by Emma Vikes
She nodded her head and then disappeared out of the door. I sighed- for the nth time this morning- and then washed the dishes. I lied to Milo when I told him that I had a family emergency and my siblings needed me. But Marco did call that day and asked how he could wire the money he owed me back to me. I ended up breaking down to Marco during the call, telling him how I was pregnant and how I didn’t want to tell the father because it would mess everything up. In the end, I didn’t get to come back to the salon because the four of us had a four-way video call to discuss my situation.
They told me that if I couldn’t tell the guy that I was pregnant, then it was best for me to just go home because there was no way I was staying in Chicago in my condition. That was, if I wanted to. I was set on staying in Chicago though. Until I heard Milo and Leo’s conversation about me and how I was nothing but a nanny to Violet in Milo’s eyes.
Ouch.
Robotically, I moved around Morgan’s apartment and cleaned everything, just like I did yesterday. I had a bad habit of cleaning too much when I was stressed out. Today, I had the doctor’s appointment that hopefully, Morgan could come with me. And then I was thinking of stopping by at Nora’s, wondering if I could cut hair again. I wasn’t sure if she’d let me though. Being exposed to hair chemicals wasn’t too good for the baby.
At 10 AM, I took a shower and changed. I didn’t have maternity clothes yet but there was a small bump on my stomach that kind of made me looked like I had a big breakfast. But I knew that soon enough, I would be showing. I looked at the mirror and stared at my stomach. “Hey, Bub. We’re going to see the doctor today so I can know how you’re hanging in there. Mo-,”
I choked on the word. I’d always wanted to be a mother but I wanted it to happen in my own terms and with someone who wouldn’t hesitate to stand by me and commit to me. I took a deep breath. I didn’t want my child to think that he was unwanted because surely, that was how I was acting. “Mom wants to know how you’re doing in there, Bub. Let’s hope Auntie Morgan will be with us to the doctor, ‘kay? The doctor’s won’t be too bad, Bub. You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”
I stared at my reflection on the mirror. We’ll be fine.
Slipping on the hoodie- Milo’s hoodie, the one that he gave me when we first met and I never really had a chance to give it back to him- I closed my eyes, inhaling his faint scent that my fabric conditioner was overpowering. I texted Morgan that I was leaving the apartment and grabbing an Uber to take me to the clinic.
Couples filled the clinic and my heart sank at the sight. These were people excited to be expecting their first child or a new baby in their family and then here I was, alone and sad. I thought back to what Morgan told me before she left, how she wanted me to revert back to my positive self. I let out a shaky breath and willed myself to think of happy thoughts. I always believed that if you kept on dwelling on the negative things, then evidently you become too negative to look at the bright side.
Morgan arrived five minutes before my name was called and once I was inside the doctor’s office, I stripped down to my underwear and wore the gown I was meant to. I lied down and waited until Doctor Gleeman splattered a cool and almost sticky substance on my stomach before pointing what seemed to be a wand on it.
Just as the monitor turned on, a faint sound filled the room and Dr. Gleeman looked at us with a huge smile. “That’s your baby’s heartbeat.”
My heart dropped at the sound, tears staining my face and I was unable to stop them or contain them. Morgan laughed beside me but even I could see the tears in her own eyes. “See? Baby’s healthy.”
I could only nod and the heartbeat seemed to reverberate through my brain. Just a few moments ago, I was thinking of happy thoughts, never realizing that the happy thought was inside of me, in my belly. Dr. Gleeman continued checking around, moving the wand on my stomach until she nodded her head, smiling at me. “Your baby’s doing really good in there, Megan. We’ll schedule our next check-up.”
Dr. Gleeman left the room and Morgan helped me get dressed again. She got my schedule with Dr. Gleeman’s secretary and told me that she had to go. “I’ll just call an Uber again, Morgan.”
Morgan bit her lip. “I really hate to leave you alone like this.”
I touched my sister’s cheek and smiled. “We’ll be okay, Morgan. I’ll see you at the apartment.”
