by Alie Garnett
After he got home, he put up the crib, which involved removing the bed from the room across from the master bedroom. With no place to put the old mattress, he dragged it to the basement after Agatha told him not to put it in the attic.
By the time Poppy was sleeping in her new bedroom, Chris was just as exhausted and went to bed too. Agatha stayed up to clean and organize the house a little. He suspected she needed a little alone time also.
When she climbed into bed a few hours later, she tried not to wake him, but he was alerted to her movements and pulled her into his arms. He wanted her to know that he was still interested in her, that he still wanted her.
Sunday had been a bit more relaxed, with both knowing what to expect from the day. No trips to the store were needed, and they had spent most of the day on the floor with Poppy, trying to make up for the nine months she had been with parents that might not have loved her like they should have.
Over the weekend, Agatha had spoken to most of her sisters but hadn’t said anything about him or Poppy. She let her sisters dictate the conversation, which was mostly questions about why she’d been missing that day. He wondered if she had received the same calls when she had been alone, having a baby. Had they called only to yell at her that time as well?
On Monday, he went over to his house but felt he was only in the way of the workers and wanted to be home with Agatha and Poppy again. So he did, leaving at noon. It wasn’t like he was any help anyway.
The house was silent when he arrive,d and he couldn’t find Agatha or the baby anywhere. The first floor was empty, and the second floor was empty also. Bedrooms were quiet, but there was faint music coming from above his head. Deciding to investigate, he walked down to the attic door, and when he opened it, Bon Jovi was playing quietly from the floor above.
He silently walked up the stairs until Agatha sitting at an easel with Poppy on her lap came into view. Agatha was holding the baby’s hand over a pencil and was drawing on a white piece of paper.
“See, Poppy? You can draw too. This is magenta. It’s a darker pink than your shirt. Your shirt is called bubblegum, like this pencil. People always just call it pink, but we know better.” She kissed Poppy’s black hair.
Tearing his eyes from the woman, he took in the rest of the room, which contained a bed and a couch. But the easel took center stage, and the storage of art supplies off to the side was massive. This room was Agatha’s; everything in the room screamed this was Agatha’s. This must have been her room, her sanctuary when everyone still lived at home.
It hurt him that for as long as he had been sleeping in her bed, she hadn’t felt like she could share this space with him. That she didn’t think he would want to know every part of her, even this one.
Her soft voice brought his attention back to the woman. Suddenly, he wanted to prove to her that there wasn’t a part of her he didn’t find fascinating. He knew it would start with this, today.
“See, you make a circle like this.” Agatha still held the baby’s chunky hand. “Then another circle here and here and some lines, and then you have a mouse. Usually, you don’t draw the mouse in magenta, but today is for learning.”
“Did you teach Violet to draw this young?”
Agatha jumped in her chair and slowly turn to him. Quickly she looked around her room and then back at him. He hated that she thought she had to hide this from him. He knew every inch of her body, but this, she didn’t want to share with him.
“No, she was younger. Sera held her so much the first few months that Violet cried when she wasn’t held, so I had to draw while holding her.” Shrugging, she pried the pencil from Poppy’s hand, then set it down in a holder on the corner of the easel.
Instantly, he regretted saying anything and not leaving immediately to let her have her space. “Don’t stop because of me, Agatha. Don’t be ashamed of who you are.”
“I have been made fun of all my life for being artsy,” she admitted, holding the baby between them, as if she needed a barrier.
“I should have realized you were an artist. Violet got her snarky cartoon watching from you. You never just say blue or brown; you always have a specific name for each color. Violet said your favorite color was walnut.” He grinned when her eyes darted to the cup holding her colored pencils.
“It usually is, but sometimes it’s winter white.” Agatha bit her lip as if she had said too much. He hated the reaction, hated everyone who had made fun of her for any reason.
“Can I come up?” He hadn’t moved from the top of the stairs.
Looking around the room again, she didn’t meet his eyes. “If you want. Not much to see up here.”
“I don’t think so. You had the biggest room in the house and gave it up for the master bedroom?”
“This doesn’t have a bathroom, and I was wasting an entire floor.”
Walking over to her, he took the baby and pulled Agatha into his arms and kissed her. Looking into her eyes, he said, “Your kid drew a pretty nice mouse, Agatha. She gets that from you.”
When he kissed her again, Poppy started to squirm in his arms. “I’ll take her down and let you work. Come down when you feel like it. We’ll be okay.”
“No, I’ll come down. I shouldn’t be up here anyway. There’s so much to do.” Agatha started to pick up the scattered colored pencils.
“I will do it. You keep working. Be happy, Agatha.” He kissed her forehead and headed down the stairs, knowing she needed her time in her studio to herself, though he hoped that she was willing to be herself with him also.
On the main floor, he smiled and wondered if that was where she had been when her song timer had gone off the other day. Did she always come down the stairs singing and happy? He knew she must.
Sitting on the floor with Poppy, Chris held her hands so that she could wobble stand—she liked to do that. Even today, she was less wobbly and would try to take steps, usually twisting and falling to the ground in her attempt. Her tiny green pants were topped with a once-white shirt. Now it had odd, multicolored stains from lunch.
