A loud bang and a shriek of pain from her youngest brought her back to the present with a jolt, and sent her scurrying to the living room. Anton had Antony by the arms while Kieran toddled over to her, holding his forehead and wailing. She picked him up. “What happened?”
“This one,” Anton said, his jaw clenched, “thought it was a good idea to throw a car at his baby brother.”
“Anton, calm down. They’re boys. They’re rough.”
But she was worried about the huge goose egg on Kieran’s forehead. He jammed his thumb into his mouth and buried his face in her neck. It was blistering hot already. She tried not to run the leaky AC much, since it made the electric bill almost too high to pay during the summer. But at that moment, she was so sweaty, her back hurt so badly, and her son was sticking to her, sliming her neck with tears and snot, she didn’t care about the next month’s electric bill.
“God damn it,” she muttered, stomping over to the thermostat.
“God damn it,” Antony parroted, clear as day. She froze and turned. Anton looked up at her, his lips twitching in amusement. “God damn it! God damn it!” Antony sang out, sensing he might have broken the tension in the room.
“Hush your mouth,” his father said before giving him a harmless light whack on his butt and setting him down. The little boy’s dark eyes widened. “I swan, Lindsay, this boy is a mirror image of Lorenzo. All the way down to his attitude.” He raised a dark eyebrow at her. “You sure I’m the only Love brother you—”
“Anton Dominic Love, if you even finish that sentence in your fool head, I will come across this room and snatch you baldheaded.” Kieran was hiccupping now. His arms nearly choked her. She sighed and dropped into a chair, landing on several squeaky toys in the process. Antony glared at all of them before running up the few steps to the bedroom hall and into his room.
Anton’s shoulders slumped as he took in the chaos.
She kept patting Kieran, making soothing noises. He finally peeled himself off her. “Down, Mama,” he said, letting her kiss his boo-boo before hitting the floor and running off after the brother who’d whacked him, calling “Ant-ny! Ant-ny!”
Exhaustion, heat, frustration all hit her hard. She let herself drift, the familiar sound of the wonky ceiling fan that needed balancing and the loud dishwasher that needed replacing filling her ears.
“They gonna be all right in there?” Anton asked, making her startle.
“Who? The boys? Of course. They’re inseparable. But Antony gets jealous if you pay Kieran too much mind.”
He pulled off his Kentucky Wildcats ball cap and ran a hand over his hair. Lindsay watched him, wishing she had the energy to get up and go to him. They hadn’t had sex in weeks, not since … She blinked, counted on her fingers, and then slapped a hand over her mouth.
“What is it?” Anton glanced at his watch. “I really need to get to …”
“Lord have mercy, Anton. I am pregnant again.” She was sprawled on the couch wearing a pair of jeans that could probably walk on their own and an old Halloran Farms T-shirt. For some reason, she glanced at her toenails. She hadn’t painted them a pretty color in more than four years now, not since the boring days spent in her mother-in-law’s basement waiting for Anton to get home so they could screw some more. Her hair was too long, and in need of a professional thinning out. But there was no money for that.
There was no money for much at all beyond the small amount Anton insisted on paying his uncle for their house loan, plus groceries, gas, and insurance for the second-hand truck she now drove, the utilities, and the one luxury she allowed herself, daily delivery of the Lexington Herald newspaper. She’d finally paid the last installment to the hospital for Kieran’s birth only the week before.
She burst into tears. Anton stood, staring at her, mouth hanging open, probably doing a similar calculation of impossibility in his head. “We can’t,” she said, covering her face. “I can’t do this anymore.” She got up, fury replacing frustration. “I am no more than a glorified maid and cook, and … and … baby factory.” She smacked her stomach, then began stalking through the room, snatching up toys and blankets, cursing under her breath. “I’m not. I won’t do it.”
Anton grabbed her arm and turned her. His handsome face, the one she had come to adore—even though she’d admitted to herself she married the man in a fit of pique, hoping for the very dismay it caused her parents—was smooth and calm.
He took the junk from her and tossed it all on the floor before folding her into an embrace. She closed her eyes, sucking in deep breaths of him, the man who’d given her exactly what she wanted—escape.
“Shhh …” he said when she started sobbing again. “It’s all right. It will be all right. I promise. The brewery’s doing great. We should expand, but are gonna wait it out a couple of years and just keep cranking on what we’ve got.”
“I don’t want to hear about that goddamn place,” she muttered into his chest. A ridiculous statement. The brewery was all they had besides this falling-down-around-her-ears house. “I hate it.” An even sillier thing to say.
But Anton simply held onto her, the way he always did, riding out the temper and the tears, allowing her to get to the other side of the moment, her pride only a bit tattered.
When he pulled away, his eyes were dark and serious. She let him kiss her softly, then more intensely, as the messy room, the loud boys, the upside-down kitchen all faded from her consciousness. He always could do that, shut out the real world and its late bills, boiling hot house, squabbling kids.
“Lindsay, I love you so much,” he said, reaching down to grab her ass. “Was it the night of the storm?”
She sighed and let him reach under her shirt for her bra-less boobs, amazed that her poor body could even respond, but it did. “Yeah, I’m guessing. I mean, I think that was the last time we did it.” The night of the storm had been epic, a post-fight, midnight encounter after she’d spent an hour fuming in the other room and then crawled into bed and pounced, needing the physical connection so badly it had been painful.
And somehow, right then, she was all right with the concept of a third child. A baby, she calculated when Antony would be four, Kieran three. Manageable, she figured, now that she had a few friends who could help.
But as soon as she fumbled for Anton’s zipper and he was tugging her up toward the kitchen for a modicum of privacy, she heard another bang and a screech of anger, then a cry of pain.
“Shit,” Anton muttered, putting his clothes together and running for the steps. “Please, dear Lord, let it be a girl this time.”
Lindsay watched him run down the hall and throw open the door. Deciding to let him deal with the boys for a change, she tugged her shirt down and rebuttoned her jeans, smiling at the thought of a baby girl … a daughter, which she would treasure. They’d be friends, like sisters, but with a stronger bond. She determined right then and there that she would be the best mother to her little girl. Still smiling, she patted her stomach, making a mental note to call the doctor on Monday to have him confirm what she already knew in her soul.
As she was passing by it, the wall-mounted phone rang, startling her out of her perfect mother-daughter relationship musings. She grabbed her cooling cup of coffee and took a sip before answering, figuring it was Marianne, hoping she might come over and bring Rosie. The bossy little girl distracted her boys nicely. She was already thinking how she’d invite Tanya Norris, another young mother she’d met at church, and ask her to bring her son, Paul, who was almost the exact same age as Antony.