“Oh, my God, what are you all doing?” Katie cries as she waddles down the steps onto the porch. “Have you all lost your minds?” She looks from one of us to another, and I can tell she’s more than a little disappointed in all of us. But then Mr. Jacobson, being the man that he is, sprays her too.
She sputters and wipes her face. “I will get you when you least expect it, old man,” she warns, but she’s laughing at the same time. She shakes the water from her hands and lifts the tail of her shirt to wipe her face, exposing her great big pregnant belly. “What is wrong with you people?” she asks as she marches back into the house.
“You’re in trouble,” Jake sings out in Mr. Jacobson’s direction.
“Shit,” Mr. Jacobson says. “I really didn’t think that through.” But then he starts to laugh, and he sends one of the kids to get some balloons they can fill with water. It’s a beautiful summer night. Why would anyone want to stay dry?
The kids bound off in different directions, some to get buckets and others to get balloons, and Aaron pulls me into a headlock, scrubs my head none too delicately, and says, “I love you, Bess.” He grins at me as he sets me back from him.
“I love you too, you big dummy,” I say.
One more summer. But hopefully, it’ll be the best one yet.
33
Eli
After Katie takes the sprayer away from Mr. Jacobson as if he were a naughty child, I run back to the cabin really quick and get Bess’s camera. She had promised Aaron that she would take some candid summer shots of his kids, and this is a perfect time. The kids have had a blast with the water balloons, and Katie even got in on the action when she dropped a huge balloon filled with freezing cold water over the top of Mr. Jacobson’s head. “Payback’s a bitch,” she’d crowed as the old man gasped and shivered.
I watch as Bess stands on the periphery of the group, her camera raised in front of her face as she takes photo after photo. She has to stop to manually advance the film, but she does it quickly and efficiently the same way she does everything else.
Bess has a gleam in her eye that I haven’t seen in quite a while. In fact, I was afraid I’d never see it again. “She’s glowing,” Jake says from where he’s standing next to me. I smile at him, unsure of how to respond. “Things are going well?” He asks it quietly so no one else can hear.
“Yeah, I think so.” I don’t know what he wants to hear.
“She’s changed since you guys got here,” he says.
“What do you mean?” I know she has changed, but I want to hear what he sees, because I’m afraid I’m biased. I’m afraid I’m only seeing what I want to see, which is her loving and accepting me again.
“When you guys arrived, she was closed off. Like there was a wall between her and the rest of the world.” He shakes his head. “I know you thought it was just you she hated, but I think she hated herself a little bit too.” He shrugs. “But what do I know? Probably nothing.”
“And now what do you see?” I watch her. She’s smiling as she shows Sam how her camera works.
“Life,” Jake says. He only says that one word. Life. And that’s what it is. She’s alive, and she really hasn’t been, not for a very long time. She’s been living, but she was a shell of herself. “Opportunity,” he adds. “Life is what you make of it, dude.”
He walks away and goes to help Katie pick up pieces of shredded balloon. She straightens up, grabs her stomach, and freezes.
Jake’s eyebrows shoot up toward his hairline as he stares at her. “Now?” he asks, all concern.
She relaxes after a beat and shakes her head. “Just a huge kick,” she says. “Huge kick.” She blows out a breath. “This one is going to be a soccer player.”
“Can I feel?” I hear a voice ask.
I freeze and briefly close my eyes because I know it was Bess who asked. I haul in the deepest breath I can and watch as Katie nods. She grabs Bess’s hand and lays it on her belly. Bess jumps and laughs out loud when the baby kicks against her hand.
“Definitely a soccer player,” she says, her eyes full of wonder. She searches around until her eyes meet mine. And I don’t see anything in them but joy over Katie’s condition. I don’t see regret or agony or sadness, and I am so grateful that I don’t know what to do.
“Can we make dough doggies now?” Alex asks.
“Yes,” Katie replies. “Let me go get the supplies.”
“Let me,” Bess says. “Go sit down. Good grief, you’re about forty years pregnant.”
“How much longer, Katie?” Aaron asks.
“Could be any day now,” Katie says. “I just hit thirty-eight weeks.”
“Or you could go four more weeks, if you have a kid as stubborn as Sam,” Aaron says. “She was determined she wasn’t coming out.” He scrubs his hand across the top of her head. “And she’s done everything her own way every day since.”
She grins at him, and I watch as Bess takes a picture of them smiling at one another.
“Was I stubborn, too, Dad?” Kerry-Anne asks as she goes and sits down next to him by the fire.
“Nope. You have always been easy to manage. Unlike your sister.”
“Normally, it’s reversed,” Katie says. “You usually get the really stubborn baby after the first, when you’ve gotten comfortable getting your own way.” She laughs. “Then the new baby arrives and ruins it all.”
Jake grabs a few beers from the cooler and brings one to me. “Thanks,” I say absently.
“You can’t take your eyes off her, can you,” Jake says quietly.
I finally look away. “I can’t help it if I like looking at my wife.” I grin, ducking my head to hide my embarrassment.
“Nothing wrong with being in love with the person you live with. It certainly helps things, in the long run.” He walks away to go and take a beer to Aaron.
“Mom,” Alex asks. “Can I go get the supplies myself?”
“I’m on the way!” Bess says. “I got it!” She walks quickly toward the house. I watch her as she walks away, and I follow her silently. Jake makes a sound like someone is cracking a whip behind me, so I shoot him the bird behind my back. He chuckles and I ignore him entirely.
I follow Bess into the kitchen, and find her bent over, looking inside the cabinets. “What exactly is in a dough doggie?” she asks from over her shoulder.
“Biscuit dough,” I say, and I go to the fridge and take out a couple of cans of dough. I look for jelly, butter, and chocolate sauce, all of which I find in the door of the fridge. “And this stuff,” I say as I carry it over to her.
“Anything else?” she asks. She loads a basket with some items, and then adds the ingredients for s’mores, which she finds in the cabinet.
“Just this,” I say, and I capture her face in my hands and stare into her eyes. “Unless you’re opposed to it, I’m going to kiss the shit out of you.”
I wait a beat, and she says nothing, until finally she very quietly whispers, “I’m not opposed.”