by Dina Silver
“Hello?” I answered breathlessly.
“Is this Sydney Shephard?”
“Speaking.”
There was a pause, filled only with Grace’s shrieks in the background. “Sydney, this is Kevin Hansen’s mother, and I’d like to speak with you about my granddaughter.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
grace
You can’t very well look your mistake in the eye and say — don’t make the same mistake I did. So growing up, my mother always had to find new and less offensive ways to warn me about safe sex once I reached high school.
“Do you want to have the talk?” she’d ask me.
“Nope, I’m good.”
“Listen, Grace, obviously, I hope you’re not having sex yet at your age, but I’m not naïve. Just please don’t forget that there are many, many reasons to protect yourself besides getting pregnant, such as STD’s.”
“But getting pregnant would be worse, right?” I liked to torture her, purely for my own enjoyment.
“You’re not funny.”
“I’m kidding, it’s just that look on your face is priceless.” I gave my mom a squeeze and lifted her off her feet. Something else I enjoyed doing for sheer maniacal reasons. Once I crossed five-foot-ten, she was doomed to be my rag doll.
I had my first real boyfriend in high school when I was almost seventeen. His name was Nick, and his family was Italian. My dad always said that Italian boys are only after one thing.
“What’s that, Dad?” I’d inquire.
“The same thing every other boy is after,” he’d say.
“Then why does him being Italian matter?”
“It just does.”
Nick and I had been dating for a few months when he asked me to the senior prom. I was thrilled to have a date, and also thrilled to spend the night out with Nick. My mom agreed to let me go along with four other couples after the dance to Nick’s family’s vacation home in Michigan. It was about an hour drive from downtown, but the boys had all split the cost of a limousine, so no one would be driving.
Nick came to pick me up that night around six-thirty. He had the obligatory corsage, which I told him I would not wear, and he was wearing a rented tuxedo with Converse high-tops. I greeted him at the door; his forehead was moist and shiny.
“You’re sweating,” I said.
“Am I?” he asked and wiped his brow with his cuff. “Where are your parents?”
“Inside, camera poised,” I said and watched the moisture turn to actual beads of water. “Would you relax?”
“Let’s just get this over with and get out of here.”
“My plan exactly.”
We went into the den, where my parents horribly acted like they were just reading and watching TV, and hadn’t heard the bell.
“We’re leaving,” I announced.
“Not so fast, smart ass,” my mom stood and grabbed her digital camera off the white laminate side table. “You look very handsome, Nick.”
“Thank you ma’am.”
“If you write your mom’s email down, I’d be happy to send these pictures to her,” my mom offered.
“Thank you ma’am.”
My dad looked at me with a raised brow.
“Make it quick, Mom, we have friends waiting on us,” I said in my best teenage vibrato.
Before Nick arrived, my mom asked me if she could get a picture of us in front of the fireplace, and in front of the house. But once we all saw how nervous he was, she relented and agreed to front of the house only. Nick wiped his forehead no less than twelve times and then followed the two of us outside. My dad trailed behind with a silly grin, and his hands in his pockets, while Patch came bounding up from the basement with a video game controller in his hand, and a smart ass look on his face.
“Over there, by the rose bushes, if you don’t mind,” Mom pointed.
“Of course, ma’am.”
I slapped my forehead. He was acting so strange.
We turned and faced my parents, Dad grinning and relaxed, Mom with the camera covering her face.
“We’re done,” I said after about four takes. My mom gave me an annoyed look, and I grabbed Nick’s damp hand.
“You two have fun tonight, and no alcohol,” Mom said. Sure she wasn’t naïve.
“Yes ma’am, we will.”
My mom handed her camera to Dad and gave Nick a hug. “Please, call me Sydney.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Sydney
“Sydney, are you there?” Kevin’s mom asked me over the phone. Shockingly enough, I heard Kendra’s knock at the door over Grace’s hollering, and ran to let her in. I shoved a jar of baby food in Kendra’s hands, along with a rubber tipped spoon and disappeared to the bedroom.
“Yes, I’m still here, how did you get my number?”
“I got it from my son,” she said to my surprise. “I apologize if I’ve alarmed you, but Kevin’s father and I just learned that he has a child. With you.”
I sat on the floor at the foot of my bed. “Yes, he does. Her name is Grace,” I told her, head spinning. Why was this woman calling me? What could she possibly want? My apartment was quieter once her majesty was eating; however, that phone call did nothing to calm my nerves.
“Oh, Grace,” Mrs. Hansen cooed. “What a beautiful name.”
“Thank you,” I said and began to perspire. “What can I do for you?”
“The reason for my call is that I’m wondering if you would allow me and my daughters to come and meet Grace, and you? As you can imagine, this blessed news came as quite a shock to our family, and it has been a very painful and confusing two weeks over here.”
Her phone call was equally jarring. “Are you in Chicago?” I asked.
“No, dear, we live in Los Angeles.”
