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Plenty of considerations had been made before the Autrys chose and ultimately moved into their estate on the oceanside cliffs in Monterey County. But one oversight of having only three people (only two when they bought the estate, actually) live in such a big house was how there always seemed to be either too few or too many lights on. James knew the house, even in the dark, better than the back of his own hand. But when he had a sleeping five-year-old in his arms that he wanted to stay asleep and needed to tuck into bed, navigating the halls in the dark was somewhat reminiscent of an obstacle course.
If it was just himself, if he was alone stumbling against walls and knocking the pieces of artwork slightly off center in their frames, James could deal with that. But his daughter was the most precious cargo and, like him, was a notoriously light sleeper. If she woke up, James already knew he’d spend the next two hours trying to get her to go back to sleep. It was well past his little girl’s bedtime, after 10 PM, but it was a Friday night and they had no early morning plans for the weekend, so James hoped to make the most of the evening with his wife.
Thankfully, his daughter, Samantha, was already in her pajamas. Samantha had started kindergarten in the fall and met her best friend, Poppy, on the first day of school. They were a dynamic duo and did everything together, including alternating houses for sleepovers. For them though, sleepovers meant bringing all the right gear—pajamas, flashlights, sleeping bags, and extra snacks—but once they were both asleep, the parent who’d accompanied the one with the overnight gear would take their little girl home to sleep in her own bed. It was the concept of a sleepover Samantha and Poppy both liked. In reality, Samantha freaked out if she woke up in the middle of the night and didn’t see the cascade of twinkle lights on her ceiling she was used to, or if her dog, Shep, wasn’t there with his chin on the edge of her bed and wagging his tail in the morning.
James put Samantha down on her bed gently and was relieved when she didn’t stir. He hit the switch on the nightstand for the overhead twinkle lights before pulling the monster foot slippers off of her feet. He worked around Samantha to pull the blanket back before shifting her to tuck her in. The bouncy curls of her hair were all over the place, so he smoothed them down, away from her face, then pressed a kiss to her forehead before walking toward the doorway. With a soft sigh, standing just inside the threshold, James looked back at Samantha, out cold, one more time, the smile lines at the corners of his mouth indenting briefly. He pulled the door closed behind him but didn’t let it click shut.
In the hallway, he was met by a few high-pitched whines and the soft clinking of metal. James felt around the wall until he found the switch to turn on the hallway light. Though no longer a puppy, Shep looked up at James with puppy eyes. The clinking metal was from the tag on Shep’s collar. James crouched down and gave the dog a few scratches behind the ears.
“Hey buddy,” James greeted.
James had always wanted for Samantha’s dog to be smart and loyal and protective. Though lately, he’d begun to suspect the dog was too smart for its own good. James was sure he was capable of reading Shep’s every move and that Shep knew how to give the stink eye. And Shep was doing just that.
“Don’t give me that look,” James grumbled, keeping his voice low. “She’s fine.”
As Samantha’s canine defender, protector, and best friend, Shep was glued to her side around the house. Shep let Samantha use him as a pillow on the couch and dress him up in frilly outfits. Samantha never left the house for school without hugging Shep, and he was always at the door waiting for her when she came home.
So when Samantha came home late, already asleep, and Shep was a step behind, left in the dark without any proof of life that his human was okay before James was closing the door to her room? Well, James could see why the dog took major offense to that.
Shep turned in a circle and stretched out before sitting back on his hind legs and tilting his head to the side.
“Hey,” James warned with the shake of his head, “do not go in there. Sammy’s gotta sleep. Wait ‘til the morning.”
The dog yawned and laid down, creating a German Shepherd-sized barrier between the hallway and the door to Samantha’s room.
James patted Shep hard on the back, much like he did on their daily walks, knowing the dog appreciated it.
“Good boy, Shep,” James murmured. “You want the light on or off?”
Shep put a paw over one of his eyes and James chuckled under his breath. “Okay. G’night, buddy.”
