by Joy Argento
“Gee, thanks.” Carrie watched as Hope enjoyed her breakfast. “So, I asked you the question several minutes ago now. Have you had time to think about the answer?”
“What was the question again?” Hope asked as she raised a forkful of food to her mouth.
“How do you feel about the baby?” Carrie watched her as she thought about her answer.
“I’m sure I’ll love the baby. I don’t think that will be a problem. And it really doesn’t bother me to be a grandmother.” She stopped to gather her thoughts. “I think Derrick will make a great father. He has always loved children and been really good with them. All of the neighborhood kids would come over here to see him, even when he was a teenager.”
Hope laughed as a memory floated into her mind. “I remember, not that long ago, Derrick must have been about sixteen at the time. There was this little tiny knock on the door. I wasn’t even sure at the time that I had heard it. Well, anyway when I opened the door, there stood the cutest little boy. He couldn’t have been any older than six or seven. He looked at me with big wide eyes and asked ‘Can Derrick come out to play?’”
“Awww, that’s sweet.”
“Derrick didn’t just brush him off like most teenagers would have done. He asked him to come in and went and got some of his old puzzles from when he was about that age. They sat together for a couple of hours at the kitchen table putting them together and drinking cocoa.”
“Derrick sounds like a special kid,” Carrie said.
“He is. But it’s the kid part that has me so worried. He’s still just a kid himself.”
“Having a baby can make him grow up fast.”
“Too fast. That’s what happened to me. I had to grow up too fast. I had all these responsibilities that were an awful lot for an eighteen year old to handle.”
“Don’t forget that you had an extra burden, making it even harder for you,” Carrie said. She reached across the table for Hope’s hand. “You had the burden of trying to hide who you really were. You had to pretend to be something you weren’t.”
“I don’t think Derrick is doing that. I have been pretty good at reading my son and I think that he really loves Erin. But playing grown up when you are so young is hard. I don’t want him to miss out on life.”
“He’s not going to miss out on life. He’s just not going to have the neat, little, packaged life that you had planned for him. He’ll be okay.” Carrie gave her a reassuring smile. “From what you’ve told me, he’s a smart kid.”
“Apparently not smart enough to use a condom.” Hope half laughed at the statement.
Carrie looked over at her. “Good to see you can laugh about it.”
“It’s either laugh or cry. So I guess laughing is better.”
“Laughing is definitely better,” Carrie said.
Chapter 28
It had been a little more than a week since Gram had died and Carrie spent most of the day crying. She left work early and sat on her couch with her feet curled up underneath her when the doorbell rang.
She blew her nose and got up to answer the door. She was surprised to see Hope standing there.
“Hi,” Carrie said. “What are you doing here?”
“Does that mean you’re glad to see me?”
Carrie smiled and pulled Hope into a hug. “Of course I’m glad to see you. You just don’t usually come over this early on a weekday. How come you aren’t at work?” She pulled Hope into the living room. Hope took off her coat and tossed it on the chair. She sat down on the couch with Carrie.
“I got out of work early. We had a slow day and I kind of lied and told them I had a headache. I just kind of felt like I needed to be with you, and from the amount of used tissues on this coffee table, I’d say I was right.” She rubbed Carrie’s knee. “Not doing too good today, huh?”
“I seem to be all over the place with my emotions this week. I miss my grandmother. I know I haven’t really had her for a while and I knew she wasn’t going to wake up, but I guess a little part of me was really hoping she would wake up. I know that sounds stupid.”
“No. That doesn’t sound stupid at all, honey.”
“It’s like when she died it left a hole in me. Sometimes the hole feels really small, like it’s hardly there, and sometimes the hole feels so big, I’m sure it going to swallow me alive.”
“I’m so sorry you have to go through this,” Hope said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Your just being here helps, a lot.”
“I could cook us supper, have you eaten today?”
Carrie laughed out loud. “I haven’t seen you cook the whole time I’ve known you. You want to cook now?”
“That’s not true. I made pizza for us and raviolis.”
“You mean that frozen pizza you put in the oven and the frozen raviolis that you boiled?”
“Yeah, well, I opened the boxes by myself.” Hope smiled. “Ok, so I don’t cook too much. I can order delivery pretty darn good. Want me to order us some pizza or Chinese food? Or I can run out and get something, anything you want.”
Carrie opened her arms and reached for Hope. “All I really want at the moment is to have you hold me.”
Hope obliged and pulled Carrie in her arms. She held her head to her chest and stroked her hair gently.
They sat like this for close to an hour before Carrie whispered to Hope. “I’m getting hungry. Did you still want to cook me supper?”
“Sure, I’ll cook you supper. What have you got in the kitchen for me to make?”
“I have a phone.” Carrie said.
“Huh?”
“I have a phone in the kitchen. You can use that to order something for delivery. I’m a little afraid to eat what you might cook,” Carrie grinned.
“Hey. I cooked once. It was a long, long time ago, but I cooked.”
“And what exactly did you cook?” Carrie pulled back and looked at Hope waiting for her answer.
