by Kris Ripper
“Well, like we always say, anything can happen.”
“Can you tell us more about his family?” Miles. Miles’s family. Miles, who’d gone from being a name in his ear this morning to a child—an actual human child—in Jake’s arms tonight.
“Not much more than I’ve already told you. Dad wants nothing to do with anything baby. Mom’s struggling. He was drug-exposed in utero, but so far he’s developmentally solid. Mom hasn’t followed through with her reunification plan, and Grandma’s not able to provide a safe environment for a growing boy.”
“Wait, there’s a grandma?”
“That’s where he’s been until today, isn’t it Miles? You and Nana, hanging out.”
Singer blinked at Jake. This was the nightmare. Relative placements always took higher priority than nonrelative placements.
“Can I ask why he’s not with her now?”
“You can ask, but there’s not much I can tell you. Suffice it to say that Grandma’s got some medical issues—nonhereditary, from an accident a few years ago—that keep her from being able to look after Miles.”
“But she wants to? His grandma wants to keep him?” Did we just steal a baby from his grandmother?
“In a perfect world, sure. But in this one, there are a lot of complications.” Brandi contemplated for a second, then shrugged. “There’s some kind of back thing, and it affects her mobility. Some days she can barely leave her bed, other days she looks fine. I can’t actually share more with you than that, but the important thing is that it’s not genetic.”
Really? That’s the takeaway here? His grandmother has medical problems so serious you’re taking him from her, but we should just be happy she can’t pass them down to him?
She tweaked Miles’s nose again, and this time he smiled at her. “There’s the kid. Sorry about the drive, pal. I know it’s been a long day. Listen, why don’t I leave so you guys can get settled? And I’ll try to get Mom to confirm the next visit so you don’t drive all the way out to Richmond for nothing. Good-bye, Miles. You’ll like Jake and Singer, they’re pretty cool.”
Small talk, nose tweaking, promises to call in the morning.
And then it was the two of them. With Miles. Who was somehow being entrusted to their care.
“Oh god. I screwed this up.” Singer shook his head. “I’m so sorry, I did everything we swore we wouldn’t do.”
“You didn’t screw anything up. Come on, look at this face. This is not the face of a screw-up.”
Which was true. Miles had big cheeks and all-seeing eyes.
“Sorry, Miles,” Singer said. “I didn’t mean you. Obviously. Jake, should I have said no?”
“Nope. You should have said yes, and you did, and here we are.”
God, he was so certain. Was this how Singer had sounded over the last year since starting the paperwork? Certain of the process, in total faith that it would work out for them?
Jake shifted Miles to the other arm. “Man, I don’t know what I expected, but you’re heavy, Miles. Also, your hair is tickling my neck.” He glanced up, banishing Singer’s fears with the openness on his face. “So, um, do you know how to make formula? Because I really don’t.”
“Remind me why we asked your mom to stay home?”
“This would be so much worse if she was here. Um.” Jake blinked at Miles, who was looking at him with placid acceptance. “Shouldn’t he be crying?”
“I don’t know, but I guess we should, you know, make a bottle, in case he starts.” Good. A plan. “There are directions on the can, I think, and I know you aren’t supposed to do it in the microwave, but Alice said we just have to be careful, or use room-temp water.” Singer realized he was in danger of babbling again. “Oh my god, Jake, this is happening. For real. Right now.”
“Is it? Because it doesn’t feel real. Like, at all. So you think they’ll have another huge stack of paperwork like that if we end up adopting him?”
“I’m pretty sure I just signed away our lives. Maybe our souls. And—yeah, probably.”
They smiled at the same time.
“Shit, okay, I’m totally freaking out.” Jake leaned in for a slightly awkward kiss around Miles. “Holy crap. Uh. You want to hold him?”
“No. I mean yes, but no, he’s happy with you right now, so we might as well leave him.” What if I drop him? What if he cries when I touch him? “I can make a bottle, though. I watched a YouTube video.”
“You did not.”
“I really did. More than one, actually.”
Jake laughed. “God. I love you. Okay, demonstrate your bottle-making skills for me, then.”
“It just got weird to me that someone trusts us with a baby.” A real baby, not the idea of a baby, a vague baby-concept in the future. But an actual flesh and blood child, staring at the side of Jake’s face with concentration.
“Ha. Do you want me to give you the lecture on how straight fertile people don’t have home studies or have to fill out forms or write essays to get their kids? What are you always saying? We’ve been vetted way more than most people.”
“I guess so. But it’s still weird to me that someone thinks we could look like parents.”
Jake carefully shifted Miles to his other arm, while Miles, dark brown skin, owl eyes, short curly hair, switched to watching Singer’s hands. “Yeah, I definitely don’t look like a parent right now.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You’ve got a baby in your arms. You look parent-like.”
“You’re making a bottle. That’s totally parent-like.”
“I’m making a bottle. Wow.” Formula scooped in. Water to the line. Shake. “Oh damn. I think I was supposed to stir, not shake.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Um. Gas, I think? Something about air in the formula and if he drinks it he’ll get gas?” Singer looked over at Miles. He was dressed in a pale green onesie with a pair of brown sweat pants pulled up over his diaper. “Oh god. Diapers. We have to find out what size he wears and call Cathy.”