After flicking off the hallway light, James continued down the hallway to the master bedroom. Although he was in the dark again, the walk was a straight shot, and because the door was slightly ajar, he could tell a light was still on. His wife was still awake.
When he entered the room, James saw the TV was on, with the volume down low. The room was lit by the salt lamp on the nightstand next to his side of the bed. His wife looked up and made eye contact as soon as he began walking over.
“Hey, you,” she greeted.
James made his way over to her side of the bed to say hello. They both leaned into a kiss that made James sigh.
“Hi, Teresa,” James spoke softly, feeling almost lightheaded. He loved her, truly, and the way she always held his face when they kissed—the metal of her wedding ring cool against his jaw—was just one of the things she did that made him feel weak in the knees.
“Did I hear you talking to Shep just now?” Teresa asked. “A full-on conversation?”
“Listen, Shep and I, we understand each other,” James explained. “I can’t help that you don’t speak dog.”
“Yeah.” Teresa rolled her eyes. “I really need to learn to communicate better with the family member who drinks toilet bowl water if the seat is left up.”
James knew Teresa was teasing. They all talked to the dog (and Teresa was always slipping extra treats to him), but not as extensively as James. He frowned and defended Shep. “That was one time.”
Teresa let out a laugh as she adjusted the pillows behind her to sit up in bed. James stripped down to his undershirt and boxer briefs before taking a seat on the edge of the bed. Teresa and James had been married for four years and had been together for the better part of the last decade, so James knew very well she hated it when clothes that had been outside in the world touched the bed much more than she hated clothes lying in a heap on the floor. The bed was reserved for sleepwear and underwear, or no clothes at all.
“So the sleepover was good?” Teresa wondered. “The girls were happy?”
“The girls were stoked.” James nodded and held out his left hand. “Especially about this.”
Samantha and Poppy had painted his nails in alternating colors of periwinkle and teal.
Teresa grabbed onto James’ palm and brought it up to her face for closer inspection. “Nice. Celeste and Kaycee get the same treatment?”
“Yeah,” James said affirmatively. “Only they got better colors.”
“I doubt that,” Teresa laughed, turning James’ hand over to unclasp his watch.
Teresa knew her daughter well, knew how much Samantha loved her daddy, and would have chosen what were, in her mind, the best colors to paint James’ nails with.
“Speaking of,” James went on, “Celeste had some questions about one of the wines I brought over there last time. I told her you’d give her a call.”
Teresa managed the winery that was on the inland side of their property—it was a wine estate, after all. The Autrys had become quite friendly with Poppy’s parents since their daughters had become the best of friends, so Teresa had provided them with a few exclusive bottles from the winery since the school year began.
“Oh, sure. Actually, I was thinking, for the next epic sleepover the girls have, we should have Celeste and Kaycee over here for dinner,” Teresa proposed, taking off James’ watch and setting it down on her bedside table. “They can take a look at the pool house. See what it needs.”
Celeste and Kaycee were Poppy’s moms. It was the luck of the draw for the Autrys their daughter became best friends with the daughter of the most well-respected interior designers and decorators in Monterey County. The Autrys had a functional pool house, though they rarely spent any time in there. Teresa thought it was because the space wasn’t inviting and had considered it could be revived by professionals.
“Yeah,” James agreed. “A plan is better than no plan.”
“What about Sammy’s riding lesson?” Teresa asked, switching topics. “Did it go better than the last time?”
For Samantha’s fourth birthday, Teresa and James got her a puppy, Shep, and a pony, Callie, because apparently they were those parents. Except by proper terms, Callie wasn’t a pony, but rather a filly, who would grow to become a full-size Arabian horse. Although in the beginning Teresa had worried Samantha’s fondness of all things horses and ponies was a short-lived phase, she remained fully obsessed. The days of the week she got to visit her own pony were her absolute favorite. Around the time she began kindergarten was when her parents determined she was ready to start taking riding lessons. And Teresa had to admit, Samantha looked adorable in the riding gear.
