And yes.
Elsa did deliver her twins naturally.
Here in Copper Valley.
Right on their actual due date.
Because that’s what she does.
“No, Rosa, you tell Roberto that if he ever wants to see me and our children ever again, he’ll learn how to mop a damn floor until it shines, and he’ll learn that I hate pancakes, and he’ll learn that the way to this woman’s heart is through changing fucking diapers.”
Tatiana stares wide-eyed at me, like I’m supposed to explain to her that her mommy is having a breakdown and it’ll pass before she starts kindergarten in a year.
Probably.
Titus whips out his penis, announces, “Potty,” and then pees on the floor next to Elsa’s hospital bed.
And Talia, who’s barely eighteen months, bursts into tears.
“Oh, sweetie, it’s okay.” I try to beckon her to my lap, but I’m balancing Jake and Ruby, the newborn twins, in both arms too, and so far Talia isn’t a fan of being a big sister.
So she drops her diaper and pees on the floor too.
While screaming.
I’d leave with the older three, except Elsa has basically begged me to not ever, ever leave her side, and she’s also forbidden me from calling Mom for help, because I don’t want her to know I’m a failure.
That would sting if I hadn’t realized in the week since Elsa crashed my new and unexpectedly tiny apartment with her whole perfect life imploding around her, that the only reason Elsa looks like she has everything all put together is because she’s been burning herself out making it seem perfect when she’s completely and totally miserable.
And basically alone, since Roberto works like sixteen hours a day and doesn’t give her any orgasms.
I lied, she sobbed that first night after all three of her kids had gotten up for their seventh drink of water or trip to the potty or, in Titus’s case, to dash around my small living room on all fours while shouting that he was a leopard. Roberto never gave me any orgasms. He didn’t even care. He just wanted a hole to stick his dick in for two pumps, and that was it.
I’m never thinking of my brother-in-law the same again.
Though I did have to stifle tears of my own every time she said orgasm, since I’ll probably never have any of those in my life ever again.
But it’s for the best.
If Elsa can’t make her marriage work, who can?
Not me.
I left a man who never said he loved me, but showed me in all the little things that I was important, that he paid attention, and taught me that I deserved better than someone who’d give me lip service and leave me.
I freaked out and ran away from the one man who finally got it better than all the men who could say the words, but didn’t know how to actually show them.
I don’t deserve a happily ever after either, do I?
Luca Rossi, the man who hates love, whose family broke it for him, who’s been abandoned by father figures and baseball teams for years and has no reason to believe in love, loves me.
I know he does, but I don’t think he knows he does.
Not if he’d propose merely because us being married would be comfortable and convenient.
Which means our future would be full of me trying to convince him of something that his entire childhood taught him was a lie. I can’t not believe in love, even if I can believe I’m not meant to have it.
So instead, I’m concentrating on what my life is today, and probably for the foreseeable future, and that’s my sister and her kids.
Maybe, between the two of us, we can do something right so they’re not just as ducked up as we are.
So they know they deserve flowers on release day, and being cared for when they’re sick or having an allergic reaction to alcohol, and that they owe it to that person to tuck a card into their luggage before they leave so they’ll get a smile when they find it, and to stand up to the people who hurt him when he’s too tired of fighting that fight for himself.
So they know that love has nothing to do with the size of a person’s bank account, and everything to do with the size of their hearts.
And so they know that when their significant other loses the most important game of his life, they should be there for him, and not making excuses about how they can’t go anywhere because they need to stay in a hospital holding someone else’s hand.
Luca.
My Luca.
Is he alone? Is he afraid the Fireballs will trade him? Is Nonna scouring dating sites for him? Is his mother the type who’ll find his favorite cannoli to console him, or will she even be here with him?
And what if they wouldn’t have lost last night if I’d just said yes and sorted everything else out later, after the season was over, instead of running away like a panicked woman who thought that being left by five fiancés meant she’d also be left by the sixth, when it’s the sixth who’s settled deeper into her heart than she thought a man could ever get?
“Aunt ’Enni, you cwying?” Tatiana asks.
“No,” I sob.
Talia cries harder with me. Titus starts crying. The babies both erupt in baby wails, which are soft and scratchy and so, so perfect, and I’ll never have babies of my own, and then Elsa’s sobbing, which makes Tatiana sob again too.
“That woman was so right.” Elsa flings her phone across the room, where it bounces gracefully off the wall and tumbles to rest against the Boppy on the floor, never in danger of hitting anyone, because despite her marriage crumbling, she is still Elsa. “It’s never right to pretend things are okay when they’re not, and it’s never okay to fill your love well with hobbies and causes that won’t love you back.”
“What woman?” Crap. Dang it. Now I’m going to start hiccupping.
“TikTok Nonna,” Elsa wails.
I freeze.
My eyes go wide, and I choke on a hiccup. “You met TikTok Nonna?”
“I didn’t want to tell you because you hate when I talk about meeting celebrities.”
We’re both bawling, yelling over her children crying, and a nurse pops her head in. “Oh, gosh, we need to take the babies to get their bloodwork. And then we have a special surprise!” She squats down to Titus’s level. “Do you like baseballs?”
Baseballs.
I sob harder.
Not baseballs.
Two more nurses rush in and relieve me of the babies. “We’ll send up someone from the new mom support program,” she whispers. “It’s always nice to talk to someone when all those post-partum hormones hit. Completely normal and natural, sweetie.”
“I didn’t have a baby.”
“I know, honey, but family needs support too.”
We are such a disaster.
“Baw?” Titus asks.
The first nurse beams at him. “Yes, you handsome little devil. We’ll get you a ball. But you all have to put your privates back in your diapers, okay?”
“She means put your penis away, Titus,” Tatiana says through sniffles. “Can I have a ball too?”
“Oh, yes, of course!” The nurse points to Titus’s shirt. “I only asked him first because he’s wearing one.”
The nurses all depart, and we try to pull ourselves together. “You met TikTok Nonna?” I say again to Elsa.
“She was filming outside my mommy-to-be yoga class, and she stopped and looked at me and said, Do what you need to do for your own happiness, not what everyone else is doing for theirs, and it was like, oh my god, I have to leave Roberto.”