Boyfriend

by Faye McCray

  We stood still as he rushed back and forth through each room, his sobriety sneaking back in, his senses flooded with reality. His movements became more frantic until he began to pace in front of us, his face distorted in desperation.

  “Oh man!” he yelled. “Oh man.” He collapsed in sobs in front of us. Natalie and I stood frozen at the sight.

  Monsters didn’t cry, I thought watching the tears roll down his unshaven face, slipping through his deep wrinkles, dangling from the tip of his nose and wetting his chin. He looked like a child.

  “Christine,” he muttered again and again.

  Had he loved her?

  “The funeral is tomorrow,” I said. My voice only slightly heavier than the air.

  He looked up at me, grateful. “Can I see her?”

  I nodded, completely unable to speak.

  ***

  In the weeks that followed my mother’s passing, my father sat passively by and watched us handle my mother’s matters. He was often crumpled in a corner or staring into space. At random moments, his face would distort and his eyes would grow wet. He’d pace back and forth with tears streaming down his cheeks, trembling like a wet dog, as if the news were making its way into different layers of his soul and with each layer, the shock was new.

  Natalie and I expected him to return to the bottle quickly, but instead, he remained painfully sober, as if waking up from a slumber that was decades long and finally facing the reality of the life he had created. I wasn’t sure if his sobriety was a conscious decision or if he just no longer had the energy to lift his drinking hand.

  We didn’t have it in us to comfort him.

  The sudden revelation of his humanity left me shocked. There was little I could do or say in his presence. I’d just stare at him and wonder how he could possibly be the same man I grew up with.

  And Natalie.

  Natalie stared hollow point bullets into his newfound humanity. She looked at him as if daring him to regain his composure. Daring him to return to the man he had been.

  Lucky for them both, he remained broken.

  Natalie had seen him once since she left home. On one of her many trips to stare at my parents’ door, she finally decided to head up. My father had stepped out and she and my mother had an awkward conversation about Cole and how precious childhood was. The irony made me laugh out loud. Natalie had described my mother as “seeming like a zombie.” Her eyes vacant. Her words repetitious and monotone.

  “Was she drunk?” I had asked. Natalie shrugged.

  My mother had stopped short of asking to meet Cole just when my father arrived. He looked at Natalie as if he smelled something foul and headed straight to his bedroom.

  “Like I did something wrong to him,” Natalie described to Allison and I when she returned home after her visit. Her fists were balled and hitting her thighs, as if punctuating each tear. Allison wrapped her arms around Natalie and squeezed her tight. I watched them both as I swelled with rage. How could I have left her to be his victim? It was a question I knew would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  After my father arrived, Ma grew very quiet and Natalie gathered some of her old things and left. It was last time she saw her alive.

  I couldn’t even remember the last time I had seen my mother. Or really looked at her. Staring at her still body in the casket at the funeral, I was reminded of all the ways her life was never what it should have been. How all of our lives were not what they should have been. For the first time, I pictured what my mother must have been like as a young woman. When she was my age. Blurred pictures in Aunt Laura’s house told a tale of a tall and curvy beauty. Before she gained the weight and life had dulled her beauty, she had Natalie’s long raven hair and my deep dark skin. During one of their good days, my Dad had likened her to the former model, Naomi Sims. I pictured her meeting my father for the first time, looking at him with all the hope she could muster. I imagined her watching him take a drink for the first time. Him berating her for the first time.

  Him hitting her for the first time.

  I mourned my mother less for who she had been and more for who she once was, who she could have been had life not been so fucked up.

  Allison listened to me in the quiet of the night with her head against my chest and her hand resting on my belly. She understood in ways no one else could. Her mother was also broken. Destroyed well before Allison’s memories began. Having her in my life brought with it the comfort and reassurance of warm soup. Her breaths beside me in the depths of the night were as natural as my own. During the time after my mother died, we grew closer. I spoke to her in ways I had never spoken aloud.

