Chapter Twenty-Three
Ethan
“Hey,” I said, surprised that Heather had even answered my phone call. She didn’t say anything at first. I could hear her breathing on the other end, and I had the strong impression that she was considering hanging up on me. “I miss you, little sis, and I think it’s about time we sat down together. Lunch today?”
Heather had always appreciated my more direct approach. I didn’t like to leave room for bullshit. I got right to the point, and if she wasn’t ready, she could tell me as much.
“I don’t know, Ethan,” she said slowly. Her hesitation was enough to show me she wanted to meet. She just had too much pride to come out and admit it so early in the game.
“I want something simple like soup and a sandwich. There’s a new place on Maine that I’ve heard great things about. Meet me at one.” It was a statement, not a question.
Heather sighed. “Fine. One.”
“Perfect,” I said. “See you soon, sis.”
I didn’t tell Devon I was going to meet Heather for lunch. She was sitting on the sofa curled up in her usual corner with a book when I emerged from my bedroom. She tried to pry me for answers, but I evaded her questions by telling her I had a couple business meetings. She bought it and returned her attention to her book after wishing me a good day.
It felt good to leave the house with a beautiful girl wishing you a good day.
I met Heather at one on the dot. She was there already, unwinding a plaid scarf from her neck. She stayed in her seat when I came in, and I took the spot across from her. It was awkwardly tense for the first little while, and once we put in our orders, I forced myself to start talking. If one of us didn’t put ourselves out there first, nothing would come from this lunch.
And I couldn’t stand for that.
“Thanks for coming, sis,” I said as kindly as I could.
“It was more of a demand than an invitation,” she said coolly.
“True,” I said, “which I wouldn’t have had to do if you weren’t being such a diva about this whole thing.”
“A diva?” she exclaimed, crossing her arms and glaring at me. If she had been standing, I was sure she would have stomped her foot like she did when we were teenagers. “I am not being a diva. My own brother hooked up with my best friend and then whoops,” she threw her hands in the air like she was tossing confetti, “they’re having a baby together all of a sudden. And you know what happens next? They lie about it. Why couldn’t you have told me, Ethan? What did you think I would do?”
“I’m sorry,” I said earnestly. “I never wanted to hurt you. Neither did Dev.”
“Dev, hey?” Heather asked coldly.
“Yes,” I said, knowing she was irritated by my use of the nickname she had given Devon years ago. “Neither of us wanted it to happen this way. We went about it all wrong. Devon misses you dearly. So do I. We want you around for all of this, Heather.”
Heather gnawed at her bottom lip and uncrossed her arms. “I want to be around too,” she said quietly. “I want to be part of my niece or nephew’s life.”
Hearing her say the word nephew made my heart pitter patter in my chest. “Nephew,” I said.
Heather smiled at me. It was a brilliant, happy smile that was gone as fast as it came. “Before I get too ahead of myself,” she said, “I need to ask you some questions.”
“Whatever you need to know, the floor is yours.”
“When did you and Dev start dating?” Heather asked.
I was going to be honest about everything. Well, almost everything. I had promised Devon that no one would ever know about the surrogacy program. We would tell everyone that we were in a relationship and follow through with our scheduled break-up as planned after a couple months.
“We hooked up one time, and that was when she was pregnant. I knew I couldn’t let her do it alone, so we took a shot in the dark and tried to make it work.”
“Wow,” Heather said. “That’s very mature of you and responsible.”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” I scowled jokingly.
She chuckled and shook her head. “I can’t believe it, Ethan. You’re going to have a son. And Dev, she’s going to be a mom.”
“Yeah,” I said, “and she could really use her best friend right now.”
Heather looked at her hands in her lap. “How has she been?”
“She’s been keeping it together but barely,” I said honestly. “I’ve tried to do everything I can to make her feel better, but sometimes there’s no better medicine than a hug from your bestie. At least, that’s what I’ve learned from all the romcoms she’s been making me watch.”
Heather arched a judgmental eyebrow. “Romcoms, hey?”
I shrugged.
She licked her lips. “I miss her too.”
“Good. Come over for dinner tonight. Let’s put all this behind us. You miss her, she misses you, and I can’t keep coming home to her crying. Please, Heather, come see her.”
“You really care about her, don’t you?” Heather asked.
It was a simple question, really. For some reason, I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. So I waved her off and was grateful when our plates of food arrived.
