by Anne Leigh
Sitting back on the couch, I replied, “Okay.” I reached for a magazine on the table and started flipping through the pages.
Zander and Sedona’s conversation hummed in the background, Tanya was busy on her phone again, and my eyes were slowly drifting closed. The gentle breeze from the opened balcony door was lulling me to sleep.
My mind was getting lost in the exotic vacation destinations portrayed in the glossy pages of the magazine when a tiny voice sounded clear against the calm and stillness.
“Daddy, whass damn?”
Zander muttered, “Shooshee!”
Sedona’s voice was high and shrill when she said, “Sofia, where did you hear that?”
My eyes opened to watch how this scenario was going to unfold.
Sofia’s cherub face and her blue-green eyes looked huge on the screen. “Mommy!”
“Zander, please tell the guys to tone the language down,” Sedona said in a stern voice as she planted a kiss for Sofia on the screen. “Hi, baby girl, are you having fun?”
Sofia sat primly at Zander’s side and started speaking in short sentences, throwing in a few made-up phrases of her own in between. My heart tugged at the way she smiled and when she waved at me, my eyes misted a little. My angel would have been playing with Sofia right now.
Loud footsteps entered the room and Zander raised his arms to quiet them down.
“I’ll bring this little guy inside the room. I’ll talk to you later, babe. Have fun but not too much. Don’t forget about me… Remember you are the mother of my children,” Zander said, his face scrunching up, his attempt at looking serious.
“Oh jeez!” John’s voice hissed in the back. “Dude, we need to get your B-A-L-L-S back! You are so whipped it’s not even funny.” He’d spelled the word because tender ears were listening in.
Sedona replied, “Hey, John, I have a feeling that you’re going to be the next spelling bee champ.”
Zander was no longer in front of the screen, but Sofia stayed on her seat. She looked like she wanted to talk the whole day away with Sedona.
We saw denim-covered legs fill the camera. And when the camera was focused and adjusted, I saw the familiar stare of green-colored eyes winking back.
It was Xavier and now he had Sofia sitting on his lap. When Sofia reached up to touch his chin, he smiled even bigger. Xavier gave Sedona a quick nod. After our breakup, Sedona was cordial to Xavier because he was Zander’s friend, but every time she had the chance, she would harrumph and enumerate the pros of not having a relationship with him anymore. Often she would cite his inability to make commitments as the number one reason to stay far away from him. But she didn’t badmouth him in front of the children, because after all, Xavier was still one of her husband’s closest friends and godfather to Sofia. Xavier looked like he was looking for someone and when his eyes landed on mine, there was no denying the heat that covered his gaze.
Sedona, the genius that she was, her mind spinning at what Xavier’s expression was for, deduced and said, “Nalee, are you back on with Xavier?”
Tanya was slow to react, and when she did, all she could say was, “Shooshee!”
“Shooshee?” My mind reeled at Tanya’s loud wail. Was that a code for something?
I was beating John’s ass in Halo: Reach when Tanya texted him and the big guy bowed out. He’d asked Dom to take his place. While Dom was an up-and-coming martial arts fighter and he could kick and punch anyone out of the ring, he was a sucky video gamer. I’d realized that we were just wasting time so I offered to grab a few beers and we played air hockey instead.
Sofia pulled on my hair as Sedona and Tanya ganged up on Nalee.
I heard the raucous, the incessant rapid fire of questions to Nales. “What? When did this happen?” I think that was Tanya.
“Are you taking anything? Any herbal remedies? Any new meds?” For sure that was Sedona.
“Unka!” Sofia was the cutest little girl, the ruffle of curls making her more than adorable, but her voice sounded like her mom when she was mad at Zander. I’d need a hearing aid after this. When she pulled on my hair again, I had to ask, “What’s the deal with my hair and this girl?”
I didn’t realize I asked the question out loud until I heard John, who had placed his big smelly feet on top of the glass table. “She’s just amused that you have no hair.”