I didn’t head back to the apartment directly. I wanted to stop by Nora’s first. The Uber driver dropped me there and the moment I got out, I spotted Pablo and decided to stop by him first before heading to Nora’s. “Pablo!”
His eyes widened with surprise and he got out of his food truck. “Megan! Oy! I thought I’d never see you again!”
He engulfed me in a bear hug and he smelled like cheese and grilled meat. “It’s so nice to see you again, Pablo.”
Pablo pushed me slightly and looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You’re looking a bit chunky. I like it!”
I laughed, following him in the food truck. Without a word, he started to throw together the ingredients of a Cubana for me. “When did you get back from Chicago?”
He handed me the Cubana and I took a big bite, closing my eyes and savoring the taste. “No one in Chicago could ever make Cubanas as good as you do, Pablo.”
Pablo grinned and then winked at me. “No one ain’t as good as Pablo. But you did not answer my question, Megan. When did you get back? Are you back here for good?”
I bit my lip. Pablo was the closest father figure slash uncle figure I had since I met him but there was no point in spreading the news that my boss got me pregnant. So I simply shrugged. “A week ago. I’m not sure if I’ll be here for good again, Pablo.”
To be honest, I liked the change of pace that Chicago brought me but my siblings weren’t too keen on the idea that I move away from town since I was pregnant and they think that it would be best to have them around. Pablo and I continued chatting until someone called my name, “Megan? Oh dear! Megan!”
It was Mrs. Barrymore.
Pablo looked at me and motioned me to leave. “I have to get ready for the afternoon fiesta, Megan.”
I got out of his truck and smiled weakly at Mrs. Barrymore. I knew I was bound to bump into her but I thought it wouldn’t be this soon. “Hey, Mrs. B.”
She pulled me in for a hug. “Oh! How have you been? How’s Violet? Did Milo give you a week off to come home?”
I bit my lower lip and shook my head. “I quit, Mrs. Barrymore. I’m sorry.”
Her eyes softened and then she reached for my hand. “I have some time. What do you say we get a cup of coffee?”
There was a nearby coffee shop where we were and I followed Mrs. Barrymore there because I didn’t really have much of a choice. I ordered hot chocolate and she got herself a cup of coffee. “You sure you don’t want coffee? I’ve seen you drink close to five cups daily a few months ago.”
I flashed her a tight-lipped smile, making sure I didn’t slip. “Just trying to stay away from coffee for a while, Mrs. B. Too much coffee won’t be good for anyone.”
“Why did you quit?” She took a sip of her coffee, her eyes staring directly at mine.
Mrs. Barrymore was always a kind lady and I didn’t want to lie to her. “Personal reasons.”
A slow smile spread on her lips and she reached for my hand. “You fell for the old Hudson charm, didn’t you? I can’t blame you. Those brothers were always too charming and handsome for their own good. But I was kind of rooting for you and Milo to fall in love.”
I blinked, taken aback by her words. “Excuse me?”
Mrs. Barrymore shrugged and nonchalantly replied, “I used to work for Rebecca’s family and watched her grow up. I knew her too well, Megan, and I knew she broke Milo’s heart.”
Milo once told me that the only ones who knew about Rebecca’s affair were his brothers, his friend Andrei and Andrei’s wife. “What do you mean?”
Mrs. Barrymore looked down on her coffee and then exhaled loudly. “Rebecca cheate
d on Milo. I know about it, Megan, but Milo didn’t think that I did.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “How?”
This time, the older woman looked at me with guilt-filled eyes. “I caught Rebecca once. Violet was at school and I had to rush back to the house to get something. There was some noise going on in the guest bedroom and I thought it was Rebecca and Milo canoodling but then the door suddenly opened and a half-naked Rebecca came out and behind her...behind her wasn’t Milo.”
All I could do was stare at Mrs. Barrymore because what she said completely took me by surprise. “And you didn’t...you didn’t tell Milo?”
