Back Where He Started

by Jay Quinn

  Steve flicked ash out his window. “I’ve always credited you with that, Chris. That’s one reason why I’m asking you to tie yourself up with me. You never gave me any reason to believe you were money-hungry. I asked you about that shit the first time we slept together, remember? You just accepted the me I showed you and loved me like I was.”

  “True,” I said. “But, Steve, I was never about the money. Do you understand that? What you’ve just told me only saves me from having an annoying conversation with Trey. I’m about the love, Steve. I’ve proven to myself I can be okay without it. I hope you know you have me for life, now you’ve got me believing that’s what you want.”

  “Oh hell yeah, Little Bit. I know it. I figured that out way ahead of you.”

  “Then why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I tried, but you had to talk yourself into it. There wasn’t anything I could say that was good enough.”

  “Well, I’m convinced.”

  “Good. I’m glad we finally got all that bullshit out of the way. Now, when do we get started figuring out what kind of house we want?”

  Christian Timothy Ronan received the trickle of water across his soft brow and into his dark hair with his blue eyes open and a smile on his face. He cooed and gently kicked at the center of attention in a circle of family around the baptismal font. When Father Andrew was finished with that part of the rite, he handed Little Chris back to his mother and father, who passed him to me. I never wanted to let him go again.

  For all I cared, everyone else could have disappeared among the canapés and glasses of champagne back at Trey’s and Susan’s, where we went after Little Chris’s christening. I wouldn’t have noticed. Susan sat me in the sunroom they had added on to the back of their early ‘70s ranch house in North Hills, then gave me my first grandchild to hold and feed with a bottle.

  “What, no breast feeding?” I asked.

  “To hell with that.” Susan placed a burp towel over my shoulder and smoothed it down. “I tried and gave it up. He latched onto me like a snapping turtle. By the time he was done I felt like a bush woman in National Geographic. He’s got my milk, but I’m keeping my tits away from him, thank you very much.”

  Little Chris looked up at me and smiled around the bottle’s nipple in his mouth. “Well, he’s got my sense of humor, at least,” I said.

  “Thank God for that. His father’s losing a little more of his every day.”

  “C’mon, Susan, is he becoming that much of a banker?”

  Susan gave me a happy laugh. “I married him for his di … um, his looks, not his sense of humor. That hasn’t suffered from seriousness, so I’m good.”

  “Susan, you’re a trip. If you don’t watch out, you’re going to be telling me you’re pregnant again before this one gets out of diapers.”

  “I might be, Chris. I want to get the breeding part over with. We’re thinking about having three more. Gotta keep those Catholics coming. If I’m going to have that many, I want to be done with popping them out before I’m 35.”

  “Do you really want four kids?” I asked. “Three damn near killed me, and I didn’t have to do the hard part.”

  Susan smiled. “Oh yeah. I came from a big house full of kids. It’s what makes a house seem like home, you know?”

  Just as she finished speaking, Alicia hesitantly made her way into the room. She looked stunning. “May I come in?” she asked.

  Susan looked at me to answer. “Please,” I said. “Come sit by me and this gorgeous little present Susan and Trey have given me.”

  Susan laughed. “I hope you still feel that way when I give you a call to pick him and his diaper bag up at the Greyhound bus station in Morehead City.”

  Alicia gave Susan a frankly astounded look before she sat in the chair next to me and the baby.

  “It’s okay, Alicia,” Susan said. “Chris gets me.”

  “Yes, I do, you crazy heifer. Go have as much champagne as you can get away with. I’ll look after your little passenger here.” The baby looked at me and gave me another big smile.

  Susan nodded and left me with Alicia. I gave her a shy smile.

  “Thanks for seeing me, Chris. I won’t keep you. I just wanted to say hello.”

  “We should have talked long before now, Alicia. I apologize for that. It’s only just … well, it’s only recently that Zack and I could be civil to one another. There wasn’t any need to subject you to any spillover from that unpleasantness.”

