“Shhh,” he said, opening the door with a key and flipping on the lights in the foyer. He’d been grinning from ear to ear. She sniffled and looked around, taking in the up or down staircase choice. Going up, she walked into a large, shabby kitchen, then through to a good-sized eating area attached to a living room. Up a few more steps were four bedrooms and one bathroom.
Anton stayed put in the living room and let her roam. She found a wood-paneled lower level that had a sliding door out onto a small concrete patio. Another even lower level boasted a used washer and dryer set and a lot of empty space. She turned and plodded up the steps, hand to her back.
“What is this place?” she asked, letting him take her into his arms and press his knuckles into the small of her back where it hurt the most.
“Your home, my love.”
She leaned away to look him in the eyes. “What’s the rent?” She knew what they could afford, and it was, in short, not much.
He grinned and kissed her, running a hand under the curve of her stomach then up to cup her full breast. “No rent,” he said. “I bought it.”
“You bought this? With what?”
“With a loan from my rich uncle. We’ll have to take whatever furniture my parents will spare.”
“No, I won’t take a damn thing from them.”
He sighed and draped an arm across her shoulders. Lindsay studied the place. There were water stains on the ceiling, and it smelled faintly of dog, but it wasn’t Anton’s mother’s basement, so she was happy with it.
“Thank you.” She leaned her head on his shoulder, content for the moment and eager for the challenge of setting up her new home. A pain grabbed her then, making her grunt and bend over. A gush of fluid hit the floor between her legs.
Anton looked at her, then down at the floor. “Oh shit,” he said.
She nodded, gripping his arm. “You got that right.”
And now, almost six months to the day from that first glimpse of their quad-level money pit of a house, she’d realized she must be pregnant again. The symptoms were too obvious. She rested her palm on her stomach that had not returned to its flat state since giving birth to Antony Ian Love less than a year before. Kathy sighed and put Antony in his playpen. She gave Lindsay a quick squeeze, promised to come by again real soon, and left. Lindsay watched her go, figuring she’d not see her again.
She picked up the phone and called the brewery, telling Lorenzo to tell his brother he needed to come home.
Kieran Francesco was born eight months later, a squalling little mite with a cap of light red hair, the polar opposite of his dark-haired brother. Lindsay let herself relax, easing into life with, essentially, a set of twin boys, believing that the Lord had blessed her, most days. At least on days when she’d managed more than a few hours’ sleep.
Chapter Eleven
Lucasville
Three years later
“I can’t, honey. I have got to get to the brewery.”
Lindsay glared at her husband while he inhaled the breakfast she’d made—an actual one for a change, with eggs and bacon and toast. Antony was whamming on his high chair tray with a toy car, his new favorite activity. Kieran was fussing in the playpen, gripping the rails and gnawing on them, his new favorite activity, and one that had Lindsay frantic about germs.
“Anton,” she said, using every ounce of her self-control to keep from joining Kieran and chewing on a nearby object in frustration. “This house needs your undivided attention. Not to mention your sons.”
She noted the deepening ridge between his dark eyes when he frowned. He finished his coffee, got up without a word to her and plucked Antony from his seat, making him squeal in delight. After settling the boy on his shoulders with warnings to “sit still,” he picked Kieran up and kissed his flushed red cheek. “My boys,” he said, making Lindsay’s heart beat a little faster.
He took them both into the living room, where almost every available surface was festooned with toys, blankets, sippy cups and other random detritus. She leaned in the kitchen doorway and watched him ease fluidly to the floor, Antony still gripping his hair and hollering “Da! Da! Da!” over and over. Kieran, always a much quieter child, sat across from him mirroring his cross-legged pose.
“Quiet, boy,” he said to Antony, tugging him down and setting him next to his brother. They looked at each other, confused by this direct paternal attention. Their experience of their “Da” was mostly limited to quick kisses goodbye in the morning and occasionally a little face time while they bathed at night.
Mostly, thanks to the quality of the beer and food at the brewery and newly opened Love Pub, Anton was never home. She understood it on a certain level. The brewery was their only real source of income, now it was actually producing income. They’d lived on Anton’s rich, drunk uncle’s largesse for the better part of three years. Frank and JR had tried to help out, to slide them money from their father, but Anton had flatly refused to consider it.
“Play cars!” Antony yelped—at ear-splitting levels, as usual. “Da, let’s play cars!” He got up and dashed about the room, collecting his precious plastic and metal toys on wheels while Kieran sat and watched with his thumb in his mouth. She worried a little about Antony’s lack of volume control, and wanted to have his hearing checked. The nursery lady at church had clucked at her more than once about it, mentioning that it could account for his vocabulary, which she said was limited for a three and a half-year-old. But there was no money for ear doctors unless it was an emergency.
Figuring the boys were content for now, she returned to the kitchen with a sigh. The place was an absolute wreck, which made her insane most days. She’d learned how to can vegetables from a neighbor lady, who found her one day weeping at the kitchen table with one baby at her breast and the other one squalling in the playpen with a diaper full of shit. That day had been the first in her recent memory that anyone had taken an interest in her well-being beyond asking “how were the boys?”
The woman had come right in the door after knocking and hearing all the noise. She’d changed Antony and put him down for a nap, then taken Kieran, burping and changing him, while she encouraged Lindsay to go take a shower.
When Lindsay emerged from her first shot at personal hygiene in almost a week, the woman—Marianne—had put the kitchen in order and was making a fresh pot of coffee. Lindsay hadn’t had the time or serious inclination to make friends with neighbors, or anyone much beyond the few young mothers she knew from the Episcopalian church located a ways out from town that had been their religious compromise after Antony was born.
“Cop a squat, hon. I brought cookies.” Marianne had poured them each a cup of the most delicious coffee Lindsay had ever tasted, and encouraged her to eat a couple of her homemade snickerdoodles. “You look done in.”
Lindsay had nodded, embarrassed by the tears that formed. “It’s all right,” Marianne said. “I only have the one, my sweet little Rosalee, and she’s off at her grandma’s for a week at the lake.”
Marianne had stayed awhile that day, and returned the next with vegetables from her garden. Lindsay had stared at all the fresh bounty—green beans, tomatoes, zucchini—in utter dismay. “We can’t eat all this before it goes bad.”
“I know. I’m gonna teach you how to put ‘em up.” She’d given Lindsay her first canning lesson, promising that once she had her own garden going, she’d be glad of it come winter when she could pull her own vegetables from the basement to make for Sunday dinner. Lindsay had reserved comment on “her own garden.” She could barely manage “her own house” at this point.
But last year Anton and his brothers had put in a small kitchen garden, near where they planned to build a pole barn. She’d even managed to put up a few of her own things, and did enjoy the fresh cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes. It had been a bumper crop this year. There were vegetables coming out her ears, but she was bound and determined to eat every last one of them, well into the fall and winter months … which meant she was canning and freezing every single day just to keep up. She ached all over, between lifting the boys and the heavy steamer off the stove. And the kitchen was a complete disaster.