“Why don’t we just go to the store?”
They stared at each other. Then both of them looked at Miles.
“Call Mom,” Jake said. “I’m still scared of the car seat.”
“Will you find out what size he wears? Is that how you say it? ‘What size he wears’?”
“I think maybe there’s something in this bag…”
Jake investigated diapers, Singer possibly overtested the formula’s temperature (his arm was dripping, but at least he was certain it wouldn’t burn Miles), and Miles watched. Singer thought babies were supposed to be in constant motion, but Miles was a still, silent spectator in Jake’s arms, while everything went on around him.
Cathy and Joe promised to be over with diapers in the appropriate size in a little while, so they sat down on the sofa. With Miles. And a bottle.
“Um. So I guess I … stick it in his mouth?”
“I guess so.”
Jake picked up the bottle, but before he’d gotten it halfway to Miles, chunky baby fists had grabbed it and slammed it home. Jake laughed. “Oh my god, Miles. Hungry?”
Hungry and exhausted. Miles’s eyes were rolling back in his head after only a quarter of the bottle.
Neither of them spoke. They watched him fall asleep, fingers still tensing and relaxing on the side of the bottle, eyelashes fluttering. Singer could hardly breathe.
A baby. Not their baby, no, but at least temporarily in their care. Their responsibility. Theirs to watch fall asleep just like this.
“Oh my god,” Jake whispered. “That was—”
“Yeah.”
Time must have passed, though Singer didn’t notice it. Cathy and Joe arrived. He let them in quietly and stepped aside so they could make a beeline for Jake and Miles.
“Oh, look at him.” Cathy, clearly itching to give Miles a full
exam, kept her distance, only reaching out once to touch his feet. “I love baby socks. Joe, look.”
“I know. I can’t believe our kids are old enough to have kids.”
“More than old enough.” She glanced at Singer. “Everything okay?”
“We navigated making a bottle. That’s pretty much all we’ve done so far.”
“Change his diaper when he wakes up.”
“What do we— I mean— What time should we put him to bed?” Singer floundered.
“Yeah, Mom. He’s ten months old. We don’t even know what that means.”
“It means you cut food very small before you give it to him and watch him like a hawk. Do you know if he’s crawling at all?”
They shook their heads.
“You’ll learn. You’ll learn all of it. I gestated two of them, and there’s not a book in the world that can tell you how to parent, boys. Learn as you go.” She kissed Jake’s forehead, then Singer’s cheek. Then she leaned down to kiss Miles’s forehead too. “I can’t wait to meet you, kiddo.”
Cathy had tears in her eyes. Joe reached for her hand.
“Don’t cry in front of the boys,” he whispered. “We’re supposed to be pretending it’s all easy, Cath.”
“Right, I forgot. Wouldn’t want anyone to know the truth.” She offered a slightly watery laugh. “Sorry, I’m trying not to plan too far into the future, and I know it’s complicated, but you two have to understand that you just made us grandparents.” This time she shook her head. “Anyway, we only came to drop off diapers. Call us if you need anything else.”
Jake smiled up at them. “Don’t you guys have jobs?”
“Hush. I will walk out of the ER in the middle of my shift if you so much as need a box of Kleenex.”
“Liar,” Joe said. “But she’s right. We’ll bring food over tomorrow in case you don’t want to leave the house. And we’ll tell everyone else to leave you guys alone.”
Alone. Such a strange concept, applied to the three of them. Alone together. Alone together with Lisa silently living in her cave down the hall.
Singer tried to pull himself back into the room. “Thank you so much.”
“Don’t be silly. Call for anything.”
“Cath, they know.”
“Doesn’t hurt to remind them.”
He walked them out. When he came back in, Jake was maneuvering to stand up.
“What’re you doing?”
“I thought— Shouldn’t I put him down? Do you think?”
“Oh. In his crib?”
“Yeah, but Singer, I don’t get how to do that. Do you think my arms are long enough? How do I not drop him?”
They slowly walked to the room they’d made over. It had been Singer’s growing up, then an impersonal guest room, and now was an impersonal guest room with a crib and a dresser and Alice’s painted-glass mobile, which splintered little patches of colored light all over the walls.
“But.” Singer studied the angles, and the high side of the crib. “But it must be doable. People put sleeping babies into cribs all the time.”
“Um. How?”
“I have no idea.”
“Maybe it’s easier if they’re smaller?”
Sorely tempted to call Cathy, or Alice, Singer pulled himself together. Self-sufficiency, dammit. “Okay. We can do this. No, you know what? It’s not even nighttime yet. This is a nap. What if we put him on a blanket on the floor?”
Miles sniffled, and Jake urgently bounced him until he settled again.
“My heart’s pounding,” he whispered.
“This is highly stressful. Blanket?”
“Yeah. I might be able to do that.”
Singer spread out the quilt Alice had given them, folding it in half to make it a little thicker over the carpet. He stepped back.
“I’m so fucking scared,” Jake said. “And I don’t know why. If he wakes up, he wakes up. That’s okay, right?”