  Alicia crossed her long legs elegantly and assumed a model’s posture of earnest attention. I had to assume her apparent sincerity was genuine—I really didn’t know the woman. “I imagine you must despise me,” she said. “I apologize for that if you do. I’m really not such a cunt.”

  My arm was going to sleep. I looked for a pillow and saw one behind her. “Hon, could you take that pillow behind you and tuck it under my elbow. He’s heavy and my arm is going all numb.”

  “Certainly,” she said. Very gently, she did as I’d asked and then waited expectantly for my reply.

  “Alicia, I never really despised you. I didn’t two years ago and I don’t now. Zack is who he is, and he was certainly attracted to women before he met me. I’ve come to believe what broke us apart was something that would have happened sooner or later. In any event, you’re a lovely woman, and Zack seems very happy. The only thing I ask is that you take care of him. He can cause many bumps in the road, but he doesn’t ride over other people’s bumps easily. You know what I’m saying, right?”

  “Yes, I do, Chris.” She looked at me through impossibly long lashes and let a small, intriguing smile pass across her lips. “I’ve found he’s been spoiled terribly.”

  I laughed as gently as I could, but I still managed to dislodge the baby’s bottle. He gave me a puzzled look, grinned, and let out a loud burp. I put the bottle back to his lips and he sighed happily. “I am bad for spoiling my men. Or so I’ve been told. This one is going to be rotten when I get done with him.”

  Alicia looked toward the living room beyond the opposite end of the sunroom. “Congratulations on the new one,” she said. “My God, he’s a charmer.”

  “Alicia?”

  She looked at me curiously.

  “One time is enough. If you try to get between me and this one, it’ll just be you, me, and my ice pick.”

  She looked at me with alarm, but when I smiled, she laughed nervously. When I joined her, her laughter became less perfunctory and more genuine.

  “Zack told me not to underestimate you or your mouth,” she said.

  “Well, he knows me.”

  Alicia nodded. “Friends, then?”

  “I’d give you a hug right now, but my arms are kinda full.”

  “Can I take a rain check on that hug?”

  “That one and a lifetime more. I’m counting on you to look after Zack from here on out. You and I both know he’s high-maintenance.”

  “I do love him, Chris. Please know that.”

  “Then he’s a lucky man. Not only are you model-gorgeous, you’re also a very intelligent, successful business woman. Zack has a thing for intelligent lovers. With you, he got the Jeopardy! Daily Double.”

  “From what I understand, you’re no slouch in the brains department either, and you’re certainly a good-looking man.”

  “I’m not so smart, Alicia. I’m just a great reader and maybe that makes me an interesting person to talk to. As for being nice looking, well, let’s just say I own up to every one of my 49 years.”

  “Chris, the bisexual thing about Zack does concern me. Let’s just say I know he has an appreciation for all nice-looking things.”

  I noted a bit of anxiety in her eyes, and I gave her a knowing smile. “Alicia, don’t worry so much about that. Many men are situationally homosexual. I think Zack is. In retrospect, I think even he would tell you hooking up with a gay guy who was starved for a family and a home was the best thing he could have done for his kids. There never would have been a need for me in
his life if his first wife hadn’t died.”

  “I’ve never really thought of it that way. I thought it had more to do with raw sexual attraction.”

  “I won’t lie to you and say that it didn’t at first. But Zack knew what he was looking for over the long haul. I think he was banking on the old kind of gay stereotype … I know that some people might see me that way. But I don’t believe my life was—or is—all camp and calculated irony. I just happen to be good at being a wife and mom.”

  “I don’t see you in any other way, Chris. My God, I couldn’t have done what you did.”

  “Thanks. I don’t like being seen as some sort of cartoon Zack saw me as, someone who happened to fit his need for a mother and housekeeper. It sounds cold to say it that bluntly, but we had a perfect neurotic mesh for many years. Now he’s moved on and so have I.”

  “Thanks for helping me understand that, Chris. Zack’s tried telling me the same thing, but it’s so much more comforting coming from you.” She was quiet for a moment as we both watched Little Chris begin to drowse. “Could we sometimes talk, if you know—”

  “Absolutely, Alicia. Feel free to give me a call when he starts to drive you nuts. One thing you can count on me for is the unvarnished truth.”

