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Pen had left him, and his lungs were going to stop. His dying gasp would be calling to her, and she would never get over killing him with the withdrawal of her love.
Colin didn’t think their fight was the end of them until he noticed the kitchen was so tidy. He put his palm on the island countertop and struggled to understand why it was so bare. The bread loaf they had been eating that week was used that morning, so that was gone. The oven timer was left on the stovetop. The salt and pepper shakers were balanced on the bottom of the spice rack. And the mail they threw down in a pile was sorted - magazines on the coffee table, letters to the little organizer on the side table where keys were kept. Except his side was a little full, and Pen’s was cleaned out. He shook his head, feeling unnerved.
He opened the fridge. It was getting empty but they were coming up to a grocery day. And he wasn’t worried about that. They didn’t have money issues. He would order in dinner or groceries if he was still feeling this bad when they ran out entirely. Maybe they would do a takeaway date night, if Penelope was on speaking terms when she got home.
He looked sadly at the iced coffee in cans, but Colin knew his current energy was half anxious and the other half depressed. He knew married people had fights, but he didn’t understand the argument they’d had. He didn’t know who started it or made it worse. He just knew his stomach was twisted up, and he wanted to hold Penelope until she had physical discomfort and asked to be let go. Maybe he could use the fresh fruit and make a smoothie with enough for two. It was a stupid way to make up with her, but if it worked he’d be grateful.
His hand missed the fruit bowl at first, and he closed the fridge to turn properly around. And the fruit bowl - the huge yellow glass bowl with an antique brass set of legs like they should be using it as a braiser to keep a fire going at all times - was not on the counter. It was the one item of their wedding gifts they had not wanted, but Penelope’s mother had made a fuss about finding it for them. She said it would bring character to their rather modern flat. So the bowl became their fruit bowl, visible a few steps inside their door.
It was too much and didn’t match anything, but it was a small stamp of approval for their domestic setup. Colin did not complain. He bought a brass vase for the flowers he brought home for his wife so they could be displayed next to the fruit. And when he took an orange, he was reminded that the last person who thought he was a good match for Pen had accepted them. His long assignments out of the UK had been upsetting, especially when Pen took a remote job to travel with him.
His chest was working too hard, and his ribs ached with the immense motion of his insides resisting this idea. He had not been her husband forever. Colin had a life before Pen, but not much of one. And his romances before her were dismal, truly just an example of how being wanted did not equate to getting what he wanted. He had held back from Pen for so long because she did not flirt obviously. He had considered himself a remnant of her childhood carried along out of kindness. Then they had become friends without Eloise being their glue on outings, and finally lovers. Even then he was not sure of his place. But they figured it out.
He was so happy with Penelope. Her family did not bother him, and he hated that they bothered her sometimes. Colin couldn’t understand trying to be emotionally distant from his own children. He could grasp being unhappy in marriage but not letting that leak into the rest of the family. Children were blameless, always. Love for them had to be forever.
Colin knew there had to be something more than their fight. It was about a vacation for Christsake! He didn’t want to go to Disneyworld with her sisters and their kids. And they were discussing it until she shut down and had to leave. He had pulled her to his chest and kissed her, and Pen kissed him back. Or maybe he held on too hard for her to get away and she kissed him so he would let her go. Maybe his grasp of her inner life was bad, and they weren’t doing well. Was she unhappy? They were at home a lot more, with routines and boring stuff to do. They were nearer to family and old friends. He still went on trips to write, but Pen’s job was only half remote. Her London office sometimes needed her in person.
Oh God, he’d become complacent. The wedding was their high point, and the honeymoon melted all his doubts. They were so content. There was no difficulty because they had been living as a couple since they got together. They’d been half-married even when she was still dating other men and he was pretending to be an insomniac to sleep in her bed. They were both attracted and cowardly. But they noticed one another at a golden moment when they were both single and not heartbroken. They had fallen into bed and never climbed out. He had thought he was living in a world of post-nut clarity, which had led to being engaged too soon for a new relationship. But they were different. He and Pen had been a thing since they were children.
