by S Doyle
I closed my eyes and I felt a little ashamed. “That wasn’t fair to you. I was freaked out. For obvious reasons. You knew what I’d done. I had this huge secret to tell you—”
“Why didn’t you?” he asked. “That last time you visited me in jail, after Evan had hit you. You said you had to protect yourself. You knew then, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “I’d just found out. I went to Evan to see if maybe we could reach some kind of deal. That he might consider letting me go if he knew I was carrying your baby. I ran into two teenagers leaving his apartment, talking about how much money they’d gotten for a blow job. That’s when I understood what he was hiding. I confronted him on it, he hit me, and I knew there would be no deal. I also knew I had a limited amount of time before he knew I was pregnant. I came to see you that last time, and, honestly, I didn’t know if I was going to tell you everything. That I was pregnant, what I was planning, what I’d been planning, but then I asked you…”
“You asked me if I loved you. And I said nothing.” he said.
“In that moment, I decided I couldn’t saddle you with one more burden,” I told him, trying to find a way to be as honest in this as I could. Because he deserved at least that much from me. “I was sitting there across from you in prison, knowing you were there because of me, and I couldn’t tell you I’d gotten pregnant because I hadn’t realized how long it took before the pill became fully effective. I couldn’t tell you, because of me, there was this other massive thing that was going to happen to change your life without you having any say in it. Again. I’d always planned to tell you what I was going to do to get free, but after that visit, I decided I was doing a more noble thing by not telling you.”
He nodded as he processed what I told him. “I want to know him, Ash.”
“Okay. Let’s do this. The bakery is closed on Mondays. I’ll give you my address. You can come by in the morning. Around nine is best, as he’s fully awake but not yet cranky. You can meet him and then we’ll talk about next steps.”
He nodded and handed over his phone. I plugged in my number and home address. With nothing left to say, I stood, and was about to walk away when his hand caught me around the wrist.
“You said we never had it easy or simple. But everything preventing us from having that, is gone now.”
I smiled sadly. “Except our memories. All the things we did to each other. Even when we thought we were doing it for each other. I don’t think that’s something we can erase.”
I tugged on my wrist, and, reluctantly, he let me go.
9
Monday morning
Marc
I pulled up to the bungalow situated in the middle of the street surrounded by a bunch of other similarly styled homes. Green lawns, wide sidewalks, modest-size houses with empty driveways.
Perfect for a mother and a new baby. There was a park at the end of the block. There was a cluster of stores and shops beyond, within walking distance. It felt safe. Like folks around here would watch out for one another.
I got out of my truck and stood, looking at her house. White picket fence, pretty yellow house. Clusters of flowers planted around a bay window. It was more like the carriage house than what she’d grown up in.
Small. Simple. Hers. Theirs.
My nerves kicked in again, and, not for the first time that morning, I was running my sweaty palms up and down my jean-clad thighs. I walked up a paved walkway to the front door and rang the bell.
A moment later, Sandra, the woman from the park, answered the door. I had this sense of crushing disappointment. That Ash would choose not to be here when I interacted with my son for the first time, and instead would leave me to swim through these treacherous waters with a stranger.
Then I glanced over the woman’s shoulder and could see Ash behind her, rushing around, picking up scattered toys.
“Hi, I’m a friend of Ash…ah, Marie’s,” I announced. “She’s expecting me.”
Sandra opened the door wider, looking at me the whole time like she was trying to assess me, and I had no idea how I measured up.
“I think you might be more than her friend,” she said, mostly under her breath, but I still heard it.
I stepped inside as Ash was tossing a bunch of trains into a bin in the corner of the room. It was a fairly big living room, off to the right. A small dining room to the left with, I assumed, the kitchen behind it. A hallway led to what I guessed were bed and bathrooms.
The furniture looked sturdy and comfortable. Not too well used. Like the house, it was plain and simple. Daniel was standing, his hands on a chair, while his knees bounced up and down in what looked like little baby squats. Or maybe like he was trying to show off how much strength he had in those chubby thighs, which were prominently showcased, as he was dressed in only a blue onesie.
“The morning got a little out of hand, so I didn’t get to dress him,” Ash said, moving to pick him up. “I had to call in Sandra for some help.”
“I live just down the block,” Sandra explained to me. “No problem for me to watch Danny. Marie needed time to fix her hair and make up too. I think she wanted to look nice for you. Are you single?”
“Sandra,” Ash growled. “Stop with that. You do this all the time.”
“Try to throw you at handsome, young men who I think might be strong enough to catch you? Yes, I do. But I can see you’re in good hands with your friend, so I’ll be going.”
With that, she left, the door swinging shut behind her.
“That’s convenient,” I said. “To have the nanny so close.”
Ash plopped Daniel on his butt in front of the toy bin. All the work she’d done putting the toys away was undone in a few seconds, as Daniel started reaching in for trains, which he proceeded to throw over his shoulder.
“Yes, it’s convenient, especially given how early she has to be here.”
