Falling for Jordan

by Liz Durano

  “It’s okay. Really.”

  “How’d you get my number?” He asks.

  “I went back to the bar, Polly’s, and I asked Vanessa, the bartender.”

  “She was a friend of yours, right? I remember you saying something about knowing her in high school,” he says.

  I vaguely knew her from high school, so I wouldn’t call her a friend. More like an acquaintance. She’d been one of the wild ones at school and there was no way my mom would have allowed me near her.

  “She was tough, though, and wasn’t about to hand over any phone number. She thought I was probably stalking you or something.”

  We lapse into silence, both of us watching the traffic outside the passenger windows. My imagined scenarios of telling Jordan about my pregnancy didn't get this far. It didn't even get to the part where he’d say, yes, I want to be part of the baby's life. It was always him turning away from me and wanting nothing to do with the baby. Maybe it was because I always thought I'd find someone the old-fashioned way, get married and have kids together, just like my parents wanted for Kevin and me.

  “So you just got back yesterday?” I ask, hating the silence that springs between us.

  “Yes, and I've been catching up on stuff… and jet lag.”

  “I imagine this wasn't anywhere near the stuff you were expecting to catch up on.”

  He smiles. “No, but it is what it is. I’m glad you told me.”

  “Are you married?” I ask, glancing at his hands to see that he’s not wearing a ring. Still, I know many doctors who don’t wear them so I still have to ask. “I mean, if you are, then this would really be complicated.”

  “No, I’m not married. Are you?”

  I shake my head. “No, I’m not.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “No boyfriend. You?”

  “Boyfriend? Unfortunately, no.”

  Suddenly we laugh, the tension between us broken. I should have followed it up with the next obvious question but that's when the cab stops right in front of my building, and ignoring my protests, Jordan pays the fare. I don't wait for him to open the door for me, not when the doorman gets to it first, greeting me with a polite smile.

  By the time we make it to my apartment on the sixth floor, I can't help feeling my anxiety grow with each step. What will Jordan say when he sees Piper? How will he react? Should I let Marcia stay, just in case he turns out to be a serial killer? Is this even a good idea? Why didn't I just ask to meet him at the park? Holy shit, but this is a terrible idea.

  My key hovers over the lock and behind the door, I can hear Piper crying. As if in response, my breasts ache. “You know, on second thought, I don't think this is a good idea–”

  The door opens then and there's Marcia with a screaming Piper, her face pressed against the woman's large chest. All second thoughts and doubts fly out the window as the hallway behind me echoes with Piper's screams. Great, just what I need, another neighbor complaining about Piper's crying. Piper's face turns pink and as my panic mounts, I rush into the apartment with Jordan following right behind me.

  “There's your mommy!” Marcia exclaims in a falsetto as she hands me my screaming bundle of joy.

  In my panic, I don't even introduce Jordan to Marcia and he ends up having to do it himself, telling Marcia I'm an old friend. Marcia stares at him and then at Piper, and then back at him again, her eyes narrowing. Piper doesn't just have his eyes. It's the whole package—nose, skin coloring, reddish blond hair—but I don't have time for formalities. Dropping my purse on the dining table, I kick off my shoes and march to the nursery, my world suddenly reduced to just me and Piper.

  Even as Marcia and Jordan are talking, I don't hear them anymore for the only thing that matters is giving Piper the comfort she seeks, the same comfort I seek as I hold her to me. She nuzzles my chest, seeking my breast and I don't even care if Jordan is watching. I sit down in the rocking chair, undo the flap of my pink top followed by my nursing bra before she latches on immediately, her cries turning into contented coos as her little arm reaches to touch my face. How many hours have I lost myself in her eyes knowing somewhere out there, her father knew nothing about her?

  “Would you like to be alone?”

  Jordan's voice snaps me out of my thoughts and I see him standing by the door. Marcia stands behind him, her arms folded in front of her chest.