If he was wrong, she would feel so bad telling him. Penelope had wanted love and a home with boundless affection. She had made that with him, but Colin might be the one who had unfair benefit while she felt strained. It was too much. He was too much. His demands were excessive when he was a child, and that had focused on Pen more as they got older. The boundaries he accepted with other loved ones were prison walls compared to the inflatable kiddie pool of Pen’s rules for them. He could overstep just by walking normally through his day.
He dialed her and felt every ring like a grip on his heart. He was almost afraid she would answer, but no answer was worse, wasn’t it? No answer meant she was gone already. She had a suitcase packed and hidden. She had her documents and was not going to come back except to split up the souvenirs of their time in the US. She was going to apologize while she divorced him. He was going to be alone.
Penelope Bridgerton could not take his call but he should leave her a message. He stuttered through her nickname, and mumbled, “Hey, I’m-There’s-The fridge is pretty rough. I was thinking about ordering dinner. Call me, okay? Bye.”
He would not beg her to come back. She was a fair person who loved him even when she was not in love with him. Colin would have the decency to make sure their life together was not a trap he’d maneuvered her into. He wanted a happy wife, not a woman who was too afraid of what her husband would do if she wanted out.
There must be some sign of what had gone wrong. He walked into the bedroom and found there was no real change. It was a bit messy, but they had a bad morning. He was impatient. He thought theme parks were tacky. And he didn’t want to vacation with children and her sisters’ families. It replayed in his memory more like a fight he had picked, while Pen was just trying to get ready for work.
He was an asshole. What did it matter how they spent one week of their marriage? It was not his preference to vacation with family. He was possessive of Pen’s time. And maybe he had a lot of issues she had tried to help with but had to quit so she could look after herself. It was a nice thing to look after one another, but if one person was getting the majority of the care the other person was just getting fatigued. He had been a travel writer for years, and he knew he wasn’t going to be around. Colin’s loneliness came from his own actions. His wife would share it because his writing was an afterthought to his wandering.
He had spent years in nonprofits between taking luxury vacations and getting paid well to write about his impressions. Colin had an inheritance, and did not need to work. So what did Pen think of his travel now? What did her mother think about his ability to leave her for weeks for earnings he did not need?
Paranoia did not help, but he was starting to think Penelope had been listening to people speak about him. Perhaps she had complained a little while he was gone and Mrs. Featherington had made it a thorn in her side. His mother-in-law had many bitter memories to recount from her own marriage. Penelope’s home life was not one of contentment until she was out on her own.
He opened the drawer where they kept passports and the copy of the lease. They had started accumulating some insurance policies and owner manuals for the appliances. He had to dig down to find his own passport, but Colin couldn’t find Penelope’s. He emptied the drawer and it was not there, which was the tip over into weeping quietly.
She was fed up and planned to go away without him. His distaste for her vacation plans had brought up every issue between them. It was sudden, but perhaps her work had her going somewhere on the same short notice he had made her live with.
He checked his phone to see if there was a missed call. He checked messages. When neither gave him more to work with, his mind told him it was the freefall. He had married Pen and let her down. She wanted someone else. It was a nagging fear that had never quieted. And now he knew it was based on some reality.
Colin looked through their closet. There was nothing missing. The luggage was all there. He lifted the suitcases to find the one stuffed full of the things Penelope would want to keep, but they were all light and empty. Maybe she didn’t want anything from this time of her life. He had thought he was superior to all the boyfriends who wasted her attention.
He had a weird desire to just keep looking for signs things were going wrong. He didn’t want it to be cheating, but other men existed. They could work things out if Pen was willing. He would change as much as he needed to in his work life without hesitation. And the other things, how they got on, those never seemed to be a problem for long.
He wiped his eyes and decided he wasn’t going to grieve Penelope as his wife. He was going to save her. People didn’t get thrown away when things broke between them. So he would make sure they had a good dinner and they would talk.
He ordered Japanese and set the table. Maybe the daily chores were getting to them and they were missing milestones they should be celebrating. They had been married over a year, and most firsts were passing by quickly. So he would slow things down. There was merit in dating his wife, especially since they had gone on so many friend dates that never turned romantic.
She let herself in about her usual time, and he took the food out of the fridge to plate it. Penelope put her bag down and looked at him uncertainly.