The instructor at the equestrian center said Samantha was a natural. But she was still a little kid. There were times when she was too distracted to focus or would rather brush Callie down the whole time. Such had been the case the previous weekend, when Teresa brought Samantha to the stables. Samantha hadn’t wanted to put the saddle or the bridle or anything riding-related on Callie. She just wanted to play.
“Uh…okay, to be honest, we were kind of late to the riding lesson,” James replied with a sheepish smile. “But I learned something about Sammy.”
“What do you mean you were late?”
“The car lineup for after-school pickup was really long and really slow today,” James reasoned.
At Samantha’s school, they were very adamant about making sure the kids only got into vehicles with their parents or guardians. Parents couldn’t just park outside the school and wait for their kids to climb into the backseat. The kids had to wait in a line and weren’t allowed to approach any cars until instructed by the designated line watchers for each grade, who knew all the parents and made visual confirmation before calling a student over.
James knew his daughter, knew she had her mother’s advice and father’s attention to detail. He and Teresa had taught Samantha well not to talk to strangers or get in the car with anyone who wasn’t them. But regardless, every afternoon he was there, waiting in the kindergarten pickup line. According to the parents of the other kids in Samantha’s class, the pickup system contributed to a safe, healthy learning environment. James didn’t know if he believed that or if it was a bunch of bullshit rich people told themselves to sleep better at night. And the jury was still out on whether James thought it was best to raise a kid in such a bubble of an environment, or if he thought it would serve Samantha well to learn some of the harsh realities of the world at a young age so they couldn’t break her heart later.
But what James did know was how much he loved Samantha, how he would do anything for her—sit in a pickup line, get his nails painted, stumble around in the dark quietly. Teresa once told James the reason he and Shep got along so well was because he and Shep were the same; one in human form and the other in canine, but both completely wrapped around Samantha’s little finger.
“So we had to rush out of there to get over to the stables,” James continued. “And I noticed…each time I stepped on the gas, Sammy loved it. She was smiling and giggling.”
To know James was to know he’d do anything to make Samantha smile and hearing her giggle was one of his favorite sounds in the entire world. He was practically giddy recounting the way Samantha had been that afternoon, and James was not a giddy person.
“James,” Teresa dropped his name in a warning tone.
“What?”
“Really? You were speeding?” Teresa said exasperatedly. “With our daughter in the car?”
James scoffed. “Oh, come on. I was going like 20 miles over the speed limit in a residential area. There was no child endangerment involved! And I’m a good driver, you know that. Sammy was fine. Sammy was having a blast.”
Teresa recalled telling James he drove like a pendejo the day they met.
“So what does this have to do with her riding lesson?” Teresa crossed her arms over her chest. “Did you decide to blow it off and just drive around because Sammy was laughing?”
“What? No. I told you, we were late, but we made it eventually, and it all worked out,” James countered. “I’m saying Sammy loved going fast in my car. She was thrilled. Now, the cop who pulled me over for speeding…not so much.”
“James!”
James bit his lip to keep himself from laughing and provided his apology quickly. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you kidding me?” Teresa said, not even the slightest bit amused.
“I’ll pay the fine and do the day of traffic school to keep the point off my license,” James shrugged, nonchalant. “Not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Teresa seethed. “It’s not about the money, James. You got pulled over! With Sammy in the backseat!”
“As if I’m the first,” James pointed out.
Teresa had been pulled over and cited when Samantha was a baby. The cops in their neighborhood were always on the prowl near the end of the month, to meet ticketing quotas. Teresa had learned that the hard way, getting a citation for failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. A California roll, as it was known locally.
The look Teresa gave James for bringing it up reminded him his wife was a pistol, and she’d shoot him straight and true with her gunpowder glare.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, holding his hands up in surrender. “Not the time.”
