Grace Grows (33 page)

“You don’t know him.”

“When will I meet him?”

“I don’t know.”

Her nostrils were flaring. Our server approached, got a look at Julia, and backed away.

“And why is that?”

“He is . . . not involved, at the moment.”

“Did you consider an abortion?”

I shook my head.

“When are you due?”

“June eighth.”

She looked at me for a long time. Really looked at me. Pulled a tissue out of her coat pocket and blew her nose. Then she laughed! “Well. I think I might actually be glad about this. I get to be a granny!”

“Oh, Mom.” The floodgates opened. I covered my face with my hands. She pulled a chair up next to me and held me and said comforting things while I soaked the shoulder of her tailored jacket.

“It’s all going to be all right, my darling,” she said soothingly, as my tears slowed. “All will be well. But you are going to tell me who the father is. And you are going to tell me how this happened.”

It was hard not to roll my eyes and give her the clinical version, just for kicks.

“Okay,” I said. “His name is Tyler Wilkie. He’s a singer. He has a song on the radio, you may have heard it.”

She stared at me. “Of course I have heard it, what do you think, I live in a cave? I have his whole CD on my iPod!”

She handed me a paper napkin and I blew my nose. “Well, this is interesting.” She settled back and crossed her arms. She sounded like an evil genius plotting world domination. “We will make him pay. Pay big, to support his child.”

“Mom! Look at me. This is not your business. If you do anything—”

“Don’t worry, I won’t do anything you don’t authorize. How on earth do you know him?”

I told her the whole two-and-a-half-year saga. The story of my life pulled inside out by this sweet, beautiful, amazing, talented, irresponsible child-man. I left out the part about Roberta. Julia was already dangerously close to rampage.

“Well. It sounds like you care for him. Maybe he’s not a total creep.”

“He’s not!” My voice wobbled. “I—I used to think he might be my best friend.”

She handed me a fresh napkin. “Then why isn’t he involved? Does he know?”

“He’s on tour. I haven’t seen him in almost six months.”

“But you did tell him?”

“Yes.”

“And what did he say?”

“Mom, this is my business.”

“Grace, what did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. I left him a message, and he never called me back.”

“You left him a
message
? That he was going to be a father?”

It didn’t sound great.

“When did you call him?” Julia asked.

“A week ago. Eight days.”

“
Eight days
ago? Why did you wait so long to tell him?”

“I don’t know! I was waiting for it to feel right, and time got away from me.”

“Call him again. Something happened, maybe he lost his phone.”

“Even if he did, he could still check messages from another phone.”

“No. Something happened. You have to try again.”

“Julia,” I said evenly. “Thank you, but I am handling this.”

She sat back in her chair, arms crossed. Deceptively quiet. I thought she was just strategizing and regrouping.

“Does your father know that you’re pregnant?”

Oh, boy. “Yes. But only very recently.”

She struggled with this, visibly.

“Only because he lives closer. And I knew I was going to be seeing you for lunch and you’d be in the loop very soon.”

I think this helped.

“Mom, stop hating him,” I ventured. “I have.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” She twisted around looking for the server and spotted her, watching us furtively from behind a nearby potted tree. “Menus!” Julia barked, sending the poor woman scurrying.

At around seven months I had only gained twenty of the recommended twenty-five pounds. It’s not like I was Shamu, but everything was swollen. My face. My fingers. My ankles. And I knew from catching a glimpse of myself in a restaurant window that I waddled.

It was a briskly windy, chilly Thursday. A few days after my lunch with Julia. After work I’d stopped in Gristedes for a few grocery items and was now on my way back home. I was at the intersection of Seventh and Christopher, waiting for the Walk signal.

The light changed and by the time I got halfway across the street I realized that Ty was standing on the corner directly in front of me.

I almost dropped everything.

He took his sunglasses off and stared at me and my stalling approach. His hair was longer. And his beautiful face! What it did to my heart. But there were raw things happening on it. Shock. Concern. Anger.

When I reached him, I said, “Oh, you’re back early.”
Stupid.

He took the grocery bags from me.

He was, apparently, speechless. At my building he just stood there looking at me, watching me fumble with the keys. My damned, unsteady hands! I finally got the door open.

He followed me up, carrying the bags. I now got winded by the third-floor landing, so I paused to catch my breath.

“Sorry,” I said, gasping. Our son chose that moment to knee me in a kidney and I winced and grabbed my back and said
ow!
Tyler simply watched me like he had never seen a pregnant woman before and the very idea confused the hell out of him.

If he would just
say
something!

He followed me into the apartment. Peg was at a rehearsal, thank God.

He tossed the bags on the kitchen table and paced around. I unpacked the groceries, watching him cautiously. Wondering what to do next. What to say? It was hard to understand what was happening. Why was he here? Had he gotten my message?

I went into the living room and sat on the couch and watched him do agitated laps. He seemed so freaked out; it occurred to me that he might be afraid to try to speak.

Finally he stopped in front of me and crouched down, pale and intense. He had not shaved in a couple of days. He looked tired. How I wanted to touch him. He was so close, I could have.

He uttered one sharp word.

“
When?
”

“June eighth is the due date.”

He ran his eyes over me once more, lingering on my ginormous midsection. He stood up, abruptly, and left.

The next day after work he was skulking in my lobby. He followed me outside. Took my elbow and steered me around a puddle on the sidewalk.