***
Devon peered around me at the pasta sauce I was stirring on the stove. She looked up at me and then back down at the sauce.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“You made a lot,” she said. “Like, way more than usual. I might be getting fatter by the second, but I’m not going to eat that much food in one sitting.”
“You’re not fat,” I laughed, covering the sauce with the lid. “Maybe I overdid it a little bit. Sue me. You’ll have leftovers.”
“What if it tastes bad?” Devon teased, sticking her tongue out at me and bumping my hip with her own.
I bumped her back and poked her on the nose with my finger. “You’ve never complained about my cooking before. Don’t start now just because you’re feeling sassy.”
“Sassy?” Devon giggled. “Oh, you poor thing, you have no idea what I can be like when I’m sassy.”
“I don’t think I want to find out.”
“You will. Just give it another month. When I’m about to explode and my belly is the size of a house, you will learn the true meaning of sassy.”
As I was about to come back with a remark of my own, the doorbell rang. My stomach rolled over with excitement as Devon peered down the hallway to the front door. “Are you expecting someone?” she asked, looking back up at me.
“Uh, not that I recall,” I said. “Do you mind getting it? I have to start the noodles.”
Devon shrugged and started making her way down the hall. I leaned out the archway from the kitchen to peer down the hall after her. She pushed aside some of her stray shoes that were near the front door and then unbolted the lock. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning as she slowly turned the handle.
When the door was halfway open, I made my way down the hall. I didn’t want to watch from a distance. I wanted to see the moment up close and personal.
Heather was standing at the threshold. She was wearing the same plaid scarf she had on earlier, and the rest of her winter ensemble was black. She stood with her hands clasped tightly in front of her. Her purse slid off her shoulder, and she awkwardly tried to pull it back up. It got caught on her sleeve and fell again.
“Hi,” Heather said rather miserably.
“Hi,” Devon whispered back.
Then Heather started crying. It wasn’t the kind of crying I was expecting. All the rom coms had depicted women tearing up and then pulling each other in for a hug. This crying was violent and gut-wrenching. This was the horrible kind of crying that made me want to shrink away and hide until it was over.
Devon started up too. My throat ached.
“I’m sorry for ignoring you for so long,” Heather started.
“It’s okay,” Devon said. “I shouldn’t have lied. I’ve missed you.”
“I missed you too,” Heather said.
Then Heather was throwing herself through the door, and the two of them were clinging to one another for dear life while sobbing sloppy apologies into each other’s shoulders.
“Holy hell,” I breathed, leaning against the wall and crossing my arms. “It’s about fucking time.”
Heather and Devon broke apart and stared at me. Heather was giving me that all too familiar “shut your piehole” little-sister glare while Devon was beaming from ear to ear.
“Did you arrange this?” Devon asked.
I shrugged and headed back to the kitchen. “Come on, dinner will be ready soon. Let’s crack a bottle of wine—at least, Heather and I will—and catch up. We have a lot of time to make up for.”
The women followed me back into the house, and we spent the evening doing exactly what I hoped we would. Heather asked hundreds, if not thousands, of questions about the baby, and when I pulled out the ultrasound photos, she started crying. I wasn’t very fond of this new and unrelenting routine of tears.
“Stop weeping,” I said. “I can’t handle all the tear anymore. No more tears. This is officially a tear-free zone.”
As we made our way from the dining table to the sofas in the living room, Devon shot me an apologetic look. “You’re living with a pregnant woman. You can’t declare any space as a tear-free zone.”
“True,” Heather nodded knowingly. “You haven’t seen the worst of it yet, I’m sure.”
I looked back and forth between them, hoping to see a crack in the facade to suggest they were pulling my leg. They stared calmly back. “Really?” I asked.
They both erupted in fits of laughter as they threw themselves down on the couch. They spent the entire evening sitting as close to one another as they could possibly get as we laughed and talked until nearly one in the morning.
When Heather did eventually go home, Devon walked her to the door. I let them have some privacy, and they spent nearly twenty minutes saying goodbye. I waited, one arm draped over the back of the couch, until I heard Devon close the door and make her way back down the hall.
She came into the living room, wringing the sleeves of her long sleeve shirt in both hands, looking at me with a something I had never seen in her before.
“Thank you for doing that for me,” Devon said. “That meant the world to me. It feels so good to have her back.”
I wanted to tell her that she deserved it. I wanted to tell her how happy I was to see her happy and how brutal it had been having to watch her so upset all the time. I wanted to say a lot of things, but what I settled for would have to do.
“You’re welcome.”