Page 8

Ambrose

T his couldn’t be real.

It wasn’t that I was jealous of Finn.

Was I absolutely sick of hearing about him from Astrid, particularly her need to analyze every aspect of their relationship? Yes.

But it was more that I knew Indi very well and knew he was a thoroughly unacceptable choice for her.

If I could just talk to Indi— tell her that Finn was a very unsuitable person—

I had been formulating the words for days, trying the find the right ones.

But it was difficult to approach this situation after I had been caught in my ex-wife’s curtains. Unfortunately, I feared she had taken entirely the wrong interpretation of my actions.

Unlike what Finn said, I was not being creepy or a pervert or obsessed. How was I supposed to know they were going to have sex when I came to check on Indi?

I had been motivated by a very honorable need to make sure she was OK.

But I simply could not accept this whole situation. And neither could Astrid.

“How could Finn be the father of her baby?” my fiancée demanded for the hundredth time. “When he was with me , he said he never wanted kids.”

She was putting on makeup for the first birthing class, very aggressively, dotting the sponge so hard on her face that little puffs of powder blew into her eyes.

“Maybe it was not planned,” I said, wondering why her eyes were so red. It looked like she had been crying. But she never cried. “Maybe it was a spontaneous thing.”

But somehow the idea of Finn and Indi being so overcome with passion that her pregnancy had been a wild and unexpected surprise, made me feel somewhat nauseated.

Astrid did not seem to like it either, flipping her makeup case shut with a snap and brushing past me angrily.

I thought I might warn my ex at the birthing class, but Indi did not seem very receptive to conversing with me.

Even though I should have been focused on Astrid, I couldn’t stop looking at Indi.

If it hadn’t been for my. . .indiscretion, could that have been my baby in her belly ?

I clamped down on that thought as hard as I could and buried it deep with superhuman strength.

That way lay madness

I would just keep my head down and try to stop thinking about Indigo.

But when I saw Finn sweep in on that ridiculous hot air balloon I couldn’t contain myself anymore.

As the rope ladder dangled down in front of her, for only the second time in my life, I reacted entirely spontaneously.

“Indi, you cannot!” I said earnestly. “I can’t let you do this!”

Finn growled in annoyance as I locked eyes with my ex-wife, willing her to understand.

Indi was absolutely glowing from the birthing class, her hair flowing like rippling waves of auburn around her face. In the wind from the hot air balloon, it was swirling around her face like she was a goddess emerging from the foam in a Renaissance painting.

Simply magical, like she always had been

“And what right do you have, Dr. Hargreaves, to have anything to say about who I get married to?” Indi asked, coldly and evenly.

The tone of her voice was absolutely terrifying to me.

Indi was the sweetest woman I had ever known, all sunshine and light.

She cared for every life form down to a little worm on the sidewalk.

I don’t think I’d ever heard her say a harsh word, and just the cold uncaring tone in her voice was enough to make me weak at the knees.

“Butt the fuck out,” Finn warned from the rope ladder. “I’m going to kick your ass, Ambrose!”

Just then, Astrid clutched at my suit jacket.

“You must stop them, Ambrose!” she cried out shrilly. “Finn is just under some sort of spell!”

“Astrid, you need to move your delusional ass, too!” Finn said, finally hopping down from the ladder.

But when Finn stumbled down the last steps I cocked my fist and pasted him a good one on the nose. Perhaps it was not the intellectual approach, but the time for words had passed.

Finn looked absolutely murderous.

He staggered back a bit, then swung at me.

I was able to miss the worst of it, but he still caught me on the chin.

“God, stop, both of you!” Indi cried.

Astrid began to scream, entirely uselessly, using an ice scraper from the car to wallop me on the back.

Presumably she was trying to break up the fight, but it hurt like hell.

Indi’s face looked white with horror, two big spots pink with embarrassment on her cheeks, and Finn put me in a headlock as I attempted to punch him in the gut.

Quite the crowd had begun to gather, several of them with their phones out taking video footage but, just then, my own father leaped up the rope ladder and began to climb.

He then blew a whistle very loudly.

“Stop all this!” he bleated, the rope ladder swaying wildly underneath him.

“Harold, get down this instant!” my mother gasped angrily, but he continued to blow the whistle until Finn and I broke apart.

The crowd’s excited attention had turned to him and I was forced to hold the ladder steady so he could climb down.