Looking at Agatha’s daughter, he could already see her in the baby’s eyes and nose. Their shared dark coloring was the most obvious, but she already had her cautious yet easy laugh that was all Agatha. In just three days, he knew that.
Poppy was giggling as she tried to crawl away from him. She had mastered crawling and was quick when she wanted to be. Suddenly, the door opened, and a blonde carrying a car seat walked into the house and stopped when she saw him.
He knew immediately that it was Sera, Agatha’s stepmom. Even if he had only seen her once, the baby seat in her arms was a dead giveaway.
“You,” she said without enthusiasm as she looked him over before her eyes landed on Poppy. Though she nearly smiled at the baby, she stopped herself and frowned at them both.
“Hi, I’m Chris Lowell,” he said, but he figured she already knew who he was by her greeting.
“Yes, I know. I’m Sera Dean, Agatha’s mother.” The woman wasn’t even ten years older than Agatha. But after knowing Agatha for as long as he had, he knew Agatha also felt like Sera was her mother, no matter her age.
“Agatha’s upstairs, drawing.”
“I don’t like this. I just want you to know that I do not like you or what you have done to her. She deserves so much better than you.” With that, she took her baby and left the room, heading for the stairs, ignoring Poppy as she went. Poppy, though, watched the woman with sudden attention.
Chris watched her go and wondered what he had done to Agatha that made this woman hate him already. What had Agatha told her?Nothing came to mind as Poppy got away from him as she tried to catch up with the woman, who wasn’t a fan of either of them.
It bothered him that she didn’t like him. Over the years, many people had disliked him, but none had been important to Agatha. Not one that could change Agatha’s mind about him, and that was what worried him the most. Losing her.
With Poppy back in his arms, he wondered how th
e conversation was going upstairs. Was Sera going to be as mad as Agatha thought that she was going to be? Or would she be happy to have Poppy in the family? He hoped it was the latter. Agatha already felt bad enough about the entire situation.
Chapter Twenty-Six
After Chris had taken Poppy downstairs, Agatha had turned her full concentration to her drawing. Humming along with Bon Jovi, Agatha switched to a lighter brown for the underside of the deer’s belly. Today she needed to get back to drawing. It had been days since she had put in any time at her studio. She hadn’t been able to devote as much time to her work as she would have liked.
Before she ventured into the attic with Poppy, she had sent a text to Harper and Lucy letting them know that she would not be able to work this week. No excuse, just that she couldn’t do it. So far, they hadn’t gotten back to her. They must have both been busy.
Footsteps on the stairs made her look up to see what Chris wanted. He had taken to the baby as much as she had this past weekend. She hated that she hadn’t told him he was the father, but he could be gone at any moment. They had no future plans; they were just having fun, after all.
The blonde head that appeared instead of Chris made Agatha stifle a groan. It was Sera, who would have been pissed to see Chris. And there was no telling what she would say about Poppy.
“Afternoon, Ag. I thought Benji and I would come over and visit. Maybe we should have called?” She set the carrier down, the tiny baby sleeping.
“Hi, Mom.”
Sera sat in the old green chair she always used when they talked.
“I don’t want to be the kind of a mom who pries in her kid’s lives. I should be since your lives are fascinating, but I try not to.” Sera took a deep breath. “But Christopher Lowell is in your living room with a baby right now, and I have no idea how that happened.”
“I’ve been letting Chris stay with me for a few weeks,” Agatha explained, not bothering to mention exactly where he was staying. The last that Sera had heard, he was staying in Mabel’s room. Agatha hoped that Sera would still believe that.
“I knew that. Violet talks about him all the time. And he was here on Friday when Violet was alone. Do you know what you’re doing, Agatha?” Sera leaned back in the chair.
“Yes and no. He doesn’t know who I am,” she admitted to her best friend. “He doesn’t know I’m Christie.”
“How can he not? You’ve barely changed since then.” As their mom, Sera had a hard time seeing that her kids were getting older.
“I don’t know. I thought he would realize it right away, but he never did. But he likes me as I am now.” She put her pencil down, knowing she wouldn’t be getting back to what she was doing for a while. There was a lecture coming.
“You’ve always had a hard time letting people see you as you are, Ag. People can’t like what they don’t see.” Sera tapped Agatha’s knee with her foot. “It’s always been him, Ag, always. What happens when he leaves again? I was there last time. I have never been so worried about any of my kids as I was then. You didn’t leave this room that summer, and I didn’t think you would go to college. Luckily you went, but then you quit right away. Violet was the only reason you came back to us.”
Looking back on that time, she knew Sera was right; she had let her emotions take over her life for a long time. As time has passed, she liked to think nobody noticed, but Sera did.
“I don’t know what the future is going to be. I’m trying to live in the now,” Agatha replied, hoping her voice sounded more confident than she actually felt. Though she wanted forever with him, she knew she was never getting that. Not with Chris.
Because no matter how much time they spent together, it was just an extended version of the other times they had been together. Once the real world intruded, he would forget all about her and go on with his life. Without her.
