The Doctor's Nanny

by Emerson Rose

  Leaving the house with a baby is a monumental event, even if it is just across the street to the neighbors. I have Grayson’s bag and stroller packed and he is dressed in a lightweight onesie that says Sleep Sold Separately. Man, ain’t that the truth. I thought sleeping when I was nine months pregnant was hard, waking up every hour to pee, tucking pillows between my legs and behind my back to get comfortable. At least I got to go back to sleep, this guy has 0700 hours and 1900 hours mixed up.

  Julián assures me it’s normal for Grayson to eat every three hours and mix up his days and nights. The problem with that is he doesn’t have to stay awake to feed him and he gets to trot off to work everyday fresh as a daisy while I prop toothpicks in my eyelids to take care of Grayson. My mother cut her visits to every other day this week at my idiotic insistence. I thought I needed to start handling things more on my own, and I do, it’s just an adjustment.

  Julián’s great, though, he does his best to let me nap when he gets home. He misses me, though, I think most of the time he has seen me this week my eyes have been closed.

  “You almost ready?” he says sauntering into the kitchen dressed in jean shorts and a white fitted T-shirt that hugs the impeccable muscles of his chest, shoulders, and biceps. His hair is still damp and the tops of his cheekbones are a little burnt after he mowed the yard this afternoon. He got a full summer’s worth of a tan in one day. It’s not fair.

  “Yes, all set but I wanted to talk about something before we go.”

  He bends down to make a goofy face at Grayson, “Sure, what’s up?” He keeps his eyes trained on the baby as he speaks.

  “We never finished talking about your family the other day.” I’m holding onto the handle of the stroller watching him carefully. He never looks up but I see his muscles in his shoulders twitch. I was right, there is something he doesn’t want to talk about.

  “That’s because there isn’t anything else to say. I told you, babe, we aren’t close so it’s no big deal.”

  “It feels like you’re keeping something from me, Julián.”

  He straightens up and shoves his hands back into his pockets. He has deep frown lines between his eyes when he looks past me into the kitchen.

  “Okay, I am but it’s not about my family. I don’t really want to talk about it especially before we go across the street to hang out with the neighbors but I know you and you aren’t going to let this go until I do, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  He steps forward and takes me by the arm to lead me to the kitchen table where he pulls out a chair for me. He turns the stroller around so we can see Grayson and he sits down next to me. I’m becoming increasingly nervous, maybe I don’t want to talk after all.

  “You’re scaring me.”

  His hand comes up to cover mine on the table, “I’m not trying to but this isn’t easy for me to say and it’s not going to be easy for you to hear, so I think we should sit.”

  “Okay, spit it out, Garcia.”

  “I had a visitor on Monday at the base.”

  “Who?”

  “It was Caleb.”

  Caleb? Why on earth would he show up in Julián’s office? I haven’t spoken to him since the wedding in California almost six months ago.

  “Why?”

  He bites his lip and shifts in his chair. “I think he might be interested in being part of Grayson’s life.”

  It’s like someone sucker punched me in the gut. I sit back in my chair and blow out all the air in my lungs.

  “He wanted me to mention it to you. I told him not to be a fucking pussy and that he should talk to you himself. Obviously, he hasn’t figured out a way to do that yet.”

  “But, I don’t understand… Why? He didn’t even return my call when I left him a message that Grayson had been born. He never came to the hospital…”

  Hot tears fill my eyes and right away I regret pushing him to talk about this. I don’t want to think about sharing Grayson with Caleb.

  “I don’t know, baby, I asked him but all he gave me was a bunch of flimsy bullshit excuses about not being ready and wanting to be a stand up guy. He has an ulterior motive, I don’t know what it is but I feel it.”

  “He left me because he didn’t want to have a baby. He got his freedom and his slutty girlfriend. I gave him what he wanted without so much as an argument. I didn’t want to be with a man who didn’t want to claim his own child. He accused me of trapping him with a baby! How the hell does a wife trap her husband when we were already fucking married!”