“Um, I remember it had marshmallows and chocolate and crackers…I think graham crackers.” Carrie just looked at Hope. “What?” Hope asked. “I did.”
A huge smile spread across Carrie’s face. “S’mores? You cooked s’mores?”
“Yeah, I was twelve and at Girl Scout camp.”
Carrie swatted at her. “You are so crazy. Go order me a pepperoni pizza and some mild chicken wings, woman.”
Hope got up to go to the kitchen.
“The pizza menu and phone number are attached to the refrigerator with a magnet.” Carrie called to her.
“Boy, you’re bossy,” Hope yelled back.
She was only gone a few minutes when she returned with a glass of red wine. She handed it to Carrie. “Here you go. I thought this would go well with the color of your nose.”
Carrie touched her nose. “I must look terrible, huh?”
“You look beautiful.” Hope sat down next to Carrie again and kissed the top of her red nose. “The pizza should be here in about forty minutes.”
“Thank you for ordering food, for being here and for loving me.”
“Loving you is the easy part.” She leaned back and put her arm around Carrie. “Ordering that food was the hard part.” She looked at her own fingers. “I think I broke a nail dialing that phone.”
“Sorry about that. I’ll make it up to you later.” Carrie snuggled into Hope, being careful not to spill her wine.
Hope took the wine glass from her and sipped it. She made a face and handed the glass back to Carrie.
“Did you just drink some of my wine?” Carrie asked surprised.
“Yeah, just thought I’d try it.”
“And?”
“And, I still don’t like it.”
“Maybe you’ll like it better when you grow up.”
“Maybe. You know what I want to be when I grow up?”
Carrie snuggled in closer to Hope. “What?” Carrie asked.
“A writer.”
“You already are a writer.” Carrie said. She leaned u
p and kissed Hope softly on the cheek.
“Then I want to be a published writer. I sent some of my poems and short stories to magazines this week.”
Carrie pulled away from Hope so she could look into her eyes. “Oh my God, sweetie, I am so proud of you.” She kissed her on the cheek again and then full on the mouth.
The food arrived forty minutes later, as promised. Hope put two slices of pizza and a few chicken wings on each of two plates in the kitchen and brought them into the living room. She set a plate down on the coffee table in front of Carrie, and sat next to her, her own plate still in her hand.
“I was wondering,” Hope said. “What you were planning for Christmas?”
“Well, I was hoping to be able to spend at least part of the day with you. My mother is going to visit my brother in North Carolina for the holidays. They invited me too, but I…” Carrie stopped.
“You what?” Hope asked setting her plate next to Carrie’s on the table.
Carrie blushed a slight shade of pink. “I really wanted to be closer to you. I didn’t like the thought of you being here and me being there. Even if I don’t get to see you, I wanted to be close to you.” She shook her head. “I know, I know, that sounds all mushy and corny.”
Hope reached for her hand. “No, I think that sounds all romantic and nice.” She smiled. “Could you get any time off from work at Christmas time?”
“We have four days off anyway, and I have plenty of vacation time that I could use.”
“Can you take two weeks off?” Hope asked.
“Sure. Why?”
“Because I wanted to book us a two week cruise over the holidays.”
“What about Derrick?”
“I’m not inviting him. It wouldn’t be nearly as romantic if we had to share a cabin with him,” Hope laughed.
“No. I mean isn’t he coming home for Christmas? Don’t you want to be with him?”
“He is coming home for three days at the beginning of his holiday break and then he is going home with Erin and spending the rest of his Christmas vacation with her and her family. So it’s just you and me, baby. What do you say? Do you think you could put up with me for two solid weeks of togetherness?”
“Hmmm, I’m thinking yes. I’m thinking I would love that.”
“Good, then that’s your Christmas present …a cruise and me.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to unwrap that present.”
“Maybe I’ll give you a sneak peek at your present later,” Hope said.
“I would like that,” Carrie answered and took a big bite of her pizza.
Chapter 29
Derrick leaned back in the dining room chair as he sat across from Hope. The front two legs of the chair came off the ground. Hope looked down at the chair legs and back up at Derrick. Erin hadn’t made the trip with him because she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to sit through an hour and a half car ride.
He let the front of the chair drop back down so the legs once again touched the floor.
Hope knew she needed to compose herself so she could have this conversation. She looked up and took a deep breath. “All right,” she said to her son. “Tell me what your plans are.”
Derrick looked determined and Hope could tell he was trying to control his temper. “First off, we are getting married and we are raising our baby together. We have already checked into an off campus apartment. I got a job doing maintenance for them so the rent is free.” Derrick watched his mother. “I can still go to all my classes. They know I am a full time college student.” Derrick answered his mother’s question before she got a chance to ask it. He was well rehearsed and had obviously practiced exactly what he was going to say.
“And Erin?”