  “We couldn’t have changed them,” she reminded me one night. “We couldn’t have fixed them.”

  I closed my eyes and let her words sink in, hoping to distract any part of me that had ever felt life with parents could have been different.

  ***

  My mother had a small life insurance policy that covered the funeral. Almost a month after she died, Natalie got a letter in the mail from an attorney informing us that our mother had also left us a trust to be dispersed upon her death. The trust consisted of all of Aunt Laura’s assets, practically untouched. To our surprise, my mother had managed to hide her inheritance from my father and transferred it all to our name. Natalie burst into tears when we learned that Aunt Laura’s farm was still in our family. A small stipend for caretakers and incidentals had been deducted each year to care for it. Aunt Laura had saved a great deal of money throughout her lifetime. The inheritance would not make us rich, but if managed right, we wouldn’t have to worry about money for quite some time.

  “She wanted you to have this, too,” the young attorney said handing us a small folded piece of paper with tattered edges, clearly ripped from a notepad. Natalie unfolded the paper slowly and gazed at it, her eyes wilting as she read. She handed it to me. In my mother’s handwriting were the words: “I am sorry. Love, Ma.”

  “She added that a couple of years ago,” The attorney continued. I looked at Natalie who looked back at me, her eyes swimming in tears.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  About six months after we got the money my mother left, Natalie decided to invest in a small brownstone in a gentrifying area of Harlem. I found a modest apartment not too far away, so I could get to her and Cole quickly if they ever needed me. Leaving her and Cole was bittersweet. She hadn’t asked me to, but I knew it was time they had their own space. The time we spent together was necessary. Now that our relationship was better than it had ever been, I knew it was time to move forward.

  My new apartment had an open floor plan with stainless steel appliances and a picture window overlooking other apartment buildings on 11th avenue. It had two bedrooms (one for when Cole visited) and a bathroom that was bigger than my entire room at Natalie’s. Old buttery brown hardwood floors blanketed the whole apartment and creaked when you walked. Most of the walls in the apartment were off-white, but the wall opposite the window in the living room was brick. Allison called it “artsy” and joked that I needed to develop a talent to go with my cool, new place. I told her she had enough talent for the both of us and gave her a key. I didn’t officially ask her to live with me, but I didn’t want her to go home. I had grown so accustomed to her being beside me, I forgot what it was like without her.

  A week after I moved into the apartment I was promoted to supervisor at Gristedes. I made a little bit more money and no longer had to wear a uniform. I felt unexpectedly proud of my new job. It wasn’t what I had envisioned for myself, but it was the first thing in a long time I hadn’t fucked up. The night I got promoted, Allison made us lasagna. She lit candles and drew a bubble bath in the large soaking tub in the bathroom. She could barely contain her excitement after dinner as we stripped down and got in the tub. We sat on opposite ends and laughed like teenagers.

  “This feels so grown up,” she said.

  I smiled, taking a sip of a Corona that I had put on the floor.

  Sh
e picked up the bubble bath bottle from the side of the tub. “I was always jealous of the people that bought bubble bath.” She put it back down and filled her hands with bubbles. “When I was a kid, I used to always dream of being a grown-up and taking bubble baths.”

  I smiled and put my Corona down. I reached out and pulled her towards me so she sat with her legs wrapped around my waist. “That’s how I feel about people who buy those soundscape machines that we have behind the register.”

  “You’re jealous of people that buy soundscape machines?”

  “Not jealous. Well… maybe a little. I’m jealous they have the disposable income to buy it. It’s like they say to themselves: Fuck it, I want to hear crocodiles every night.” Allison laughed. “So they spend thirty bucks or whatever to hear crocodiles.”

  “I don’t think it’s thirty bucks,” Allison said between laughter. “And I don’t think it has crocodiles.” She laughed harder.

  “You know what I mean.” I pushed her hair back from her face and looked into her eyes.

  “Want one for your birthday?”

  I laughed. “Ha. I didn’t make fun of your sad bubble bath confession.”