  I’m so mad I can’t even allow myself to cry. I stand up and pace the length of the kitchen. Julián tries to catch my wrist and bring me back to the table but I’m full of nervous energy. I bite my lip and cross my arms over my chest. He can’t have my baby. He’s mine. He didn’t want him. Julián is his father, he wanted him more than his biological father ever did and he deserves him, not Caleb.

  “Come here,” he says standing and pulling me into his arms. I press my cheek against his chest and listen to his heart pound. He’s upset, too. Caleb is trying to butt in and ruin what we have together, but why?

  “We will work this out together, don’t worry. He’s such a fuck up maybe he already changed his mind, I haven’t heard anything from him since Monday.”

  I turn and press my forehead to his chest already feeling defeated. If he wants custody, he will probably get it. He’s a Marine, and his parents are supportive, he doesn’t have a police record, hell, he’s never even had a speeding ticket. There isn’t anything keeping him from taking him away. Except that he divorced me over the pregnancy. It’s well documented that we had irreconcilable differences in opinion on having children. That was the basis of our divorce for God’s sake.

  Grayson squirms in his stroller, I lean down to replace his wayward pacifier and examine his face. There is some Caleb there, he favors me for sure but I see it.

  “He won’t forget. I know Caleb, when he latches on to an idea he won’t let go until he gets what he wants.”

  “I’ve contacted my lawyer, just in case. He is looking into it to see if there are any loopholes but he says it doesn’t look good. Even with the divorce being about having children he can simply say he had a change of heart.”

  I push away from him and hold my head up high thrusting my stubborn chin out. Maybe we can dig up some dirt on him, make him look bad, unfit to be a father.”

  “Weren’t you the one who thought he deserved a chance to claim Grayson?”

  “Yeah, when he was born, not almost a month later. Did he say he was coming to see me? Is that why you’ve been on pins and needles all week?”

  “No, but I figured he might.”

  “Let’s go, I don’t want to think about this anymore. I need a good stiff drink.”

  “What about breastfeeding?” he reminds me. Caleb would never remind me of the dangers of breastfeeding a baby after drinking alcohol. Caleb doesn’t know shit about babies.

  “Pump and dump. I have a couple days’ supply in the freezer, we’re fine.”

  “You sure you’re okay? You don’t want to talk about it anymore?”

  “You sound disappointed.”

  “No, of course not, I don’t want to talk about it either but I’m not sure if drinking is the solution.”

  “There is no solution, but a couple of drinks will take the sting out.”

  “Alright, lead the way, mama.” He sweeps his arm in the direction of the front door and I push the stroller down the hall. In the living room he steps around me to open the door. I kiss him when I pass. He’s such an awesome man, if anyone can handle this it’s him.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, ready for a margarita?’

  “Ready.”

  Chapter 12

  Garcia

  An hour into the cookout, I’m beginning to worry about Kimber. I’ve never seen her drink, she’s been pregnant or nursing our entire relationship. Two and a half margaritas later she’s dancing with Tiana on the
ir deck. Both of them are giggling uncontrollably about a meme on Instagram about a baby and a cat.

  Drake is over the moon listening to them going on and on. I imagine he hasn’t heard Tiana laugh for a while. She went through hell finding out her brother murdered her parents and her aunt because he wanted to keep her all to himself. I’m not sure I would ever be able to get over something like that.

  “Don’t worry so much. They deserve to let loose for a while, both of them.” Drake is standing at the grill moving steaks around with tongs as if he can see perfectly. It’s amazing that he has come so far so fast adapting to his new life without sight. I guess he knew it was coming for seventeen years but still going blind is going blind.

  “I know, I had to give her some bad news before we came, though, and I’m afraid she’s trying to numb the pain with alcohol.”

