by Lori L. Otto
“Oh, god, thank you, Nate,” she says as she awaits my oncoming kiss. I grab both edges of the comforter and tuck them around us.
“You’re welcome,” I whisper, feeling her come down beneath me.
“So Wednesday, then?” Her breath is hot in my ear.
“Wednesday,” I confirm. “Merry Christmas.”
~ * ~
“Merry Christmas!” I greet my mother and James in the lobby on the way back from putting up the painting I had done of Emi yesterday. Not really safe for parental viewing… I knew Emi would be mortified if my mom stumbled across it.
“Merry Christmas, Nate!” Mom exclaims as she pulls me into a tight embrace.
“Merry Christmas, Nate,” James repeats as we shake hands. He carries a bag of wrapped presents in his other hand.
“How was your afternoon?” I ask, leading them to the elevator.
“The brunch was delectable, as always,” she says. “And mass this morning was lovely. I’m so glad the sun is out… and that it finally stopped snowing. It really couldn’t be a more perfect day.”
“It is.”
“Will Emi be joining us in the park tonight?” she asks as we walk to my apartment. Every Christmas, our tradition was to watch the carolers at Central Park, bundled in our warmest coats and drinking coffee or hot chocolate. Emi had joined us many times in the past.
“Not this year,” I tell her. “She’s doing her family thing today.”
“You’re not spending Christmas with her?” she asks, disappointed.
“Don’t panic,” I joke with her. “We’re doing our normal day-after-Christmas thing. I like that.”
“Everything’s okay with you two?” James asks, surprising me at his interest in my love life… or hell, in any part of my life.
“It’s great,” I smile, offering them both a seat. “In fact,” my grin grows wider. “That little present under the tree… ”
“Oh, Nate!” my mother exclaims, again throwing her arms around me in jubilation. I should have known she’d jump to marriage.
“Wait wait wait wait wait,” I caution her. “Not that, Mom, for God’s sake we haven’t been dating that long.”
“But don’t you think you will propose someday?”
“Of course. But not tomorrow,” I laugh. “It’s a key to the loft. I want her to move in with me.”
“Oh, well that’s a big step, too!” she exclaims, hugging me for a third time.
“You’ve hit your quota of embraces, Mom,” I tease her. “I get that you’re happy for us. Thank you.”
“Do you think she will?”
“I don’t have any doubt. If nothing else, it’s an escape from her current living situation, which she’s never really enjoyed.”
“You should redecorate or something,” my mom gives her unrequested advice, as always.
“We will. That’s part of the present. We’re going to go on a shopping spree to make this place ours. Goodbye, bachelor pad.”
“Oh, I’m so excited for you, sweetie.”
“Yeah, congratulations, Nate,” James chimes in.
We spend the rest of the afternoon catching up and exchanging presents before heading down to the park.
When the singers begin “Oh, Holy Night,” I call Emi’s number. As soon as she answers, I hold the phone up above the crowd through the entire carol. It’s her favorite Christmas song. As the applause begins when they sing the final word, I duck away from my mother and the rest of the people gathered.
“Love ya, Em,” I tell her.
“Love you, too. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas… tell your family, too. How about I’ll pick you up in the morning for breakfast… around ten?”
“I can’t wait,” she says. “I miss you.”
“Miss you.”
“Tomorrow, still?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait,” she repeats.
“I can’t, either… good night.”
“Good night, Nate.”
It’s another beautiful New York morning. I stop by a coffee shop and order two chai tea lattes, then head over to Emi’s. She answers the door, dressed in a robe and wrapped in a blanket, her eyes a little red. I’ve seen these eyes many mornings after she’s stayed up most of the night working or hanging out. I lean in to kiss her, and she obliges with a soft sweep of her lips before she turns around and walks to her bed.
“Hold on, Emi,” I say quietly, willing her back to me, putting down the coffee. “Are you okay?” I ask. She doesn’t answer… just sits on her bed with her arms crossed and raises her eyebrows ever so slightly. “Were you up late?” I ask.
“All night,” she mumbles.
“And you didn’t call?” I attempt to joke with her. She glares at me. “Sorry… ” She forces a smile. “Why is it so cold in here?” I ask, looking over at the radiator by the window.
“The heater stopped working last night. It’s just blowing cold air.”
“Hmmm… you called the super?” I take her drink to her. She wraps her hands around the cup to warm them up.
“I left him three messages.”
“He is such a jerk… you should move.” Again, she glares, and I can’t wait to give her the key to my apartment, wrapped neatly under the tree back at my loft. “Let me take a look.”
“Right,” she mocks me. I’m well aware I’m not mechanically inclined, but I cross the room and check the heater anyway. I flick it on and feel the blast of cold air that doesn’t seem to warm up at all.
“Wonder if the boiler’s not turned on?” I glance over my shoulder to see her shrug in response. Turning the radiator back off, I look down and see a small figure from a nativity scene sitting all alone on the windowsill. Shuffling it between my hands, I walk back toward the bed and sit down next to Emi. She breathes in the steam from her coffee, cringes a little and sets it on her night stand.