“Are you going to say anything?” I asked.

“I am trying to figure out how to forgive you for this.”

“Well,” I said, voice shaking, “I didn’t do it all by myself.”

He pulled me to a stop in front of Planet Hollywood. The flow of people on the sidewalk instantly diverted around us. “
Do what?
”

“We both decided to have unprotected sex, not just me!”

“I know that! What the hell are you talking about?”

“What are
you
talking about?”

He took off his dark glasses. “I’m talking about you not telling me I have a child about to be born. Jesus Christ! What the fuck is that?”

“I did tell you! I left you a message!”

He rubbed his face with both hands and glared at me a little less vehemently. “I never got any message. When did you leave it?”

“Almost two weeks ago.”

He shook his head. “I lost my phone in Albuquerque. Need to get a new one.”

“What? You were in Albuquerque almost a month ago.” According to his website.

“Exactly.”

“How can you go that long without a phone? It’s—it’s irresponsible!”

“I kept meaning to go get one, and then I’d forget. No one was fucking calling me that I wanted to talk to, anyway.” Again, with the pointed glare.

“Well, what if your family was trying to reach you, or something?”

“Yeah, Grace, what if. And why the hell did you wait until two fucking weeks ago to finally call and tell me about this?”

“I—I was nervous.”

“Of what? Of me?”

I nodded.

“Damn, girl.” He smiled, but it was bleak. “Did you
ever
know who I was?”

This felt very bad.

He just looked at me for a long time. “Okay,” he finally said. “So what happens now?”

“I don’t know. My mom is trying to talk me into moving in with her, in New Jersey.”

Another long silence.

“It’s not a terrible idea, I could save up for my own place. And maybe you’ll want to come out to my mom’s and—and see him, sometimes. . . .”

His face changed. “It’s a boy?”

I nodded.

“Shit,” he said. He walked in a circle. And another. People walking past us eyed him warily and gave him extra room.

“
Shit!
” He leaned against the building, dazed.

cahoots

The weather took a wonderful, balmy turn that weekend. I had the windows open in my bedroom and was boxing up old books and papers, trying to clear space for my impending small roommate and all his accoutrements. He must have been energized, too, by the fresh air I was absorbing.

“Hey, what are you doing in there?” I said to The Bump, pausing to pat my belly. “Rearranging the furniture?”

The downstairs buzzer rang. I ignored it and continued packing.

Again with the buzzing. I stood there holding
Bleak House
, debating whether or not to go to the intercom. Maybe it was a delivery for Peg?

I opened the screen on one of my windows and leaned out to take a peek. Jean and Rebecca Wilkie were standing on the stoop. Rebecca was looking right at me.

Holy crap.

I buzzed them in. Listened to their long trek up the stairs. Opened the door when they got to our landing.

“Hello,” I said.

“Grace!” Jean came right in. We shared an awkward hug. She touched my belly and kissed my cheek. “Oh, honey,” she said, tears in her eyes. She seemed disappointed in me, but also excited. I latched on to that.

Rebecca stayed near the door, glaring at me, arms crossed tightly.

“I know it seems bad that I waited so long to tell him,” I said to her. “But you don’t understand.”

“What kind of person do you think my brother is?”

Jean laid a hand on her arm. “Beck.”

“We didn’t plan this,” I said. “I wasn’t sure he would want it, with everything else going on in his life.”

Jean shook her head. “Oh, honey, you don’t know him at all.”

“You don’t deserve him,” Rebecca added. Jean grimaced at her.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” I said.

“Tell us.” Jean pulled me over to sit with her on the couch.

“We . . . we were . . .” Oh, how embarrassing. It was hard to look at them. “We were . . . together. And not very careful. And after, he said he should have been. More careful.” I snuck a peek at them. Jean was pink-cheeked. Rebecca, narrow-eyed but listening.

“And then he was gone, for six months. And whenever I thought about calling and telling him, I remembered him saying that he should have been more careful. I thought he might not be happy about the baby. I couldn’t bear to hear that in his voice. You don’t understand how much power he has to hurt me! More than anyone.”

I had held it together, so far. Then Rebecca, anger apparently deflated, dropped down in the armchair across from us. She rubbed her face and cracked her knuckles just like Ty, and I quietly lost it—shoulders shaking and tears streaming down my face.

Jean patted my back and blotted my face with a tissue from her pocket.

“Ty told us you left him the message after he lost his phone,” she said, after I’d calmed down some. “You must have been so upset that he wasn’t calling you back.”

“I was. It was terrible.”

“He wasn’t calling me back, either,” Rebecca said. “I still may kick his ass about that.”

“Sometimes he’s a little oblivious,” Jean said. “He’s so busy writing songs, he forgets to do important things.”

“Like get a new freaking phone,” Rebecca said. “Or learn how to check messages remotely.”

“I know,” I said.

“Ty says it’s a boy,” Rebecca said almost kindly.

I nodded.

“My first grandbaby!” Jean clapped her hands lightly.

Her delight was infectious. “I have ultrasound pictures, do you want to see them?”

Of course they did. And they were appropriately amazed by the delicate perfection of his tiny skull, spine, arm, and hand.

“I wish Nathan could see these,” Jean said.

“Maybe I could run down the street and make copies for you to take to him.”

“Better yet, why don’t you come with us to the hotel and show him the originals?”