When You Least Expect It

by Whitney Gaskell

“Well. It’s very likely he told me that while he was stoned,” I said. I’d finally stopped crying, and gave my cheeks a final wipe with the back of one hand. “But still, he had a point.”

  Mimi beamed at me. “Good girl,” she said.

  “I’m not promising anything. I’ll just put off making any final decisions about it for now,” I said.

  “That’s enough,” Mimi said. She shook her glass, so that the ice cubes tinkled together. “For now, anyway. But don’t think I’m even close to giving up. You know me better than that.”

  “Yes, I do know. You’re relentless,” I said. “How does Leo put up with you?”

  Mimi waved this away. “I bend him to my will,” she said. “And I put out.”

  “Sounds like a winning strategy to me,” I said, and we clinked our glasses together.

  I heard the bell jingle on the front door, alerting me that someone had come into the studio. I’d thought about hiring a part-timer to replace Lainey, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet, so there wasn’t anyone manning the reception area.

  I stood, but hadn’t even walked around my worktable when I heard Jeremy’s voice.

  “India?”

  Oh, crap, I thought, looking at the photos spread out over my table and wondering if there was any way I could clear them before Jeremy walked back. No, there wasn’t time. I’d just have to intercept him.

  “Hey! What are you doing here?” I said, quickly stepping forward to block Jeremy at the doorway to the back room.

  “I was out running errands, and thought I’d stop by to take my best girl to lunch,” he said.

  “How nice,” I said, leaning up to kiss him. “Where are we going?”

  “Actually, I brought lunch with me,” he said, holding up a canvas sack I hadn’t noticed he was holding. “Apple chicken salad sandwiches from the Rip Tide Deli. You said you had a busy day, so I thought you’d probably just want to eat here at the studio.”

  He started to step around me—when we ate at my studio, we always dined at my worktable—but I held up a hand to stop him. “No, let’s go out. It’s a beautiful day.”

  “It’s one hundred degrees with ninety-five percent humidity outside,” Jeremy said.

  “So? We’ll go to the beach. It’ll be cooler there.”

  “And get sand blown into our sandwiches? No, thanks.”

  “A little sand never hurt anyone,” I argued.

  Jeremy frowned. “What’s going on? Why don’t you want to eat here?”

  “Nothing’s going on,” I lied. “I’ve just been inside all day, and I want to get out for a while. Plus I just spread out a bunch of proofs all over the table.”

  To my relief, Jeremy acquiesced. “Okay. But let’s go to that park down the street. They have covered picnic tables there, so at least we’ll be in the shade.” He turned and started to walk back to the reception area. I grabbed my purse off the hook by the filing cabinet and followed him out. Jeremy had stopped by the reception desk, and was frowning down at his hand.

  “Look at this,” he said. He held up his left index finger. “I’m bleeding.”

  I examined it. “It looks like a paper cut. You should put a Band-Aid on it.”

  “Do you still have a box in your filing cabinet?” Jeremy asked.

  “I think so,” I said, without thinking.

  “Let me go grab one before we go,” Jeremy said, moving past me and back into the workroom.

  “Wait! I’ll get it!”

  But it was too late. Jeremy had already disappeared. As he’d have to walk right by my worktable in order to get to the filing cabinet where I kept Band-Aids and other sundry items, I knew there was no way he wouldn’t see what I’d been working on. I blew out a deep breath and slowly followed after him.

  As I’d expected, Jeremy was standing very still and staring down at the photos spread out on my table. There were copies of the photos I’d taken of Lainey for my show, as well as a few snapshots—one of Lainey sitting on our sofa with a bowl of ice cream resting on her belly bump, another where she was looking up and laughing at me as I snapped the photo. Then there were the black-and-white pictures I’d taken of the baby in the hospital. I’d cropped several of them, showing off all the details of his exquisite face—the nearly translucent eyelids, the tiny snub nose, the full pursed lips.

  “What’s going on?” Jeremy asked, his voice stiff with pain.

  “I’m making an album for Lainey,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I thought she’d like to have these pictures,” I said quietly.

