Authors: Dina Silver
One Pink Line (26 page)
I took a seat, and patted the wood slats next to me.
Ethan reached in his pocket before sitting down. “Now don’t get all excited and weepy; this isn’t for you,” he said and handed me a little velvet box.
“Then why are you giving it to me?”
“It’s for Grace.”
I gently took the box from his hand and opened it. Inside was a tiny, delicate gold chain, with a small red gemstone hanging from it.
“It’s garnet, her birthstone,” he said, and taught me. I’d had no idea what her birthstone was.
I shook my head. “You are unbelievable, thank you,” I said quietly.
“I know she’s too young to wear it now, but one day you can tell her about me, and who it’s from. I really wanted to do something special for her.”
“It’s beautiful, Ethan,” I said, and closed the box. “You never cease to amaze me.” We sat and talked for almost an hour, until I couldn’t stand not knowing what Grace was up to for one more minute. I checked my watch and saw that it was a quarter past seven.
“I better fetch Grace before she turns on everyone, and ruins her impeccable reputation.”
Ethan and I went back to the house and located Mrs. Reynolds in the kitchen as she was telling the catering staff where to put the desserts on the buffet table, and which serving pieces were to be paired with which sauces.
“What’d you do with the kid, Mom?” Ethan asked.
“She’s in my bedroom, asleep.”
“Asleep?” I gasped.
“Why, yes,” she said. “I changed her after she ate, then Taylor helped locate her pajamas and her carrier, and we rocked her to sleep. You’re welcome to go up there.”
Ethan and I tiptoed up the giant staircase, and through the double doors into his parents’ bedroom. Taylor and her mom were sitting on a loveseat in the corner of the room, deep in conversation, and Grace was sound asleep exactly like Mrs. Reynolds had said.
“Guess you can stay a bit longer,” Taylor smiled at me, and Ethan led me back outside to the bench in the woods, where we sat until midnight without a care in the world.
A
fter Ethan returned to Boston, we fell into a routine of lengthy phone conversations and a few short weekend visits. We’d discussed his failed relationship with Robin, but I never did get the chance to declare my true feelings to him. I was hesitant. We were re-building our friendship, and I was worried that I might scare him away, or make things uncomfortable for him. I did tell him that I wished he lived closer, and he confessed that he was looking into a job transfer that would bring him back to Chicago one day. We never really discussed our relationship beyond that, but there was an underlying hope on my end that we’d be able to rekindle our affection as more than just close friends.
When Christmas rolled around, he was able to get a week off work, and since we hadn’t had any real quality time together since his parents’ party in July, he promised to make the most of his time with Grace and me. He was once again my best friend, and truly the only person I looked forward to talking to each day. He’d listen to all of my complaints about Midge, all my worries about money, and every little concern I had for my daughter, of which there were plenty. My job was going well, but it was becoming more and more obvious that if I wanted to grow within the company, I was going to have to put in more hours, and that meant less time with Grace. The older she got, the harder it was to leave her. She took her first steps at daycare, and after Courtney called to let me know, I spent my lunch hour crying on the phone to Kendra about it.
Three days before Christmas Eve, I asked for the afternoon off to get some shopping done. The excuse I gave Midge was that Grace had a doctor’s appointment. I picked her up from Happy Faces that afternoon around one o’clock, bundled us up, and headed to the Christmas windows on State Street. I pushed Grace up and down the shoveled sidewalks, crunching kernels of road salt with the stroller and admiring the city’s holiday splendor. We stood in a long line to meet Santa Claus at an outdoor winter market in the Loop, and she went right to him, sat on his lap, tugged on his beard and gazed at him in awe.
Kendra was going to come over to my apartment around six o’clock that night to have dinner with me and wrap the few gifts we’d jointly bought for our parents, and it was almost six o’clock by the time we left Santa. I waved down a cab, shoved the stroller in the trunk and we hurried home after our little girls’ day out. Since Grace’s birth, I’d never been on time for anything.
Grace was beginning to fuss by the time we got home, and once we were through the door, she began to scream for her food. She was the sweetest, most amiable little girl, but delay her meal by even one minute, and she would turn on you. Which only made things worse because once she was screaming and freaking out, I lost all ability to focus on the task at hand and acted as though I’d never fed her before. The jars were harder to open when she was screaming, her bottles were more difficult to fill when she was screaming, and I dropped almost everything I tried to hold in my hands when Grace was having a tantrum. In the midst of her cursing me out, and me trying to find a spoon, I heard my phone ringing. I darted out of the kitchen and away from her, only elevating the ear-splitting volume of her cries, and reached for the receiver next to the couch.