“Did they make it wrong? I ordered it the way you like it.”
“I’m not really in a coffee mood right now.” She wraps the blanket tighter around her body.
“Hey, are you okay?” Her jaw is taut as she nods her answer, not looking me in the eye. I nudge her in the side, trying to engage her in conversation. “So why do you have a baby Jesus here?”
“I stole it,” she says plainly.
“From?”
“My dad’s house.”
“Don’t you think they might miss the baby? It is the centerpiece… ”
“Well, there’ll be another baby soon enough to take its place.” Her voice is soft, but I still hear all the words and understand their meaning even before I set the statue down next to her coffee– and the pink stick that stares back at me with a plus sign on its display.
My breathing halts as I pick it up and study it intently, as if looking at it with all my focus will change it or reinterpret it or give me the answers to the millions of questions that inundate my consciousness.
“Shit” is the first word to come out of my mouth.
“Nice,” she says sarcastically. “Just the response I was hoping for.”
“Let’s get married, Emi,” I say abruptly, the words practically falling out of my mouth, as I kneel in front of her, the test in one hand and her left hand in the other. I look up into her eyes in time to see them narrow in disbelief.
She pushes me back into her roommate’s bed. “No, I’m not going to marry you, Nate.”
“Why not?” I pick myself up off the floor and sit on Teresa’s bed across from Emi.
“I don’t want to get married because I’m pregnant, Nate. I want to get married for love… ”
“It would be for love. We love each other… ”
“But you’re only suggesting it because I’m pregnant.”
“I would have asked you anyway… ”
“In time, maybe, but you don’t know that. Fuck, Nate, we just started dating. We don’t even know if we’re going to work out as a couple.”
“Of course we are,
Emi.”
“There’s no way to tell now,” she says, standing up and walking to the window. “Now we’re being forced together by this baby, this by-product of lust–”
“Love, Emi.”
“Oh, now it’s love,” she says snidely, her back still to me. “But at the time, it was lust, you said so yourself.”
I sit in silence, trying to find the right words. “Emi, I never would have pursued you– much less slept with you– if I wasn’t sure of my feelings for you first.” I go to her, caress her shoulders lightly and turn her to face me. She looks at the floor between us. “Look at me.” I wait until she lifts her eyes to mine. “I love you. I’m certain of that. Sure, that night, I was overcome with lust and I was disappointed in my… inattentiveness to you… and rightly so… but everything I’ve done for you, with you, is because I love you.
“You’re my best friend, Emi. I’m in love with my best friend! How amazing is that… why wouldn’t we get married and raise a family together?”
“Because this is all so new to us, and by the way, I’m not ready to be a mother!” She pushes me away and goes back to her bed, crawling under the covers and curling into herself. “It’s one thing for me to carry this baby to term, Nate, but are you really ready to commit to being a father, to raising this child right now? We aren’t ready for this… ”
“Emi, is anyone really ‘ready’ for it?” I sit on her bed behind her, putting my head in my hands.
“Sure, lots of people are. We’re not.”
“We could be.”
“Nate, I don’t know that I want this right now… ”
“What, are you going to abort it?” I ask, my heart rate picking up exponentially as I walk back to her roommate’s bed and take a seat, forcing her to look at me. “Because I should have a say in this, too, this is my baby, too, Emi, and I don’t think–”
“I’m not going to get an abortion, that’s not what I’m suggesting.”
“Well, then, what?”
“Well, there are probably people better suited for raising a child–”
“Better suited than its own parents? Its adult parents who love each other and would love it unconditionally, regardless of what happens?”
“Nate, this could all end horribly, and you know it. We either end up happily-ever-after or completely ruined. If we don’t work out– if we aren’t meant to be together– how would we ever have a normal relationship? It would be awkward. There’d be anger and resentment and jealousy–”
“We’d do it for our child, Emi. And I wish you would just stop doubting our future together. Why can’t you just believe that we’ll work this whole thing out?”
“Because it’ll hurt less if I expect it not to… ”
“Just stop being so afraid of this… ”
“Don’t you know that losing you would completely destroy me? I’ve relied on you for too long… to live a life without you… I can’t even fathom that.”
“You don’t have to. Just stop with this worst-case-scenario shit, Emi!”
“Well, it’s starting off pretty badly, don’t you think?”
“No,” I say, taken aback, kneeling next to her bed and again taking her hand in mine. “We were friends who fell in love and created a new life together. It’s a beautiful thing.”
“How can you be so casual about this? I’m pregnant, Nate! Get your head out of the clouds!”
“It’s just… it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be… ”
“Nate, I want some time for us. I want time for us to devote to each other, to make sure we are right for one another. I really don’t want a baby to be the reason we’re together–”
“Emi–”
“Will you fucking hear me out, please?”
“I’m sorry. Go ahead.”
“I feel like I don’t have a choice anymore. I feel like we have to be together now, whether we want to be or not. I feel stuck… ” Her eyes begin to water and for the first time, I see how unsure she truly is about us. Hurt consumes me and my stomach falls at the realization. I am forced to swallow down a growing lump in my throat.