  “Jesus, India. Even now, even after she screwed us over, you’re still bending over backward to please her?”

  “No! It’s not for her, not really. It’s for me. And for him.”

  Jeremy shook his head. “I don’t understand. How does this—” he gestured toward the pile of photographs with a dismissive flick of his hand, “help you?”

  “Please stop shouting at me,” I said quietly.

  Jeremy closed his eyes and swallowed. “I apologize for raising my voice,” he said. “I’m just trying to understand what you’re doing. Because it seems more than a little masochistic.”

  I rubbed a hand over my brow and tried to think of a way to explain it that would make sense to him.

  “I can see why you would think that,” I began. “But I’m really not trying to torture myself. And I’m also not doing it to prove anything to Lainey. I just think she should have these photos.”

  “Why?”

  “For him,” I said simply. “He should know that from the first moment of his life, he was loved and wanted. Even if he never knows about us, he’ll look at these photos and see that the person who took them loved him.”

  Jeremy stood very still for a long time, staring down at the worktable. I saw his eyes roam over the photographs, barely glancing at the pictures of Lainey, but lingering on the photos of the baby. I watched him, hoping he’d understand what I was doing, that he wouldn’t ask me not to. I felt like this was something I had to do before I could move on.

  He reached out and touched one of the photos. It was my favorite—I’d stood directly over the baby, when he was sleeping on one side in his bassinet, exhausted from the ordeal of his birth and perfect in profile.

  “This one,” Jeremy said softly, tapping it. “Make sure you put this one in.”

  “Okay,” I said. I walked up behind Jeremy, wrapped my arms around his waist, and pressed my cheek against the warmth of his back. I could hear his heart beat and the air moving in and out of his body. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. “I will.”

  Seventeen

  LAINEY

  The baby was crying again. Lainey’s eyes were open and her feet were on the floor, propelling her up and across the room to the crib, before her brain had even registered that she was awake. Griffin was flailing in his crib, his face screwed up, his tiny fists punching the air while he screamed.

  “Shhhh,” Lainey said, scooping him up. He began rooting around her neck, smacking his lips hungrily. “Okay, little man. Let’s go get your bottle.”

  Lainey carried Griffin into the kitchen and laid him down in the vibrating sling chair Candace had found at a neighbor’s garage sale. She switched it on, before turning to fix his bottle. The vibrations normally soothed Griffin, but the magic wasn’t working tonight. Griffin continued to shriek, and the sheer volume of it jangled Lainey’s nerves. She attempted to screw the top on the baby bottle, but lost her grip. The bottle clattered to the ground, sending ridiculously expensive formula—Griffin’s sensitive stomach didn’t tolerate the cut-price brands—splattering all over the cabinets.

  “Crap,” Lainey said, staring dejectedly at the mess.

  It was the last clean bottle. Candace had promised to do the dishes, but she’d started drinking after dinner and never got to them. Plates crusted with ketchup and creamed corn were piled in the sink, along with all of the bottles. Lainey cursed herself for not taking care of them before she fell
into bed, too exhausted to brush her teeth. Griffin hadn’t slept for more than two hours at a time since he came home from the hospital. The exhaustion was taking its toll on Lainey. It felt like a sandpit, sucking her down while she slowly suffocated.

  Griffin sensed that his meal was delayed, and responded by ratcheting up the volume of his screams. Lainey made soothing sounds to him while simultaneously washing the bottle’s nipple under the sink faucet and grabbing for more formula.

  Candace stumbled into the kitchen, blinking into the fluorescent overhead light. “What in the holy hell is going on in here?”

  “What does it look like?” Lainey snapped.

  “Oh, Griffin baby, is Mama giving you a hard time?” Candace asked, scooping the baby out of his chair. Lainey noticed that Candace’s hands were shaking.

  “Here, give him to me,” Lainey said quickly. “He’s hungry.”

  Candace handed over the baby without argument and turned to reach into the cupboard over the sink. She withdrew a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and poured a slug of it into a smudged glass.

  “Haven’t you had enough?” Lainey asked, settling down onto a chair, Griffin in her arms. She held the bottle up for him, and he immediately stopped shrieking and latched onto it, greedily gulping down the milk.