I’d gotten a trim four days ago, a number four, shorter than the usual so my head was pretty much free of the longer, almost curling hair at the ends. Nalee had off-handedly said I needed a haircut, so the next day I’d visited Dax, the guy who’s been in charge of my hair for more than a decade. I wasn’t self-conscious about hair or anything like that. I knew I’d rock any haircut even mohawks. I just didn’t want to end up looking like a fool especially since I was representing Lockheed Industries now.
Dom sat in front of us, oblivious to what was going on on the iPad’s screen. The three ladies were now huddled against each other, whispering. Something serious was going on.
John raised his jaw, his left hand raised in the air, “What’s going on with Charlie’s Angels?”
He’d often call Nalee, Tanya, and Sedona some sort of nickname depending on his frame of mind.
“They’re on a mission,” I replied, my right hand slowly removing Sofia’s tiny yet torturous finger grips on my hair.
“What mission?” Zander asked as he entered the room. Out of all of us, he was the only one wearing pajamas. The dude looked beat. I had no idea why he thought he could take care of his kids alone.
“I dunno.” Finally, Sofia’s hand was out of my hair. Now she was staring closely inside my nose. Oh no friggin’ way!
“Sofia, baby girl, come here. Leave Uncle Xavier alone,” Zander commanded, he must have seen his spawn examining the inside of my nostrils. Sofia climbed down from my lap and walked towards her dad. Just last year, she still waddled, now her steps were surefooted; she was growing up so fast right before our eyes.
“She has a fascination with hair,” Zander explained, his head shaking. “She would trim her dolls, gather up the hair, and then she would put the hair in her mouth.”
“Dude, that’s weird,” John commented, his hands filled with the giant hotdog from FatBoys. We’d stopped on the way from the airport. Today I was the chauffeur for my friends. Two trips from the airport. One with Zander, Sofia, and a crying Nicholas. Then two hours later, John and Dom. They’d arrived 20 minutes apart, John from Wisconsin and Dom from Maine. They were both vacationing with families before this trip.
“I know why she’s fascinated with hair,” Dom, who I thought wasn’t listening, chimed in.
Zander carried Sofia in his arms, leaned back, and tossed her a few inches in the air, Sofia squealed in delight. He looked extremely tired, but one thing I noticed was he’d never looked this happy in his life. When he looked at his little girl, there was no doubt that he would move the earth for her. A pang of envy spread through my chest. Shrugging it off, I said, “Why?”
Dom replied, “Because she knows her dad’s gonna be bald in a couple of years so she’s saving all the hair for him.”
Zander shook his head, rolling his eyes.“Whatever, dude. You’re just jealous I still got more hair than you.”
Dom, extreme fighting machine that he was, spent more time trying out hair products that anyone else. During a beer pong session in college, he’d unconsciously blurted out that he spent more than thirty minutes on his head. For what purpose, I had no clue. Dom was bald. Balder than an eagle. As a matter of fact, Sofia didn’t wanna hang out with him so much because she had nothing to grab onto. His head was shinier than an Armor-All’ed car. I often wondered if he buffed and waxed it too.
John, his mouth now filled with Cheetos, got in on the discussion. “You guys aren’t getting the point. The reason Sofia likes hair is because she’s a girl.”
“Okay?” Zander still sounding unconvinced, his free hand now fed Sofia fish-shaped cheese snacks. He’d opened his luggage earlier and when he showed me th
e contents of the big-ass suitcase, I had to howl in laughter. NFA’s top quarterback, the guy who directs the #1 offense, the man who threw footballs like it was nobody’s business, carried all sorts of baby food, clothes, and children’s toys in his checked baggage. How he’d managed to get the children to behave during the three hour plane ride was a mystery I didn’t want to know about.
John raised his brows and explained, “Well, girls are fastidious about their hair. Maybe even when she was in her mommy’s womb, she’d already known that hair was important. It’s kind of like an inborn talent…Women know how to fix hair because even as a little girl, they’re obsessed with it.” He was now chomping on chicken nuggets. He had an endless appetite. He was a defensive back for the Minnesota Fox and even if he ate a lot, he was one hell of an athlete in fit and form.
“Wow. You’re Einstein in disguise,” Dom sputtered out. “What a crock of S-H-I-T. You have one F-U-C-C-E-D up explanation.”