  The sun is an enormous orange, pink ball slipping below the horizon. There are streaks of white airplane fuel crisscrossing the sky after a long day of military flights and the breeze is warm and inviting. Evenings can be pretty comfortable here, the humidity lifts a smidge and without the sun to burn your skin off, I enjoy being outdoors.

  I look out over his back yard and wish we were still looking at a West Coast sunset instead of this one where we would be far from my family and Caleb.

  “Did you tell her about your brothers stopping by?” We are far enough from the girls that they couldn’t hear us if they tried, and they aren’t trying. Grayson is lying on his side looking around content with a belly full of breast milk that I just fed him from a bottle.

  “No, worse. Her ex came to see me this week. Suddenly he wants to be a part of Grayson’s life. Motherfucker.” I look over at Grayson, “Sorry, little man.” I’ve gotta stop cursing.

  “Is that so unusual? I guess I figured the father was long gone the way you treat him like he’s your own.”

  “He is mine, he will always be mine. And yeah, it’s unusual considering that he divorced her because he didn’t want to have a baby right now.”

  He closes the grill and feels around for the knobs to turn down the heat a little bit. “Oh, well, yes, I suppose you’re right, that is unusual. What’s his excuse, or his reasoning, I guess?”

  “There is none, that’s the crazy part. He didn’t even come to see Grayson in the hospital, didn’t know his name, nothing. Then all of a sudden he’s sorry and he was scared of the responsibilities and now he wants to be fucking father of the year or some shit.”

  “Do you think he wants Kimber back?”

  “Hell, I don’t know what he wants. You should have seen him, he looked like such a pathetic excuse for a Marine standing in my office asking me to break the news to Kimber for him.”

  “He asked you to tell her?”

  “Yep, wasn’t gonna either but she sensed something was wrong and I had to.”

  “Women have a way of doing that, don’t they? The good ones anyway.”

  “I don’t like keeping secrets from her but he hasn’t made any moves since Monday. I was hoping he flaked out. She still deserved to know.”

  “She did.” He sits down on a chaise on the other side of Grayson’s stroller and tilts his head so he can hear the girls better. “I understand you’re worried but she’s a grown woman and if she wants to drink it away for an evening, I say what the hell.”

  I suppose someone who hadn’t been raised by an abusive alcoholic might see it that way. I watched my father abuse my mother and my brothers and sisters my whole life while he tried to drink his worries away.

  He would come home from the office, wherever that was, and make his way through the house to the bar first thing every night. He didn’t even bother to say hello to any of us.

  After three drinks he started being nice, asking how school was, telling my mother how pretty she was. Then they would start to drink together at his insistence. I swear my mom became an alcoholic by force. By bedtime he had put hands on at least two of us, more if no one was out of the house for a sporting event or school activity and mom was in tears. He would drag her to their bedroom and I would hide in mine with my pillow over my head so I couldn’t hear her cries.

  One thing I never understood was why we didn’t all bond together and fight back, or at least comfort each other. We all went our separate ways to nurse our wounds. We locked our doors and blocked each other out. I tried to look in on my sisters but they would yell at me to go away. My brothers acted like it was nothing, they called me a pussy for crying.

  My dad groomed all of us to be perfect criminals. Sebastian and Diego are running his drug empire and Camilla and Isa head up one of the largest underground insider trading businesses in the country. Adriana takes care of mother and runs what I would call a modern day brothel. She calls it a companion service.

  I wouldn’t have anything to do with any of them or their morally corrupt lives. I resisted and for that I paid. One particular night when I was seven or eight, I lay in my bed with bruises covering my back and abdomen and a cut lip bleeding on my pillowcase.

  I refused to deliver a package for my father to a little grocery store near the school I went to. All I had to do was hop out of the car he sent to pick me up from school everyday, run it in to the owner, and get back in the car. I knew it was wrong, even at that age I sensed everything about my family was twisted. The beatings I got for not conforming were proof.