Once he reached the ground, he hissed loudly at me.

“For God’s sake, take Astrid away!”

I was already turning around to see where Indi was, but I was forced to chase after my fiancée to keep her from running after Indi and Finn’s car as it disappeared down the street.

My mother looked absolutely furious, but I couldn’t think about that right now.

Astrid and I rode home silently.

How had my perfect life gone so wrong?

“Perhaps we need a trial separation,” I said into the silence. “To give us a bit of space from each other. I can sleep on the couch.”

“You mean we can see other people?” she asked eagerly.

“You don’t have to act so excited,” I said stiffly. “After all, you are carrying my child and we are engaged.”

“Did you or did you not just try to sabotage your ex-wife’s engagement to another man?” she demanded.

My jaw still stung from where Finn had punched me. I could only hope my own fist to his nose had at least incommoded him.

“I simply think Finn is not right for her,” I said.

“Indi isn’t cut out to be a rock star’s wife,” Astrid agreed, her lips tightened in displeasure.

She kept compulsively smoothing her hair, checking her face in the mirror.

“What are you doing ?” I asked, trying to moderate my tone. “Indi certainly looks like a rock star wife, but why would she want to be on the road in a bus that stinks like sweat and cheap beer for half the year?”

“You mean why would she want to live a life of unimaginable luxury and excitement?” Astrid interrupted.

There was silence in the car for a moment.

“It is ridiculous to be arguing which of our exes is better,” I said.

“How dare they get together,” Astrid cried. “And your ridiculous father made everything worse! Whatever possessed him to do an embarrassing thing like that?”

“On that we agree,” I said, but a little flicker of doubt went through me as I remembered.

Indi’s stricken pink face. She had clearly been embarrassed by Finn and I fighting and didn’t like being the center of attention. As ridiculously as my father had behaved, he had clearly done it to pull attention from Indi.

Perhaps I had misjudged—

But then I was distracted by seeing Finn’s car in Indi’s driveway.

What were they doing inside?

The unwanted memory filled me of his head under her skirt, moving around, the lucky bastard getting to lick Indi’s sweet juicy pussy.

Life now was sheer torture.

Finn had a few weeks in between his tours, so I had to see them together constantly. Swimming and splashing around in her pool, Indi squealing with excitement as Finn twirled her around. Grilling on the front porch. Singing together with cups of tea as they walked arm-in-arm.

I had no idea what Indi had said to him about the engagement. All I knew was I didn’t see a ring on her finger, but it occurred to me that she might be hiding the ring or not wearing it around Astrid and I because she knew it would upset us.

The thought was so humiliating I determined to keep my head down and focus on Astrid and the baby, but it was impossible to ignore Indigo’s bubbly, radiant happiness.

Each day she became even more glowing and beautiful as her belly swelled.

Astrid and I were barely talking while Indi and Finn were doing shit like dancing in the motherfucking moonlight together.

I didn’t want to know this, but one night Astrid and I were in the kitchen for our late dinner, the silverware clinking noisily because we were saying nothing to each other.

So I could hear Finn and Indi very clearly.

They had some kind of little radio playing softly, light and buoyant Irish music. It sounded delightful, so it couldn’t be Finn’s music.

But they were dancing together, Indi light on her feet like always, Finn with an arm around her deliciously thickening waist.

“How is the Anthropology Department doing?” I asked Astrid, for something, anything, to distract me from the little shadows that fell across the window.

Finn was leading Astrid on a merry dance all through the garden, circling around the flowers and bushes, the first leaves of fall beginning to drop gently down around them.

My mind was dragged unwillingly back to that day months ago . . .

“I regret that you saw that,” I said stiffly, breathing heavily because I had just run across the span of two yards so I could head off Indi.

My wife was sitting at the table.

“ I regret that you did that,” she said calmly.

“There is no need to overreact,” I said, but inside I was feeling panicky. “It was a mistake. It doesn’t mean anything. I’ll stop.”

Indi didn’t say anything.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Finding the number for a lawyer,” she returned tranquilly.

“You—want to get divorced over this?” I asked in astonishment. “One—mistake in five years?”

“One mistake?” Indi asked, turning her eyes to me. “You think you’ve only made one mistake in five years?”

“That’s right,” I said.

I was feeling heated under the collar and irritable. There was no way Indi was going to get divorced over this. She loved me too much. I was going to call her bluff.