by Davis, L. D.
The paper fluttered to the floor as I stared at nothing with my mouth hanging wide open.
This had to be a joke. This couldn’t have possibly been true. Even Emmy wasn’t that cruel to keep a child away from me, and her mother was the bluntest person I knew. Surely, she would have been falling over herself to tell me about my son, if I really even had one.
And then I realized something. Samantha didn’t go out of her way to spend much time with me as she did with my sisters. I didn’t think anything about it because they were all women and women tend to cluster together, but what if she was avoiding me? What if those looks of pity weren’t for the fact that her daughter had destroyed my heart or that my sister was near death, but because she knew a big, earth shattering secret?
“Shit!” I yelled as I jumped off of the couch and dashed for the door. I took a detour into the small kitchen for my keys and then ran out into the hall.
Emmy would fuck someone else throughout our relationship and lie about it, but Emmy wouldn’t lie about something like this after over a year long absence. Samantha would hold this secret for her daughter or risk losing her and her grandson.
I rocketed out of the parking garage and onto the street, just barely missing oncoming traffic. I hate driving in the city and usually take public transportation, but I was anxious to get to the Fairmont. My mind was racing all the way there and I couldn’t keep any one thought in mind before another rushed forward to take its place. It wasn’t until I had rushed into the lobby a little while later that another thought occurred to me, halting me in my tracks and knocking the breath out of me.
What if this Lucas wasn’t really my kid at all? What if he was Kyle Sterling’s?
“Can I help you, sir?” the woman in guest services asked me.
It took me a few seconds, but I was able to tell her why I was there before I started towards the bank of elevators.
“Miss Grayne stepped out,” she called after me. “Can I have your name?”
I stopped and took a few steps back until I was standing in front of her. “Luke Kessler,” I said, curious as to why she needed my name.
She smiled at me. “Yes, I was expecting you yesterday. Miss Grayne and the baby went out a little while ago. Maybe you can wait for her in the lobby,” she said, gesturing towards the fancy furniture behind me.
I nodded and wordlessly walked away from her. There was nothing to say. One thing was confirmed, there definitely was a baby. The question was whether or not he was mine. I immediately felt a little bit like a dick for thinking that. This was definitely something Emmy wouldn’t drag me into if Lucas was not my kid, but what if he wasn’t? How would I know? But what if he was – what would I do about it?
I suddenly felt like an ass for showing up to meet my son for the first time empty handed. I got up and marched to the gift shop. There were little shirts with Chicago scrolled across them, but I didn’t know what size the kid was. There were little sippy cups and a few other baby items, but I didn’t like any of it. I wasn’t going to give my kid some cheesy gift shop gift – if he was my kid. I told the woman at guest services that I would be back shortly. I rushed out of the hotel and used my cell phone to find a store to buy Lucas a gift. Once I was inside the baby store, I felt overwhelmed by all of the possibilities. There were so many baby items, things I had never even seen before with my nieces and nephews. Emmy and Sam probably made sure Lucas had everything he could ever need, so I walked away from the many gadgets and headed towards an aisle of toys.
What did I like as a kid? Hell, he was five months old. He probably liked anything that tasted halfway decent when it went into his mouth. I picked up a little stuffed whale. It reminded me of a vacation my family took to Sea World when I was a little kid. My parents were hard working lower middle class people. Trips to Sea World and the like were far and few between, if ever. It hit me then how hard it must have been for them to afford that trip and continue to feed us and keep a roof over our heads the months preceding and following that trip, but my parents wanted to make sure that we actually went somewhere and did something. They wanted to give us a little more than what their parents were able to give to them. If Lucas was indeed my kid, I wanted to be able to give him more than what my parents gave me, too.
I took the whale to the checkout line. Lucas or Emmy may not understand the significance of the whale, but I would. Besides, it was a sensible gift to give to my son that I was just meeting for the first time, though nothing about the situation was sensible.