Grace was nearly a year old, and I hadn’t received so much as a postcard from Kevin. I’d called him three months before she was born, to let him know that I was having a girl, but never got any reply. Then, after almost two years had passed since he had any knowledge of my pregnancy, he decides to admit everything to his mother.
“Mrs. Hansen…”
“Please, call me Lynne.”
“Lynne, I have no problem with you coming to visit us, and it would be my pleasure to introduce you to Grace. But I don’t know whether you realize or not that Kevin has had no contact with me since the day I told him I was pregnant. So I’m a little surprised and curious as to how this phone call has come about.”
She sighed. “Let me just say that Kevin’s father and I are not proud of his choices in this matter, and Kevin has been frank with us about his lack of involvement. That being said, I’m not here to speak for him, or make excuses for him; I am solely interested in meeting my granddaughter.”
He was frank with them? I highly doubt they know the extent of his cruelty, but I wasn’t going to further tarnish his image to the kind woman on the phone with me.
She continued before I could speak. “So, if it’s alright with you, Kevin’s three sisters and I would like to come to Chicago and see the both of you. I realize you are a new mother, but a mother nonetheless, and hopefully you can understand how much it would mean to me to be able to meet Grace in person.”
Most days, I did my best not to think about Kevin Hansen, but I’d be lying if I’d said I never thought about the questions Grace might have one day concerning her father and his family. Questions about relatives whom I’d never met or knew anything about. I figured the day would arrive when she’d come to me with those difficult inquiries and eager hopes of finding her roots. I mean, it wasn’t like she was adopted and I had no way of locating her biological parents. I knew exactly who her father was; only he wanted nothing to do with her. Wouldn’t that be much harder to explain? But there I was, faced with a woman who was obviously as eager and hopeful as Grace would be one day to meet her distant relative. “It would be my pleasure,” I said.
“Oh, thank you my dear,” she sniffed. “We would like to come out as soon as p
ossible. Would just after the New Year be alright?”
“I can’t see why not, I will double check my calendar and get back to you if there is a problem, but I’m sure that’ll be fine.”
“Wonderful, we simply cannot wait to meet both of you.”
“I look forward to it.”
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Lynne,” I said and hung up the phone.
Kendra slowly opened the door to my bedroom with a much happier version of the ravenous devil child in her arms.
“What’s with the greeting at the door?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry about that…it was just KEVIN’S MOM on the phone.”
“No shit!” she said, and we stared at each other, mouths wide. “What the hell?”
I tossed the phone on the bed and took Grace from her. “She wants to come here with his three sisters and meet Grace. Apparently, his family was just informed that he has a child.”
“You’re joking.”
“You know I’m not.”
“So…what did you say?”
“I said that I’d be happy to meet them and introduce them to Grace,” I said and balanced my daughter on my hip.
“When are they planning on coming?” she asked.
“After the holidays, first week of January.”
“Did you tell her what a shit her son has been?”
“I think she has some idea. She said she was ashamed of his behavior, but that she wasn’t going to make excuses for him.”
“Well someone should.”
Kendra and I walked back out to the couch, and I placed Grace in the center of her play mat with seven different toys, each one brighter than the next.
“I have to call Jenna, she’s going to die when I tell her that Kevin’s mom just called me.”
“You should call Mom first and get her take on this, it seems a little creepy to me,” Kendra said.
“I know Kevin’s been a complete ass but he comes from a decent family, and prior to him shunning me, we were good friends,” I said, reminiscing. “He really was one of my favorite people at one time.”
“Well I wouldn’t look at this reunion as any sort of way to get his attention. He’s shown his true colors, and I just want you to be careful.”
“Thank you, but I have no grand illusions of him coming back into my life, in any way, shape, or form.”
“Sydney, there must be a part of you that wishes, at least for Grace’s sake, that he would step up and acknowledge her. And just because he’s come clean with his family, doesn’t mean he’s going to do right by you, is all I’m saying,” she said, and she was right.
There were many nights I sat alone feeling sorry for Grace, that she would grow up without a father, and one day learn why. How could she not take his rejection personally? There was a part of me that always assumed he’d come to his senses and feel the need, if not the obligation, to foster a relationship with her.
“I know, you’re right,” I agreed. “Maybe we should call Mom and see if she has a book on this.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Ethan came into town the morning of December 23rd, but I didn’t get to see him until late afternoon on Christmas day. We both had family obligations to attend to but were able to meet up at my apartment around five o’clock that afternoon.
“I come bearing gifts,” he said and kissed my cheek before entering.
“We love gifts!”
He handed me two boxes, one about the size of a shoebox and the other about half the size of the first one. “No jewels this time, just a little something,” he prepared me.
I opened the little box first, which was addressed to Grace. Inside was the cutest, smallest pair of pink fuzzy slippers I’d ever seen. “They’re adorable!”
“You like?”
“Ethan, they are so cute, we love them,” I said, then unwrapped a matching pair for myself in the larger box.