  Sometimes I wondered if I was really related to them at all. I had nothing in common with any of them. Once I had asked for a signature on a permission slip to sing in the school choir. One of my teachers told me I had an exceptional tone and encouraged me to join. Dad thought I was a pussy for wanting to sing like a girl and he beat the shit out of me and pushed me into the swimming pool in the backyard just for asking. I was twelve.

  That was the night I vowed to be totally the opposite of my family. My little sister Camilla was in high school pushing drugs for my dad. My other sister Isa was nineteen and laundering money at the fake business. And my older sister Adriana kept my father’s friends and business associates entertained. Sebastian and Diego did whatever he told them to do, which usually involved delivering packages, collecting money, and beating people to a pulp.

  They were a bunch of corrupt law-breaking gangsters and I didn’t want to end up like any one of them. I could have been a cop but I chose the USMC instead. I didn’t relish the idea of being on the opposite end of a case that involved my family. I hated them but I’d seen what they did to those who crossed them and I valued my life too much to end up like that.

  I loved the idea of solidarity and being a part of a family with strict rules and good morals. I couldn’t wait to defend my country and climb the ranks to prove I wasn’t a gangster. The Marines were good people fighting for good things. That’s what I wanted to be, a good man.

  Drake’s gate opens on the side of the house and I jump up to see who it is. I’m so fucking jumpy these days. This is how I didn’t want to spend my life, looking over my shoulder, wondering when something bad was going to happen.

  “It’s just Mattie and Belle, damn, Garcia, you got a little anxiety going on there?” Drake says standing slowly to greet our friends. “You know them, don’t you? Hey, guys, over here, I have the grill all heated up. You can throw your stuff on whenever you’re ready.”

  “Yeah, we met in Cali at their wedding rehearsal.”

  Mattie climbs the stairs of the deck carrying two bags of groceries with Belle right behind him. “The wedding that never was,” Mattie says patting me on the back. “It’s good to see you under better circumstances.”

  Their hands are full so I move aside and open one of the French doors that lead into the kitchen. “For sure, you two are looking great.” I scoop Grayson up into my arms and follow them inside.

  A massive earthquake ruined their weekend of wedding activities and almost ended Belle’s life six months ago. She suffered a severe brain injury and he broke his leg. Months later, when they were both out of the hospita
l, they chose not to test fate again with a big wedding and got married at the courthouse. Shortly after they were relocated here to North Carolina and somehow we all ended up on the same block in tiny little Jewel Falls.

  If it weren’t for their wedding that never happened, I would not have met Kimber. She was there alone, recently divorced and pregnant as a guest. Her friend Violet hooked up with my best friend Major Steele. One chance encounter on the beach with Violet, her mother, and Kimber led me to the love of my life and a baby in less than a year.

  It’s crazy but I wouldn’t change a thing. Well, that’s not true, I would have stayed in California now that I know Caleb thinks he can take what’s mine. What he gave up and tossed aside carelessly.

  I can’t help but feel partially responsible for what’s happening. I helped put us in closer proximity to him by accepting the relocation to North Carolina. It’s a lot harder to get shared custody of an infant when the mother is on the other side of the country. But Kimber’s family is here and I wanted her to be happy.

  Drake raises his fingers to his mouth to whistle at Kimber and Tiana over the music. Both whip their heads in our direction with their hair flying everywhere, their drinks sloshing onto the deck. When they notice Mattie and Belle their faces light up and they squeal as they run with open arms to hug them.

  Tiana holds Belle at arm’s length, “I’m so glad you could come. Oh my gosh, Belle, you look beautiful, where did you get this bracelet, I love it,” she says snatching her delicate wrist to look closer at the colorful strands of beads.

  Belle looks at Tiana and then the bracelet and then Mattie who stops unloading the grocery bags. He steps around the island and circles her waist with his arm pulling her in close. “You got it on our honeymoon in Cabo, honey, remember?” he says with the kind of tenderness you use when you talk to a young child.