Chuckling, I said, “Dude, it’s F-U-C-K-E-D, no double C’s.” We’d gotten to spelling cuss words because we had a tiny lady in the house. I’d heard John slip a “damn” in earlier and Sofia quickly imitated the word.
John smirked. “I love double C’s.”
Zander sniggered, “You’re all messed up.”
“Hey, Daddy-O, you gotta admit, this is the most fun you’ve had since your bachelor party,” I said, my gaze landing on Nalee’s petite figure wrapped in a summer dress. The iPad was still on and the girls may have completely forgotten about us, because they were now seated on what looked like the bar. I heard low voices and when Nalee started wiping her eyes, I had to say something.
“Sweetheart, are you okay?”
“Sweetheart?” It was possible a nugget got stuck in John’s throat when he croaked on the words.
“What the f…U-C-K?” Dom finally spelled it right.
“No shooshee!” Zander’s voice was loud. What the hell was shooshee?
Sofia made some gurgling, bubbling noises. I’m glad you think this is amusing, little lady.
Nalee’s hazel eyes penetrated the screen, and while I’d love to explain everything to my friends, the tears streaming down her face was more than enough reason for me to fly to wherever she was.
“Where are you?” I asked, uncaring if the guys were watching. Nothing was more important than Nalee.
Tanya hugged her and Sedona massaged Nalee’s back.
Nalee’s lips quivered, “I told them, Xavier. I finally told them about our baby…”
This time, no sound came out of the guys. I pressed a hand over my heart and touched the screen, “I love you, Nales.”
Tanya’s eyes leaked with tears and Sedona was sniffling, her shoulders wracked in sobs. Nalee’s been friends with them longer than I’d known her. I wanted to tell all of our friends after what happened between us, but I held on to our secret because I waited for her to say something to them. But she never did.
Tanya, with her voice breaking, said, “We’ll take care of her…”
Sedona shook her head in the affirmative, “I don’t know what to say, just that we’ll get through this together.”
Before signing off, Nalee said steadily, “I’m gonna get some rest. I’ll talk to you in a bit.”
All I could do was nod and think that maybe now we could truly heal from this.
Pressing the off button, I sighed and looked up from the blank screen. Three pairs of eyes focused on me, shock reflected in their gazes.
I breathed out and said, “Yeah. We had a baby…”
Luckily, Sofia was tired from running around my house, playing with her toys, and engaging all of us in the wisdom of a barely four-year-old’s logic that she’d zonked out in her father’s arms.
Zander excused himself momentarily to put Sofia in bed, but asked me to hold off telling the story until he came back.
Once he was back, we settled in the backyard by the pool area. Somehow being outside helped me release all the emotions I had locked up during the past year.
Zander was holding a digital video baby monitor so he’d be able to see how the kids were doing from the guestroom.
Tilting the bottle of beer to my mouth, the cold liquid hitting the back of my throat, I swallowed a big gulp as I begun to say, “It happened over a year ago. Remember when Nalee and I went to Turks and Caicos?”
“Before playoffs?” John questioned, his hands swung on the side of the white metal chair that looked puny compared to his size.
“Yeah, before playoffs,” I nodded. “It was the only time we could take a break from work so we’d gone on a week long vacation. While there, she’d gotten bit by something and it become infected so she had to take antibiotics. Three months later we found out she was pregnant. I guess the antibiotics she took lessened the effectiveness of her pills.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Dom asked, his black eyes piercing through me. “We’re your friends, man. The fuck this is? I mean, your girl’s pregnant and we didn’t even know? If she’d had the baby, were we just gonna get a text from you with the baby’s picture or some shit?”
In a way, I was expecting this. We’d been through so much. Endless college pranks, drinking parties, and issues with women. We’d also gone through early pregnancies, issues with paparazzi, and almost-meeting-the-Maker experiences. Through good times and bad times we had each other’s backs.
“I was waiting for her to give me the go-signal,” I explained, my left hand tapping rhythmically against my left leg. I didn’t know it was going to be this hard. These guys were my brothers. Being an only child, I’d never formed a kinship with anyone as I had with them. Sure, I had other friends, but John, Zander, and Dom – our bond transcended blood.
