For Our Son: A BWWM Parenting Romance For Adults (5 page)

"Teaching?" Ryan was surprised. "You? I thought you were
going to be a lawyer or the next corporate wonder or something."

Grace laughed. "That’s what everyone says. But that was something
my parents wanted more than me. I’m more interested in…"

"Art?" Ryan completed her sentence.

"How’d you know?"

"You used to talk about it all the time."

It was one of the few references to a time when Ryan and Grace were
together, as a couple. It seemed like a million years ago, but at the same
time, just like yesterday.

Grace was about to say something else about her choice of career when
someone came up and stood next to the table. Grace looked over to see a very
angry looking woman with auburn hair and sparkling green eyes.

"Hello?" Grace greeted cautiously.

Ryan looked a little pale as he sat up. "Sophia, what are you doing
here?"

"Oh, I was just in the area and I decided to stop by. You weren’t
answering your cell phone and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

Ryan reached down in his pocket and removed his cell phone. The power
was off.

"I forgot to turn it back on. You can’t have them on in the
doctor’s office,” he explained.

"And how’d that go?" Sophia asked.

"No go. We’re not compatible,” Ryan stated stonily.

"Well at least you can be done with all this." Sophia waved it
away. Then she turned and looked at Grace as if she just realized she was
sitting there. "I’m Sophia, Ryan’s
girlfriend.
And you are…"

"Grace." Grace stuck her hand out to shake Sophia’s hand. Sophia
accepted it as if Grace had leprosy.

"Oh,
you’re
Grace. Ryan never told me what you looked like.
He doesn’t have any pictures of you or anything." Sophia chuckled as if
she’d just heard a joke.

"Sophia." Ryan’s tone was warning.

"What? You
don’t
have any pictures. Just stating a
fact." Sophia defended herself.

Grace was slightly amused at this person Ryan ended up with. It appeared
as though he had gone back to dating shallow, vapid women. Grace prided herself
in being different from all the rest.

"Did you want to join us?" Grace asked.

"Don’t mind if I do." Sophia took a seat.

"We’re not really having lunch." Ryan shifted uncomfortably in
his seat.

"I should have brought the video camera. I could have filmed the
celebration right here in the restaurant." Sophia looked around, as if
finding the place that offered the best lighting for shooting a film.

"A celebration?" Grace asked.

"Yeah. Now that this bone marrow silliness is over the parents can
go shakedown someone else and our lives can go back to normal,” Sophia
explained callously.

Grace couldn’t believe her ears. "Shakedown?"

"Well you have to admit, it
is
odd that they never contacted
you until they needed something. Ryan never got any pictures, or cards, or
anything."

Grace tried hard to control her rising anger. "Ryan declined every
offer of visitation the adoptive parents offered him. I guess they just got
tired of being turned down and they quit asking. And this
wasn’t
a
shakedown. Our little boy is fighting for his life. I’d do anything to help
him." Grace turned and looked at Ryan, who sat back and allowed Sophia and
Grace to discuss him as if he weren’t there. "Sorry this was such an
inconvenience for you." Grace scooted her chair back and got up to leave.

"Grace, wait!" Ryan stood up and attempted to stop her.

Grace moved away from him and held up her hands. She’d had enough.
"Goodbye, Ryan." Then to Sophia, "It was a
pleasure
."

When Grace was gone, Ryan turned and stared at Sophia. "What was
that?"

"What?" Sophia asked innocently.

"You know what. You made a fool out of yourself…and me!" Ryan
was fuming.

"That’s really what this is about, isn’t it? I embarrassed you in
front of little-miss-know-it-all, huh?"

"There you go again, inventing things in your head."

"Am I?" Sophia pointed at the leftover cheese sticks before
her. "Sharing a meal?"

"I’d hardly call this a meal, and what’s your point?"

"You hate to share food."

"I hate to share
your
food. If you hadn’t noticed, we rarely
eat the same things."

Sophia was silent for a moment as she looked Ryan over. He was visibly
frazzled. His cheeks were red, and he kept looking over his shoulder.

"How come you never told me she was black?" Sophia asked.

"I never told you anything about her,” Ryan answered.

"That’s true. At least now I know why."

"What’s
that
supposed to mean?"

"It’s okay. We all have people in our past that we’re embarrassed
to have dated. I know I have my share of them."

Ryan stopped twiddling with his phone then. "Sophia, right now the
only person who is an embarrassment to me is you."

***

Grace drove in an angry daze all the way back to her apartment. If it
weren’t for the term paper she had to finish she probably would have turned the
car around and went back to give Ryan a piece of her mind. How dare he
misrepresent the adoptive parents like that! Just because he was trying to
forget they ever existed, it didn’t mean they weren’t acknowledging him.