  She laughed and splashed me. I splashed back. We splashed each other laughing until I grabbed her arms tight. There was water all over the bathroom.

  “You’re too immature for bubble baths,” I teased.

  Her mouth dropped open. “That is the meanest thing you ever said to me.”

  “I’m sorry.” I smiled. I didn’t let go of her arms, but I leaned in and kissed her. We had splashed so much water out of the tub, her breasts were exposed. Her nipples grew hard from the draft. I pulled her closer to me and kissed her harder, travelling down her neck and putting her wet breasts in my mouth. She laughed, running her fingers over my head.

  “What?” I whispered burying my face into her neck

  “This was definitely not how I pictured it as a kid,” she said.

  I laughed and pulled her on top of me.

  ***

  A couple of weeks later, Allison woke me up at 2am clutching something firmly in her hand. She had worked a late shift at Gristedes and was finally taking a few day courses at a local community college. Some nights her days didn’t end until well after I had gone to sleep. It wasn’t unlike her to wake me up when she was in the mood for sex but usually I woke up with her hands in my boxers or her lips at the base of my neck. That night I woke up with her sitting on top of me, knocking on my face with her knuckles like my cheeks were a door.

  “Nate,” she said again and again, continuing to tap her fingers against my face.

  “What?” My eyes adjusted to the light as I rose from where I had peacefully slept beneath my sheets.

  “Are you awake?” I closed my eyes and stretched, expelling a deep yawn and collapsing back on the bed. “Nate!”

  “What? What? Yes, Yes… I’m awake,” I said sitting back up. She smiled and handed me a white stick that she had been clutching. In a small window on the stick were two pink lines. Confused, I looked at her. “What’s this?”

  She looked deep into my eyes, and for a moment, she said nothing.

  “Wait…” I started.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said. “I’m pregnant,” she repeated this time her eyes wide in panic.

  Speechless, I looked at the white stick in disbelief. Allison and I had never used protection, but I was pretty sure she had been on the pill. I looked at her flat stomach and thin frame and wondered how a life could be growing inside her.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “I thought you were on the pill? Were you trying to get pregnant?”

  She stood up in a huff and walked over to the dresser. Irritation creeping onto her face, her skin growing red. “Of course not, Nate. Why would I try to get pregnant? Remember those two days I missed my dose. I told you we should use a condom…”

  “Man,” I interrupted, my mind reeling. I folded my hands above my head and looked around our bedroom. My clothes were thrown everywhere. My dresser was blanketed in unopened mail and Allison’s hats. I pictured the kitchen sink full of dirty dishes.

  I was 24, and I worked at a grocery store. How could I be a father? I barely had it together.

  “I just don’t understand.”

  “What’s there to understand, Nate? We have sex. Sex is how babies are made.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Allison.”

  “Well, what do you mean? I didn’t want this to happen either.”

  I paused for a moment, trying to choose my words as carefully as possible. “If this isn’t what you want,” I began. “You have options.”

  Her head snapped back as if I had slapped her. “What?”

  “I just mean…”

  “I know exactly what you mean, Nate.” She started towards the door. “I’m going to stay with my mom.”

  “Wait.”

  I stood quickly and grabbed her arm. My mind was reeling. I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t know how to convince her that everything would be okay when I wasn’t sure it would be. Her face was balled up in anger, but her eyes were pleading for reassurance. Uncertainty and fear were evaporating from her. I took a deep breath and tried to remember what Natalie told me Cole had done for her. He gave her a chance to make it all right. To make up for all the ways we went wrong. To be everything our parents never were for us. I pictured a son like Cole with his mop of curly hair and Allison’s beautiful eyes.

  Could I make my own child as happy as Cole? Or would I just send another fucked up kid into this world?

  Like me.

  I stared into Allison’s eyes, struggling to push the negative thoughts from rushing back into my head.

  “What, Nate?” Allison asked, still irritated. She pulled her arm from my hand and folded her arms across her chest.

