by Pepper Pace
As I lay in my husband’s arms our first night in our first house, I began counting all of my blessings. There was just one last blessing that I wanted.
TONY
I was very excited to get back to work. It wasn’t until I returned that I realized just how much I missed my job. On my first day back I brought tea and homemade almond cookies and everyone applauded me. We spent the entire meeting with me reinforcing our purpose and goals. I got them fired up and ready to set a higher standard then we’d had under Richard.
It was Friday and after work I was going to unwind with the guys. Nikki was showing houses and afterwards would then be out having dinner with her Mom and Dad. I worried about her continuing to work even though she
was approaching her ninth month of pregnancy. But she didn’t see what she was doing as work. I figured that as long as she felt good then I wouldn’t worry.
I was singing The World is Filled by Biggie when I stepped out of my car. I had been blasting the music while I drove and despite the fact that I’m sure I looked like the typical wannabe, I couldn’t help myself. I liked a lot of the hip-hop that was out now, but there was nothing like the hip hop and rap from back in the day.
“T!”
I heard Dean’s call and turned in time to see him getting out of his truck. It had been over a month since I’d last seen him and I wasn’t particularly happy to be seeing him now. I waited for him to catch up with me.
“What do you want?”
“Can we talk?”
I sighed and pulled out my cell phone. I dialed Jay who didn’t pick up because he was probably already changed. I left him a message. “Look, Dean and I are about to have a discussion so I’ll catch up with you all later. Peace out.”
Dean was rubbing his goatee. “Did you…really just say Peace out?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t get cute. What do you want?”
“This…hostility doesn’t become you, T-Baby.”
I turned away and began walking toward the rec center.
“Wait!” He caught up with me. “Look, when I’m nervous I tell bad jokes. My bad. Do you think we can go somewhere and talk?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You ain’t packing heat are you?”
“Damn, I’m no killer.”
“Well there’s a bar around the corner; Fat Cat’s. Do you know it?”
“Yeah, I’ve been there before. I’ll meet you there.”
He was there before me and had grabbed a table off in a private corner. We were both quiet for a while. I wasn’t going to begin, this was his idea not mine.
“How’s Nikki?”
My eyes considered him before I answered. “She’s doing good.”
“I heard you two got married.”
I nodded. A waitress came by and asked us if we needed anything. We both ordered beers.
“I’m not going to lie, T. I was surprised that you married her before you found out whose baby she was carrying. I wouldn’t have.”
“If you loved her you would.”
He shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t raise another guy’s kid. That would be a deal breaker for me.” I shrugged not sure where he was going with this. The waitress brought our beers and I waited for him to get to the point.
“Jay was right to warn me away from his cousin. I really thought hard about how people view me. I can’t quite say, ‘woe is me’ when I’m always the asshole in any given situation. Look, I don’t have any kids and maybe that would make a difference.” He looked at me. “But the thing is, I don’t want any. I’m moving out of state.”
Now I stared at him. “And if the baby is yours?”
“I’m not going to be a good father.” He looked into his beer before taking a drink. “If she draws up the paper work to relinquish my rights, then I’ll sign them.”
I straightened. “Uh…Dean, are you sure about this?”
He looked at me. “You already love this baby, don’t you?”
“Very much so.”
He nodded. “Then I’m sure. Jay was right. You
are a good person, T.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. “This is how you can get in contact with me. Once the baby is born and the papers are drawn up then call me and I’ll sign them.”
I took the card. It is what I wanted, but I felt bad. This man would never get to know this wonderful life that was created because he was too selfish and limited. I suppose, more importantly is that he’d given Nikki and I a gift. The gift is that he wouldn’t be in our child’s life to disappoint him or her.
I reached for my wallet and paid for our beers. “Okay. I’ll let her know.” He nodded without looking at me and I headed out of the bar.
Later that night, when I told Nikki she just had a stricken look on her face. I suppose that there was no way that she wouldn’t take something like that personal. But she didn’t cry. She finally gave me a wry grin. “This baby is all yours.” I nodded.
“No doubt.”
NIKKI
Our house was still a work in progress even though it had been a month since we’d moved in. The kitchen, bathrooms and baby’s room was all that we’d completed. We were at a temporary impasse on how to decorate the living room since we both had different styles. We were still going through catalogues waiting to get to something where we both went ‘WOW’.
I was huge and that more than anything is what eventually caused me to put my real estate business on hold. My due date had finally come…and then it passed. Now I went to the doctor twice a week and he told me that if I went a full week over-do then he would just take the baby. The last few days had been miserable; my feet swelled, my back ached, I looked and felt awkward and I had to pee damn near every fifteen minutes.
T rubbed my belly one night as I tried to sleep. “You know, each day that you’re over-do means that I’m more likely the one that fathered the baby.”
