“No,” I corrected her, my hands thrown up to calm her down. “No, I’m not. I just…I wasn’t planning to drink today.”
She let out a sigh. “Suit yourself. So, what’s new? How’s my son-in-law?”
“He’s well,” I said. “Working hard. He’s really loving his new firm.”
“You don’t look like you’re loving it.” God, she knew me too well.
“Well, he spends a lot of time there, you know? I just hope it won’t always be that way.”
She reached across the table and patted my hand. “You need to find yourself a hobby. Have you looked into a job here in Atlanta? Maybe I could get you on at the hospital. They found a place for me right away when I called about a transfer; I’m sure there’ll be something.”
Most people would hate the fact that their parents followed them across the country when they moved, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. My parents and I were close, and my mom had always been my best friend, so when Mark had proposed, the only thing preventing me was the fear of being halfway across the country from my parents. My mother is a surgeon and my father a writer, so it wasn’t difficult for them to transfer to be near me, and nothing could’ve made me happier. Except maybe Mark being more on board with the whole arrangement.
My husband was charming when he wanted to be—he could win over anyone given just a few moments of their time—so I never understood his resistance toward my family. In the beginning, my parents were open and accepting of him, choosing to believe he was just taking a while to warm up to them, but eventually it became obvious that was not the case. Mark was civil when they were around, but it never went beyond that. He tolerated them, but he couldn’t understand my need to be close to them. He thought it was odd that they’d traipse across the country to be near me and even more odd that I wouldn’t protest it.
“Thanks, but no. Mark doesn’t want me working right now, and—”
“Mark isn’t the boss of you, Hannah. Don’t let him control what you do. I could understand him asking you not to travel so much, that was a lot, but to ask you not to work all together—”
“I don’t hate not working,” I said. Then when she gave me a dubious look, I added, “Honestly, I don’t. It’s nice to have me-time. Taking care of the house, reading a novel every once in a while. Plus, I’ve been thinking of starting up yoga again. I haven’t been able to do it since college, and I would love to get back into it. There are all these things I’ve never had the time to do before now, or that I haven’t had the time to do in years. My life has been so busy since I started working, and I loved it—don’t get me wrong—Mark just wants me to enjoy it more. He wants to take care of me, and I can’t say I mind that.” I was making that part up as I went on, but I at least hoped it was true of his intentions.
“So, what are you doing to enjoy it, then?” she challenged. “You said you wanted to start yoga back up. What’s stopping you?”
I thought for a moment. What was I doing? Why wasn’t I doing more? Truth be told, my days were spent obsessively cleaning our already clean home and reading passionate romance novels that only made me resent my husband more.
“Well, right now, I’m thinking of repainting the office…for a nursery.”
My mother’s eyes lit up. I wasn’t sure why I’d said it, why I’d admitted it when it was the source of so much of my pain lately, but there it was. “I knew it.”
I felt my face burn red and instinctively touched my cheeks. “I’m not pregnant. Not yet. But we’ve started trying.”
“Oh, Hannah. I’m so happy for you, sweetheart.” She reached across the table and stroked my cheek. “No wonder you’ve been distant lately…you must have so much on your mind.”
“I do, actually,” I told her. “We’re…having trouble, Mom.” She froze, dropping her hand as she waited for me to go on. “It’s been four months and…nothing.”
“You aren’t overdoing it, are you? You know that can be as bad as not doing it at all. They say once or twice a week is plenty.”
If my face wasn’t red before, I knew it was then. “No, we aren’t overdoing it.” Hell, lately if I could get Mark in bed with me once a week I was lucky.
She pulled her purse from the chair next to her and placed it in her lap, pulling out her phone. “Would you like for me to get you an appointment with a fertility specialist at the hospital? At least you had the good sense to settle down in a city with decent healthcare.”
“Do you think we should be worried?” I asked.
“I don’t think it would hurt to make sure everything’s working like it should. Four months isn’t absurd, but at your age, it’s long enough to get a second opinion.”
I nodded. It was what I expected, but Mark’s nonchalance had made me feel dramatic. “I’d like that,” I said finally. “Thank you, Momma.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” she told me, running a thumb across her phone screen. “Think nothing of it. How’s next week?”
“The sooner the better.”
She placed her phone to her ear with a wink. “Consider it done.”
Chapter Thirteen
Her
When Mark arrived home from work that day, I was waiting with dinner ready. He walked through the door with his head down, nose in his phone like usual, though the aroma of his favorite food seemed to catch his attention.
“Fajitas?” he asked, one brow raised.
“Mhm,” I told him, stepping away from the table to take his jacket. “Here, let me help you.”
He did so hesitantly, staring around the room as if he were expecting a booby trap. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What’s all this about? Are you wearing makeup?” He paused. “Are we celebrating?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“What’s going on, Hannah?” he asked. For some reason, whenever he called me by my full name, rather than the usual Han, I felt like I was being scolded. I walked his jacket across the room and hung it up on the rack before turning back around.
“I went to visit my mom today.”
“And?” he asked. It irritated me, his lack of caring. No oh, how is she? Just one word.
“And I was telling her about us trying to conceive—”
He scowled and groaned, cutting me off. “Why would you do that? I hate the way you say that.”
“Say what?”
“Trying to conceive.”
“That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?”
He half-rolled his eyes, turning away from me and heading for the kitchen. “Yeah, it is, it just…I don’t know. It sounds pretentious.”
I scoffed. “Pretentious? Seriously? Are you just trying to pick a fight with me right now?”
He shook his head, sitting down at the table and beginning to load up his plate. To my surprise, he wasn’t searching for anything to drink. “No, I’m not. Just forget it. What did your mother say?”