I returned to the Fairmont and sat back down in the chair I had sat in earlier. I had an unobstructed view of the entrance. I didn’t take my eyes off of it. I’m not even sure I blinked. I don’t know how long I was sitting there staring before I saw first a stroller full of bags roll inside, and then the waves of brown hair, stuck to her face from the October wind. I watched as she pushed the strands off of her smooth cheek and smiled at the blond hair, blue eyed infant in her arm before continuing to push the stroller with her spare hand. Even from where I seemed to be stuck in the chair, I could see that Lucas was my son. His startling blue, smiling eyes were my own.
Somehow I pushed myself out of the chair and moved across the lobby until I was standing in their path. As soon as our eyes met, I felt immeasurable pain, anger, fear, and remarkably, love. For a half a moment, I wanted nothing more than to take Emmy and Lucas into my arms and make everything the way it should have always been, but then I remembered that she fucking broke my heart. I inhaled sharply as that old knife twisted in my heart, and then I turned my attention to my son. My son.
I fought back emotions as I offered him my finger, before remembering that I had touched all kinds of gross things since leaving my apartment and I didn’t want my fingers in his mouth.
“You didn’t come,” Emmy blurted out.
I felt bad for her for a minute. It must have been torture for her as she waited for me to respond. She must have thought that I didn’t want Lucas, and I couldn’t imagine how that must have felt.
“Yeah, I'm sorry,” I said. “I was out of town. My sister just happened to be in my apartment dropping off some things I left in her basement when the letter came. I didn't read it until this morning when I got in.”
I looked at her, hoping she believed me.
“I understand,” she said, shifting Lucas from one arm to another.
“Can I hold him?” I asked.
“Of course.”
Carefully, Emmy passed Lucas to me. Again I had to fight back emotions as I looked at this perfect baby boy that I helped create. I had a great relationship with all of my nieces and nephews, and at one point in my life I had wanted children, but after what I went through with Emmy, I didn’t think about it anymore. However, only moments after meeting Lucas, I knew I’d never be the same, and I felt so grateful to hold my son.
*~~~*
I stayed with Emmy and Lucas all day that day. I played with him, I talked to him, I held him, I changed him, and I only released him long enough for Emmy to feed him. I should have looked away when I saw how uncomfortable she was to breast feed him in front of me, but it wasn’t about her. It was about Lucas. Everything about him was perfect and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, even though he was feeding off of his exposed mother.
I had only been with him for a short time, but I could not imagine just leaving and having to deal with child custody agreements and the distance that would surely be between us when Emmy went back to wherever the hell she came from. Moreover, if she was with Kyle, I was going to have to fight to make sure that Lucas knew who his father really was. The idea that I would have to go up against Kyle again for someone else I loved infuriated me. I let him win last time, because Emmy stopped being worth the trouble when she allowed the situation to continue, but I wasn’t going to let him win my son.
As the day wore on, I became angrier and angrier with Emmy for keeping our son from me. It stirred the pot of negativity I had been carrying around for her. When Lucas to
ok a nap, I threw myself into my work, virtually ignoring her so that I wouldn’t snap, and I was very close to snapping. I had never in my life hit a woman, but the urge to put my hands around her throat and squeeze was pretty damn overwhelming. My sense of right and wrong and the fact that our child was sleeping a few feet away are what saved her from my wrath that day. I couldn’t even look at her, but I chanced one glance and immediately regretted it.
Beside the fact that she looked like a scared, trapped, and scarred animal, Emmy was breathtaking. Her hair had grown significantly and the extra pounds she put on from her pregnancy gave her curves she had never had before. Her skin looked so soft and I so badly wanted to touch her to find out, but instead I made some ridiculous comment about her hair growing out and the sound of Lucas waking from his nap stopped me from saying anything further.
