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Ambrose

“ S he is gaining a lot of weight,” Astrid said after we had gone inside. “Getting really big all over. I suppose some women don’t care that you’re eating for two now is just a myth.”

I kept my eyes carefully averted from the window where I knew Indigo was still outside.

Her belly was certainly bigger, but all I had noticed was how happy she looked. Her face pink and flushed with working in the garden, her hair thick and glossy. Even her full lips were looking pinker and more plumped-up.

Even though I had personally read several books on pregnancy, and distilled the information to Astrid, including the myth of eating for two , it was so self-evidently true that Indi was in the bloom of health that I didn’t bother to reply.

Astrid must be suffering from emotional upheavals common to the second trimester.

“For all his faults , I’m very happy my ex-husband lives on the other side of town,” Astrid added pointedly, jerking the freezer door open.

“Finn has his problems, like being a narcissist and afraid of commitment, but at least I don’t have to see him every day.

I have no idea why Indigo still insists on staying at that house. ”

Why did my ex-wife want to live next to us?

I had assumed it was because she was still in love with me, but now, I wasn’t so sure.

I felt irritated.

“We have to remember that she must be in a great deal of inner pain having to live next to us,” I said, but this time my attempt to encourage kindness and consideration of her feelings fell flat.

“Maybe it was a sperm bank,” Astrid said flatly, pulling the chicken breast from the freezer.

I looked out the window at where Indi was now in the kitchen drinking a glass of water.

I was sure there were plenty of men who would want to impregnate her.

I felt slightly indignant, in a totally ridiculous and irrational way.

After three years of trying, really, Indigo was going to get pregnant the first month with some other man? That was just like her to be that infuriating.

Turning my chair, I attempted to face the other direction, but I only got an eyeful of Indi pulling out her updo so her long shiny red hair tumbled all down her back.

Hastily, I jerked the curtains closed.

For months I had barely looked at my ex-wife. That wasn’t going to change just because she was pregnant.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Astrid grumbled.

Without Indi in my vision, I was able to think more clearly.

I had simply been surprised. That she was pregnant. It was merely a matter of medical interest to me. Really, good for her. She had wanted very badly to be pregnant.

“Let’s just forget about it,” I told my fiancée. “It doesn’t affect us at all, whatever she chooses to do.”

But this was easier said than done, and I felt the question of who the father was reappearing in my mind to an irritating degree for the next several days.

That weekend after Astrid had gone to the gym, I sat down at the kitchen table with my laptop. There were 25 essays in my briefcase, but I felt irritable and itchy.

My ex-wife and I had done everything correctly.

Had sex the day before, the day of, and the day after ovulation.

My sperm was in the normal range. Of course, the doctor had said sperm counts did decrease after age 40, but that was probably for unhealthy slobs, not men in the peak of their physical capacity like myself.

But was that what had happened? Indigo had found someone closer to her own age?Why had I never seen a man at her house?

I felt unaccountably pissed at this.

Why wouldn’t she tell me who he was? There was no logical reason not to.

Hell, I probably still had a higher sperm count than whoever it was.

Was it her boss Burton?

One of her friends from college? Maybe that dipshit Greg who had hearted her name change on Facebook.

I knew some of my fellow faculty members occasionally went to the Luxury Rejuvenation Spa, where she worked.

Had one of my friends been seeing her? I shifted uneasily in my chair, frowning at the essays as I adjusted my glasses.

It didn’t matter.

It was none of my business.

I pulled out the first paper and determined to focus on my grading.

This indiscreet way my mind was wandering was simply a result of stress. The selection for Department Chair was coming up, and I wanted it to be me.

But without wanting to in any way, my eyes drifted to the house next door.

Now why did Indigo insist on always leaving all her curtains just flung open, so anyone could see into her kitchen and living room? After all, some creeper might come into Applewood and peek in her windows.

We were divorced and I had moved on. I didn’t need to see her this much.

Hell and damnation, why hadn’t she moved away?

She was a distraction.

I threw up my hands as she came outside in nothing but a tank top, no bra, and tiny tight shorts.

She had very large, voluptuous breasts, and to my irritated eye, they seemed to have almost doubled in size since she got pregnant, bouncing gently with each step, her overflowing curves bursting out of her tank top.

Her rounded belly peeked out from underneath the hem, swelling the band of those shorts.

It was just disorienting, because for years I’d wondered what she’d look like pregnant, and now she was pregnant.

With someone else’s baby.

My jaw set as she filled up her watering can and waved to the mailman.

Was he the father?

It would be just like her nonsensical free spirit love and peace ways to be impregnated by the mailman.

Angry at myself, I picked up the phone to call my 75-year-old mother. She and my father lived in the next town over and we talked every day.

She was still absolutely sharp as a tack and the best person to run any problems by.

“Harold!” she called out to my father as soon as she picked up. “Turn down that golf, Harold. . . Harold ! The television! It’s too loud! It’s my boy on the phone and I want to be able to hear him.”

First, I updated her on the latest news about my efforts to become Chair of the Archaeology Department. Dr. González, the current Chair, was taking a few years off to lead an archaeological dig and Mother and I agreed I was the clear choice for his successor.

Then we got to the meat of the matter.

“Something interesting has happened here,” I said, clearing my throat. “It appears Indigo is pregnant.”