“Hi,” she said. “I did get your message but it wasn’t a good time to call back. I knew you’d go ahead if the food was that dire. And I would have shopped after work, but I had a late appointment.”
Colin nodded. “That’s okay. I ordered sushi.”
Penelope looked away. “I can’t eat that, I think. It’s fine, though. You should have dinner. I’ll get something else.”
His worry was used up, but he was angry when she brushed it off. If Pen didn’t care they wouldn’t manage. No one could stay married without some equal effort.
“You’re angry at me,” he said. “I wish you’d talk about it instead of packing things up. I wasn’t in a very good mood earlier. I was shitty. I want to talk about it more calmly. And I want to talk about the stuff disappearing around here.”
She looked around. “What’s disappearing?”
He gestured to the counter where the fruit bowl was absent. He pointed to the neatly sorted mail just for him. He opened the fridge and pointed to the sparse offerings.
“It’s starting to look like you’re moving out,” Colin told her, his tone wobbly.
Penelope closed the fridge gently. “We’ll have to go shopping soon,” she said carefully. “Are you still upset? You can be! I just wanted to know. You’re being a little odd.”
“You didn’t answer your phone.”
She sighed. “I had a thing after work. It was important. I turned off the ringer.”
Work running later was bad, but plans after work were harder to hear. Colin pulled chopsticks apart and broke one in the middle.
“You packed the fruit bowl from your mother - the one thing we absolutely had to keep out so she could see us using it,” he said deeply.
Penelope looked like that was news to her, then shook her head as if she was disappointed in her own actions. “Pru came by, and she’s been baby-proofing. She had this test kit for lead. The fruit bowl is lousy with it, so I put it in a box. It’s not dangerous, but it shouldn’t be how we serve food. And she wouldn’t leave me alone until I did it right in front of her because of the baby.”
Her sisters both had two children, and Prudence must be expecting again. She had a fixation on safety gear. They had to babysit at her house because there was no private vehicle large enough to bring all the silly plastic baby contraptions.
“Oh, congratulations,” he said, his tone flippant. It was all fine with the other two sisters, but his wife was the one who could not be happy in her marriage. She was the one who made the wrong choice and needed to get out of it.
Her eyes went wide. “She’s not pregnant,” Penelope said. “I needed to go to the doctor, Colin. They fit me in late so I could get a test.”
He stopped picking at the food. She did not go to a doctor just to settle her mind, so there must have been something wrong. He thought back and couldn’t recall anything except a few early nights, but Pen often worked very hard at the last polish of a big article.
“What kind of test? Did your mother’s blasted antique poison us?!”
This was priceless. Penelope was about to slap down divorce papers, perhaps so she could take up with some blighter who didn’t love her enough, and her mother’s wedding gift had been giving them heavy metal poisoning for months. He was going to have to call his doctor and get tested as well, and probably there was some antiquated treatment that would make him queasy and blotchy and that was before he cried day and night and nearly dropped dead from the stress of losing the one person wh-
“I needed to check if I was pregnant, Colin.”
His wife always looked stupendously beautiful when he had no idea what was going on. Maybe it was the little blood pressure spikes flashing in his vision, but he would suffer if he could never look at her with transparent and hapless love.
He cleared his throat. That was something his doctor couldn’t test him for. “And?”
She nodded. “I would have had to put away the fruit bowl regardless,” she said. “If Mama tries to give us any antiques we will have a reason to decline. But I have a food list to avoid, and sushi is on it.”
Colin was aware he was being silent for too long. He watched as Pen took off her coat and pulled up her sleeve to peel back a cotton ball taped to her forearm. She put it in the bin and touched his arm softly.
“I was going to tell you with something like a funny t-shirt or a mug,” she said. “Honestly, I got nervous like the blood test was something I could fail. I wasn’t ignoring your call, but you were talking about groceries and I didn’t know where I lived until they gave me the result. If you told me to stop and buy more live hyena I would not have noticed.”
He took her hand very gently, but hissed under his breath. “You’re having a fucking baby.”
Pen looked like she might cry. “I’m having a baby,” she corrected. “And I am happy about it. I know you are surprised. I can give you a minute. You can eat dinner and I’ll make something for myself.”