  “It’s to help me sleep,” Candace said. “With the racket that kid’s making, I need all the help I can get.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Lainey said.

  Candace, either missing the sarcasm or choosing to ignore it, offered up the bottle. “You want a drink?” she asked. Candace hated to drink alone. It was, Lainey thought, probably the main reason her mother had put up with one loser boyfriend after another.

  “No,” Lainey said shortly. She wished Candace would just go back to bed and leave her alone with the baby. It would be different if her mother was actually ever helpful, but when Candace drank, she was no use to anyone. Lainey doubted if her mother had ever really stopped drinking, as she’d claimed. Candace probably thought switching to light beer for two days counted as drying out.

  “Suit yourself. Turn off the lights when you’re through,” Candace said, adding another dollop of whiskey into the glass before shuffling back to her bedroom.

  “Why don’t you just bring the bottle with you?” Lainey muttered.

  “This is how I get my exercise,” her mother retorted, her voice floating back down the hall.

  Lainey made a face at Griffin. A moment later, Candace’s door shut with a soft thud.

  “We have got to get out of here,” Lainey told Griffin.

  She had some money saved in what had once been her Los Angeles fund. It was now her all-purpose survival fund—diapers and formula were not cheap, and despite their promises, neither Candace nor Trav was doing much to help out. She might have enough to put a down payment on an apartment and, if she was very careful, maybe even to live on for a few months. But then what? She’d have to get a job, obviously, but that meant finding day care for Griffin. She refused to put him in some seedy rundown center full of faded plastic toys and grimy kids with perpetually runny noses, but the nicer places all charged a lot of money. Even if she did go to court and get child support from Trav, Lainey was going to have to conserve every last penny to make this work. And that meant living rent-free at Candace’s for as long as she could gut it out.

  But Lainey had always been a big believer in making plans, and she had one now. She had decided she would go back to doing nails, although this time she wasn’t going to take a job with a cheap mall outlet. Instead, she was going to find a position at a spa or a high-end salon. One that would have health insurance and customers who tipped. Flaca had already agreed to babysit Griffin one day next week so Lainey could start applying for jobs.

  “And when I get one, baby boy, we will be out of here like that,” Lainey said, snapping her fingers. He regarded her with serious eyes as he sucked on his bottle. “And I’ll just hope to hell that you don’t remember anything you might have seen or heard while living in this shithole.”

  “Ever heard of calling first?” Lainey said when she opened the front door and found Trav standing on the doorstep.

  “Hi,” Trav said. “Right. Whatever. I was just passing by, so I thought …” His voice trailed off.

  Lainey supposed she should give him some credit for trying to stay involved, even if it was half-assed. Still, would it kill him to show up with a pack of diapers once in a while?

  Trav walked into the house, his hands stuck in the pockets of his nylon workout pants. As he passed by her, Lainey caught a whiff of stale sweat.

  “He’s back here,” Lainey said, leading Trav into the living room. Griffin was there, lying on his stomach on a blanket Lainey had spread out on the floor. Trav stared at the baby.

  “He’s having tummy time,” Lainey explained.

  “What’s that?”

  “It strengthens his muscles, and gets him to start rolling over on his own,” Lainey explained. She leaned over and scooped the baby up. “I read about it in the baby book the hospital gave me.”

  “Oh, right.” Trav nodded.

  “Do you want to hold him?” she asked.

  “Sure. Okay.”

  She handed the baby to him. Trav always looked uncomfortable when he held Griffin. He seemed to think he had to keep his arms and torso perfectly still, like a robot. Griffin immediately began to squirm, and hiccupped fretfully.

  “I don’t think he likes it when I hold him,” Trav said.

  “Just keep him upright, so he can see. He doesn’t like being flat on his back like that.”

  “I don’t know. I’m afraid I’m going to break him or something.” Trav handed Griffin back to Lainey and stepped back, looking relieved. “Actually, I came by because I have something I have to tell you.”

