by Teneka Woods
“No, Nate. Not years. Months from now. As in nine months from now.”
There was a pause before Nate quickly sat up, water sloshing around them. He slowly removed the mask from his mouth. “What you say?”
“I found out this morning.”
“Pregnant?” he said, searching her face.
“Yep.”
His eyes bounced from her face to her chest, down to her stomach, and then back to her eyes. “Oh,” he said, barely above a whisper. He returned to his positon and rested his head on her chest again. He grabbed her hand underneath the water and brought it to his mouth. He kissed her palm.
There wasn’t a trace of bubbles in the water by the time they got out of the tub.
FORTY-NINE
Victoria didn’t cook the family dinner that Sunday. When Nate arrived, most everyone was in the rec room, eating takeout meals from Cleburne Cafeteria.
He thought he would find his mother in the kitchen, but it was Geo.
“What’s up, G?” Nate said.
“Hey, what’s up?” Geo stood at the island filling Evan’s sippy cup with apple juice. “You all right, bro?” he asked. His gaze fell on the nasty scar on Nate’s eyelid. “Your eyes are red.”
Nate took a seat on one of the bar stools. “I’m all right. I stayed over at Tora’s place last night, and she got two cats…”
“Oh yeah. Your allergies, right?”
“Yeah,” Nate shook his head.
Geo studied him. “You sure everything’s okay, bro? Looks like something’s on your mind.”
Nate rested his elbows on the island and made a pyramid of his hands. “I’m gonna be a dad,” he said plainly. He’d recited the phrase aloud to himself many times that morning, trying to get used to the sound of it, the idea of it.
“Let me take this cup to Evelyn for the baby. I’ll be right back,” Geo said after what seemed like a long minute.
Nate got up and poured a glass of juice for himself. Seeing Geo involved in the simple act of preparing a cup of apple juice for his son made him think about how that will be him around the same time next year.
When he returned, Geo said, “You wanna step outside and talk about it or—”
“Yeah, let’s go out,” Nate said, and they left the kitchen for the patio. He didn’t realize how soon he’d forgotten his juice until Geo placed the glass on the table in front of him as they sat down outdoors.
“How far along is she?”
“She’s a month.”
“I’m surprised because the two of you just got together, right? It hasn’t been very long at all?”
“I definitely wasn’t expecting this to happen.”
“You’re not too happy about it or what?”
“Not that I’m not happy, it’s just… me and Tora are still getting to know each other. We haven’t even had our first holiday together, or our first serious argument. I haven’t met her parents, don’t even know their names. What am I supposed to say when I meet her daddy? ‘Yessir, I am the stranger who knocked up your daughter’?”
Geo laughed out loud.
Nate drank from his glass of apple juice.
“You think she’s gonna turn crazy on you?”
“Naw. Nothing like that,” Nate shook his head. “She’s a beautiful person, man. In and out. I’m just thinking about how our relationship just entered a whole new dimension.”
“What have y’all decided to do? I mean… how does she feel about it?”
“I think she’s numb right now, just as shocked as I am. Last night I was telling her that we have to start making preparations and move in together. She said we didn’t need to make any rash decisions just because she’s pregnant.”
A brow rose on Geo’s face.
“Exactly,” Nate shrugged. “But she doesn’t want to. I think it’s because of her cats. She’s not trying to get rid of ‘em.”
“You gotta be kidding, bro.”
“Nope. Those cats are like her kids.”
“Yeah, but there’s no way she’ll choose her animals over you, I’m sure.”
“You don’t know Tora,” he said.
She had made it clear to him on many occasions that her kittens were her life and there to stay.
“That’s crazy.”
“One of them li’l motherfuckers pissed all over my shoes, too.”
“What?” Geo glanced at Nate’s feet underneath the table.
“Not these,” Nate said. “I had to go home and get another pair when I left her apartment this morning. I walked out barefoot because I threw those shoes right in her trash can—”
“Nooo—”
“She took ‘em out and told me she was gonna get them cleaned. I told her I didn’t want ‘em.”
Laughing, Geo said, “Why would the cat pee on your shoes?”
“Tora believed it was the boy cat. Acting out because she’s been spending a lot of nights at my place.”
“She might be right. Animals can be territorial.”
“It was sick, man.” Nate shook his head in disgust, thinking about the rough night at Tora’s apartment. He itched all night long as he tried to sleep between her sheets. At around four in the morning he woke her up and told her he had to go because he couldn’t stand it.
“Tora laughed about it,” he said. “She thought it was cute and claimed the cat was only trying to protect her.”
“Sounds like the two of you got some things to figure out.”
Nate leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands underneath his chin. He blew out a breath. “Yep. Definitely got a lot to do, man. I still can’t believe it. Me? A daddy? Right now? This wasn’t supposed to happen for another few years or so.”
Geo said, “There’s nothing to fear, bro. I think you’ll be a great dad. It’ll be an adjustment in the beginning, of course, but you’ll soon see it’s not so bad after all. Evelyn and I were talking just the other day about having another one in the next couple of years. After Evan turns four.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Geo nodded thoughtfully. “So, it’s the right time for you to have a family of your own.” He leaned over and patted Nate on the shoulder. “Welcome to the club, bro.”