He was an idiot. He was a distrustful idiot who doubted his wife after one hard day. Colin was going to have to do better. She liked that he was emotional but he couldn’t be hyperactive and catastrophizing. He had to be clear-minded because Pen was going to be dealing with pregnancy and he had to make plans to keep her safe. He had already tried to poison her with raw fish!
“I’m stupid,” he said. “You wanted to go on vacation with your sisters and their families. Because they have kids, and we have a kid.”
“Yeah.”
Her pout was usually sexy, but this time it hurt him. He hadn’t given the right answer. He didn’t rush to gratitude. Her blue eyes were a little red, like she had a short cry before coming home. Colin cupped her cheeks.
“How do you put up with me? I had this whole meltdown about you setting up to leave me and how I was going to try to fix it. I looked at the luggage to see if you’d packed, and your passport was gone.”
“I lost my health card but the doctor signed me in with my passport,” Pen told him. “They didn’t want me to use a home test. Apparently I’m early enough it’s tricky to time those. I wasn’t going anywhere. Were you going somewhere?”
Colin sighed. “I was prepared to sit on you once you got home, using therapy speak on you until you forgave me. I do see how my abandonment math should have been sex math. Was I incredibly selfish not to notice you might be pregnant?”
She smiled. “I’m as close to the beginning as you can be and get symptoms. I missed a period and got dizzy a few times. It felt like a possibility,” she said. “Bridgertons are known for their large families.”
He wrinkled his nose. The begetting of heirs was a talent of his siblings. HIs mother was thrilled, and would be for the newest grandchild. They were going to have to tell people and think of a name. They were in the Bridgerton business and Penelope was a person factory; most respectfully, of course.
“Holy shit, you’re having a baby with some asshole you married,” he joked. “I used to have a phobia about this, you know? That you’d find some guy who did things right and got you forever. And then you’d be a mum and your old friends would have to muddle through seeing you a few times a year.”
Pen sighed. “I don’t have old friends, just new husband. He’s nice, mostly. Sometimes he blabs on about fruit bowls the colour of urine instead of telling me thank you for having his baby. But everyone has to learn how to do their job. I’m a pretty new wife,” she said.
How did she fix everything that resisted mending with her presence? He wasn’t less afraid of losing her, but it wasn’t happening now. And Colin could do better. He could stay out of his own troubles and pay attention. He was going to have to - they were having a Bridgerton baby and those children had a notorious slippery phase that made them tiny flight risks. Forget checking for Penelope’s passport, he was going to have to keep the baby’s passport locked up or they would have to get on airplanes to find their child.
“Thank you, Pen,” he said clearly. “I think we shall have an excellent baby. And I am already worried about how much uni costs. I think I have dad brain. The water bill is going to go up.”
“Sky high,” she said. “We’re going to spend all your money, dear, and some of it will be on visiting silly, touristy places to worship cartoon characters. We’ve been married over a year, and I thought it was time I started fucking your wallet.”
Colin put his thumb on her belly, which was no different but felt like a delicate area. “Hello offspring, I hear you will like expensive things but not sushi? I suppose it’s time to call the steakhouse. We will nourish you with great slabs of red meat cooked thoroughly, practically to charcoal. You shall be born half-dragon.”
Pen tapped next to his thumb. “I can eat normal things and not birth a half-dragon. I can eat cooked fish. It’s recommended,” she said. “And you do not have to waste the sushi. It looks good, if not for my new side-gig of gestating.”
He kissed her softly, and she relaxed against his front. “Well, I can’t eat without you, and our food is not looking so great. Since we know we have to be careful about your belly, let’s order something for both of us and I’ll have sushi for lunch tomorrow?”
She pulled back. “I want to wash up after being in the doctor’s and on the train. For the record, I’m not fleeing your love. Here, have my passport as an assurance. And consult my new, terribly boring food list, because it is extensive. Takeaway is going to be challenging,” she said. “I can’t have any of the fancy cheeses. Charcuterie is utterly beside the point for the duration. And I have to give up my cigars!”
He was crying again, but it was on the sushi and Colin was the only one who could eat it. One day he might stop being his own biggest plot twist, but it didn’t seem likely. At least when Pen ruined the plot she was adding something wonderful.