  “No, that’s okay. Why don't you grab a chair from the dining room and have a seat? I don't mind.” He’s seen every inch of me, even if it was a year ago and he probably doesn’t remember. Marcia disappears from view and brings a chair through the door. Jordan takes it and positions it next to the crib a few feet away from me.

  “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” Marcia announces before leaving me and Jordan alone. She doesn't need to stay but I'm relieved she's not rushing to leave either.

  We don't speak for a few minutes, the only sound in the room is Piper making her usual baby sounds, a combination of cooing and humming as she nurses. When I feel she's finished on one breast, I shift her to the other side and this time, she closes her eyes, settling in with a calmer pace.

  “Did you have to return to work so soon? Didn't you say she's ten weeks old?”

  I force myself not to feel annoyed by his question. Even Kathy had expressed her disapproval at my return to the office, saying that it was too soon to come back. After all, patients could wait and we had other doctors in the practice. But I needed to feel useful again, even if it was just for a few hours a day going over patient reports while my breasts are about to burst with milk. Just two days a week where I actually feel like Dr. Addison Rowe again. Besides, with a two-hour lunch, I had enough time to return home to nurse Piper and go back to consulting patients for the rest of the afternoon. It was a selfish decision but it was either work or go through postpartum depression alone. Harlow helped me through many of those moments, our video calls becoming the highlight of my day, but it was just different being around actual living and breathing people. I was also lonely. Who knew I wasn't cut out to be a single mother after all?

  “I didn’t have to go back. It was my choice. Just two days a week.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” He leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I want to be part of her life, Addy, as her father.” When I don’t answer right away, he continues. “Isn’t that why you texted me a year ago, to tell me and hopefully, ask me if I wanted to be part of her life?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “But what?”

  “I’m sure you have your own life. A girlfriend…”

  “So what if I have my own life? I have a daughter and that’s what matters. She’s part of my life.” He pauses, his gaze drifting lower. “She’s beautiful.”

  “She’s also conked out.” I press my finger against Piper’s chin to unlatch my nipple from her little mouth before covering myself. Then I switch her over my shoulder so I can burp her. Jordan grabs a cloth diaper from a stack on the changing table and getting up from the chair, he arranges it over my shoulder.

  “My cousin had twins two years ago and I used to help babysit. She trained me well.”

  “She sure did,” I say as I rest Piper over my shoulder and pat her back softly. I can smell her baby scent and it’s intoxicating.

  “Do you have any pictures of her you can send me?”

  I look at him incredulously. Should I tell him that there's a folder in my phone with his name on it, with pictures of Piper from the moment she was born, short clips of her sleeping, playing, cooing?

  “Of course.”

  Still carrying Piper, I get up from the rocking chair and make my way to the dining room to retrieve my phone. Before Piper, I was attached to my phone and my laptop. There was always a case to review, another specialist to consult with and who knows what else. But Piper changed all that and all of a sudden, my photo album app exploded with photos of every moment, even the moment when she has to poop. It's almost sad, I remember telling Ha
rlow. Are all mothers like this? But she only laughed and said that she did the same thing, too, only with her, she had two babies to photograph—and a husband whose reactions were just as priceless.

  I wonder if I should be as open about Piper as I am right now with Jordan, but he seemed sincere when he told me he wanted to be part of Piper's life. He could also be jet-lagged and has no idea what he's saying. He could also still be in shock.

  “Are you sure you want me to send you the pictures? There’s a lot of them and this isn’t like a swipe-right kind of thing,” I say as I power my phone with one hand while Piper makes contented noises over my shoulder. She's in some sort of milk coma at the moment although I know she'll probably be up in the next twenty minutes, ready to explore everything around her.

  “I’d swipe right for her anytime,” Jordan says, chuckling as he pulls his own phone from his jeans pocket.

  I see his text message from earlier in the day asking to see me before I send him the first picture. It's Piper right when she was born, with the hospital pink and blue striped hat and squinting. Already she had a light tuft of reddish hair that seemed to stick up although these days, it lays flat on her head.

