinner was the same, I had sometimes eaten already when he came home, or—especially in the early days—I would sit at the table with him, but I wouldn’t say anything besides maybe asking him whether he liked the food or how his day was. Nothing.

That was then. The weeks away had changed things between us. We ordered room service a lot, but we also went down to the restaurants sometimes to eat. We had been nice to each other. We had talked and enjoyed each other’s company.

With my fatigue was appetite loss. I just wasn’t hungry, and though the more relaxed, friendly atmosphere had stayed with us, we hadn’t been doing a lot of sit-down dinners.

But we would tonight.

Lorenzo was a chef’s dream because not only did he eat and enjoy a large variety of foods and flavors, he wasn’t picky. He didn’t eat only boiled food or red food, or reject anything because he didn’t like the taste of it. The one thing he disliked, surprisingly, was oatmeal, but that wasn’t on the menu tonight.

I was a chef because I loved cooking and loved food, but I couldn’t deny that one of the perks of being able to cook was it was a fantastic manipulation tool. Maybe manipulation was a strong word, but people needed to eat and people liked you when you could feed them. Everyone was happy when their bellies were full, and in all my years interacting with food, there was not a single problem I had encountered that comfort food couldn’t fix. He never said no to anything I prepared, but he would love the baked rigatoni with cream sauce. If that didn’t get him, the walnut and coffee cake would.

He had sounded surprised when I called him. Pleasantly surprised. At least that was how I had interpreted it. Ideally, I would have wanted the dinner to be a surprise, but I could risk him having eaten already by the time he got home. His baby was taking it out of me, and I had slaved over a hot stove for him. The least he could do was bring his appetite home with him tonight.

I also made the effort to dress up a little. Not really dress up, but at least change out of the sweater and shorts I had been wearing all day. He would be wearing a suit as he was usually, so I wanted to at least match him in terms of attire. He got me so much stuff. I knew he liked seeing me in the things. The names Givenchy and Zanotti meant a lot more to him than they did to me, but I could at the very least wear them. A nice cocktail dress and some heels weren’t too much to ask. A little lipstick and blush weren’t too much to ask either.

He let himself in as I walked down the stairs. I found him in the kitchen, staring at the set table as if he didn’t know what was going on.

“Lorenzo,” I said brightly. He looked up at me and then did a double take.

“Isa, you look nice. Are you going somewhere?”

“No, just coming down to join you. I hope you’re hungry.”

“I am, did Carlotta do all this?”

“Nope. I gave her the afternoon off. You don’t mind, do you?”

“You made this?”

“Mm-hmm. Don’t look so shocked Lorenzo...I was a chef before I became your wife.”

“When you called I thought you didn’t want me to eat out so we could go out to eat somewhere. I thought we had reservations.”

“Would you rather go out?”

He paused as if he was thinking about it.

“What did you make?”

“Baked rigatoni with cream sauce. I dug some wine out of the cellar, and there’s cake.”

The look on his face was enough. He didn’t want to go out.

***

I SLICED THE CAKE AND drizzled cream over the slices before bringing them to the table. Lorenzo smiled at me.

“Did you buy this?”

“Nope. It’s walnut and coffee. Do you like it?”

He would never give me a straight answer when I asked him that. He would just grunt noncommittally or say it was ‘okay’ or ‘alright.’ Sometimes he even used the word ‘decent,’ which was completely insulting.

“It is,” he said. “I love it.”

I smiled, satisfied. I wasn’t hungry. I could barely eat even a few bites of both the main course and the dessert. He had asked during the meal whether I was okay, and I had given the tired ‘Oh, I tasted it lots while cooking, so I’m not really hungry anymore’ excuse.

“I’m glad,” I said.

“What’s the occasion?” he asked.

“No occasion,” I shrugged.

“You’re all dressed up, you cooked, and you sent Carlotta home early. What is it? Tell me.”

“It’s nothing. Honest. I just wanted to have a nice sit-down dinner with you. Maybe wear some of those gorgeous dresses you keep getting me.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said playfully.

“If you don’t like it, I guess I could just not do it again. I’m sure there’s a Little Caesar’s menu in this place somewhere.”

He laughed.

“No, I like it. It’s nice. Like a date.”

Everything was going great. He had asked for seconds of the cake and was eating it with a cup of espresso. I peered over at him. His eyes were down. The line of his profile was flawless. Smooth. No weird bumps or crags. Perfect. If our baby was a boy, I wanted him to grow up to look like Lorenzo. Even if he ended up taking after me, I hoped he at least got Lorenzo’s eyes. They were so deep. Every emotion was intensified through them. Was it shallow to sit there and be happy that my husband was so attractive? If I was going to focus on the positive, then I had to start somewhere. At the very least, unless something went wrong, our baby would be beautiful. Lorenzo was strong and solidly built, so maybe our baby would be robust too. Nice and fat with golden skin and dark eyes.

They would absolutely have all the best. The one thing that was certain was that we could definitely support a child financially. I smiled thinking about Lorenzo taking our child to the park, or letting them sit up on his shoulders. What was wrong with the fantasy of a perfect life? The fact that I could even see it had to mean something. There was no way we could be together, really be together if we didn’t even think it was a possibility.

What if it was? Stranger things had happened. We—at the very least—liked each other. We were both adults, and we were married. If our life could look anything like the two weeks we had spent away hiding out, then maybe this could work. If he could hold me the way he had in that tub every night then maybe we could call each other husband and wife and actually mean it. Maybe a real relationship was possible. Till then, neither of us had really been trying our hardest. The attraction was there. If we put the work in, it could be fantastic.

I smiled, looking at the father of my future child. Our future child. He suddenly looked up at me. He looked shocked for a second before he smiled back.