  She gave me a smile and stood. “So I see. I appreciate that, Chris.”

  “Hon, I’m playing grandmom and holding court in here, it seems. Could you send Andrea in to see me?”

  Alicia gave me another smile and nodded before getting her long lovely legs moving. I looked down at my grandson. He was done with his bottle and fussily moving his head. I put the empty bottle on the side table and lifted him to rest on my shoulder. I gently rubbed and patted his back. Before long I was rewarded with both a burp and a fart. I held him out and away and laughed to try to make him laugh. Instead, he yawned deeply. I switched the pillow Alicia had given me to my other side along with the baby. He was asleep before Andrea came in.

  She was showing now—carrying high and all up-front. “It looks like another boy is on the way,” I said as she lowered herself into the chair Alicia had vacated.

  “Actually, Mom, it’s one of each.”

  “Oh God, are you serious?”

  “As serious as twins can get. Two heartbeats, two little heads, two complete sets of arms and legs, one nice package, and one tiny little twat.”

  “When were you planning to share this information? When you called me to tell me they’d arrived?”

  “Oh no, Mom. You get to be right there in the delivery room so I can crush your hand for helping me keep those eggs backed up since I was 15. I told David to go buy a catcher’s mitt because I intend to shoot ‘em out and be done with the birthing business.”

  “Are you happy?” I asked.

  Andrea sighed, then giggled. “Actually I’m delighted. I think David is a bit overwhelmed, but he’ll get over it. He told me I never did anything half-assed. Why have just one when I can double up and get it over with?”

  “So you two aren’t planning on any more?”

  “Well, let me put it to you this way: David better sleep in a cup, because if these two are healthy and happy, it’s going to be snip snip for his boys. Even if I have to do it myself.”

  “Susan wants three more,” I said.

  “Oh … my … God. Well good luck to her. I’m thinking ba-da-bing and ba-da-boom here are going to do it for me and David.”

  I laughed. My girl was at the top of her form.

  “You laugh now,” she said. “You better put a nursery into that new house you and Steve are planning on building.”

  “How do you know about that?” I asked cautiously.

  “Steve and Trey are in there having an economic summit,” Andrea said. “God, Chris. You sure know how to pick ‘em. Please tell me Steve is bisexual like Dad. Then I can believe there’s some hope for the women of the world.”

  “Don’t even think it, bitch,” I said.

  “Oh come on,” Andrea said sarcastically, “you’re great at breaking them in—admit it.”

  “Yeah, right, then I get paid off and shooed away. I’d kill this one if he did that to me.”

  Andrea got a conspiratorial look in here eyes and said, “I saw you and Alicia having a little tête-à-tête. What was that all about?”

  “Just making nice. It’s a new-millennium baby—divorce doesn’t mean war.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “especially if you get a consolation prize like Steve.”

  The baby grumped a bit and stretched in my arms. He was surprisingly strong for such a tiny fellow. In a moment he was settled and sleeping again.

  “Enough smarty-pants banter, young lady. What are you doing for Christmas besides being miserable?”

  “You know I won’t be able to travel then, Mom. It’ll be way too close to my due date. The larger question is: What are you planning to do this year?”

  “Right now, nothing. Steve is part of that whole Salter Path world. Relatives out the ying-yang. Would you mind terribly if I just stayed with him at the beach?”

  Andrea yawned and stood carefully. “Actually, Chris, I think it’s time we let our mom have his life back. If you don’t want to visit one of us here in Raleigh, that’s okay. Schooner’s the only one you have to worry about.”

  “Why should I be worried about Schooner?”

  “God, I’m tired all of a sudden.” My supposedly empathetic daughter was guardedly oblivious to my efforts at changing the subject. “I’m ready to go home. But what did I want to tell you? Oh! I do want my Christmas ornaments this year. I plan to do the house up big-time.”

  “Andrea, you can certainly have your Christmas ornaments, but you didn’t answer my question. Should I be worried about Schooner?”