“Maybe. But the doctor says that it’s typical for a first pregnancy to be over-do.”
“I prefer to think of it my way if, you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind, baby.” I yawned. “Can you rub the small of my back?”
“Achy?” He got up and kneeled in bed.
I nodded. “I can’t get comfortable.”
“Roll onto your side.” I did and felt his fingers pressing into my sore muscles. “You’re tight.” He moved his fingers around my waist and to my stomach. “Stop tensing and just relax.”
“I am relaxing.”
He rubbed my back again. “That! You keep tensing up. Am I hurting you?”
I looked over my shoulders at him. “No my back hurts.”
He climbed out of bed. “I’ll make you some tea then I’ll give you a full rub down.”
“I love being married to a masseuse-OW!” I sucked in a sharp breath.
Tony stopped in his tracks. “Cramp?”
“No.” I stared at him. “I think it was a contraction.”
“Oh…” he whispered in a voice that I could barely hear.
It wasn’t until the next morning that my contractions were close enough for me to finally go to the hospital. By that time I was exhausted. Tony kept trying to get me to go to sleep but how could I? I’d been waiting for this moment for damn near half a year and there was no way that I could sleep…and that’s not even considering the pain. Only a person under the influence of severe drugs could sleep through the pain of contractions.
“I was thinking of names.” Tony said, almost urgently as he drove us to the hospital. I stopped in the middle of bracing through another sharp contraction and I stared at him. He hadn’t suggested any names and I hadn’t pushed the issue. He’d been great in so many ways that that I didn’t want to rock the boat.
“What names do you have?”
“Just two; Jade if she’s a girl.” I liked Jade. “And Anthony for a boy.”
I looked at him. “Anthony.”
“Yeah, I figured we could both be Tony. He could be T-baby, too.”
&n
bsp; “Jade and T-Baby Yakamoto.” I squeezed my eyes closed and grunted though another contraction. “I like it, honey.” I panted. “Ooooo…” I groaned.
He put his hand over my clenched fist. “We’re almost there.”
“We should have taken Lamaze class!” I yelled. At the time that Tony had suggested it, I had told him that I wasn’t going to any class to learn how to breath and stretch when my body would know exactly what to do. Now I see that my body does not know what to do. It’s just screaming out in pain!
I knew that labor was going to be painful, but I had no idea that it would be this particular type of pain that you can’t move out of; someone stepping on your back, twisting your intestines, kicking you in your bladder, punching your uterus and shoving a lead pipe up your rectum. Why is it that no one can put into words this pain the way I just did? At least I could have been prepared for it!
But I got medicine for the pain and soon it was manageable again. It was a good thing because visitors began coming by; Mom and Dad, Mr. and Mrs. Y, Mrs. Dura, Shaunda and Belinda and even Jay. For a while it was busy. But it helped take my mind off things.
But soon the nurse had to usher everyone out so that she could examine me and at almost noon I was finally wheeled into delivery. When we were in the room and they were getting everything set up I began crying like an idiot. The nurses thought it was because I was afraid and started giving me words of encouragement. But Tony knew why I was crying and he just silently wiped away my tears and kissed me until I felt better. He was such a good man and I knew without a doubt that he would accept this child as his even if he hadn’t fathered it…but I wanted this baby to be his. I began praying to god. Please let this baby be his…
“Okay Mom. I see your baby’s head. I want you to push for me…”
TONY
Nikki had been pushing for half an hour, but the baby would not come out. The head was there but the baby was stuck. The doctor said that it was a really big baby. He began preparing for a C-section and Nikki protested.
“Mom, the problem is that the baby can’t stay in the birth canal for very long. If it looks like it’s in distress we have to do it. And right now, Mom, it looks like baby is having some distress.”
Nikki reached out and gripped my hand and then things began moving fast. They put oxygen over Nikki and she at first pushed it away thinking they intended to put her under. The nurse had to tell her several times that it was just oxygen. I looked into her eyes and they were glassy. She was absolutely exhausted. I kissed her over and over and kept whispering to her that it was almost over.
They put up the big blue barrier sheet so that you couldn’t see and I was sorta happy because I could take a lot but not them splitting my wife’s belly open like an over ripe melon. But as I said it went fast and soon the doctor was holding a blue, limp baby in his hands.
“It’s a boy, Mom and Dad!” The nurse laid the blue baby boy on my wife’s belly and I watched it gasping for air as one nurse rubbed him briskly and another began sucking out fluid from his nose and mouth.
Nikki and I both stared at the baby in awe and then the nurse picked him up and carried him away.