  I looked at her, still unable to find the words. She softened, reaching out and touching my face. I held her hand there, and she smiled, collapsing into my arms as I buried my face in her hair.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered, kissing my neck. I wrapped my arms around her as she pulled me tighter into her embrace.

  ***

  Natalie was thrilled. Allison’s pregnancy seemed to round out the family we were piecing together. She was happy Cole would have a cousin around his age.

  “You know this means you have to put a ring on it,” she said, only partially joking. I practically choked on the bagel I was eating.

  Natalie told me she liked who I was with Allison. She thought I had never seemed more at peace. Although I knew she was probably right, I was also scared. As much as I wanted to be different for Allison and the child we were having, I wasn’t sure if I knew how. I had a pretty consistent track record of fucking things up. Especially when I was supposed to be at peace.

  Natalie had her own reasons for playing Cupid. She was falling head over heels for some dude named Max, a medical student at Columbia University, which was located just a few blocks over from her salon. They had seen each other at a nearby Starbucks about a half a dozen times before finally exchanging numbers.

  “We always ordered the same thing. A Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte with extra foam,” Natalie swooned. “One day, Max took the one that was labeled ‘Natalie’ and I took the one that said ‘Max.’ So, we finally spoke.”

  “Aww,” Allison said smiling.

  I knew it was getting serious when Natalie let Max meet Cole. After that, I knew I had to meet him. Natalie finally agreed to let us meet her and Max for lunch while Cole was in daycare during a day we were all working. We met at a pizza shop not too far from Columbia that had jumbo pizza slices. Allison was a little over two months pregnant and had not stopped talking about the place since we’d gotten up that morning. She was barely showing but morning sickness had been kicking her ass. She hadn’t been holding much of anything down but something about the thought of eating those jumbo slices of pizza had her practically salivating.

  “Seriously, Nate. I thin
k I may eat two slices. My mouth is like, watering, just thinking about it,” she said again, touching her mouth. I took her hand as we rounded the corner into the pizza shop.

  “You better be careful. You don’t want the baby to start running out of room,” I joked poking her belly lightly and holding the door for her as she walked in.

  “You think I’m getting fat?” She stopped at the entrance to the restaurant and stared at me, her mouth in a pout.

  I sighed. No matter how I answered this question, I was in trouble.

  “Hey!” we heard from inside the shop. Natalie stood up at a table, gesturing for us to come over. Relieved, I clutched Allison’s hand and pulled her towards the table.

  Beside Natalie stood a petite woman in blue scrubs. She wore black framed glasses and her hair was cut close to her scalp. She wore about four or five tan leather bracelets on her wrists; they popped against her dark brown skin.

  “Oh wow…” Allison muttered under her breath as we approached. I could have sworn Natalie had said Max was a guy.

  “This is Max,” Natalie said as we approached. We could have at least gotten a heads up, I thought shooting Natalie a look. Her eyes gleamed playfully. I shook Max’s hand and Max smiled. We all sat.

  “I would say we heard a lot about you, but Natalie seemed to have missed some key things,” I said laughing. Allison nudged me hard in my side.

  “Turns out, I’m gay,” Natalie said throwing her hands up and wiggling her fingers like she was performing a cheesy jazz number.

  “So am I,” Max offered smiling.

  Allison laughed.

  The lunch went well. Maxine “Max” Cooper was originally from Tennessee. She was in her final year at Columbia and would start her residency with Cornell after she graduated. She was obviously smart, but she was also the type of person who only said the words that needed to be said. She took in our interactions and dynamics with a small smile on her face, interjecting dry wit that most times went over everyone’s heads.

  Most importantly, Max adored Natalie. At that first lunch, I watched as she touched Natalie’s back softly and got up to refill Natalie’s cup when she finished her soda. I also watched Natalie watch her, her eyes glowing, clearly smitten with her new girlfriend. Seeing my sister with a woman would take some getting used to, but seeing Natalie happy made me happy. No matter who she was with.