I went back to virtually ignoring Emmy until Lucas went to bed for the night. Still seething mad, I turned to her to confront her but I bit my tongue when I saw the look on her face. She was actually pouting a little. What the hell? I scratched my head trying to figure this out, but then I realized I had completely taken over all day and Em didn’t get much time with Lucas herself. I couldn’t blame her. He was a remarkable kid.
“I'm sorry. I totally took over today,” I said.
“I'm not used to sharing him,” she said, looking at her hands in her lap. She had not looked me in the eyes since I first saw them in the lobby earlier in the day.
“I'm going to go pick up some dinner,” I said, moving towards the door. “We'll talk when I get back.”
She probably wasn’t going to like what I was going to suggest, but I had to make some kind of effort to hold on to Lucas.
“Hold on,” she said and hurried into the bedroom. She held out a room key to me. “You can let yourself back in. I'm going to take a shower.”
When I took it from her, my fingers grazed hers. I was pissed off at the tremors of electricity that shot up my fingers and through my arm. I was pissed that she still had that effect on me after all she had done. I quickly pulled away and rushed out of the door.
When I returned later, Emmy was still in the shower. I set the food down on the coffee table and pulled my phone out of my pocket. Claire had called several times during the day, and there was no way I was in the mood to sort through her many text messages. I made sure the phone was still muted and put it down on the table before going into the bedroom to check on Lucas.
I leaned over the crib and watched as his little mouth made suckling motions as he slept. I couldn’t believe I had missed not only the first five months of his life, but all of the time that he was growing inside of his mother’s womb. I missed sonogram pictures, measurements, and most of all his birth. I would have given anything to have been there when he was born. The fact that Emmy denied me all of this made me want to snatch my son out of his crib and take him from her so she would know how it felt, but I pushed those irrational thoughts away and just thanked god I still had a chance, albeit late. I looked at his little fingers attached to his little hands, and the wisps of blond hair across his forehead. His little chest rose and fell easily and his soft snores made me smile.
The bathroom door opened and I heard Emmy’s sharp intake of breath when she saw me.
“Sorry,” I said and glanced over at her, taking note that she was wrapped in a towel. I looked back at Lucas. “I’m just…amazed. He’s perfect.”
“Yes, he is,” she agreed softly.
I looked up at her again. Her wet hair clung to her bare shoulders. The towel didn’t hide her curves or the swells of her full breasts. If things were as they should have been, I would have relieved her of her towel and made love to her damp body. But things weren’t as they should have been. Emmy cheated on me for months after I had given her my heart. Even after I told her that I hoped that Kyle broke her heart and made her choke on it, if she would have dropped everything and everyone and came after me in Chicago, I would have given in and I would have taken her back, but she didn’t, and that crushed me, too. Then she hid her pregnancy from me, probably had plans to raise my son with that dick Kyle. She hid Lucas’s birth, and for five months of his life denied him his father. I never did anything so horrible as to deserve this disgusting treatment from Emmy. I did nothing but love her and then let her go so she could be with that asshole, and yet she punished me relentlessly. My heart was breaking all over again as I looked at her in that towel, and this time the pain was so much deeper because my absence from Lucas’s life was also heartbreaking.
I did what I needed to do so that I wouldn’t do anything I’d regret with Lucas in the room. I turned away from this woman, the only woman in the world who had the power to break me.
Chapter Two
Emmy squeezed herself into the corner of the couch, trying to shrink away from my harsh words. It looked like the couch was eating her. She looked so defeated. I was being downright cruel and she didn’t even defend herself, not even a little bit. The Emmy I left behind in New Jersey wouldn’t have let me verbally abuse her, whether she was in the wrong or not. This woman just sat there and took it. I never believed in fighting someone unwilling to fight for themselves, so I changed course.
“You do love Lucas, though,” I said, pulling my anger in. “You’re a good mother, I will give you that.”
