“The baby’s hungry,” he says.
“Yes, she is,” I agree.
“A girl?” Eric asks. “That’s what you’re having?”
I nod. Our eyes meet and he smiles at me again.
“Nice. Got a name for her yet?”
“No. Rand and I always said we’d look at the baby and see what felt right. We each have our own little secret list of favorites though, I’m sure.”
On my list? Chloe, Ella, and Nora. I haven’t asked Rand about his, and he hasn’t said.
“What’s this smoothie?” I ask as I pick up the plastic 20-ounce cup.
“Mango-banana. Real fruit, allegedly.”
“I hope so,” I say, taking a sip. It, like the grilled cheese, is very tasty.
“Why you out here in these streets starving?” Eric asks, playfully. “In your condition, no less.”
“Busy morning,” I say. “Sometimes I don’t stop to take care of the basics like I should.”
“Well, do better, Danielle. You got a family now,” Eric says.
“Yes, you’re right,” I say nodding. “I will. I mean, I do.”
Or at least I thought I did.
~6~
The entire day at work, I couldn’t think straight. I was trying to get through prep for Sunday’s show, but my mind kept drifting back to Dani and the way she looked when I told her I needed to think about whether I want her to legally adopt Rocket. That was the dumbest thing I’ve said in a good, long while. No question.
The thing that threw me, that made things go left was that it came so out of the blue. One minute we’re talking about Faith’s parents—not just Eva, but both of them—staying in our house and the next she’s telling me she wants to adopt Rocket? I mean, it was like Twilight Zone shit. My head spinning in one direction and she just puts a hand on top of it and twirls it in another direction entirely.
Here’s the thing: I hate having Eva in our house. Hate it. Not Eva herself, of course, but having her there. I don’t think I’m going to be able to even get intimate with Dani if Faith’s mother is on the premises. I feel like she’s someone I did wrong. And being in my home, being with someone I love in a way I never allowed myself to love her daughter, and just being … happy feels like I’m doing her wrong again.
And with that in my head, saying to Dani in that moment that she could have Rocket as her son felt like taking just one last thing from Eva and Weston. The one remaining thing that they care about when it comes to my and their daughter’s ill-conceived union—my son. Faith’s son.
It was just a timing thing, that was all. I mean, Dani’s my heart. And the way she loves Rocket is beyond anything I could ever have hoped for or expected. It almost makes me want break out in an ugly, man-cry when I think of how she mustered up the courage to ask me what she did.
And then to have me give her some lame-ass answer about needing to think about it?
So, as I pull into the driveway after the drive home from the New York office, where I generally work during the weekdays, I’m considering how to tell all of this to Dani. That’s when I see the unfamiliar cars. One I think I recognize as belonging to Josette, Eva’s sour friend who doesn’t like me. The second one belongs to who I don’t know.
Sighing, I park off to one side, out of their way, but don’t bother pulling into the garage. I don’t feel like entertaining strangers right now. My domestic situation is already in disarray with one unexpected houseguest.
That’s when I wonder in panic whether it’s Weston. Maybe he’s flown out to see his wife and will greet me in my own living room, his stoic expression in place, masking his dislike of me, no doubt.
But when I open the door and head for the living room, I hear a man’s voice that I can’t immediately place, but which sounds familiar. I am standing in the doorway when everyone turns to look at me.
Dani is on one of the overstuffed armchairs, both her feet on the ottoman. Eva is sitting on the other, her leg elevated as well, still in the soft cast. Next to her is Josette. That’s all within the realm of what I expected.
But what I did not expect is to see Eric, Dani’s old running buddy. The brother who at one point made his interest in my fiancée crystal clear. Granted, she wasn’t my fiancée at the time, but still, that’s not something a man forgets about another man—that he covets what you have. It makes it impossible for me to react to his presence with anything other than rank territorialism.
Standing next to the French doors, just a couple feet away from Dani’s chair, it looks like Eric was taking in my backyard, assessing the premises.
“Hey,” Dani greets me. “You’re home.”
Like where else would I be? I notice she doesn’t say ‘hey, baby,’ like she normally would, but I can’t decide whether that’s because she’s still a little hurt about last night or doesn’t want to use a term of endearment with company present.
“Hey,” I say. “What’s up?” I give Eric a vague chin-up acknowledgment, which he returns.
“Lots of excitement today,” Eva offers.
“Oh yeah?” I go further into the room.
“Eva’s had to reschedule her flight back,” Dani says. “The doctor felt that it was too soon for her to have her leg in the cramped space of an airplane and have weight on it. She has to be off it entirely for at least another few days, maybe a week.”
“And Dani fell down in the store!”
I look around at the sound of Rocket’s voice as he enters the room, shoving past me. He looks animated from sharing this information, like he heard my voice and came charging downstairs just to be the one to share it.
“You what?” I narrow my eyes and start toward Danielle.
“I didn’t fall down,” she says. “I got dizzy, that’s all.”
I crouch next to her chair so we’re eye-to-eye.
“And then people helped her so she could sit down,” Rocket narrates. “And he bought us food, because the baby was hungry.” He points at Eric.
