“He’s like his father. He can do anything,” she marveled.
“How was he?”
“No strange questions or comments, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“He seemed okay with me today, too.”
“That’s good, right?”
“I guess.”
“I forgot to mention it earlier, but I spoke to the headmaster and your parents today about school.”
“Why?”
She explained, and although I was in accordance, she must have seen something in my expression. “Are you doing okay?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. And even though Bryce had acted as if everything was normal, I think he was unsure as well.
* * *
The rest of the week was much the same, except that Bryce ate dinner with my aunt and me on both Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, after I’d taken three exams and my aunt had returned to the shop, he asked me on a second date for the following evening—another dinner—but I quickly declined.
“I really don’t want to be gawked at in public,” I said.
“Then why don’t I make dinner here? We can watch a movie afterwards.”
“We don’t have a TV.”
“I can bring mine over, along with the VCR. We could watch Dirty Dancing or whatever.”
“Dirty Dancing?”
“My mom loved it. I haven’t seen it.”
“How can you not have seen Dirty Dancing?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, there are no movie theaters in Ocracoke.”
“It came out when I was a little kid.”
“I’ve been busy.”
I laughed. “I’m going to have to check with my aunt to make sure it’s okay.”
“I know.”
As soon as he said it, my mind suddenly flashed to his mom’s visit the previous weekend. “Does it have to be an early night? If you’re going fishing on Saturday again?”
“I’ll be here this weekend. There’s something I want to show you.”
“Another cemetery?”
“No. But I think you’ll like it.”
* * *
After I completed my exams on Friday morning with satisfying results, Aunt Linda not only agreed to the second date but added that she’d be happy to spend the evening at Gwen’s. “It’s not much of a date if I’m sitting there with you. What time do you need me to be out of here?”
“Is five o’clock okay?” Bryce asked. “So I have time to make dinner?”
“That’s fine,” she said, “but I’ll likely be home by nine.”
After she left to head back to the shop, Bryce mentioned that his dad would be returning home the following week. “I’m not sure exactly when, but I know my mom is happy about it.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Of course,” he affirmed. “Things are easier at the house when he’s around. The twins aren’t so wild.”
“Your mom seems to have it under control.”
“She does. But she doesn’t like always having to be the bad guy.”
“I can’t imagine your mom being the bad guy.”
“Don’t let her fool you,” he said. “She’s pretty tough when she needs to be.”
* * *
Bryce left in midafternoon to take care of a few chores. Waking from a late-afternoon nap, I found myself staring in the mirror. Even my stretchy jeans—the bigger ones—were getting tight, and the larger tops my mom had bought for me at Christmas merely stretched across the bulge.
With no possibility of looking dazzling in an outfit, I went a little bolder with makeup than usual, primarily using my Hollywood-quality eyeliner skills; aside from Photoshop, applying eyeliner was the only thing I’d ever been naturally good at. When I stepped out of the bathroom, even Aunt Linda did a quick double take.
“Too much?” I asked.
“I’m not the proper judge of such things,” she said. “I don’t wear makeup, but I think you look striking.”
“I’m tired of being pregnant,” I whined.
“At thirty-eight weeks, all women are tired of being pregnant,” she said. “Some of the girls I worked with would start doing pelvic tilts in the hopes of inducing labor.”
“Did it work?”
“Hard to say. One poor girl went more than two weeks past her expected due date and did pelvic tilts for hours, crying in frustration. It was miserable for her.”
“Why didn’t the doctor induce labor?”
“The physician we worked with back then was pretty conservative. He liked pregnancies to run their natural course. Unless, of course, the woman’s life was in danger.”
“In danger?”
“Sure,” she said. “Pre-eclampsia can be very dangerous, for instance. It makes the blood pressure skyrocket. But there are other issues, too.”
I’d been avoiding thinking about such things, skipping over any frightening chapters in the book my mom had given me. “Am I going to be okay?”
“Of course you are,” she said, squeezing my shoulder. “You’re young and healthy. Anyway, Gwen has been keeping a close eye on you, and she says you’re doing great.”
Though I nodded, I couldn’t help noting that the other girls she’d been talking about had been young and healthy, too.
* * *
Bryce arrived promptly, carrying a grocery bag. He visited with my aunt briefly before she left and then returned to his truck to get the television and VCR. He spent a little while setting it all up in the living room, making sure the system worked, then got down to business in the kitchen.
With my feet hurting and feeling the discomfort of yet another Braxton Hicks contraction coming on, I took a seat at the kitchen table. After the contraction passed and I could breathe normally again, I asked, “Do you need my help?”
I didn’t bother to hide the tepid nature of my offer, and clearly Bryce picked up on it.
“I guess you could go outside and chop wood for the fire.”
“Ha, ha.”
“No worries. I’ve got it. It’s not too hard.”
“What are you making?”
“Beef Stroganoff and a salad. You mentioned it was one of your favorites and Linda gave me the recipe.”
Because he’d been at the house so many times, he didn’t need my help to find knives or the chopping block. I watched him dice lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes for the salad, then onions, mushrooms, and the steak for the entrée. He got a pot boiling on the stove for the egg noodles, dusted the steak in flour and spices, then browned it in butter and olive oil. He sautéed the onions and mushrooms in the same pan as the steak, added the steak back in with beef broth and cream of mushroom soup. The sour cream, I knew, would be added at the end; I’d seen Aunt Linda make it more than once.
As he cooked, we chatted about my pregnancy and how I was feeling. When I asked him again about the fishing trips, he said nothing about the things that had concerned his mother. Instead, he described the early-morning outings, a hint of reverence in his tone.
“My grandfather just knows where the fish will be,” he said. “We left the docks with four other boats, and they each went in a different direction. We pulled in more than anyone else every time.”