by Alyse Zaftig
“Wow.” Bianca cleared her throat. “So what’s going to happen to your ex?”
“Nothing. His daughter is the center of his life. I made something out of pink yarn that is now so much yarn confetti.” I was a little sad about it. “Anyway, do you have a sonogram or something of your kid?”
“Sending it to you now.” There was a little chirp from my phone.
“Doesn’t look like much.”
“Sonograms don’t show very much, just a little blip.”
I frankly couldn’t see a baby in it. It was just a bunch of black and white. “Cool.”
“You can’t see the baby, can you? Dex couldn’t either.”
I smiled. Bianca was perceptive that way. “I can’t really see the baby.”
“When I’m further along, I’ll send you another sonogram.”
“I have to go. My mom is calling me for lunch.” She was doing no such thing, but it hurt to talk to Bianca about her pregnancy.
“Talk to you later.” She hung up the phone, seeing that I didn’t want her to pry any further. I wasn’t sure what Logan was to me. He wasn’t just a fling, but that was essentially what we’d had. I was going to stay in my own bedroom from now on. It was confusing to reconnect with an old flame.
“Did I hear you say lunch?” Mom bounded into my room. “I can make you fettuccine alfredo.”
“I’d love some.” Mom made it with an extreme amount of cheese, which she’d done since I was a little kid.
“Coming right up. Come into the kitchen and talk to me.”
“I was going to rest.” I gestured at the bed. “Annabelle is a ball of energy, and I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Okay.” Mom left the room to go find the three cheeses that she made alfredo sauce with. She always loved cooking new twists on old classics. She knew, with the mood I was in, that fettuccine alfredo was going to hit the spot.
When she called me for lunch, I sat down and twirled the pasta politely around my fork while chattering with my parents.
“How did it go?” asked my dad. I didn’t really know what to say to him.
“I went to the museum with his kid yesterday. He has a family membership, so it’s free for me to go in with them.”
“And did you enjoy it?” my dad asked between bites of fettuccine alfredo.
“I did. The museum is set up so that people of all ages can enjoy it.” I lifted one shoulder and dropped it. “But it all came to a halt because she got too confused.”
“Confused about what, honey?” my mom inquired.
“She wanted to know if I was getting married to Logan.”
My parents shared a look. “And what did you tell her?”
“Probably not.”
“Back in high school, we thought you might get married to your high school sweetheart.”
“It didn’t work out.”
“No, he went to Michigan and got married to someone else. But you know I’ve kept tabs on him, honey.”
“He has a life without me. I have a life without him in New York.”
“There are such things as long-distance relationships,” my mom pointed out gently.
“Not for me,” I countered.
“We’d love to see you back in Indiana.”
“Mom, just because it’s a digital-first publishing company doesn’t mean that I can just pack up everything and move home.”
“It was just a suggestion. Don’t bite my head off, young lady.”
“Sorry, Mom.” I shook my head. “I’ll chalk it up to some vacation shenanigans and call it a day.”
My dad settled in and ate his pasta without saying anything more. I felt like my parents were pressuring me to pursue something with Logan. I felt like I was in a funk. I only had two days with Logan, but I felt like the time had been longer. It was so easy to be here in Indiana. In some ways, I felt like I’d never left. There were more roundabouts than when I was growing up, but otherwise people and places seemed to have stayed the same. I felt a little nostalgia for how easy life had been when I was a teenager and the only thing I cared about was getting into a good college. Kelley had given me the opportunity to stay close to home while being far enough away to have some independence. Bianca’s call reminded me of the life that I had in New York. I’d probably be there the night that the baby was born. I imagined that Dex was going over the top with baby planning.
I finished my pasta and went back to my room. Now, more than ever, I wished that I had access to my email again. I was not used to having nothing on my plate. I was constantly in charge of making sure the show went on; without my email, I actually had to relax. I had a Kindle with tons of books to read. I opened up an old favorite, a Tamora Pierce book about wolves, and dove right in. Reading was always an immersive experience for me; it was my vice and my main hobby, which was why my business made a lot of sense to anyone who knew me well.
My mom called me for dinner just as Bianca sent me a sonogram shot again, this time from a different angle. She had helpfully circled the baby in this one, but seriously, I didn’t know how doctors and nurses could tell anything apart from the uterus around the baby. We had leftover fettuccine alfredo and I sighed.
“That was a big sigh,” my mom observed as she ate some of her fettuccine alfredo. “What was it about?”
“Bianca sent me a picture of her sonogram today. She and Dex are having a baby.”
“Can I see it?”
“Yeah, of course.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and gave it to my mom. “She had to circle the baby, because in the earlier sonogram she sent, I couldn’t see the fetus.”
My parents shared a look. “I see,” said my mom carefully. Then I focused on eating my fettuccine alfredo as quickly as I could to get away from their questions.
I felt bad for not talking to my parents much, but they weren’t that chatty normally. I talked to them fairly regularly, so there wasn’t much to catch up on. I went back to my room to read more of my book.