She looked away. “I told you, Megan, I used to work for Rebecca’s family and she was like a daughter to me. She had promised me that she would end it but then...then she didn’t and they got into an accident. That’s why I stayed with Milo and Violet, even when Milo told me that it was okay for me to leave. I stayed because of my guilt too, Megan.”
“And all I ever wanted was to see Milo find someone to fall in love with again.” Mrs. Barrymore turned to look at me again, the sadness visible in her eyes. “But now you’re back in Irving.”
I shook my head and then pushed my cup of hot chocolate away from me, my heart racing. “Milo doesn’t want to be with someone, Mrs. Barrymore. Rebecca broke his heart and I think that he thinks that every girl will do the same thing.”
“So you left and broke both your hearts in the process.”
“There wasn’t much option left, Mrs. Barrymore.”
She squeezed my hand gently. “I didn’t want to be with my husband too, Megan, because an ex-boyfriend broke my heart and I didn’t think I could ever love again. But my husband waited for me to come around. Sometimes, people don’t see what’s in front of them because they’re too focused on not getting their heart’s broken.”
“But by doing so, he’s breaking my heart, Mrs. B.”
“Is he really?” Mrs. B asked me gently, “or maybe you’re not trying hard enough to make him see you.”
Chapter 20
Milo
“You look like shit, Miles,” Julian said as he peered at me on his phone. We were having a four-way video call since my brothers were in different cities. Julian was on tour, Leo was in Asia for a photo shoot, and Everett was back in Irving.
It was 10 PM, I just finished tucking Violet into bed and cleaning the kitchen. I ran a hand through my hair. I was in my study, work laid out in front of me. “If you’re a single father for a second grader and have no one to help you around in the house, you’re bound to look like shit, Jules.”
“Why don’t you just get Megan back?” Everett suggested. He was focused on something else but he set up his phone in a way that we could still see him and he seemed to be working on his laptop, reading some data.
Leo chuckled on his end and like Everett, he was working too. He was in his darkroom, the red light that illuminated the room the only way we could see him. “We’re talking to Milo, guys. He would rather be burned to death than acknowledge his feelings for his ex-nanny.”
“You know I don’t want to dabble in love anymore.”
Julian whistled lowly and he moved around the hotel room he was in. “If every person thought the way you did, then the girls whose hearts you once broke wouldn’t have families like you do too.”
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. “Can we talk about something else?”
They changed the topic but I was barely listening. I couldn’t stop thinking about Megan and the family emergency she used as an excused. She used to tell me that her brothers often got into a lot of mess that sometimes would leave her having to bail them out of jail. At that time, she promised that they’ve straightened themselves out because they didn’t have their big sister to help them out anymore.
But what was the big emergency if Megan promised me that they’ve been better?
“Milo!” All three of my brothers screamed my name and I almost jumped out of the couch. Violet was settled near the TV, playing with the dolls we bought at the mall last Sunday. She already talked to her uncles and told me she just wanted to play with her dolls. It had been a rough three weeks of adjustment for the two of us. I had to wake up extra early to cook breakfast and then wake her up so she could get ready for school while I got ready in the bathroom downstairs. Then I would drive her to school, make sure she had her lunch with her – which I made along with our breakfast – and then get to work. I’d been finishing work way early that I used to, ending fifteen minutes before three. I’d discussed with my bosses and they’ve allowed me the flextime. But that meant I had to work extra on weekends so I brought work with me home, making sure that I still gave Violet my attention, dividing it as best as I could.
“You’re thinking about Megan, aren’t you?” Julian teased, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Stop bringing her up,” I said with a groan, shaking my head, “she already left and I don’t think she’s ever coming back.”
Violet paused as she played with her toys and I closed my eyes. She took Megan’s absence worse than I did and it was like Rebecca’s death all over again. She cried herself to sleep that first night and kept asking me if there was a chance that Megan would come back to us and it broke me. I knew there was a way, a slim possibility, that if I came to Megan, that if I told her to stay because I wanted her to stay and not just because of the sex, but because I felt something for her...