  Andrea bent carefully to give me a hug and a kiss on the top of my head. “I’ll send your baby in here on my way out. He can speak for himself. My only comment is: Do you see Frank anywhere? Love you Mom!”

  “I love you too, girl-baby.”

  “I’m serious, Chris. Don’t think you get off the hook from being with me in the delivery room. I’m due sometime around the first week of January. Be ready when we call, okay? I really need you with me. Please?”

  “Okay, sweetheart. I figured I wouldn’t be able to get out of that. You know I’ll come as quickly as I can. Just call me, okay?”

  Andrea gave me a sweet smile and left.

  I waited for Schooner, but he never appeared. I didn’t worry about him too long. My grandbaby stirred and wanted to fret. I adjusted his position in my arms and cooed down into his tiny, beautiful face. It really felt like he was looking at me—like he knew me already. From deep in my memory came the song I’d sung to Schooner when he was still an infant. I didn’t know any lullabies back then. I still don’t. I just reached into the store of songs in the back of my head and in my heart and came up with the one that made Schooner smile when he was a baby. Softly I sang to little Chris, “To love you, child, my whole life long / Be it right, or be it wrong …” I was no Chaka Khan, and I didn’t know all the words to “Sweet Thing,” but I knew enough to growl most of the song in a Marlboro monotone. My grandbaby smiled and searched my face to imprint the odd song with my image in his tiny mind.

  After I got through what I could remember of the song he fell back to sleep. I only knew tears were running down my cheeks when I found I had to whisper the last of it. I couldn’t sing anymore.

  I was such an odd adjunct to this small family of Ronans. But somehow, I’d become an integral part of a larger lineage. The tiny boy I held in my arms would soon have to decide what to call me; there was no genuine title to fill the bill. He’d learn why he was called Chris—a gentle reminder each time someone spoke his name that a man came along when his father was only five years old to love him and take a lost mother’s place.

  I was so tremendously grateful to have shared his daddy’s life. Now, I’d share this little boy’s life. I’d watch him through the wonder of his childhood and the gangly-
ness of his adolescence and along his sure-footed strides into adulthood, if I was lucky to live long enough. It was a great gift to know another human being that way. It was a wonder to be able to hold this tiny life in my arms now. Now, he smelled sweet and lay secure in my arms. And he made me a grandparent, and I fell in love for life.

  When I looked up to see Susan and Trey standing in front of me, they caught me with tears lining my face like guilty secrets.

  Susan reached for our baby and I lifted him to give him back to his mama. The day would come when he’d run to me to claim presents and ply me with secrets. But for right now, he had to get back to her.

  “Don’t cry, Chris. Please … I can’t stand it,” Trey said softly.

  “Oh, my son. You’ve given me the whole world back for the little bit of loving I gave you. I got to be the one to cry with happiness and joy. That’s my job. That’s what I do in this family. You ought to know that by now.”

  “I know it, but you can’t cry, please.” He stretched out his hands to me.

  I took them and kissed them. “Thank you, baby, for not cutting me out now. Thank you so much.”

  Trey crowded next to me on the love seat where I sat and put his arm over my shoulders. “Stop it, Chris,” he pleaded. “You’ll make me cry and I’m not supposed to. Not anymore. I’m the oldest one, remember? I have to look after the little ones. Big boys don’t cry, right?”

  “I’m sorry, son. It’s just that, sometimes, I don’t feel like I deserve for y’all to love me so much. I just did my best, Trey. Oh, Jesus, I just tried to do my best.”

  “Hush, Chris.” Trey tightened his grip on my shoulders and sobbed. “Oh fuck! I can’t do this. I won’t cry. Now be serious.”

  “I’m so proud of you, boy. Thank you so much for keeping me in your life.”

  “Mama … how could I …”

  “I love you so much,” I said.

  “I love you, Chris, please don’t leave us, please don’t leave us alone.”

  “I’ll never leave you, my baby.”

  “Not never, please. Oh, Christ, I’m so scared sometimes, I don’t know if this is right.”