I really thought we were on the same page. I really thought we both knew we would end up together. I really thought we both expected the happily-ever-after, and that we would pursue that endlessly, relentlessly. I had no idea she was still on the fence about us. Since we agreed to this, my future was always her, only her.
“Of course you have a choice,” I say sadly. “I won’t force you into anything. But, Emi, I promise to love you and provide for you. I promise I’ll do anything to make you happy. But, shit, I don’t want you to stay in this because you don’t feel like you have any other options. I’d never want you to feel ‘stuck’ with me. If that’s how you feel–”
“I don’t know how I feel,” she cries softly. “I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what to do.” I smooth her hair down as she weeps quietly, my heart breaking that she’s so conflicted, so sad, so unsure.
I find some tissues in her nightstand and begin to blot her tears. “What can I do?”
“Just give me some time to figure things out, Nate.”
“Shouldn’t this be something we decide together?” I ask her.
“Probably,” she answers. “But I want to figure out what I want first. Can you let me do that?”
“Can we talk about things before you make any decisions? I want to be a part of this.”
“Of course,” she sniffles. “Of course we’ll talk about things… you’re right, this is something we should decide together… but I think we both need to really think about how this will affect our lives, as individuals.”
“I want to be with you,” I assert. “There’s no question in my mind.”
She squeezes my hand. “Love always clouds your judgment.”
“Not this time. My feelings for you… shit,” I laugh softly, more to myself since the reality of this truly isn’t funny. “This is the clearest my mind has ever been. This is the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make. I just wish it could be as easy for you.”
“I just need some time… ”
“Whatever you need… but Emi, I love you. Don’t doubt that. I want you to keep that in the forefront of your mind while you’re considering things.”
“Okay,” she whispers and smiles for the first time today. “I do love you, too.”
“I know,” I tell her, kissing her forehead. “Why don’t you get dressed and come over. We’ve got presents to open.”
“No, Nate,” she says. “I want some time… to myself… to figure this out.”
“Okay. I understand that. But at least come over to get out of the cold. I’ll give you space. I’m afraid if you stay here, you’ll get a cold or something… you can’t afford to be sick right now… ”
“No, Nate, I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I’ve got my electric blanket on high. Really, I’m only cold when I’m up. And I honestly don’t feel like being up now anyway.”
“What about food, can I bring you some food?”
“No,” she laughs. “I have a ton of chicken soup, which is about all I can stomach right now. And if I really want something more, Dad and Peg sent me home with a ton of leftovers.”
“You need vegetables, too. I’ll bring–”
“Nate, stop. I’ll call you if I need anything.”
“Anything at all,” I encourage her. “At any time… ”
“Okay,” she says. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m going to worry about you… both… ”
“I’ll be fine,” she assures me. “We… will be fine.”
Before I leave her building, I knock on the super’s door. Hearing shuffling behind the door, I know he’s in there. My nerves are suddenly shot as I already begin to worry about Emi’s decision. I pound harder until he answers.
“Yeah?” asks the slight man who opens the door.
“My girlfriend’s radiator isn’t working. Unit 3412. It’s too cold for her to be without
heat. Do you think you can get that taken care of as soon as possible?”
“I got a list of tenants with problems, man,” he answers.
“Listen, asshole!” I yell, grabbing his collar and pushing him against his door. “She’s pregnant and she’s cold, alright?”
He looks at me with fear in his eyes. Having never seen another man look at me like that, I’m shocked back into reality and quickly let go of him. “Fuck,” I mutter, my hands nervously combing through my hair. “I’m sorry.”
I pull out a hundred dollar bill and hand it to him. “Can you put her at the top of the list?” I ask. “Please,” I plead.
“Apartment 3412. On my way,” he says, taking my money and grabbing his keys.
“Thanks.”
~ * ~
Two days later, after having plenty of time to consider what’s happening on my own, I decide I need to talk to someone. I knock on the door to my mother’s house before entering on my own. She stops mid-way down the stairs when she sees me.
“Nathan!” she smiles. “What brings you out here today?”
“I need to talk,” I tell her. “Do you have some time?”
“Sure, honey, of course,” she continues to walk down the stairs. “James is at work… and I’m just putting the finishing touches on things for the benefactor reception we’re having here tonight. But I always have a few minutes for you. Let’s go in the sitting room.”
I force a smile and sigh heavily, following her quietly.
In the natural light of the sitting room, she looks me over. “You don’t look too good, honey. Are you coming down with something?”
“No,” I huff, wishing it was that simple.
“Well, what’s going on?”
“It’s Emi.”
She sets down her coffee and leans toward me. “Is she okay?”
“Uhhhh… ” I sigh heavily. “She’s pregnant.” My mother’s jaw drops slightly as she reads my own worried expression. “And she’s not really sure what to do about it.”
“Oh,” is all she can say. She picks her drink back up and takes a long sip. “Did you want a muffin? Sophia made some muffins.” She gets up and heads back into the kitchen before I even tell her no.