She nodded, but didn’t meet my eyes. She stared at the wall on the other side of the room, willing herself not to look at me, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I was so angry with her, yet so hurt by her, and I even felt sorry for her. This couldn’t have been easy, even if she put herself in this precarious position in the first place by withholding such pertinent information. If I didn’t hate her right then as much as I loved her right then, I would have tried to soothe her, but then I didn’t really think she deserved soothing. I moved on.
“Anyway,” I sighed and looked away. “I have to put the past behind me, for Lucas's sake. I want to be part of his life. I just started my own firm, so I'm not really in a position to do too much traveling right now. I don't know anything about your situation,” I paused, unsure if I really wanted to know the answer to what I was about to ask. How much was I going to have to fight to get her and Lucas where I needed them? “Do you have your job to get back to in Philly...or anyone...waiting?”
Her green and brown eyes widened as she shook her head. “I haven't been in Philly since January. My family packed up the house and sold it.”
“You loved that house,” I said, surprised to hear this for the first time. Another fact Samantha failed to reveal to me.
Emmy tried to shrug it off, but I could hear the pain in her voice when she spoke. “Whatever sentiment I had attached to that house was obliterated.”
What the hell? What the hell happened in that house after I left? My first instinct was that Kyle Sterling did something shitty, but now wasn’t the time to ask.
“You say your family packed up - where were you?” I asked.
“The French countryside.”
The French countryside? Who the hell does that? Who the hell just picks up and moves to the French countryside? She made it seem like she had just went to the beach for a few weeks or something.
“Is that where you live?”
“Oh, no. I've been stateside since a month before Lucas was born. I'm not really tied down anywhere.”
“No boyfriends or anything?” I asked carefully.
“If you're wondering about Kyle Sterling, I haven't seen him since I left Philly.”
“I was curious, but it wasn't just about him,” I said, though it really was mostly about him. I had to know if there was some other man in my son’s life.
“I'm completely single,” she said dismally.
I was relieved. I was able to breathe a little easier, but then I had to tell her what I’d been thinking.
“I've been thinking about this most of the day,” I said, running a hand through my hair.
“Thinking about what?”
Emmy shifted uncomfortably. I knew what I was asking her was a lot, but she owed me this. In the very least, she owed me this.
“It will be good for Lucas to have his parents raising him together, at least at first. It gives him the best of both worlds, and just developmentally speaking, he will do well to have us both there at once. We'll both be able to participate in the everyday little things that parents get to experience with a child. I don't want to miss anything,” I said firmly, even though my voice trembled. My hands balled into fists as I waited for her response. I needed her to give me this.
“What if you start seeing someone?” she asked. I noted how she didn’t ask the question of herself.
“I'm not seeing anyone, not really.” There was no need to bring up Claire. “That's a bridge we'll have to cross when we get to it.”
Emmy scrunched her nose up for a brief second. It was an analogy she hated, but I had forgotten until now.
“You won't have to worry about anything,” I said. “I'll take care of the bills, buying the diapers and whatever either of you need.”
“That won't be an issue. I can take care of me and Lucas.”
“Then take care of yourself if you insist, but I want to take care of my son.”
She sighed. “How big is your apartment? Lucas needs a crib, and some other things.”
“It's only a one bedroom, but you and Lucas can have my room. I'll take the couch. We can look for a bigger place later. Does this mean you'll do it?”
Very slowly, she nodded. I breathed a sigh of relief and actually found myself smiling at her. She tried to smile back, but failed. Instead, she just looked plain scared.
*~~~*
I walked into my sister’s house, unannounced and without knocking. It was almost midnight, but I knew I’d find Lena in the kitchen sipping on a cup of hot cocoa. Even when she was at her sickest, she didn’t deviate from this nightly ritual. She waited until all of the kids and Chuck were in bed or otherwise occupied and made her cocoa the old fashioned way in a pot on the stove with real milk. She didn’t care about the calories or the sugar. It was her way of unwinding and it was one of few things she gave to herself. Rarely did I ever interrupt this ritual, but these were special circumstances.