“What happened?” Zander asked, removing his eyes from the baby monitor for a few seconds.
“My dad was just getting out of the hospital after his aneurysm. My mom was a mess. The senior associates at his firm were demanding updates about his health. It was a crazy time… Then Nalee tells me she’s pregnant.” I paused, my chest constricting at the painful memory, “I…I asked her if it was mine.”
“Sonuvabitch,” John hissed, balling his fists tightly, his jaw crunching. “Nalee? Out of all the women, Xavier? You asked her if she was cheating on you?”
“It was messed up…” I swallowed the burning sensation in my throat, slowly simmering down my chest. “What was even more messed up is that I kinda hoped she was. The following weeks after she told me about the pregnancy, I embroiled myself in my dad’s firm. We were fighting a lot. I came home as late as possible and worked even on weekends. I’d find her crying in the house, but I didn’t have the energy to soothe her or be with her. I kept thinking it was her fault she was pregnant. I wasn’t ready to be a dad. I was just starting my life. I didn’t even know what I wanted to be yet. One night she called me while I was at my office – I think it was around 8:30, asking me what time I’d be home. We got to talking and she kept asking what time I’d be home. I told her I’d be home when work was done, that she should stop being so naggy because she wasn’t even my wife. When I finally came home, I found a cake in the fridge, “Happy Anniversary” spelled out in big green and pink letters, and a caricature of Peter Pan and Hello Kitty meeting in the middle. I’d looked for her in the house, but she’d emptied out her closet. It was the first night I’d slept without her in our bed.”
I looked away, my head turning toward the setting sky, a smattering of clouds in the distance, and forged on, “I tried calling but her phone was turned off. The days that followed, I felt like I missed her and then I didn’t. I left messages but she didn’t answer. Every time I called and visited her work, they told me she wasn’t there. I was trying for the sake of trying, but my heart wasn’t in on it. I think it was the same person who answered my call every single time I called her office. Days turned into weeks and one day, our firm had a big party and we’d invited all the other big firms in the city. Myma, a lawyer from Young and Sawyer, kept flirting
with me. I was lonely. I hadn’t had anyone since Nalee had left. Anyways things got heated up and I brought her home.”
Zander said loudly, “Fuck, you gotta be kidding me, dude.”
Shaking my head, I said. “I wish I was. I slept with her. It was nothing but a one night stand. I felt sick to my stomach when I’d realized what had happened. I kept telling myself that Nalee and I were on a break, but it still didn’t compute in my head. As soon as Myma left, I’d called Nalee. Can you believe it? After all this time, she finally answers my call. I’d told her what had happened and she just hung up on me. The next day, when I came home, I found a key, her key, on top of the granite island in the kitchen. She knew that’s where I opened my mail. Two weeks later, a nurse calls me from UCSF, saying that I needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible.”
This time, water leaked from my eyes, there was no stopping it. “When I saw her in that hospital bed, unconscious, her belly protruding slightly with our child, I knew without a doubt that I couldn’t live without her. It’s ironic how life shows us how much we care about someone when we’re about to lose them. When the nurse came in the room, she’d asked if I was Xavier Lockheed. I’d nodded and she said she was sorry for our loss. I guess Nalee had put me as an emergency contact, as the father of our baby. I was confused because Nalee had looked like she was sleeping. When she said that the baby didn’t make it, that Nalee had a difficult pregnancy because of some clotting disorder, I knew then she wouldn’t be able to forgive me.”
My shoulders shook, my hands tingled with the surge of pain, “I lost her…them. My two girls. I’d never be able to get that time back with her. I’m a sorry excuse for a person. I blamed myself day and night. I stayed with Nalee until she was discharged from the hospital. She never said a word to me. She’d look at me, but her eyes were blank from emotions, as if she wasn’t seeing me. I’d done that to her. My sweet sweet Nalee, the woman who laughed at the silliest things, who’d gone with me to every lacrosse competition even when she knew nothing about the sport. I’d vowed that I would spend my life making amends with her, trying to win her back, and one day, hoping she’ll love me again.”