“Erin will finish out this year. We get out of school for the summer in May. The baby is due at the beginning of August. She is going to take one semester off and then go back to school in January…and before you ask we also checked out day care. They have a program run through the college. Erin is gonna work there one day a week. That will give her more time with the baby and it lowers the cost. We are both trying to get part time jobs to pay for food and baby stuff. Erin may have to wait until after the baby is born. We aren’t sure about that part, yet.”
Hope had to admit to herself that she was impressed by the research and plans her son had made. She wasn’t quite prepared to say that to him, yet. It didn’t make her worry less but at least he had put thought into this. He wasn’t going in blind like she felt she had done. “So what happens in the summer? Will the two of you be coming here to stay?”
“We are going to stay in Buffalo. That way we keep the apartment and Erin’s mother is close by. She lives in Cheektowaga, about twenty minutes away.” Hope couldn’t help but think how grown up her baby sounded.
“What does Erin’s mother think about all this?” Hope asked.
“She reacted pretty much like you did. She’s worried and she’s pissed.” Derrick started to lean back in his chair again and stopped, bringing the chair back down to the floor. “She’s dealing with it. She wants to be there for Erin and for the baby.”
“Sounds like you have this thought out, but do you realize how hard it is to be married and to be a parent? Have you thought about that part, Derrick?”
“Yeah, I think I have. I think I can be a good father because I learned from the best. I guess I will just have to learn the rest as I go along. I just want you to be happy for me Mom, because I am really happy about this.”
“I know. It’s just really hard for me. I went through this Derrick. It’s difficult. I guess I just wanted to protect you from that.” Hope shook her head.
“You can’t protect me from life, Mom. This is my life. This is what I want.”
“All right. I know there isn’t anything I can do at this point. Can you just give it some time and not get married right away?”
“We want to get married in May right after the semester ends. We are just going to have a small wedding. Just a few friends and family.” Hope felt relieved that at least they weren’t going to run off and get married right away.
Hope stood up and motioned for Derrick to do the same. She gave her baby boy a hug. He stood a good eight inches taller than her, but he would always be her baby. “I just need time to process this. All right? I just need a little time.”
“I figured you would,” Derrick said. “Now what do you have in the house to eat? I’m starving.”
*****
“So it went okay with Derrick?” Carrie asked Hope later that day.
“Yes. As well as it could under the circumstances. It sounds like he and Erin have thought about this and are taking steps in the right direction to make it work. So I decided that I’m not going to worry anymore.”
Carrie laughed. “And how is that working for you?”
“Not too good. I still worry. It’s just so hard to make a marriage work and being so young, it is going to be even harder.”
They were sitting on a wooden bench in the mall, taking a break from Christmas shopping. Santa sat on his big fancy gold chair, not far away. Hope and Carrie could see the children lined up to tell him their Christmas wishes.
“Do you think it was extra hard for you because you didn’t love Tom or do you think it’s that hard anyway?” Carrie asked her.
“Both,” Hope answered honestly.
“What if we were married? Would it be so hard?”
“If you and I were married?”
“Yes, what if you and I were married?”
Hope thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think that would be so hard.”
“And why is that?” Carrie asked.
“Because I love you.” Hope said sheepishly. “All right, it was harder for me because I didn’t love Tom. But, it’s still hard work. I hope that Derrick and Erin are up to it. I keep going back to the same thing in my head. They are both so young.”
Carrie got up, grabbed Hope’s hand, and pulled her up. “Come on,” s
he said. “We are going to go look at baby clothes. They make the cutest stuff, nowadays. There’s a great store in here where I bought a bunch of stuff for my niece and nephew.”
Hope started to protest, but decided that Carrie was right. There was a baby coming and looking at cute baby things would probably be fun. She might even buy something for her new grandchild if anything caught her eye. My grandchild, Hope thought. She followed Carrie into the store and picked up a tiny pair of canvas sneakers. She held them up for Carrie to see and smiled.
Chapter 30
Hope placed the silverware on the table. She ran her hand nervously through her hair. Derrick sat in the family room playing his video games. Hope yelled for him to lower the volume for the third time.
Hope was making just about the only thing that she could cook with any confidence, spaghetti and meatballs. The sauce was from a jar, but Hope had used that brand many times before and it always came out fine. The pot of water on the stove was just starting to boil.
Once the dining room table was set Hope went back into the kitchen to turn down the flame under the sauce and meatballs.
“Hi,” Carrie said, making Hope jump.
Hope put her hand over her heart. “You startled me. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. The door was opened so I didn’t bother knocking. Is that okay?”
Hope gave Carrie a kiss on the cheek. “Of course it’s okay. Want some wine?”
“No,” Carrie said holding up a heavy plastic bag. “I brought soda pop. I’ll pour us both a glass. Where’s Derrick?”
“He’s in the family room. Can’t you hear the video game?” Hope added salt to the now fully boiling pot of water.
“Yeah, I can hear it. I just thought someone was in your house shooting a machine gun.” Carrie handed Hope a glass of ginger ale. “Want some help?”
“No,” Hope said, looking at Carrie with her hands on her hips. “I am perfectly capable of cooking us a meal.”