My birthday was tomorrow. My mom had already asked me what kind of cake I wanted weeks ago; I didn’t have an answer. We used to get fruit tarts from Marsh, but now that Kroger was there, I didn’t know if they made the same kind of pastries. I was fine with sheet cake, but I wondered what my dad could eat with his newly diagnosed diabetes. I wondered if they made sugar-free cheesecake. When my dad was first diagnosed, I went and looked up a lot of snacks. There were things called fat bombs made of cream cheese. Maybe we could make something special at home. It was kind of a bummer to give up on the fruit tarts that we normally had. Mom didn’t like sheet cakes because it was too sweet for her. With diabetes, I guessed that fruit tarts would be out of the question.
I wandered out of my room to talk to Mom, who was loading the dishwasher. “What are we going to do for cake tomorrow?”
“Either you and I can get a cake for two, or we can bake something with a sugar substitute at home.”
“I saw a recipe for fat bombs.”
“What are those?”
“It’s just peanut butter, cream cheese, and a sugar substitute blended together at room temperature and frozen for two hours.”
“That doesn’t sound too hard.” Mom looked at me and said, “Do you have the recipe?”
I pulled it up on my phone and handed it to her. “I guess that’s what we’ll have for your birthday. Thanks for being flexible, honey.”
“I want Dad to be able to participate,” I said. “I’m hardly going to eat cake in front of a diabetic.”
“Kroger doesn’t have the same kind of pastries, sweetheart. Your dad would love a fruit tart, but he can’t have them right now.”
“I’m okay with it,” I replied.
“You know I love having you around, but I have to ask why you’re home so early. You could have come home tomorrow. I thought you liked spending time with Logan.”
“Annabelle doesn’t want me there anymore,” I said in a flat tone of voice.
“Oh.” My mom shook her head. “W
ith kids, you never know.”
I felt more sadness wash over me. “I’m going to turn in soon.”
“Sure, honey.” She gave me a hug. “We’re always right here for you.”
I loved my parents even though they were old-fashioned in a lot of ways. My mother thought automatically that I would be regularly sleeping with Logan if I slept over at his house. The first night had been spent in the guest bedroom. I’d sleep-walked all my life. I knew I was probably too hesitant to sleep with him again so soon otherwise.
“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Candace. Happy birthday to you.” My mom didn’t bother with candles when it came to the fat bombs, but she’d rolled them in cocoa nibs so we had something my dad could eat. I bit into the cold fat bomb; it tasted like chocolate and peanut butter cheesecake.
All my friends, including Bianca, were back in New York; I hadn’t spoken to my Hoosier friends in years. It was so easy to lose touch nowadays, especially since I could pretend that hitting Like on a Facebook post was contact. My birthday was just my parents sitting down with me and celebrating my thirtieth birthday.
It was easy to envy my friends who had kids. They had more people who loved them to celebrate their birthdays with. I wished that things hadn’t gotten so weird at Logan’s house. He had already texted me happy birthday this morning without any mention of anything else.
After kissing both of my parents on the cheek, I went back to my bedroom and cried myself to sleep as silently as I could. Maybe tomorrow would be better.
Chapter 17
Two Months Later
“You look like shit.” Bianca’s greeting was blunt and went straight to the point. I was back in New York now and had been acting like a zombie. At first, my assistant plunked down everything that had been piling up while I was away. I’d had to catch up with a week’s worth of work while handling the incoming work. Bianca had asked me out for brunch on a Saturday; I’d accepted because I didn’t know what else to do with myself if I didn’t put my head down and keep going on the barrage of emails that always accumulated every day.
“I haven’t been sleeping well.” Understatement. I kept having dreams about Logan. I wished I could go back to Indiana and sleep in his bed again.
“Do you want to see more sonogram pictures?”
“Okay.” Bianca fiddled with her phone for a little while before handing it to me. She had a whole album marked “Baby”; it had a lot of sonogram pictures.
“Cute.” I didn’t know what else to say. The baby wasn’t real to me; Bianca’s stomach looked the same as ever.
“Dex has been buying baby books to read to the baby. I told him that the baby isn’t even born yet and can’t read. He or she won’t be able to for a few years, but he read something about making sure that the baby is surrounded by books.”
I had no idea when little kids started to read. “Do kids read around five?”
“Something like that.”
“He’s really starting the baby early, then.”
Bianca beamed at me and gently rubbed her stomach. “I’m okay with it. He’s been reading parenting manuals; my mom told him that kids don’t come with a manual, but he has bought enough of them to say definitively that kids do come with manuals. There are a lot of books about how to be a dad now.”
“Your mileage may vary. I have no idea how good any dad manuals are. I’ve been reading parenting magazines for a long time, though.”
Bianca took a sip of her water. “What about you? What have you been doing?”
“Work.”
“What about your vacation fling?”
I shrugged at the question. “He hasn’t been in touch.” He hadn’t called me. I was holding myself back from initiating with him. I knew that Annabelle was much more important than me.
“You can contact him, you know.”
“I know.” I took a sip of my own water. “But it was just a fling.”
“Having a vacation fling doesn’t leave you looking like death. There are huge circles under your eyes.”