Nate smiled. “I guess so.”
Just then Mr. Walker stuck his head out of the patio door. “The girls say they want some ice cream for dessert, so I’m gonna make a run to the store. Y’all want anything while I’m out?”
“We’re good,” Nate and Geo answered almost in unison.
“Alright. Just checking.” Mr. Walker closed the door, but just as quickly opened it again. “Nate, where’s Tora? I see she didn’t come with you today.”
“She’s at home. She said she was too tired to come.”
Mr. Walker nodded. “Oh, okay. I was worried, thinking maybe she didn’t wanna have dinner with us again after what happened last Sunday.”
That was probably part of the reason, too, Nate thought, but when he’d called to remind her about Sunday dinner, she told him she was still in bed resting. “Naw, just tired,” Nate told him.
“When are you gonna tell the rest of the family?” Geo asked after their father left.
“I guess I should tell them today, huh?”
“Might as well,” Geo said. “We’re all here. Well… you’ll have to call Sunny and put her on speaker phone when you make the announcement.”
“She’s still not talking to me,” Nate shook his head.
“Have you heard the latest news?” Geo asked.
“No. What?”
Geo lowered his voice even though it was just the two of them outdoors. “Bryan told me they had to cut a check for Sunny for the whole ten thousand. Whoever this guy is that’s after Levi wanted his money in full and right away. I don’t know if it was him, or if he sent somebody, but they showed up at Sunny’s house. Luckily, she was at the hospital visiting Skylar at the time. But… supposedly Ma didn’t want Sunny any more stressed about it than she already w
as, and having to take money out of her savings, so… they went ahead and paid the dude off.”
Nate picked up the glass and drained the last of the apple juice. It was his way of trying to douse the anger that fired up inside him. He wanted to drive over to his sister’s house and shake some sense into her, but only after he’d kicked her boyfriend’s ass and thrown him and all his shit out on the street for endangering her and the kids. He thought about Tora and what she said to him. The battle against Sunny’s boyfriend wasn’t his to fight. There was something greater, more personal, for him to worry about.
He had a child on the way.
“I’m hot now, G,” he said, rising from his seat. “Let’s go back inside.”
Nate wouldn’t accept another day of silent treatment. He went to his mother’s home office and knocked on the door, and waited until he heard the faint call, granting him permission to enter.
She sat at her desk. The long white curtains on the window at her back were open, casting her in a triangle of sunlight. Tiny dust motes floated above her head like glitter.
“Hey, Ma,” he said, and pushed the door closed quietly behind him.
“Hi, Nate,” she returned. Her eyes didn’t leave the computer screen.
He walked over to give her a kiss, and she didn’t tilt her forehead towards him to welcome the affection like she normally did. “What you working on?” he asked as an icebreaker.
There was a click of the computer mouse, and then the ticking sound of the keyboard as she quickly typed something before granting him a response. “I’m preparing some notes for my assistants since I’ll be working from home for the next couple of days. The contractor is coming tomorrow to start on the dining room.”
Nate sat down in the chair. “I’m so sorry about that, Ma.”
She sighed heavily and shook her head before removing her glasses. She looked at him. “What has gotten into you, Nate Alan? Tell me what possessed you to think it was okay to put your hands on Levi? In my house?”
The use of his middle name let him know that not only was she still angry, but saddened, and deeply disappointed, which hurt him more. Following behavior Victoria deemed their worst—he and his siblings realized when they were kids—Bryan was addressed as Bryan André, Sunny became Sunny Marie-Danielle, and since, like their father, Geo didn’t have a middle name, he was Gerald Walker The Fourth.
“I didn’t put my hands on him first,” Nate said calmly, but he really wanted to ask if that was what the bastard told her he’d done.
“Do you have any idea how long that China has been in this family?”
How could he forget? He’d heard the story on many special occasions when it was brought out for use. The bone China with the birds and gold leaves motif was a gift for his great-great grandmother on her wedding day. It was gifted to her daughter—his grandmother—at her wedding, and then, decades later, passed down to Victoria. So, naturally, the next person in line to receive it was Sunny. On her wedding day.
Nate was sick with guilt.
With a solemn nod of his head he said, “I remember.”
“You have no idea how livid I was that day when your father called to tell me what happened,” she said. “After I dropped Sunny off at home I drove for an hour all over the city, trying to calm myself down. And when I walked in my dining room and saw the damage, the destruction—” her eyes closed, her head shook slowly, as if she was reliving the scene in her mind. She opened them. “Nate Alan… you have no idea. No idea.”
He glanced down briefly at the floor. There was no doubt she would make him pay for the damage to the dining room wall—and possibly the curio cabinet—but the China itself held sentimental value and was irreplaceable.
“Am I the reason you’re in here by yourself instead of out there with everybody else?”
“I have a headache and I need to get this document sent out for tomorrow. There’s a lot going on right now.” She started typing again.
I know. Geo told me, he wanted to say, but he dared not broach the subject with her. He knew better.