“So you love him, and now he’s making you fall for his kid? I assume it’s his kid. All her stuff is down there.” Sera’s blue eyes stared at her.
Agatha realized just how much of Poppy’s stuff had taken over the house in just a short amount of time. There was no hiding her from anyone who walked in the door.
“Actually, no. She’s mine.” Agatha ripped the Band-Aid off. She had to tell them sometime. Putting off telling Sera about what was happening in her life hadn’t worked well lately.
Sera laughed as if she’d told her a joke. Agatha did not join in, just leaned back in her chair as she bit her lower lip and watched her mom slowly stop laughing. Once she stopped, Agatha shrugged, and Sera swore viciously before stomping back down the stairs.
Sera was back in moments, carrying Poppy, who was looking at her new grandma with the same happy inspection she met everyone with. Sera sat back in the chair and stared at the baby, then at Agatha, and then at the baby again.
“Where the fuck was I?” Sera demanded in anger, only to smile when Poppy smiled at her.
“Hawaii with the kids and Harrison. I put her up for adoption. I couldn’t raise her then.”
Sera touched Poppy’s cheek. “What changed?”
“I sold my books the next month. If I had sold them sooner, I could have kept her, but I had nothing and no way to earn anything. I worked as a bartender and was bad at it. Waitressing for my sisters? That doesn’t buy diapers, lunches in school, or college. I couldn’t keep her. It was just like when I was nineteen, except this time I didn’t lose the baby. But I was in the same place, only older, and I no longer had dreams of being anything. I wasn’t enough.” She let the tears leak from her eyes.
“You had us.” Sera began crying too.
“I didn’t want to be that kind of mom. When we helped you raise the girls, you were in college trying to better yourself, and then you had a good job. I couldn’t do that. I thought it was better this way.” Agatha couldn’t say more. There was nothing left to say.
“You know we always loved you, Agatha, no matter what you did or didn’t do. We loved you through it all.” Sera hugged the baby, knowing that Agatha wouldn’t want the hug her mom so wanted to give. “What happened? How did you get her back?”
“After Benji was born, I just had to see her. I could since it was an open adoption. I went over there and played with her for a few hours. Turns out her parents had been able to conceive naturally after they adopted Poppy and didn’t want a baby that wasn’t theirs anymore. They didn’t want her and gave her back to me.” Agatha wiped her face dry with her shirt.
“That is not how it works. Once you adopt, they are yours forever. I’ll have Harrison make sure they never get a chance to see our baby again. Papers will need to be filed,” Sera said, pulling out her phone with one hand, the other still holding Poppy.
Agatha took her phone from her hand. “I went straight to Aspen, my lawyer, on Friday. It’s all taken care of. You had just had a baby, so I didn’t want to bother you. Aspen knew a judge and got everything done that day. That’s why I wasn’t there for Violet.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sera wiped away her tears and hugged the baby to her.
“I ruined Violet’s birthday. I didn’t want to ruin Benji’s too! I wonder if I did something shitty on Emma’s?” Agatha said.
“I don’t remember, but what happened on the day Violet was born didn’t ruin anything. You losing your own baby made having her that much more precious. Yeah, it’s sad, but that day we didn’t walk out of the hospital empty-handed; we came home with a baby we have shared ever since. And now we’re mothers again. I have one, and you have one. But they still look the same.” Sera grinned and ran her hand over the baby’s head.
“I never looked at it like that,” Agatha admitted. She’d never managed to see a positive from the babies being born on the same day. Just the shadow it had cast on Violet’s birth.
“How old is she? No wait, I was on my honeymoon so, just over nine months?”
“January third,” Agatha confirmed. The best and worst day of her life.
Running her hand over the
baby’s hair again, Sera asked, “Does Chris know he is the father?”
Shocked, Agatha stammered, “W-what? How did you know?”
“The curls, his smile, and the fact that he was at a football party the girl’s catered around the time you would have gotten pregnant. A party you worked.” Sera turned the baby so that Agatha could see her, as if she needed to see her to know the truth.
It was something she hated herself for hiding but couldn’t bring herself to tell him. Because then he would hate her also.
“No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t remember me. Then or before. I don’t think he’ll be happy when he finds out,” she admitted, which was why she wasn’t telling him. Maybe he never needed to know. Maybe it would never come up.
“He might be okay with it. She’s a cute baby. She looks a lot like my favorite daughter. What’s her name?” Sera asked.
“Poppy Joy. I have to get her name changed to Lovely. Maybe Harrison can handle that since you’ve done it twice over the last year for your girls.” Agatha took her baby from her mom.
“She does look like a Poppy, though,” Sera said and laughed. “Can I tell everyone about her? I want to tell everyone.”
“I wasn’t looking forward to that at all. You tell them and explain everything. Just not the Chris stuff.” Her family didn’t have to know everything.
“There are some things you have to explain yourself. But first, you have to tell Chris. From what I saw, he might not be so against being a dad,” Sera stated.
Agatha hugged Poppy. “I don’t know.”
But she knew her mom was right. Chris needed to know. He needed to know everything. Only then could he decide if he really wanted to be there.