I’m not sure why, but I was hesitant to tell Ethan about Kevin’s family coming the following week. I guess I figured that any time Kevin’s name was mentioned, all he would picture was the two of us having sex. It was my own twisted theory, of course, and Ethan had never said anything that would’ve made me feel that way, but I hated the thought of mentioning Kevin’s name around him.
“Do you want to stay the night?” I asked. “I can’t promise you won’t be woken up by the sweet sounds of a baby demanding something of me around two a.m., but we’d love to have you.”
“Sure,” he shrugged.
Ethan spent the night on the couch, stayed through the next day, and then one more night before heading back out of town. We had a few flirtatious, tender moments but never kissed, and I never mentioned anything about Kevin’s mom.
Since I worked in a hotel, which was open 365 days a year, Midge couldn’t afford to have her entire staff off on New Year’s Day. So Trevor, Keri and I were told to choose between New Year’s Day, January 2nd, and January 3rd as our day off. Trevor basically teared up while begging us for New Year’s Day, and once I knew of Mrs. Hansen’s plans, I settled for January 3rd as mine. The day Grace would meet her new grandmother.
My mom had been a little wary when I first told her the news that Kevin’s mom wanted to come visit us, but then she thought about it and felt a great deal of admiration for what Mrs. Hansen had done. Mom said she could appreciate where Kevin’s mom was coming from, and complimented her integrity and desire to do the right thing. She went on to say that if she found out she had a grandchild somewhere on this earth, that she, too, would do everything in her power to unite herself with that baby, and I should go out of my way to make Mrs. Hansen and her daughters comfortable in my home. She also informed me that serving them anything less than a erudité platter, a port wine cheese ball and iced tea would be an embarrassment.
“Be sure the dishes are put away, and that you also have a pitcher of ice water on the counter with at least six clean drinking glasses,” she instructed.
“Yes, Mom.”
“Don’t be patronizing, Sydney, I think you should consider yourself very fortunate that his mother has reached out to you in this way.”
The morning Kevin’s family was due to arrive, Grace was sitting on the floor chewing the ear of her white chenille dog, the one that had a blanket for a torso, while I attempted to wipe the stickiness off a variety of surfaces around the apartment. I was not really nervous, just hoping that they would be kind, and brief.
The doorbell rang fifteen minutes before I was expecting them, so I scooped Grace up into my arms and opened the door.
Standing there were Kevin’s mom, Lynne, and his three sisters: Gabrielle, Sharon and Katherine. Their eyes went immediately to Grace, then to me.
“Hi,” I broke the ice. “I’m Sydney, obviously. Please come in.”
They filed in to my tiny apartment with bags of wrapped gifts and groceries.
“Well, this here is little Gracie,” I said in a high-pitched childlike voice that charmed my daughter, as I hoped.
Kevin’s mother moved in slowly and carefully. “May I?” she asked permission.
“Of course.”
As Lynne Hansen took her granddaughter from me and into her arms, she burst into tears and wept for nearly three hours straight.
Sharon, who was a year younger than me, asked if she and her sisters could show me what they’d brought. I said yes, and offered them some ice water before sitting down by the couch. I didn’t really have any extra money to spend on hors d’oeuvres, like my mother had demanded, so Keri suggested I put out a bowl of M&M’s next to the water glasses and call it a day.
“You guys didn’t have to bring us anything, thank you,” I said, overwhelmed by their generosity.
“This has been very difficult, yet very exciting for our family,” Sharon said. “We just wanted to do something nice for you, and Grace.”
She didn’t have to say that, but it was genuinely nice to hear.
Katherine continued. “We don’t want to dwell on Kev
in, but we all want you to know that we feel blessed to have this opportunity, and cannot thank you enough for allowing our mother to spend this time with Grace.” Katherine was the oldest of the three, and recently engaged.
I smiled at them, and felt equally fortunate. “It’s my pleasure, I’m happy to meet all of you,” I paused, and watched Grace touch Lynne’s tear-stained faced as she was being swung around in her grandmother’s arms. “And I’m glad for Grace…to have so much love around her.”
“She’s absolutely beautiful, Sydney,” Katherine said.
“Thank you, she’s a really good baby.”
Sharon pointed at the gifts. “Let’s get to the goods!”
I tore through the gifts they brought like a five year-old girl at her birthday party.
A pink denim jacket, pink cowboy hat, pink sneakers, black patent Mary Janes, two pink teddy bears, a stuffed puppy with lavender ears, a wooden stool with GRACE carved into it, three bibs with witty remarks, two onesies, and a hand-made picture frame with a photo of the four women who were sitting in my apartment at that moment.
By the time we’d finished the gifts, the M&M’s, and three albums filled with photos of Grace’s first year, it was almost four-thirty in the afternoon and Grace had nodded off in the arms of Lynne Hansen.
“You’ve rendered Grace and I speechless,” I said. “Thank you so much, I’m overwhelmed.”