“I can’t believe you want to joke about this right now,” Teresa huffed.
James tilted his head to the side—something Shep would do, so maybe he really was the human form of Samantha’s beloved dog—and stood up momentarily before he brought his feet up on the bed, then adjusted onto his knees, hovering over Teresa on top of the blanket the lower half of her body was nestled under.
“Aren’t you glad I’m telling you instead of paying it off in secret?” James asked softly with earnest eyes. “Aren’t you glad I didn’t have Sammy tell you?”
Teresa narrowed her eyes before uncrossing her arms. She poked James repeatedly in the shoulder, her pointer finger hitting hard, flexed muscle. “You’re a piece of work, Autry.”
Of everyone in their family, Samantha had the most effective puppy eyes. James always caved to them, and because of the running gag between Teresa and James that Sammy clearly favored James as a parent, James made empty threats to weaponize Samantha’s puppy eyes against Teresa. He would never make good on those threats—he would never manipulate Samantha that way—but Teresa had no doubt she would fall for whatever James recruited Samantha to do, if ever.
“Hey,” James whispered.
Teresa groaned. “What now?”
“I love you.”
A sigh escaped Teresa’s lips and she squirmed, looking away from him. Samantha had the best puppy eyes but that wasn’t to say James didn’t have some pretty good ones, too. It felt foreign to Teresa to think there had been a time when she was unaffected by the way he looked at her. And he’d always looked at her the same, ever since the day they met, even when she commented on his pendejo driving skills. So when he looked at her and said that, the obvious translation of what his look meant? Well, James didn’t even need Samantha to do his bidding. Teresa was a total goner.
“You’re lucky I love you,” Teresa retorted anyway.
James grinned and dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “So how was your day?”
“I did not get a traffic fine,” Teresa boasted. “I had a meeting over in Gilroy. I went to the farmers market after. I got that garlic rub you like. For the steaks.”
“What?” James wrinkled his nose and rested his head against Teresa’s chest. “You did that for me? Well now I feel like an ass.”
“Good,” Teresa gloated. “You should.”
With a groan, James pulled his lips into a frown and pulled back, hovering over Teresa again. “You wanna ream me out about this again after I shower?”
“Yes,” Teresa laughed, pushing him away. “So go.”
James moved off her and sat back on his heels at the foot of the bed like a kicked puppy, shaking his head, before getting up to gather the clothes he’d left on the floor. He’d almost made it to the closet to throw the dirty clothes in the hamper when he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Oh, shit,” he said.
Teresa gave him a look of concern.
“I forgot Hermy in the car when I carried Sammy up,” James explained. “She’ll freak out if she wakes up and can’t find him. I should go back down there.”
“Honey,” Teresa waved him off, laughing at the predicament, that life or death situations once involved things like bullets and poisonous beetles, and now those situations were about the presence or absence of revered stuffed animals. “You go shower. I’ll get the damn horse.”
Hermy was Samantha’s number one comfort object, a stuffed horse given to her one Christmas by her Aunt Kelly Anne. Teresa and James had weaned Samantha off of taking Hermy everywhere with her, but since she’d been at a “sleepover” she had to have the horse with her. A missing Hermy was an absolute life or death situation for Samantha; her parents would wake up to her wailing in the middle of the night if she turned over in her sleep and noticed she was no longer holding the stuffed horse and if it wasn’t within immediate reach.
“You sure?” James asked.
“I don’t mind,” Teresa shrugged, pulling back the covers to get up. “It’s fine. I wanted to look in on Sammy anyway.”
At Samantha’s bedtime, James usually bid her goodnight first and Teresa would be the one to stay and read her a story. It was obvious, almost painstakingly so, that Samantha was growing up fast because having a new best friend and sleepovers upended the usual bedtime routine the Autrys had established for their daughter. Teresa’s nighttime routine involved putting her face products on in a certain order and taking James’ watch off his wrist. The routine gave her stability, something she’d only dreamed of before, as a girl in Culiacán. And for Teresa, being the last voice Samantha heard and being the last one to kiss her goodnight every night was a constant reminder of the reality she’d created for herself. James was glad Teresa was unwilling to relinquish that.