“The baby was hungry?” I repeat, eyes still on Dani.
Her throat bobs as she swallows. I stare at her until she breaks our gaze, then stand and extend a hand to Eric. He takes it and we shake.
“Thanks, man,” I say. “I appreciate it.”
I don’t ask how he happened to be there, though I’m curious. I figure I’ll grill Dani about it later. Just like I’ll grill her about being hungry. Right now, I’m too pissed to explore that line of inquiry, especially with other people around. And I’m too preoccupied with Dani’s and the baby’s health to even think about the specter of Eva being in our house for another week.
“Should you even be down here?” I ask Dani, my voice tight.
“It was just a little fainting spell. That sometimes happens in the healthiest of pregnancies, Rand. It wasn’t as though …”
The look on my face probably silences her, because she stops talking abruptly.
“You want to stay for dinner, man?” I ask Eric.
“Nah,” Eric’s voice is a lazy drawl. “I been here a few hours already. Just makin’ sure my girl’s a’ight. But now the man of the house is here, I’ll be heading out.”
“Lemme walk you to the door,” I say, aware that now I may even be accelerating his departure.
That ‘my girl’ stuff nullified almost all my previous gratitude in one second flat.
Dani tries to stand, but Eric tells her not to get up.
“You take care of yourself, Danielle,” he adds. He leans in to kiss her on the cheek. “And take care of that baby girl.”
For a second it looks like he might touch her belly and I tense, but Dani intercepts the hand and squeezes it. At least she hasn’t completely lost her mind.
I walk Eric to the front door and open it for him. Before he exits, he pauses to look me in the eye.
“I just happened to be in the bookstore looking for some … professional development materials,” he says. “Was a happy accident, running into her like that. Glad I was there to help t
hough.”
I hesitate a moment then extend my hand once again. “Thanks,” I say.
I know this is his way of answering the question he’s smart enough to know that any man would have—how the hell is it you came to be hanging out with my woman in the first damn place?
I almost allow myself to feel genuine gratitude for him, because if he hadn’t told me it was a “happy accident” I might have jumped to other conclusions and that would have undoubtedly led to a fight. Dani might be almost nine months pregnant, but that doesn’t mean I want her making dates—no matter how innocent—with male friends in the middle of the afternoon while I’m at work.
Or at any other time, come to think of it.
“I’ll order something for dinner and go pick it up,” I announce when I go back into the living room. “Are you staying, Josette?”
“You should,” Dani pipes in. “You may as well.”
“Okay, thank you,” she says. “I’ll help get Eva settled for the evening after we eat, and then just …”
I turn to go order, hiding my exasperation. I just want all these people out of my damn house.
I order two roasted chickens, rice and beans, string beans and fried plantains from a Peruvian restaurant near our house and drive over to pick it up. When I return, Josette has set the table for a sit-down meal, trying to be helpful, and I don’t bother telling her that what I had in mind was everyone grabbing a plate and going wherever they felt like eating.
So we all wind up sitting at the formal dining table, passing dishes like we’re family. Rocket sits next to Dani, and I notice that between his own bites, he watches her eat, like he’s checking to make sure she does it. I wonder just how little she’s really eating when I’m not around and feel myself getting angrier at her than I was before.
“Will your mother be coming for the birth to help with the baby?”
We all look up at Josette when she asks the question, and I see that it is addressed to Dani. Dani’s eyes drop again almost immediately.
“No,” she says, her voice steady, but almost studied. “My mother passed away when I was young, so no.”
“Oh.” Josette sounds apologetic. “I’m sorry. I thought …”
“No, it’s fine,” Dani says almost too quickly. “She’s been gone a long time. I was young. Not quite Rocket’s age.”
Eva looks at Dani with interest at this new revelation.
“Then you have no one to be with you in the delivery room,” she says, more a statement than a question.
At that, Dani looks up again. She smiles and then glances at me.
“Rand,” she says. “I have Rand, of course.”
Eva nods briskly. “Of course,” she says, then begins cutting her chicken.
“But a woman,” Josette says. “It’s always good to have a woman. That’s why they have those women now, you know the ones that help the women who want to have natural births? The dou … the what they call ‘em, Eva?”
“Doulas,” Eva supplies.
“Yes, them,” Josette says. “You going to get one of those?”
“I never thought about it,” Dani says. I can tell from the slight tension in her voice that she is a little uncomfortable with the subject. “I guess I just think that women have been giving birth since the beginning to time and we don’t need to make it more complicated than it is.”
“And since the beginning of time, they had other women next to them to help them on through,” Josette says.
She is an argumentative woman. I can tell. She looks like one of those women always primed to take the opposing point of view to the one being expressed.
“Anyone want something more to drink?” I interrupt to take the pressure off Dani.
That question derails the conversation briefly while everyone glances at their glasses to decide how to respond to me. Dani shoots me a glance and in it I recognize her gratitude.
