Page 80 of Together

“Good evening. What can I get you to drink?”

“Water,” I mutter while Grace and Lucy order whatever they’d like.

“I’ll have the broccoli chicken alfredo,” I blurt out. “House salad to start, please.”

“Oh!” She sounds surprised but quickly recovers. “Great choice. Are you two ready to order, too?”

Again, I don’t pay attention to what Lucy or Grace say. I couldn’t care less if they were even ready to order. I want this dinner over with as quickly as possible.

The waitress takes our menus and promises to return with our drink order and a basket of bread. I offer her a shaky smile, impressed that I’m capable of that much.

No one says a word until she’s returned with our drinks and bread. I take a long fortifying drink of my water and clear my throat, keeping my eyes focused on the table.

To her credit, Lucy seems as troubled as I am by Grace’s words but doesn’t stand up for me, either. I don’t know if she thinks the same as Grace, but it wouldn’t matter if she disagreed. Lucy’s far too much of a coward to argue with her. She would never dare to think differently, at least to Grace’s knowledge.

I hear my sisters talking to each other as if I’m not even here and feel a pain in my chest. Lucy is explaining to Grace how she and her husband have decided to try fertility treatments. Meanwhile, Grace is listening but smirking at me, knowing that she’s gotten under my skin.

“What do you think, Ashley?”

I swallow the large piece of bread I just shoveled in my mouth. “Of what?”

Grace rolls her eyes in annoyance. “Lucy having to go through the expensive fertility treatments.”

I look at Lucy who’s staring at Grace with a furrowed brow.

“I never said they were expensive,” she says quietly.

“Aren’t they, though?” Grace counters. She’s being a patronizing bitch and I’m two seconds away from throwing my water in her face and telling her just that.

Lucy takes a sip of her strawberry lemonade and sets it down, her hands shaking just a little bit. “Well, yes, but it will be worth it. And if it doesn’t work, we’ll adopt. There are other ways to have a baby.”

Something lights up in Grace’s eyes that gives me an uneasy feeling. “Adoption, huh? You’d be okay with that?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“Interesting.”

The way she says it makes that uneasy feeling grow into a panic. She’s up to something. I know her far too well. There’s a gleam in her eye and it’s not a good one. Whatever is going through her head is not going to be good for me.

“You know, Samuel and I have been talking about adoption as well,” she mentions casually about her and her husband.

“Oh yeah?” Lucy asks curiously, but I can see that she’s nervous as to where Grace is going with this. It’s the way she’s talking about it that’s troubling us.

She sips on her glass of red wine. “Mm hmm,” she hums, looking at me over the rim of her goblet.

“That’s… good, right?”

I’m content sitting here, letting them have a conversation without me. Munching on the soft, warm bread.

“Yes. We’ve actually chosen a mother, too.”

That’s surprising to me, but by the look on Lucy’s face, she’s just as shocked as I am. This is the first we’ve heard of Grace and Samuel looking into adoption and now they’ve chosen a mother? That’s fast, right? “Oh, so you’re doing private adoption?”

“Something like that.”

“Your salads,” our waitress says, placing mine in front of me first, then placing the others down. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”

“No, thank you,” Lucy says softly and I shake my head.

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