“What if he cries?”
“Singer, you’re supposed to say yes, of course it’s all right.”
“Of course it’s all right. But seriously, don’t wake him up, he might cry.”
Jake huffed a laugh and knelt down, slowly lowering his arms and trying to keep Miles cradled in closely. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he whispered.
“That’s a very original lullaby.”
“Shh.”
Watching Jake put Miles down was like watching him try to diffuse a bomb. People did this multiple times a day? How did all parents not have bleeding ulcers?
After an extraction Singer held his breath for, Jake sat back. “I’m exhausted. Do we get naps, too?”
“I think we actually do, at least for a while.” Singer turned to the baby monitor helpfully unpacked by their earlier guests. “I guess we should set this up?”
“Yeah.”
With a minimum of beeps and feedback (Singer made a mental note to never turn it on while the receiver was next to it again), they managed to back out of the room secure in the idea that if Miles woke up, they’d hear him.
“Bedroom?” Jake whispered.
Singer nodded and followed him in.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this. Is it too soon to say ‘dad’? It’s too soon, right?”
“It feels too soon.” Dad. The enormity of it washed over Singer, leaving him shaky. “Oh my god, Jake.”
“I know.” Jake lay back on their bed. “Oh my fucking god, we have a kid.” He waved. “You know, for however long. We have a kid. But I don’t know, Singer. He just, like, fell asleep. In my arms. I’m pretty sure Will once puked down my shirt when he was a baby, but that wasn’t really a bonding experience.”
Singer smiled and sat beside him. “But Miles falling asleep in your arms was?”
“Oh yeah. Man. I could seriously watch him sleep. You, uh, think I’m making this stuff up because I want it to be true?”
“I don’t think you can make that up. You feel what you feel.”
“Do you feel it? I mean, not like it has to be the same. Obviously it won’t be the same. Never mind. Sorry. I know we read all the books but I totally wasn’t prepared to feel this way.”
I was. And I don’t. But all that would come, in time. That’s what the books said. Singer forced his mind away from needlessly worrying and stretched out, letting his arm touch Jake’s. “What do you think we do with him when he wakes up?”
“I don’t know. Take him around the house? Introduce him to Lisa? Hey, did you call your parents?”
“No. I will, in a few days. But right now I don’t want to hear their indifference, you know?”
“If only. Indifferent parents isn’t actually a topic I can relate to.” Jake turned his hand over, letting his fingers play with Singer’s. “Do you remember when we first started talking about this?”
“How could I forget? I think I blacked out from shock.”
“Shut up. Though I do remember all the blood draining from your face like I just proposed we have sex in the middle of the Folsom Street Fair.” He leaned up, bringing both of their hands to Singer’s chest. “I thought you figured I was too big a mess to have kids with.”
“I never thought that. Ever.”
“Singer, come on. I was totally a mess.”
Singer brushed hair back from Jake’s face and tried to remember him younger, earnestly talking about children, as if coming out to his family had opened all the doors to the future and he wanted to walk through every one of them. “You weren’t a mess. You were … it was more like you’d never let yourself hope for things to be good. And then you did.”
“Yeah. Well, because of you.”
“Jake—”
“We’re lying here right now because you asked me out.” Jake nodded to the wall they shared with the guest room. “We have a foster son in
the next room because you didn’t give up on me. That’s all I’m saying.” He leaned down. The kiss was brief, but Jake kept his face pressed against Singer’s, cheek-to-cheek.
Singer’s fingers drifted across Jake’s neck. “I love you.”
“Oh god, I love you so much. Thank you. For believing in me.”
“Always.”
A sound over the monitor. A gurgle. A something. Both of them sat upright.
“Oh shit, what do we do?”
Miles seemed to go back to sleep. They flopped down again.
“You know…” Jake rolled to lie on top of him. “I’m feeling exhilarated suddenly.”
“You’re really worried we’re never going to have sex again, aren’t you?”
“Shut up. I can be, um, amorous just because.” As if to prove it, Jake kissed him again. “But yeah, a little. The books talk about that. People lose their connection. I don’t want us to lose our connection.”
Singer tugged him down. “We won’t.”
They didn’t have sex. They made out and gazed at each other and kept their clothes on. When Miles eventually woke up, Jake went to him and Singer assembled diaper things. They fumbled through their first diaper change, laughing, and when Jake picked Miles up again, Singer let him.
He told himself he’d have time to hold Miles later, even though the truth was that since Miles arrived, he’d felt far more shaky than expected. Singer had assumed the confidence that had carried them through until this moment would … keep them afloat. But he found himself strangely insecure instead. They’d read about this sort of thing, so it would undoubtedly pass. Singer just hadn’t thought it would happen to him.
Despite his sudden uncertainty, there was still something arresting about seeing Jake with a baby in his arms. Something completely and totally right.
5
Lisa
29 days since leaving Grace
The snakes were spinning, spooling, twisting. Lisa woke up with her legs trapped in the sheets, seconds away from screaming.
You’re safe. You’re in the house with Singer.
She was safe with Singer. And a glance reassured her that the side table was still firmly up against the door.