“Hello?” I answered breathlessly.
“Is this Sydney Shephard?”
“Speaking.”
There was a pause, filled only with Grace’s shrieks in the background. “Sydney, this is Kevin Hansen’s mother, and I’d like to speak with you about my granddaughter.”
grace
Y
ou can’t very well look your mistake in the eye and say —
don’t make the same mistake I did.
So growing up, my mother always had to find new and less offensive ways to warn me about safe sex once I reached high school.
“Do you want to have the talk?” she’d ask me.
“Nope, I’m good.”
“Listen, Grace, obviously, I hope you’re not having sex yet at your age, but I’m not naïve. Just please don’t forget that there are many, many reasons to protect yourself besides getting pregnant, such as STD’s.”
“But getting pregnant would be worse, right?” I liked to torture her, purely for my own enjoyment.
“You’re not funny.”
“I’m kidding, it’s just that look on your face is priceless.” I gave my mom a squeeze and lifted her off her feet. Something else I enjoyed doing for sheer maniacal reasons. Once I crossed five-foot-ten, she was doomed to be my rag doll.
I had my first real boyfriend in high school when I was almost seventeen. His name was Nick, and his family was Italian. My dad always said that Italian boys are only after one thing.
“What’s that, Dad?” I’d inquire.
“The same thing every other boy is after,” he’d say.
“Then why does him being Italian matter?”
“It just does.”
Nick and I had been dating for a few months when he asked me to the senior prom. I was thrilled to have a date, and also thrilled to spend the night out with Nick. My mom agreed to let me go along with four other couples after the dance to Nick’s family’s vacation home in Michigan. It was about an hour drive from downtown, but the boys had all split the cost of a limousine, so no one would be driving.
Nick came to pick me up that night around six-thirty. He had the obligatory corsage, which I told him I would not wear, and he was wearing a rented tuxedo with Converse high-tops. I greeted him at the door; his forehead was moist and shiny.
“You’re sweating,” I said.
“Am I?” he asked and wiped his brow with his cuff. “Where are your parents?”
“Inside, camera poised,” I said and watched the moisture turn to actual beads of water. “Would you relax?”
“Let’s just get this over with and get out of here.”
“My plan exactly.”
We went into the den, where my parents horribly acted like they were just reading and watching TV, and hadn’t heard the bell.
“We’re leaving,” I announced.
“Not so fast, smart ass,” my mom stood and grabbed her digital camera off the white laminate side table. “You look very handsome, Nick.”
“Thank you ma’am.”
“If you write your mom’s email down, I’d be happy to send these pictures to her,” my mom offered.
“Thank you ma’am.”
My dad looked at me with a raised brow.
“Make it quick, Mom, we have friends waiting on us,” I said in my best teenage vibrato.
Before Nick arrived, my mom asked me if she could get a picture of us in front of the fireplace, and in front of the house. But once we all saw how nervous he was, she relented and agreed to front of the house only. Nick wiped his forehead no less than twelve times and then followed the two of us outside. My dad trailed behind with a silly grin, and his hands in his pockets, while Patch came bounding up from the basement with a video game controller in his hand, and a smart ass look on his face.
“Over there, by the rose bushes, if you don’t mind,” Mom pointed.
“Of course, ma’am.”
I slapped my forehead. He was acting so strange.
We turned and faced my parents, Dad grinning and relaxed, Mom with the camera covering her face.
“We’re done,” I said after about four takes. My mom gave me an annoyed look, and I grabbed Nick’s damp hand.
“You two have fun tonight, and no alcohol,” Mom said. Sure she wasn’t naïve.
“Yes ma’am, we will.”
My mom handed her camera to Dad and gave Nick a hug. “Please, call me Sydney.”
Sydney
“S
ydney, are you there?” Kevin’s mom asked me over the phone. Shockingly enough, I heard Kendra’s knock at the door over Grace’s hollering, and ran to let her in. I shoved a jar of baby food in Kendra’s hands, along with a rubber tipped spoon and disappeared to the bedroom.
“Yes, I’m still here, how did you get my number?”
“I got it from my son,” she said to my surprise. “I apologize if I’ve alarmed you, but Kevin’s father and I just learned that he has a child. With you.”
I sat on the floor at the foot of my bed. “Yes, he does. Her name is Grace,” I told her, head spinning. Why was this woman calling me? What could she possibly want? My apartment was quieter once her majesty was eating; however, that phone call did nothing to calm my nerves.
