Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
While he meets with caterers and event organizers, I continue my search for three-cylinder tubular keys. I refuse to get involved in Saverio’s plans. Instead, I leave all the work to him. He may be forcing me into matrimony, but I won’t submit willingly by acting like a bride even though that’s what he wants from me. Let him do whatever the hell he wishes. This wedding is for him, not for me. We could’ve just as well gotten married by a marriage officiant, but as this is my first and only wedding—his words—he insists on giving me a reception with all the bells and whistles.
Despite my disinterest, he shares all the details over dinner with me, telling me which caterer he approved and what the menu will be as well as the flowers he’s importing to go with the color scheme.
I bear everything in silence, unable to focus on much more than the Braxton Hicks contractions that keep me up at night and the constant ache in my back. It’s difficult to move and impossible to bend. I can’t even tie my laces, so I’m wearing slip-in shoes or ankle boots.
It feels as if the skin of my stomach is stretched beyond its limits. It’s itchy and uncomfortable. Sleeping is a challenge unless I lie on my side with a pillow between my knees and another one beneath my belly. My nightmares are also getting worse. Sometimes, I dream I wake up with flames leaping around the bed and my mother throwing a lit match into the kitchen where gas is leaking from the stove. On those nights, I jerk awake with sweat-soaked pajamas.
I don’t tell Saverio about any of the things plaguing me, but he’s always there with a warm cup of herbal tea or a cool cloth to press against my forehead. He massages my feet and rubs my back, but he’s not less demanding even though sex becomes more challenging the bigger my baby bump gets. He likes to rub ointment to prevent stretch marks onto my stomach when we lie next to each other in bed. He keeps his hands over my belly to feel when the baby kicks. He can never get enough or grow used to the sensation. Every time a perfect little footprint appears, he stares at it in wonder until the baby settles and the tiny toes disappear.
As the pregnancy takes more from my body, I grow increasingly tired. I work extra hard to fix the books so that I don’t have to deal with a mess during the first weeks after the birth. I’m so exhausted that I hardly go out with Tersia and Livy, but during the days before Christmas, I have a sudden boost of energy.
I do a little shopping, buying a glitzy dress for Livy, a special pre-birth spa voucher for Tersia, and luxury bath products and delicatessens for my mom. As Saverio settled my overdraft and credit card and I don’t have to worry about living expenses, I can splash out a little without turning over every penny.
During the shopping sprees on which I accompany Tersia, I stock up on baby clothes ranging from zero to six months. At home, I wash them with a special baby detergent before packing them carefully into the nursery dresser with the clothes Saverio has already bought.
I debate a long time whether I should get a gift for Saverio, but in the end, I give up on the idea. Our relationship isn’t like that. It wouldn’t be appropriate. Besides, I don’t want to make him uncomfortable if he doesn’t follow the gift tradition. More so, I don’t want to give him the wrong idea—such as that what we share is or will ever be normal. We’re not a doting couple who leave gifts selected with care and bought with love for each other under the Christmas tree.
As Saverio did with the baby room brochures, he leaves leaflets of wedding dress designers all over the house, and as I did with the nursery, I don’t look at them. My heart hurts too much to care about what I wear. I’m not a bride, so why bother? I’m just a means to an end for Saverio.
Cornering me one morning in the kitchen, he grips my chin and tilts back my head so that I’m forced to see the steely will in his glittering blue eyes. “Not choosing a dress isn’t going to change anything. You are going to marry me. It’s happening in two months, so if you don’t pick something you like, you will walk down the aisle in a gown I will choose for you.”
Two months.
My throat constricts at the thought.
“I suppose that means you chose a date,” I say in an uninterested tone, but a bite comes through in my words.