So he gave Teresa a small smile. “Okay. Try not to trip over Shep.”
By the time James was showered, dark hair wet and slicked back, and white ribbed tank top on, Teresa was back in her spot in bed. The TV had been turned off and she was on her side, dozing off, facing James’ side of the bed.
When James pulled back the sheets, Teresa’s eyes fluttered open. Before James could crawl into bed, he noticed there was a small but long rectangular gift-wrapped package resting on the bottom edge of his pillow.
“What’s this?” he asked.
Teresa rubbed at an eye and cleared her throat. “Hey.”
“Did you…wrap the garlic rub?”
A giggle erupted from Teresa’s throat and she shook her head against her own pillow. “Open it.”
“You know, you really don’t have to twist the knife by giving me more thoughtful gifts,” James said as he tore off the paper. “Believe me, I already feel bad enough for—”
James cut himself off mid-sentence once he’d taken the lid of the box off and saw what was inside. His eyes flitted back to Teresa. “This is…this is…”
Inside the box, there was a pregnancy test inside a Ziplock bag. It was face down, but the shape of the stick and the blue end cap gave it away.
“I put it in there. I know what it is,” Teresa assured James. “Turn it over.”
James didn’t think he was nervous, but his throat felt dry and his hand shook slightly when he did as Teresa instructed.
Fresh air filled his lungs when he saw the single word in the result display window: Pregnant.
“You serious?” he whispered harshly.
Teresa giggled again, at the way she’d managed to fluster James. “Does this seem like the kind of thing I would joke about?”
James dumped everything he was holding onto the nightstand next to his side of the bed and practically dove into bed to hold Teresa close. Teresa relaxed in his arms and laughed softly in his ear, managing to put her arm around him, despite his tight squeeze, and running her fingers over one of his shoulder blades. James pulled back to tuck Teresa’s hair behind her ear, and kissed her once, then went back for a couple more.
Teresa rested her hands on his chest after, right along his collarbones, nudging her nose against his.
“Was the pregnancy test under the covers this whole time?” James asked, rubbing a few strands of Teresa’s hair between his fingers. “Like when I came in the room and recapped my day?”
“Yes.”
“Teresa.” It was James’ turn to hiss his wife’s name unamused. “And you just let me go on and on?”
Teresa shrugged. “Well you had news, too. Money you pledged to the Monterey County Sheriff’s Department.”
“I feel like a total chump now,” James complained, “and you let me keep going. You didn’t stop me.”
Teresa threw her head back and laughed. She knew putting a positive pregnancy test in a gift box wasn’t the most creative way to reveal the news, but nonetheless she was completely enamored her plan to surprise James went off without a hitch. For as long as she’d known James, there wasn’t much that got past him. In most cases it was a good thing, because as they’d grown together, there was nothing they had to hide from each other.
“Hey. I don’t know why you’re so happy about that,” James said with a hint of mirth in his eyes. “You’re the one who wanted to have another baby with such a chump.”
What James hadn’t said out loud was that Teresa had spent the last several months with baby fever. They hadn’t been trying to get pregnant when Samantha came along; they’d been fresh out of the drug business and were having a lot of sex to make up for lost time. They both thought it would be the same way again. It had taken no effort at all for Teresa to get James on board, with him saying, yes, absolutely, he wasn’t opposed to her demands to have more sex. But somewhere it took a turn, with Teresa becoming obsessed with her ovulation cycle and trying to sync up their intimacy on a schedule with it. But with each month that Teresa didn’t end up pregnant, the pressure mounted on both of them more and more.