“Tch,” she humphed disapprovingly. “Of course! It sounds like something she would do, run out and get pregnant by some bum just because she’s jealous of you.”

“Now, Mother, we don’t know that. It has nothing to do with me, after all.”

But privately I did feel aggrieved.

How the fuck had Indi gotten pregnant?

“It happened on the first try,” she had said, with her eyes shining.

And we had done it for months without success.

It was like she was taunting me with her voluptuous overflowing fertility.

“Everyone has always been jealous of you, Ambrose,” my mother said.

“Ever since you were a little boy. It was because you were cleverer than all the other children. Even in kindergarten, it was clear you were destined for greatness. I saw the makings of a university professor in you even then. And of course at that age everyone else’s children were still eating their nasal secretion s, while you were already reading advanced books. ”

“Oh, now,” I laughed. “I was like any other child my age, I’m sure. Although I do remember my bafflement when the kindergarten teacher told me the rest of the students weren’t ready for the sonnets of Shakespeare.”

“I do remember that,” she said. “And many other similar occurrences all throughout school. And if you recall, I was always against your marriage with Indigo. The way you met was so irregular, my darling! And of course you were never on the same plane intellectually. Astrid is so much more suited. I cannot wait until she’s my daughter-in-law and I will be the grandma to a little princeling. ”

“It does feel a touch inconsiderate of Indi,” I acknowledged. “Especially since Astrid with her delicate constitution has had such a difficult time.”

“That’s right,” my Mother agreed. “Don’t let your natural good nature stop you from taking Indigo firmly in hand if necessary. Harold!” she called out suddenly. “Harold, I forbid you to eat that lemon cake. That is for tea with my friends.”

“I’ll let you go,” I said absently, and we parted.

“I love Astrid,” I said out loud, settling back into my chair, but my eye was caught by a motion outside.

There must be some goddamn law against your ex-wife living right next to you bending over to weed the garden, the two beautiful round cheeks of her ass up in the air and wiggling with every movement.

When she knew damn well I was an ass man.

I ground my teeth together as my cock twitched, banging frenetically into my thighs.

What was wrong with me? Some kind of goddamn sex muscle memory?

I did not want to have sex with her.

Indi was going to have to cover up, that’s all there was to it.

Grinding my teeth, I shut my laptop and walked outside, my fury growing with each step.

“I know you’re doing this on purpose,” I gritted out to her as soon as I drew even with the fence that divided our front yards.

Putting a hand on the front windowsill for balance, Indi straightened up and turned around.

“Doing what on purpose?” she asked sweetly.

I drew myself up stiffly. “I’m not going to go back and forth with you on this, but what you are wearing is against HOA regulations.”

“Is it?” she asked, putting a hand on her hip.

Her skin glistened in the morning sunlight.

Did she not have work or something? Why did she have to be outside all the time, glowing and glistening?

“Yes,” I replied shortly. “Clothing must be free of obscenity.”

“I don’t think there’s anything obscene on my clothes,” she countered, looking down at her body.

Her shorts had hiked up so I could see practically the whole length of her creamy white thighs.

“Your whole outfit is. . . an obscenity,” I said. “I am sorry, but it is too revealing.”

“Too revealing?”

“You can see your. . .breasts. And too much of your. . . lower regions.”

She cocked her head and looked at me. Indi was a laid-back and easygoing person. She had always deferred to my superior knowledge and experience while we were married. And I was in the right here.

I absolutely was not going to let some cock twitches throw me off my stride.

“What if I called your bluff, Ambrose?” she asked quietly. “Made you get that book and show me exactly where it says I can’t wear this outfit to weed my garden?”

“Do you really want to test me on my knowledge of the HOA regulations?” I retorted.

Indi only snorted and turned away.

“Goodbye,” she said dismissively, heading back inside.

Her dismissive tone infuriated me. “And why aren’t you at work?” I called out.

She turned, her hand on the front door. “My baby daddy makes plenty of money,” she said. “I don’t need to work during my pregnancy at all.”

One of her hands was placed protectively on her belly, her fingers splayed out over the perfect-shaped bump.

Had she felt her baby move yet?

Had the baby’s father felt it yet?

Who even was the father? Not that I had been paying attention, but I’d never see another man at her house.

I stomped back inside and closed all the curtains firmly.

The conversation was still stuck in my mind a few days later as we prepared for the delicate wine and cheese charcuterie event designed to shore up my support in the Archaeology department.

I had spent hours selecting the perfect wines and cheeses, and my coworkers oohed and aahhed over the selection of expensive meats and exotic cheeses.

Astrid was wearing a long navy blue gown and looked regal and elegant. And I was no fool. I knew my looks were a benefit in my career.Together, we were the perfect power couple.

“With an intellectual approach to pregnancy, it’s like we can almost transcend the limits of the physical body,” my fiancée was saying to Dr. González when there was a knock on the door.

I opened it to see. . . Indi.

Infuriatingly, enragingly close enough that I could scent her familiar shampoo.

She wasn’t wearing a tank top and shorts this time. Instead, she was wearing a bright yellow bikini and flip-flops.

Before I could open my mouth to protest that she had done the exact opposite of what I had told her to, she pulled out a roll of tape, and stuck a piece of paper to the front of my door.

“Professor Ambrose Hargreaves? You are in violation of Applewood HOA regulations. Your lawn appears to be 1/4th of an inch too high. You have 30 days to bring your yard into compliance.”