Grace came to a
stop at a red light. She pulled down her sun visor and removed a picture she
kept hidden there. It was a picture of her with Ryan the summer before their
senior year. That had been the happiest time of her life. Grace crumpled up the
picture and threw it on the floor behind her.

Chapter nine

Ryan was fiddling with the video camera when Sophia came out of his
kitchen and sat down in front of him.

"I changed my mind. I don’t think you should make the
documentary," Sophia said as she watched him.

"Why not?" Ryan didn’t look up from what he was doing.

"Because this is over. You’re not a donor, Grace has gone back to
wherever it is she dwells, and…" Sophia stopped talking when she saw the
effect her words were having on Ryan.

Ryan and Sophia had been arguing non-stop ever since he’d had lunch with
Grace almost two weeks ago. Sophia had accused Ryan of lying to her and making
up reasons why he had to spend time alone with Grace. Ryan had explained, until
he was blue in the face, that this situation with Matthew and Grace was a
sensitive one and that there was no reason for Sophia to be involved.

To that, Sophia had said that she was involved in everything that Ryan
was involved in because he was a part of her and she a part of him.

That statement had caused Ryan to begin to assess his relationship with Sophia.
Truth was, he didn’t feel as invested in her life as she obviously felt
invested in his. The only family of hers that he’d met was her brother Derek,
who always had one made up crisis after another. Sophia seemed to thrive on the
drama in Derek’s life, and when there wasn’t any, the two happily created it.

Sophia, on the other hand, had made it her sole mission in life to find
out as much about Ryan as possible. After dating for less than three weeks, she
had phoned his mother to get his life story. Being the old-fashioned woman that
she was, Ms. Stewart did not divulge any information about Grace or Matthew.
She felt that it was Ryan’s place to tell.

And Ryan
had
told Sophia about Matthew. It was prior to them
starting a serious relationship. Sophia had made a snide remark about teenagers
with babies and Ryan had said that he’d gotten his girlfriend pregnant when he
was sixteen.

Sophia had been in shock, but she quickly stated that her remarks mainly
related to teen
mothers –
that they often got pregnant to trap guys into
staying with them. Ryan had told her that wasn’t the case in his situation but Sophia
clearly didn't want to believe it.

Sophia could see Ryan beginning to distance himself from her. Last night
she’d brought up the issue of them moving in together. Again, Ryan had avoided
giving an answer.

"What are you doing today?" Sophia snuggled up close to Ryan.
He shook her off of him and began cleaning the lens on his camera.

"Working on this documentary,” he  answered.

"Well why don’t you wait on that. Let’s do something together. Just
the two of us."

"Can’t."

"Why not? We haven’t done anything fun in a really long time, Ryan."

"Because I already called my mom and I have plans with her."

"Oh…what are you going to do with her?"

"Have lunch."

"Well can’t I come? Your mom loves me, and I haven’t seen her in so
long."

"Not this time. She needs to talk to me about something. I think
she’d feel better if it were just me."

"Is something wrong?"

"I don’t think so."

Ryan offered as little information as possible. He knew he was
technically lying by omission, but it would have been impossible to get out of
the house if he’d told Sophia what he was
really
up to.

Ryan was appreciative of the reprieve his mother’s retirement apartment
offered him from Sophia. To say that she had been suffocating for the last few
days would have been an understatement. He knew the issue of Grace made her
uncomfortable, but that was her own problem.

Grace was a sizable part of Ryan’s past and if Sophia wanted to play a
part in Ryan’s future, then she would just have to accept that. Grace would
always be the mother of his first child…nothing could change that.

A warm feeling crept over Ryan as he had that last thought. He shook it
off as he pulled into a vacant parking space near his mother’s black sedan.

Ryan knocked but didn’t wait for his mother to answer the door before he
walked in. It was just something he did to alert her to his presence so she
wouldn’t be startled when he entered the house.

"Hi, Mom,” Ryan greeted her with a hug and a kiss.

Ms. Stewart looked behind Ryan as if waiting for Sophia to leap out.
"Where’s Sophia?"

"She couldn’t come this time," Ryan fabricated. "It’s
just me. Is that okay?"

"Of course." Ryan’s mom gave him a sly grin. It was no secret
between her and Ryan that she didn’t care much for Sophia. "So what’s this
all about? You said you needed to film me for something? Is this going to be on
television?"

"No, this is for me, Mom. I’m going to interview you, but I don’t
want you to tell me what you think I want to hear. I want you to tell me the
truth…about how you feel…how you felt."

"About what?"

Ryan didn’t answer. Instead he readied the camera and sat down across
from his mother.

"Don’t sit on my coffee table!" she admonished him.