Teresa got way ahead of herself, and fast. She was a pistol, but she jumped the gun. No one ever said she wasn’t an emotional thinker or that her actions weren’t reactionary. She started talking about consultations and second opinions and fertility treatment without ever being told they needed to consider their options in order to conceive again.
It led to James decidedly telling Teresa they couldn’t fuck on a schedule anymore; it was taking a toll on them, making them unhappy, doing away with the intimacy and all the good parts they were meant to enjoy. Teresa was pissed at him for a week, but he let her be and left her alone, standing his ground until Teresa promised she was deleting the ovulation tracking app from her phone and allowing herself to take a breath and relax.
The first time they slept together again after that, when she surrendered and let James please her—didn’t even think about anything other than being present—she realized how much she missed the good parts, like James had said. The sex they’d been having since then was mind-blowing, like when they first got together—like before they’d been together. They were only a few weeks removed from when James had taken his stand when Teresa noticed her period was late.
James had been right, which was tough for Teresa to admit.
She ran her hand down James’ chest and then squeezed his arm. “You’re not a chump.”
Her husband was in tune with her, with what she needed (still here, sincere, they liked to say), and how she could be cured of her baby fever even when she tried to hold him to a ridiculous schedule. James loved her even when she was hard to love, which made Teresa think the love they were both capable of had grown with them over time. Teresa didn’t know if she and James were two halves of a whole, but she believed they belonged together.
“Thanks, honey,” James breathed. “Hey, you, uh, you took more than one test, right?”
Teresa grinned. “I took a test every day this week. I hid them all in a bag in my jewelry box.”
James wrinkled his nose. “Of course you did.”
“I wanted to surprise you because you…you were right, I needed to relax and let it happen instead of trying to micromanage a baby into existence,” Teresa admitted bashfully. “I booked an appointment with my doctor for next week. But I’m definitely knocked up.”
James cupped the back of Teresa’s head and pressed his forehead to hers. “You happy?”
“I’m happy, excited,” Teresa listed off, “nervous…”
“Nervous? About what?”
“Mostly for Sammy,” Teresa admitted, biting her lip. “If she’s gonna be okay?”
James moved onto his back and adjusted the covers. “What? Why wouldn’t Sammy be okay?”
“James,” Teresa scoffed, like it should have been obvious to him, “Sammy has a hard enough time sharing you with me. Adding another person—a baby—to the mix? That’s gonna be tough.”
“There’s enough of me to go around in this household. Even the dog gets his share.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about. I don’t…I don’t want Sammy to think she’s any less the center of our universe. Especially yours,” Teresa responded. “That little girl loves being your little girl.”
“Sammy’s gonna be fine. She’ll adjust. You’ve seen her with Shep and Callie, now Poppy and her other friends. She’s got a big heart—she got that from you,” James argued. A dreamy smile came upon his face as he envisioned what it would be like once they had two kids in their midst, how Samantha would fawn over her new sibling. “She’s gonna be a great sister.”
James watched Teresa and thought he saw her trying to envision the same thing, a slightly changed family dynamic without missing a beat. He waited, and when he saw the light grow in her eyes, he knew she saw it, too.
“I guess you’re right,” Teresa said softly.
James leaned over the side of the bed and turned out the light.
“C’mere,” he said when he was sprawled out on his back again.
When Teresa moved closer, James reached out and touched her hip, then grazed at her skin under her belly button.
“Trust me?” James asked simply.
The question was about the pregnancy, about Sammy, about things working out for their family, about their lives together in general. Teresa knew that.
“I do,” she answered confidently.
James shifted onto his side and brought Teresa closer to maximize the points of contact where their bodies were touching. He kissed her hair and closed his eyes, his thumb finding and settling over one of her back dimples.
“But James,” Teresa spoke in the dark, “don’t even think about taking Sammy or the baby to the Go Kart track, okay? I don’t want our kids picking up your driving style.”
‘Our kids’ was all James heard.