  Lainey was too focused on the baby to hear Trav. She held him up, supporting his head with one hand. “See? He’s happier now that he can see. Aren’t you, baby?”

  She gazed down at Griffin, thinking that he must be the most beautiful baby to have ever graced the world. At five weeks old, Griffin had just started smiling—beaming, jolly grins. This was clear evidence of his brilliance, and, Lainey thought, a relief, considering half of his genes came from his idiot father.

  “I’m getting married,” Trav said.

  Lainey looked up at him, blinking with confusion. “Huh?”

  “I’m getting married. Me and Jordan.”

  Trav had started dating Jordan—an enthusiastic bodybuilder he’d met at his gym—after he and Lainey broke up. Lainey had never met her, but supposed she’d have to now. This woman would be a stepmother to Griffin.

  Jealousy trickled through Lainey. She didn’t care about Jordan’s relationship with Trav—Jordan was more than welcome to him. But Lainey didn’t want to share her baby with anyone. What if Griffin didn’t even like Jordan? Or—and Lainey had to admit this alternative felt even worse—what if he thought of her as a second mother?

  “We’re moving to Orlando. Jordan’s family is there,” Trav continued.

  “What about Griffin?”

  Trav hunched his shoulders up. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not going to be here a lot. And it’d be weird, don’t you think? Trying to share him, I mean. Jordan doesn’t even know him.”

  The fear that Jordan would take Lainey’s son away from her instantly vanished, replaced by an even greater worry that Griffin was about to lose his father. Lainey held the baby closer to her. She wanted to protect him from this paternal abandonment—she knew what it was like to grow up without a father—but didn’t know how to stop it. “Why did you come to the hospital and tell me you wanted to be his father if you’re just going to leave now?”

  Trav suddenly looked shifty. His eyes darted around the room, and he stuffed his hands back in his pant pockets.

  “What?” Lainey demanded.

  “Your mom sort of made me.”

  “Made you? What do you mean she made you?”

  Trav
looked pointedly at Griffin. “I don’t think you should yell in front of the B-A-B-Y,” he said.

  “I’m not yelling. And you don’t have to spell out baby, especially not in front of a baby, you idiot. Now, what do you mean my mom made you?”

  “She said that if I went with her to the hospital and helped talk you into keeping the baby, that she’d …” He hesitated.

  “Jesus Christ, Trav. Just spit it out.”

  “She’d give me two hundred dollars.”

  “She said what?” Lainey stared at him. “She gave you money to pretend you wanted to be a daddy? Please tell me you’re not serious.”

  “Actually, she never gave me the money.” Trav looked sulky. “And I really needed it. I was going to buy a new iPod. I can’t find mine. I think someone at the gym must have stolen it, which sucks. I hate working out without my music.”

  Lainey shook her head, staring at him in disbelief.

  “You’re pathetic,” Lainey said. “And you’re an asshole. Griffin’s better off without you.”

  “Fine, whatever,” Trav said. He shrugged and started toward the door. But then he turned back. “You know, I told you back in the beginning that I didn’t want to have a baby. I don’t know why you thought that was going to change.”

  “I don’t know why I did, either. And don’t think this means you’re off the hook for child support,” Lainey snapped. She clutched Griffin closer to her chest, and didn’t look up again until the front door had banged shut.

  “It really is just you and me now,” Lainey said to her son. The baby shifted and sighed deeply, relaxed and boneless in her arms. And Lainey, realizing that she was really and truly on her own, felt a sudden shudder of fear.

  “How is he?” Lainey asked when Flaca opened the front door to her apartment.

  “Hello to you, too,” Flaca said.

  Lainey pushed past her, striding into Flaca’s apartment and looking around. “Where is he?”

  “Relax. He’s in the bedroom, sleeping,” Flaca said.

  She nodded toward the door, which was cracked open. Lainey hurried in. Griffin was lying in a Pack ’n Play, sleeping peacefully with his arms raised up over his head as though he had been reaching to catch a football a moment before he fell asleep. Lainey leaned over him and rested a hand on his chest. It wasn’t until she felt the rhythmic rise and fall of his breath that the knots in her stomach loosened.