“Milo,” This time, it was Everett’s voice calling me and I realized that Julian and Leo have blinked out of our call. “You can’t stop thinking about her. Can’t you?”
I glanced wearily at Violet and then stood up, moving to the kitchen so that Violet couldn’t hear the conversation. “You’re in Irving, Ev. Can you see how she’s doing? Maybe you can talk her into coming back here. Tell her that Violet needs her.”
“Is it Violet that needs her or you?”
I let the question linger between the two of us because I didn’t really know how to answer it. Losing Megan and watching her turn her back on Violet and I, seeing her board the plane and watching it take off, knowing the distance between the two of us...
They say that distance made the heart grow fonder but what distance did to me was break my heart even more. What surprised me was that I thought my heart was already too broken because of Rebecca but now it broke even more when Megan left and the fact that I felt even more helpless with her than I did when Rebecca died. But with Rebecca, I knew there was no way that I could turn the entire situation around because there was no way for me to bring back the dead...
But with Megan...
“What Megan and I had...” I swallowed the lump in my throat and shook my head, “there weren’t any feelings involved, Ev. We were two adults having fun in the pleasure of our situation. There were no feelings involved.”
“I asked if you needed her, Miles, I didn’t ask for an explanation of what you had with her,” Everett said, a sly smirk forming on his face as he pushed his glasses back. “I remembered how helpless you were when you realized you liked Rebecca more than the usual way that you liked girls and how you desperately tried to shut your feelings out.”
I turned away. Everett had a point. Since Megan left, all I could do was think about her. How she was doing and where she was at the moment if she had eaten. And then every corner in the house reminded me of her. Whenever I woke up in the morning, it was like I could hear her moving around in the kitchen and it was as if I could physically see her in her shorts and tank top, moving around and making the breakfast that Violet had plotted with her.
Automatically, I glanced at the small whiteboard they both had set up in the kitchen and stared at her handwriting. The way Megan loved and cared for Violet, it wasn’t in the same way that Mrs. Barrymore did. While Mrs. B loved Vi as if she was her own daughter and Megan loved Vi the same way too, there was something different about their bond. It was the friendship that they’ve formed and how they were each other’s best friend, how Vi didn’t simp
ly see Megan as just her nanny, and how Megan respected Violet as if Vi was another adult.
And then there was the way that Megan was around me. The way she looked at me and the way she laughed at the silliest things I said mid-morning, when I was half-dazed with sleep. How her embrace made me feel warm and how her positivity brought me sunshine amidst the storm that I had trapped myself in after my wife cheated on me.
“The problem with you, Miles, it’s not that you’re scared that Megan will cheat on you like Rebecca did and leave you heartbroken again,” Everett’s voice was even on the other line as he spoke, “the problem with you is that you’re afraid that there’s something wrong with you and that you’re not good enough.”
I scoffed, shaking my head. “You don’t know anything, Ev.”
Everett rolled his eyes. “That one time that you got drunk a week after Rebecca’s funeral. Do you remember what you told me?”
“No.”
His voice turned serious again as he looked at me through the screen, his gray eyes holding the same intensity as mine would. “You told me that you weren’t enough for her so she had to find someone else to love her. That the love you gave wasn’t what she wanted or didn’t satisfy her the way it should because you’re just you and maybe there was something more about the other guy.”
“You were always afraid of commitment, Milo. Even when we were younger because the thought of never being enough scared the shit out of you.”
I rolled my eyes, shaking my head again. “You don’t know that.”
“If you weren’t scared of not being good enough, it wouldn’t have taken you this long to be a father to Violet again,” Everett’s voice softened when he said this and let out a deep yawn, “and Megan helped you with that because she believed in you. I think there’s a part of her that believes you can love her the way she loves you-,”
“She doesn’t.”
Everett smirked. “Don’t speak on her behalf. You don’t know that. No girl would settle on what was going on between you too for weeks if she didn’t feel anything.”