“We’re going to give the baby oxygen and get his lungs going. He’s a little sluggish.” And then I got scared. The baby hadn’t cried yet. Didn’t they have to cry? Nikki was squeezing my hand, a slow dawning fear appearing in her eyes also. Of all of the things that I had hoped and prayed for over the last few months, the last thing that I had considered was just to pray for a healthy baby. I felt my heart begin to sink. In my selfishness I hadn’t asked God for just a healthy baby and now I was paying for it.
I began praying to both God and Buddha; please let him be okay. And then I heard him cry. It was loud and angry and I smiled. I bent down and kissed Nikki.
“He’s going to be alright.” I wiped away her last tears and then moved to the incubator where they were pulling a blue cap over my son’s huge American head. The cap slowly popped off. There was so much black hair that it couldn’t be contained. His color had returned and he was now transformed from blue to a tan and pink very fat baby. His fist waved angrily as he balled loudly, his perfectly formed testicles and penis all perfection. One lone tear found its way down his cheek and he opened his eyes and took a deep breath in order to draw in another breath to scream again. Those beautiful almond shaped eyes were just like mine.
T-baby was just a big kid, which is why the Ultra sound technician had guessed him as older. He weighed in at 8 lbs 7 ozs. And as soon as he passed his APGAR test, which he passed on his second try, he was wrapped in a blanket and Nikki and I were able to hold him. I didn’t mention that his eyes were like mine more than hers, and when she held him she immediately counted his fingers before even remembering to check his eyes. And when she did, I saw her look at me quickly and seeing my smile.
“I love you.” She mouthed.
“I love you, too.” I mouthed.
I took my wife and son home the next day. We had several friends and family come by. My Mom loved the garden and had setup an outdoor buffet with several different potstickers, dumplings and cakes. Mom shared the recipes freely and I spun around and stared at her as she was talking to Jay’s mother. Now I knew what was different about my mother.
I went over to her. “Mom, can you help me in the kitchen for a sec.”
“Sure, son.” Once in the kitchen I stared at her. “Your English has really improved over the last few months.”
“Eh.” She agreed.
“Mom…”
“Tony, if we’re in the kitchen we may as well make more tea, eh?” I nodded.
“You just called me Tony.” I said as I put the teapot on to boil.
“That’s your name, isn’t it?”
I sighed. “But you’re the only person that calls me Toi. If you don’t call me Toi then who else will?”
Her eyes got watery and she quickly turned to the cabinet to retrieve bags of various tea leaves. “Where’s the Jasmine? Americans love Jasmine.” I found it for her and when I did I took her hand gently and placed the tea in it.
“Thank you, Mom.”
“For what?”
“For holding my Japanese for me until I was smart enough to accept it myself, and for not backing down.” I put my arm around her shoulder and hugged her petite frame. “Now I see everything so clearly.”
She looked up at me with a smile. “I do too.”
~EPILOGUE~
“Obasaan!” Little T-Baby yelled. His grandmother was suddenly there in the doorway of the bedroom holding a toddler cup filled with some fragrant drink. “I want my Mommy,” the toddler cried.
The Asian woman lifted her sleepy grandson. “Aw, Is obasaan’s babyboy kimochi warui? Here drink this, you’ll feel better.”
T-baby shook his head and then rubbed his ear, which was slightly red and inflamed. His grandmother gently jiggled him on her hip and then blew a soft but cool breath against it. The baby giggled, his previous tears forgotten and then reached for the cup of juice and drank it down.
“Oishii.” he gasped breathlessly after having drank every drop.
“Yes it is good!” She said proudly. He received a kiss on his cheek from his grandmother who then carried him into the dining room where a gathering of women were seated at the table containing Mahjong tiles, a plate of almond cookies and half filled cups of tea.
Everyone oohed and ahhed at the little brown
two year old with his head of big black curls and eyes as almond shaped as their own.
“Oh let me hold him, Kayo.”
“No, me. I haven’t held him yet.”
“No, it’s time for his medicine,” she responded. Someone complained that she got to keep him five days a week while his parents worked. But Mrs. Yakamoto didn’t care. They could hold their own grandbabies and she would hold hers! Kayo Yakamoto reached into the refrigerator for T-baby’s Amoxicillin.
Once the ladies determined that she would be stingy with her g
randchild the conversation switched to other things.
“Mrs. Lee bought a piano for her ungrateful son and daughter-in-law.”
“A piano?”
“Yes, and none of them play!”
The women chattered away as Mrs. Yakamoto used the baby syringe to squirt some of the medicine into the baby’s unsuspecting mouth.
He screwed up his little brown face to the laughter of the other women and was immediately rewarded with a cookie.
Mrs. Tonisho waved her hand and scowled. “Western medicine only works on Westerners. Take a warm mug and place it against his ear with a hot wash towel-”