Ash sat in a chair across from me, and I took the time to notice what she was wearing. Cotton crop pants. A white top with a floral design. Nothing fancy. No Jimmy Choo flats and designer labels. Simple, elegant. Her.
She looked the same to me as she always had, just with shorter hair. The style suited her better, with her delicate face. Like I could see more of her face now, it made her eyes appear to be even bigger.
Although I used to like to grip her hair in my fist while I—
Immediately, I shut off those thoughts. That’s not what today was about. Small steps, I told myself. Baby steps. It was the only way down this road. Those steps started with my kid first.
“So,” she said, clapping her hands. “That’s Daniel.”
The kid tossed another train over his shoulder, then he maneuvered to his feet again, using the toy bin as leverage.
“He hasn’t taken his first step yet, has he? I haven’t missed that?”
Because that was supposed to be a big event. The first smile I was too late for. The first step, though, that could be mine.
“No,” she said quietly. “I mentioned he’s a little late at thirteen months, but I think any day now.”
I’d screwed that up, I realized. I hadn’t intended to make her feel guilty for what I’d missed. Fuck, I’d been in prison. There was no scenario in which I wasn’t going to miss a chunk of time with him. What mattered now was how I got caught up.
“This is awkward, Ash, and we don’t do awkward,” I reminded her.
“Then maybe you can say something mean to me, and I can say something snarky to you, and we’ll remember what it’s like to be us.”
My lips twitched at that. “That phone number you gave me, is that legit? Can I call you on it, or is there a burner phone I need to use?”
Her lips curved up at that as well. “Well, there is the bat phone, but I don’t think you’ve earned the right to call me on it. Yet.”
There, this felt better. This loosened something in my chest. My nerves were at least settled enough now to focus on the kid.
“So, how does this work? Do I just start talk
ing to him? Because I have to tell you, I don’t know the first thing about babies.”
“Neither did I. I was so afraid, because my father was so awful, I might be missing the parent gene, but it all just came so easy. I loved him from the moment I could feel him moving around inside me. Because he was a part of us together, but also just him on his own. For whoever he was going to be. Then he was here, and he was perfect. I told myself all I had to do was not sell him to a psychotic pedophile, and I would be winning the parent competition.”
“Yeah, that’s good. Rule number one, we don’t sell the kid into marriage.”
“Rule number two, we never hit him,” she added.
“Ever,” I added. “And we never lock him in his room. I hated that shit, Ash.”
She smiled. “No locks on the doors.”
I got down on the carpet next to him, and he startled when he realized I was behind him. Then I became this thing for him to study. He patted my knee, my face. Eventually, he handed me a train and I accepted it.
I glanced at Ash to see if this was right or wrong, to actually be taking the toy away, and I saw a tear she couldn’t control slip down the side of her face.
She wiped it away and smiled at me. “High praise. That’s his favorite one.”
Which proved evident when he immediately reached for it again. Grunting at me, as if to indicate it was time to give it back. Which I did. We played that game for a while, until he grew bored with me, and, instead, used me to get to his feet. I watched as he attempted to move beyond me, only to fall on his diaper-clad butt.
Then I watched as he made a face, like suddenly he was mad about something.
“What’s happening?” I looked up from my perch on the floor. “Why is he making that face?”
“That’s his poop face.”
I looked at the kid. Yeah, I could kind of see it.
“He didn’t get that from me,” she said. “He got that from you.”
“Uh, excuse me. I’m pretty sure you’ve never been in the vicinity when I’ve pooped.”
“I just know I’ve never made that face, ever. So, it has to come from your side.”
“I take offense to that.” Then the smell wafted out from his little body. “Oh, wow, I really take offense to that. That can’t possibly be coming from him.”
“Trust me, he’s done worse. Like full blowouts of his diaper and onesie, worse.” She got out of her chair and picked him up, giggling as she did. Then, bent in close to sniff around his rear.
“Who’s a stinky boy? Phew!”
Daniel found this oddly hysterical. I got up and followed them down the hallway to the nursery. I had no intentions of changing a poop diaper my first time out, but I figured it was probably important to watch and learn.
And support.
Wasn’t that what new fathers did? Weren’t they really just there to listen and offer sympathy over sore nipples, exhaustion, and really gross poop diapers? All of that she’d done herself.
I took to one corner of the room and watched her work. I held my breath while the diaper, in all its revolting glory, was revealed, but it was like it didn’t bother her at all. She just cooed and talked with him, as he laid there on his back on the changing table. Happy to let his mother clean him up.
In a minute, it was done, and she was handing him to me. “Want to hold him?”
“I don’t know if…”
“You can do it,” she insisted. “But he’ll be squirmy, so you have to have a good grip on him.”
I moved to take him and planted him on my hip. I had an arm under his butt and one around his back. I could tell he wasn’t exactly thrilled with this new position, but he wasn’t fighting me too hard.
“Not bad,” she said, as if I’d done something admirable. Then she dumped the diaper into a trash bin by the changing table and left me alone with him.