  I hear Jordan take an intake of breath as the photo shows up on his phone and I send him another, and then another. I decide to limit it to three pictures, not wanting to overwhelm the poor guy. He just found out he's a father and he barely knows me.

  “Are you okay?” I ask as he stares at his phone. Is he hyperventilating?

  Jordan nods. I notice there's sweat on his brow. It's hitting him, the reality that he's a dad.

  “I know this is overwhelming and I understand if you need some time…”

  “It's not every day you find out you're a father,” he murmurs. “Can I see her tomorrow? I'd love to help any way I can. I'm serious.”

  So here come the details. I don't really know how these things work and I remind myself this is nothing like dating. We're past that. We just went from zero to sixty with the whole relationships thing and skipped Go.

  “Before anything else, I want to set some ground rules since I don't want to overwhelm Piper,” I say. “A few hours a week, and then we'll see how it goes from there.”

  Jordan opens his mouth to speak but stops himself. Then he nods. “Fair enough. I was thinking about a DNA test, to be really sure.”

  I frown. “You think I'm lying about her being yours?”

  “No, it's so we can have something legal on paper that says I am her father, and that as her father, I want to be there for her... will be there for her. I want to share in the responsibility of raising her.”

  “Oh.” I take a deep breath. If he really wants confirmation, then he'll have it. We used protection that night. But life is funny like that. You tell it of your plans, like wanting to expand your practice to include dialysis machines—and it decides to get you pregnant and you have to funnel that money toward an emergency fund and a college education instead.

  “DNA test then,” I say coldly. “I’ll make the arrangements and we'll work visitation from there... if she happens to be yours.”

  I didn’t mean to be snippy with Jordan but I couldn’t help it. It’s bad enough that I lied about having Piper through a sperm donor and having nothing to back that claim up. No clinic names or even quips about how the process went to anyone who asked, especially my mother, who has yet to reconcile with the fact that her daughter is a single parent—by choice. It goes against every religious bone in her body.

  But that doesn’t mean her disappointment in me has lessened her love for her granddaughter. On the contrary, I’ve had to limit her time to weekends, when she and Dad stay over my apartment or I stay over at their house in Forest Hills. Mom had initially insisted on babysitting Piper every day, arguing that I'd save a lot of money having her do it than paying Marcia, even if she only comes twice a week. But it would have been impossible for me to think with her around. NY1 would definitely be playing the entire time on TV and then there’d be the constant nagging about why I'm still single.

  And now, with Jordan in the picture, everything feels complicated and I don't know how I'll break the news to them. I lied, plain and simple, and right now, that lie's going to bite me in the ass. Why couldn't he have texted me back a year ago before I had to craft that convenient lie to cover up my one-night stand? Sure, many women have babies through sperm donation but to my mother, I wasn't supposed to be like everyone else. To her, I'm perfect. But then Miss Perfect ended up having a one-night stand and got herself pregnant.

  Chapter Three

  Two days later, Jordan arrives exactly at ten dressed in a checkered shirt over a white fitted t-shirt that hugs his killer abs and biceps, and jeans that do nothing to hide the fact that he does squats—a lot. I’m sure he knows he looks hot but it’s very distracting. I try not to drool, reminding myself that there are more important things to think about when it comes to guys like him, like paternity tests and whether he knows how to change a diaper.

  Kathy usually makes all my appointments but this was one appointment I had to do myself. So after a few calls, I made an appointment for the three of us to get tested at a doctor’s office on the West Side that could do court-approved paternity testing.

  I’ve left my apartment many times with Piper either snug in her wrap or in her car seat but never with a man other than my dad during weekends. It feels so different that when Jordan offers to push the stroller while I’m rummaging through my purse, making sure that I’ve brought everything, I almost freak out before reminding myself it’s okay. He’s just offering to push the darn stroller, not run off with it.

