Chapter 26: Say It Out Loud

On Friday night Kit took Lottie to bed early, and the house went quiet around us.

I stood in the kitchen with the oldest Renner photograph propped against the wall, wrapped in a quilt.

Jesse had been drying the same plate for five minutes.

"You're nervous," I said.

"I'm scared to death."

"Of Ward?"

"Of you." He set the plate down. "Of tomorrow, and you looking at me from the lawn and not saying yes."

I crossed the kitchen and took the dish towel out of his hands.

"I had three babies, Jesse."

He went very still.

"I never said that out loud to you in ten years. I said 'the baby' and 'we lost it.'"

I made myself keep going.

"I never said I had three. I never said what it was like to carry the last one to five months and feel her kick."

"Abby."

"I want to say it tonight."

My voice broke on the first word and I let it.

"I want to cry in front of you. I want it to be your hands on me when I do it."

He put his forehead against mine.

"Tell me where."

"My bed."

He carried me there.

I didn't stop him.

He set me down on the quilt and kneeled to take my boots off.

He did it one at a time, as he had in the first year of our marriage.

I cried while he did it, hard and openly, and he didn't tell me to hush.

When the boots were off he kissed my ankle, and then my knee, and then the inside of my thigh through my jeans.

"I'm here," he said against me. "I'm here. I'm not in Casper."

I laughed through the tears, because it was terrible and it was true.

I pulled him up by his shirt and kissed him.

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