I touched one of the bags under my eyes. “I know.” I didn’t have much more to add, really. My vacation had been relaxing in some ways, but it was straight back into the grind when I came back. “I’ve been so stressed out I didn’t have my period this month.”
“There’s more than one reason to skip a period.” Bianca frowned at me. “Did you use protection?”
“Protection?” I thought back; my cheeks grew warm. “No.”
“Are you on anything?”
“You know that before my fling, there were cobwebs up there. So no.”
“I can give you the name of a good OBGYN.” Bianca touched her stomach again. “Dex found the best one in New York. She doesn’t see new patients, but she made an exception for me when Dex talked to her. I’m sure she’d love to see you.” Bianca rubbed her stomach with a circular motion. “I’m starting to get to the point where I need to buy maternity clothes. Do you want to go shopping?”
“No.” My stomach was cramping, thinking about being accidentally pregnant. “I think I need to get some peace of mind by going and getting a pregnancy test from the nearest Duane Reade.”
“I can come with you, if you want.”
“I’d rather do this on my own, thanks.”
“What will you do if you’re pregnant?”
“I have absolutely no idea.” I shook my head. “Let’s order.” I had stuffed blueberry French toast; she had strawberry pancakes that were enormous.
“How is your business doing?”
“Books are always the same, day in and day out.” I shook my head at her. “I have gotten better at predicting the ones that will shoot to the top of the charts now, but you already knew that. We get an ever-increasing number of submissions to our acquisitions editors. It takes a lot of sifting to find the gems, but I love my business, you know that.”
We talked a little bit about Dex and the baby, but I was a million miles away. I sat still throughout our brunch, but I was breaking out in a cold sweat. Could I be pregnant?
After we paid the check, I walked to the nearest Duane Reade and bought a pregnancy test. I had been swept away by passion when I woke up in Logan’s bed. We hadn’t stopped to use protection that night. I walked home with the pregnancy test and went to pee on a stick. I waited five minutes for the result to come back.
Two lines. I was pregnant.
Chapter 18
I immediately called Bianca. “You’re psychic.” I heard her gasp.
“Wait, are you for real? How many times did you…”
“Just once was enough.”
“Damn.” I heard a rustle. “So you’re telling him, right?”
“Probably not.”
“You’re insane.” I could hear Bianca rolling her eyes. “You have to tell him.”
“I can’t hear you.” I shifted my phone to speakerphone so I could take a picture of my positive result. “I’ll just be a single mom.”
“What, like that’s so easy?”
“I have enough money to do it.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” She paused for a moment. “I can get Dex to tell you why it’s a bad idea to separate a child from his or her father.”
“Hard pass.” I switched my phone to the other side again. “I don’t need to talk to Dex to get a male perspective. Logan lives in Indiana and has a kid. I live in New York and will for the foreseeable future.”
“You can work on your business from Indiana. Your assistant may have cut you off from email, but it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t do what you do from Indiana.”
“My mentors are here. The publishing business is here. You’re acting like it’s simple to uproot my entire life.”
“It’s not going to be easy, that’s for sure. But didn’t you say something about how much you think Indiana is family-friendly once? Best county for something or other.”
“Hamilton County has been rated as the best county to raise a family
in.” I shook my head. “But my poor kid isn’t going to go through the rite of passage where he or she gets a driver’s license at age 16 and a month.”
“You could handle it,” Bianca added confidently. “I know you could.”
“I’d have to want to do it,” I corrected her. “And I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“My entire life is rooted in New York.”
“So? People move.”
“I’m not giving up my life for Logan’s idyllic lifestyle. He hasn’t contacted me much since I left.”
“You’re both being way too proud here.” Bianca stopped again. “Why don’t you text him to see if he wants to talk to you?”
“No.”
“I will call Dex right now.”
“Fine.” Bianca knew which buttons to push. “I’ll text him for a picture of Annabelle. Bye.”
I texted him something brief to ask about how Annabelle was doing. My phone chirped immediately. He had sent a picture of her dressed in a pink tutu and sitting down at her little tea party set with a crown on. He had a simple caption.
Missing you.
I didn’t know what to say to him. Surely it would be strange to tell him, “By the way, I’m having your kid.” We had only hooked up once.
I want to see you when I come back to Indiana.
When?
Don’t know yet.
I felt my stomach, which still didn’t show anything beyond its normal softness. Before I went back for my thirtieth birthday, it had been years since I’d stepped foot on Indiana soil.
Maybe soon. Annabelle’s been asking if you’ll come to her birthday party. She’s turning four.
When is it?
Another week.
I could send a present to Annabelle’s birthday party, of course. I had a lot to do in New York. But surely I could make time in my schedule to smell the roses, which I was really horrible at. I touched my stomach again. When my little one made his or her way into the world, he or she would take up a lot of time. My assistant had done a great job while I was away. I needed to promote her to assistant director or something and let her take more of the load off of me. I was bad at delegation; she mostly just watched what came in my inbox and did whatever she could. I needed to properly train her to take over most of my day-to-day responsibilities so I only did big-picture things.