  The sidewalks aren’t crowded at this time of the morning and I like it. Piper probably thinks it’s one of our leisurely walks, although this time, there’s no elevator ride up to the High Line where I walk all the way to the end of the line and back. Sometimes I find an empty bench and read a book while she naps in her stroller or peruse the art at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” Jordan says, breaking the silence between us after we emerge from the subway, coming up the stairs with me carrying the baby carrier and him, the stroller.

  “Yep, a beautiful day for a DNA test.” The words come out before I can stop them and he rewards me with an annoyed glare. I don’t know why I’m being snarky other than I’m nervous. “I’m sorry. This is all so new to me.”

  “And you think that it isn’t for me?” His frown is replaced with a smile when Piper gurgles at him after I set the carrier back in the stroller.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s alright. I understand we’re both stressed right now,” he says. “How long before we find out?”

  “Three days. And from there, based on the results, either your life will change or it won’t.”

  “Addy, my life changed when you told me that Piper’s mine. And honestly, I believe you,” he says. “I do have to tell my family.”

  My heart skips a beat. I knew it! He has a family. A girlfriend and maybe kids. Just because he said he wasn’t married or isn’t wearing a ring didn’t mean he didn’t have kids.

  “Your family?”

  “My parents and my sister, Caitlin. She’s in California but we’re close.”

  I sigh in relief, hating that there’s no filter to my emotions. As if I wasn’t emotional from postpartum depression, I’ve been more emotional since he showed up in my life again. It’s a miracle my clothes coordinate today but as long as I’m wearing all teal with a white print shawl, I’m good.

  “As soon as it’s confirmed that I’m Piper’s father, I’d like to contribute any way I can. I’d also like to introduce you two to my parents. She’d be their first grandchild,” he says as we stop at the intersection, waiting for the WALK sign to flash. Before Piper was born, I jaywalked everywhere like most New Yorkers but ever since becoming a mother, I’ve followed every rule on the street. I even stand behind the yellow line on the subway platform with a death grip
on the stroller handle.

  “Are you guys close?” I ask as Jordan flicks one of the baby’s toys hanging around the carrier handle with his finger, causing the bell to jingle. Piper coos happily and I can’t help but smile. So far, Jordan seems to pass everything on my Who’s Your (Real) Daddy? Questionnaire.

  “Yeah, we are. We’re your normal Irish-American family from Queens, New York. Blue collar and proud of it.”

  “You say it like it’s a bad thing. I grew up in Queens, too, you know.”

  “I do know,” he says, grinning. The WALK sign flashes and he pushes the stroller along the crosswalk. “Forest Hills, right? I remember you telling me that your parents were celebrating their wedding anniversary that night. You were pretty riled up over something when I met you at Polly’s. Like someone pissed you off.”

  “Not just someone but a lot of them,” I say, laughing. “They all did, all because I was still single like it’s a bad thing. I’m sure they meant it in good fun but I wasn’t feeling up to playing their games that night so I bailed.”

  “I think this is it,” he says as we slow our pace before an eight-story office building and I glance at my phone to confirm the address.

  “Yup, this is it,” I say, slipping the phone into my purse. “You ready?”

  He gazes at Piper before turning to look at me. “Yeah. Are you?”

  I take a deep breath and nod. He’s got to be kidding, right? I’ve only been ready for a full year.

  The DNA testing office looks just like any medical office I’ve been to or worked at, with a waiting room filled with too many people and not enough gossip magazines. Jordan finds a chair for me to sit down and stands next to me as we wait our turn. Twenty minutes later, we’re guided into a room where we fill out forms, get fingerprinted and sign everywhere we’re told to sign before they get notarized in front of us. All this while Piper is contentedly sucking on her pacifier in her baby carrier. A technician wearing a white lab coat then comes in, confirms who we are and has us sign on the dotted line again before rubbing the inside of our cheeks with a sterile swab. Piper cries and kicks when it’s her turn, becoming quiet only when I carry her in my arms.