“You want me to bring you something from the kitchen? Did you eat already? Dad went out to get ice cream. You want some?”
“No,” she stated flatly. “I’m fine.”
She wasn’t. And he was partly to blame. He’d apologized many times via text message and voicemail over the past week, but what more could he do? He shifted a bit in the chair. “How long do you think you’ll be in here? I got something I wanna tell everybody.”
“I don’t know, Nate,” she said with exasperation.
“It’ll only take about two minutes of your time. Can you take a break?”
“Son, I’m working, and I don’t have time right now.”
“It’s good news,” he said.
She sucked her teeth. “What is it, Nate? I’m really not in the mood.”
“Come to the rec room. I wanna tell everybody at the same time.”
She looked at him with a slightly arched brow and he believed he saw a glint of curiosity in her eye.
“You’re disrupting my time and getting on my nerves. Seriously.”
“You got another grandbaby on the way,” he rushed out with a smile since she had no patience for him today. He knew the news of a new baby to the family would soften her around the edges and lift her spirits.
He was wrong.
Her face went slack. “Tell me you are lying, son,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“And this was your idea?” she asked.
“No. It was a surprise to Tora just as much as—”
“Of course she is. Of course she is!” Victoria pushed away from the desk in her leather swivel chair. “How could you let this happen, Nate? Didn’t you learn anything from the incident in college? Of course she would get pregnant because she walked in here and saw dollar signs. It was all over her face the day she showed up the first time.”
Nate was dumbfounded. “Is that what you think of her?”
“I can spot women like her a mile away.”
“She’s not like that at all, Ma. That’s a mean thing to say. And she knows what I do for a living.”
“How can you afford to support a family? Do you have any idea how much diapers cost? Formula? Daycare for an infant? This is what your father and I have been warning you about all of your life.”
It wasn’t the reaction he expected from her at all, and he was suddenly hurt. But more than that, he was pissed.
“I might not make the type of money Sunny and them make, or be able to have my child walking around in Air Jordans like Sunny’s kids, or send them to private schools like Bryan and Geo, but I’m going to do all I can to make sure our baby has everything he or she needs.”
“Son, what are your career plans? Because when I think of personal trainer I think of it as something people do as a pastime or second job. Does the company even offer you medical insurance? Because the baby will need it.”
It was if she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. Or maybe she just didn’t care. “I can go back to being an attorney and be miserable. Is that what you want?”
“I want you to take your life and future seriously and put to use the education your father and I paid for.”
He shook his head dismissively at the thought. “Ma, when I see this kid who, just a few months ago, walked with his head down suddenly walking with self assurance, or seeing him smile because he can fit into a pair of pants three sizes smaller, or hear how his mama doesn’t have to take medication because she was able to get her blood pressure under control—” Nate shook his head again “—nothing I did when I was a lawyer gave me the same satisfaction.”
Victoria sat back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. She studied him a moment before saying, “I hope you understand, son, that this does not exempt you from paying us what you owe every month. It will be a valuable lesson to you because there will always be unforseen expenses. And the two of you better not call asking us for one red c
ent.”
It was like a second kick to his chest. “Really, Ma? I come to share the good news with you that I’m about to be a dad and this is what you say to me? That we don’t have your support? But you have no problem bailing Sunny and her dude out?” He stood up from his seat, his nostrils flared.
“Nate, don’t try to flip this around. This is about you being irresponsible!”
“I am responsible! You might not like what I do, but it is a real job. It’s my career. And I love it. You act as if I’m some type of loser, out here without direction, begging for money. I’ve never asked you and dad for anything. And, as far as the baby situation, things happen…”
“And that’s exactly my point! If you were being responsible there would be no surprise baby. It’s called family planning, Nate. The thing I’ve warned you all about since you were teenagers.”
Nate exhaled sharply, running a hand over his locks. “Ma, we will be fine. Me and Tora are gonna figure it out.”
“This is what I feared,” Victoria said, shaking her head. “Why settle for mediocrity, son? Why struggle?”
“Why can’t you accept that I’m living my life how I want to live it? I appreciate everything you’ve ever done for me, but I’m not cut-out to be a lawyer! I mean… c’mon, Ma, you can’t keep trying to control every little thing we do. All the while we were growing up you controlled what we did, what kind of people we hung out with, how we dressed, who we dated. We’re adults. I should be able to choose how I live my life. I mean… aren’t you at least proud that I’m making an honest living? Doesn’t that count for something?”
“So, I’m a bad mother because I wanted you all to be self-respecting, hard-working, upstanding people? That I wanted you to have stress-free lives with the financial freedom to afford the best?”
“Everybody doesn’t want the same things, Ma.”
“Oh, come off it, Nate. You’re just making excuses now.”
He sat back down in the chair. “I’m being honest. I enjoy helping people.”
“Lawyers help people, son. Doctors help people.”
“You just don’t get it,” he said quietly.
Victoria sighed. “I’m not sure where I went wrong with my twins. Between your sister and her ridiculous boyfriend, and your lack of drive to do more in life—”