Her mother died of cancer when she was four. She’s told me that all she remembers of her is the smell—of medicine, and of something else that she couldn’t identify at the time, but that she now thinks was death and decay. She says she can’t recall what her mother looked like alive, and so the few pictures she has are like looking at images of a complete stranger.
‘I don’t remember what it feels like to have a mother,’ she’s said. ‘I don’t know what that’s like.’
She told me that the evening after we found out she was pregnant. After a day or so of jubilance and excitement, she had grown pensive. When I asked her why, she explained that learning she would become a mother was the first time in a long time that she realized that not only did she not have a mother, but she also had no supportive maternal figure to help guide her through things like this.
No one wants anything more to drink, but I go get myself a refill anyway, and just moments after I return, Dani and Rocket head upstairs because she says she needs to help him get ready for his bath.
“I hope that wasn’t insensitive of me,” Josette says when Dani is gone.
I look at her and force myself to bite my tongue. But I’m sure that everything I’m thinking is written all over my face.
Eva, Josette and I finish the meal in virtual silence, and after helping me clear the table, Josette bids a hasty retreat.
After I show her out, I’m surprised to come back to the kitchen to find Eva, balancing on one of her crutches, loading the dishwasher.
“You don’t need to do that,” I say rushing to take over the task. “You should be sitting down.”
“No, I want to help,” she insists. “Especially since it looks like I might be imposing on you longer than I had planned to.”
“That’s fine,” I say, not meaning a single word.
I take the dish she was holding from her hands and help her over to sit.
After a moment, feeling her staring at my back, I offer to put on some hot water for tea. She accepts, and I fill the kettle, putting it on the range, under a medium-high flame, hoping that will make it boil quicker, and hence, I’ll have her out of my hair sooner rather than later.
“Randall.”
“Yes,” I say, bracing myself. I don’t turn to face her.
“Your fiancée is a lovely young woman.”
“I know,” I say. I still don’t turn. “Thank you.”
I don’t know why I can’t look at her as I say this. I can only guess that it’s the guilt again. Guilt that I have gone on and am happy. And that Faith died and was not.
“I know that if it was up to you, I would be in a suite in the Ritz-Carlton,” Eva says. But there is laughter in her voice. “Anywhere but here.”
At that, I glance over my shoulder, and there is amusement in her eyes as well. She nods.
“I know,” she says. “And I understand.”
Turning fully, I look at her, waiting. This is it. Whatever she has on her mind, whatever she thinks of me, I am about to hear it. I feel relieved almost. Like the thing I both dread and deserve is finally about to happen—recrimination.
“I would feel the same,” she says. “And if I were Danielle, I would feel even more so.”
“She’s not like that,” I say, just in case Eva is casting doubt on Dani’s genuineness.
“I know. I see it in her eyes. She’s a remarkable person. And I can see why you love her. I can see how much you love her.”
I blink as though she slapped me. It feels wrong to hear this from Faith’s mother. I never loved Faith, and I think her mother knows it.
“I’m not here to cause you trouble, to inconvenience you, or to make you uncomfortable,” Eva continues. “But I see Rocket, and I can’t help it. I want to see every moment of him that I can. Because he is so like his mother in some ways. I see her in him.”
I blink harder. My eyes sting a little. Because I see her, too, sometimes.
“So, I suffer your discomfort and my own. Just to see more of that.”
“Eva,” I begin, not sure where I’m going.
She raise
s a hand. “No, I think I know what you’re going to say.” She stops me just as the kettle begins to rumble, a precursor to the high-pitched whistle.
“What do think I’m going to say?”
“You want to say … that you’re sorry that you didn’t love Faith. Or that you loved her but are sorry you didn’t treat her like you loved her.”
I decide not to confirm or deny that.
“Faith’s father was in the military when I met him,” she says. “He came to Puerto Rico and visited my small village for the beaches when he had a weekend off. I was just a simple girl, who sold fried fish by the side of the road. But he couldn’t take his eyes off me. To me, I was like every other pretty girl in my town. To him, I was special. Just because of how I looked. He knew little Spanish, I knew almost no English …”
I wonder where this story is going, but I don’t stop her.
“My looks were what drew him to me. And I was okay with that. And when he came back over, and over again, it was not because of my sparkling conversation, I assure you.” She smiles at this. “And when he eventually asked to marry me, I doubt it was for love. We were virtual strangers. But I said yes. And I came to the States with him, and I grew to love him. And he grew to love more about me than my looks and my long, dark hair.”
She sits back at that, and I see that she is looking at me as though what she’s said makes her point obvious. At my expression, she probably reads that it isn’t.
“You and my Faith were drawn to each other. I don’t know why. Like me and Weston, I suspect it was not for love. But I believed it would come. When you matured. When she matured. I’m not a romantic. I saw you both, and how it was between you. But I believed the love would come.”
My throat tightens. I didn’t share her belief. But it would be cruel to say so.
“It did not come.” She opens her hands, palms up, and then claps and brushes them together like someone dusting away flour. “There was no time. Maybe it never would have come. Because you young people today are so impatient. Maybe you would have divorced. But I want you to know, I don’t blame you because you didn’t love her. And I don’t blame you because she died.”
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