Page 10 of Storm in a D Cup

More silence, and then a click.

‘Who is it?’ Julian asked, padding back into the bedroom to take off his clothes.

I shrugged. ‘They hung up.’

Now if I were a suspicious wife and Julian a sleazeball, we’d have a real problem on our hands. But Julian was not the cheating kind. With him, thankfully, I was on safe ground. For once. Or so I thought.

3

Mission Impossible

The first thing I felt when I woke up the next morning was a wet, sticky sensation, like the guy inThe Godfatherwho finds his dead horse’s head in his bed. Yeah, sorry, that’s sick, but it’s alsoexactlyhow I felt.

My period, biblically late, had made its appearance with a vengeance. That was my body lately. I’d have dry spells and then, just like that,woosh– the Nile would flood. I jumped to my feet, not daring to look back at the mess I’d made of our bed.

‘Are you all right?’ Julian asked from behind the bathroom door. I quickly washed and emerged, finding him sitting on the bed, wide awake now.

‘Sorry – had a little accident. I have to change the sheets.’

He looked at me and shook his head before reaching into the linen closet for the burgundy sheets, the ones I always put on the bed during my period. It was kind of a signal that sex was off the agenda during those days. He knew the code. Burgundy meant no sex. So why was he shaking his head like that?

‘Why are you shaking your head like that?’

‘I was kind of hoping you weren’t going to get it this month.’

‘That would be cruel if I were on menopause alert,’ I objected as I billowed the sheets out before me. ‘Heck, I’m only forty-three, Julian.’

‘Erica – do I have to spell it out to you? I was hoping you’d get pregnant,’ he whispered as he caught the sheet and tucked it under the mattress on his side. I giggled at his joke, but he didn’t join in. Was he serious?

‘Are you serious?’

Julian plumped his pillow inside its new pillowcase and looked at me with an expression I’d never seen before, and nodded, his eyes studying me.

I swallowed. ‘Please tell me you’re still asleep and sleep-talking, or rather, that I am and this is just a silly dream?’

‘No dream, Erica. I’d like a child. Wouldn’t you?’

We’d never discussed this in seven years and he wanted a childnow?‘Like I said, I’m already forty-three, Julian,’ I said, backtracking, as if apologizing. Apologizing for what, I wondered – not being an automatic baby dispenser?

I let myself fall onto our now burgundy bed with all my weight, which was still quite noticeable. I had gained ten kilos in seven years, and at eighty-five kilos, I was anything but slender, and I was absolutely fine with that. But how the heck was I going to face another pregnancy? I looked up and wished I hadn’t because Julian was getting down on his knees by the bed, taking my hands and searching my face.

‘Don’t say anything, honey. Just promise me you’ll give it a thought.’

Give it a thought? I was so shocked I couldn’t think of anythingelse. Did he have any idea of what he was asking me?

‘Do you promise?’ he repeated.

Was he serious? And why after all these years? It just didn’t make sense. He’d been by our side, supported us and – oh. Self-sacrifice and all that. Maybe now he thought it was payback time. Gosh, was that the way it worked in healthy relationships?

‘It’ll be great, you’ll see. Raising her will be a dream.’

I swallowed. ‘Her?’

He grinned. ‘I’ve always wanted a little girl.’

‘A girl…’

‘But I’ll be just as happy with a boy, of course. And you?’