I looked at him, he looked at me, and, immediately, he started to cry.
“Yeah, I get it, kid. We’re better off when she’s with us.”
Marc
I spent the rest of the morning basically playing with the kid, when he didn’t want to scream his head off. Then we had lunch. Ash had put together sandwiches and a macaroni salad. She’d also made cupcakes, so I was able to taste all that she’d learned in the nearly two years we’d been apart.
“These are freaking awesome,” I said, around a mouthful of chocolate icing and chocolate cake.
“Thank you. I had to work. For the first time. There were days Helga looked at me exactly like that, too. Like, have you seriously never seen a cash register in your life? But she was patient, too. Which I needed. I was so motivated to succeed. I think she sensed that, too.”
At that point, Daniel decided he was done sitting in his highchair and simply screamed loudly to communicate that. Ash got him out, got him washed up, then set him down to roam.
“He’ll crash in a half hour. He always does after eating.”
I nodded. “Do you need me to go?”
“No,” she said, quickly. “Once he’s asleep, we can probably talk about what happens next.”
She’d nailed it. Thirty minutes later, he was rubbing his eyes with his fists, and Ash scooped up him and his favorite train, then walked him to his room. It was barely five minutes before she was back with a monitor in hand.
“We should sit on the porch so you can appreciate Florida in the Fall. The monitor will let me know if he stirs for some reason.”
We made our way outside to the porch where two comfortable rocking chairs were situated, a small wicker table between them. Ash put the monitor on the table, and, for a time, we just listened to the faint sounds of the baby snoring.
“So, what are you thinking?” she finally asked me.
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. Because there were so many things running through my mind. Plans, endless plans, that had taken hold and wouldn’t let me think clearly about anything.
“But that’s what this day was for, wasn’t it?”
I gave her a raised eyebrow. “I only get a day to figure this out?”
That made her squirm. “No, of course not. I know none of this is easy.”
“You had months of being pregnant, then you had a whole year as a parent,” I pointed out. “I should get some time to figure out what I’m doing.”
“No, you’re right. That’s fair. Are you thinking about custody?”
That made her nervous. I could tell by the way she fumbled over the word custody. Like it left a bad taste in her mouth.
No, I wasn’t really thinking about custody. The kid started wailing two seconds after she left the room the first time. That felt significant. Like he was trying to tell me something, but I had already figured it out.
“I’m going to go,” I announced, feeling like I was on the precipice of something large. Like some internal explosion that would alter the substance of my organs. Reshape them, to make more room inside me.
“Okay,” she said quickly, standing as I did. She walked me to my truck, and, once I was behind the wheel, she asked. “So, you’ll call? Or something?”
“Or something,” I told her.
I started my truck and pulled out of the driveway, looking at her the entire time. Her hands were clasped together, and her pixie blond hair was tucked behind her ears. She didn’t look old enough to be someone’s mother.
I knew differently. She was my son’s mother.
Marc
“We’ve got a nice little rental on Pear Street,” Molly said, tapping on her computer. After leaving Ash, I’d found a real estate agency in the area who handled rentals. Molly, an older woman with glaring red lipstick, introduced herself, and here I was, looking at properties on a second monitor.
“How close is that to this address?” I asked, showing her Ashleigh’s address on my phone.
“Just around the corner. You’ll basically be neighbors.”
“When is the place available?”
“I’ll call the owne
r, but my guess is, he can have it ready for you by tomorrow. It’s been sitting for a bit, and he’s anxious to rent it. I’ll draw up the paperwork for you. How long are you looking for?”
“Month to month,” I said.
“That’s fine, it just comes with a two-month deposit in that case. Is that okay?”
“Yes, no problem.”
“Excellent. Let me make a quick call.”
I got up from the seat and let her do her thing. I still had money from my construction work that would get me through a few months of rent, and by that time, I would have another job that paid.
I’d already put a call in to Stan to see if he had some side work available, and he did. A couple divorcées who wanted their ex-spouses followed. Not exactly what I thought I’d be doing with my Princeton degree, but it didn’t matter, as long as I had a roof over my head and food to eat.
It occurred to me, the enormity of what Ash had faced when she left Evan. No résumé, no job experience, no college courses, just a semester at a finishing school, of all things. Add to that, she was pregnant, alone. In order to escape, she’d had to leave everyone in her life behind her, permanently.
“How fucking brave was she?” I muttered, as I tried to put myself in her situation. I’d spent so much time wanting to save Ash, needing to save Ash.
Ash had saved herself, and she’d done it in ruthless fashion.
“Excuse me, Mr. Campbell? What was that?”
I turned to find Molly standing behind me. She had a folded contract in her hand. “Nothing. What did the owner say?”
“Exactly what I thought. He’s going to get a cleaning crew in there tonight, and you can move in tomorrow. I have both the contract for you to sign, and the key.”
“I brought a check,” I said, pulling out my wallet.
“Perfect. Have you told your friend you’re going to be her new neighbor?”
“No,” I answered. “I want it to be a surprise.”
Later that night
