I got out of the Jeep and stood next to it, not moving. A forceful gust of freezing wind blew, whipping at my hair and turning the warm memory of that night cold.
“Toby? Hello? Are you still there?” The tension in her voice sounded as if any marginal shift might cause her to burst into spontaneous flames.
“Yeah, I’m here,” I said.
“Say something, please.”
“Sorry.” I stared at the building before me, almost forgetting why I was there. I dragged a hand through my wind-blown hair. “I’m trying to wrap my head around this.”
“Me, too.” She sounded a little calmer. “I’ll be too nervous to do it at home. If I can get my Uncle Vinny to stay with my father a little later, is it okay if I go over to your house to take the test?”
“Sure.”
“I’m going to call April. Do you want me to wait for you to get home?”
“No. Just do it,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”
I was in no rush to find out our lives were fucked.
Chapter 15 • Claudia
I called April, and hearing the panic in my voice, she offered to make the trip to the drug store for me. She met me at Toby’s house, handed off the pharmacy’s little white paper bag, and shooed me into the bathroom. The small downstairs bathroom was cramped and small and in a state of disrepair. It seemed a fitting place to find out if my life, as I knew it, was over. I tore open the test but had to bend over the toilet and throw up. I pulled the chrome handle and watched the mess flush away. It was likely that everything that I’d worked so hard to achieve in the last few years was going down the toilet as well.
Holding the urine-saturated test, I averted my eyes and opened the door. April crowded into the bathroom with me.
“You look.” I held the stick towards her and watched her eyes lower to the narrow indicator window. The downward arch of her mouth revealed my fate. I closed my eyes and sunk onto the toilet lid, too stunned to say anything.
She touched my shoulder gently. “It could be a false positive.”
“Unlikely. These home tests are fairly accurate.” I looked up at her solemn face. “What am I going to do?”
“Oh, mami, it looks bad now, but everything will work out, you’ll see.” She squeezed my shoulder. “Toby should be home soon. Once you talk to him, you’ll feel better.”
I told April to go, and after she left, I pulled one of Toby’s sweatshirts on and lay on the couch. Its largeness swallowed me whole. I pressed the sleeve to my nose and inhaled the scent of him buried within the soft cotton fibers. I was desperate to find the calm that Toby’s arms around me always brought.
An hour went by, then two. I’d tried calling him after several texts went unanswered. Just as I’d convinced myself he was in a terrible wreck somewhere, the Jeep engine rumbled in the driveway outside. I sat up, waiting for him. The key jiggled in the door lock, and finally the door creaked open.
“You should have been home over an hour ago!” My voice bellowed in the darkened house. “Where have you been?”
“I needed some time to think.” He stood, stalled in the hallway like he was afraid of me.
The sight of him made all the anxiety I’d been feeling in the last couple of hours swell inside me. It felt too puffed up to contain.
“In case you were wondering, the test was positive. I’m pregnant.” I hugged my knees to my chest and found a stubby cuticle to gnaw at. Voicing the words made it an awful reality. He came to me then. Sitting down next to me, he pulled my hand from my mouth and laced his fingers with mine.
“How the hell am I going to tell my parents?” A twist of fear bloomed in the pit of my stomach.
With his head bowed low, he squeezed my fingers. “You don’t have to have it.”
I jerked my hand from his and stared at his profile. “You want me to abort it?”
He sighed, his gaze glued to his work boots. “I … no, but it is an option.”
“Not for me.” My heartbeat thrummed loudly in my ears. “I could never do that, and I can’t believe that knowing me you’d even suggest it. I’d sooner give it away for adoption.” I rewrapped my hands around my knees and stared at his boots, too. “And, before you ask, I don’t think I could do that either.”
“I guess that only leaves you having it.” He sat up, his gaze shifting hesitantly over my face as if he hoped I would contradict him.
I would have if there were any other acceptable choice.
“Yes. I’m going to have it.” Burrowing my hands inside the sleeves of the sweatshirt, I tried to find warmth. “My parents will flip out, and I mean, really, really flip out.”
Above all the causalities to consider in an unplanned pregnancy, the weight of the shame I’d bring on my family was the most insurmountable. My mother worried me, but my father’s reaction, especially in his current injured state, is what I feared most.
“Yeah, I get it. The traditional family thing.”
“It isn’t a thing, Toby. My father and his family are traditional in every sense of the word. He may never forgive me, but I’m going to have it. There’s no other way for me.”
“Fuck.” He buried his head in his hands. “I just wanted it to be you and me.”
It hit me then. Instead of celebrating the tiny life we had created together, we were mourning the life we could no long have. I felt too numb to cry as if none of it were real. I melted into his side, my eyelids like steel curtains too heavy to keep open.
When I woke, the house was dark. Toby wasn’t next to me. He was sitting in the club chair across from me, staring vacantly at nothing. When I sat up, his eyes found me.
“How long was I sleeping? I need to call Uncle Vinny.”
“Less than an hour,” he said before he leaned forward and nudged a small item across the coffee table to me. “That’s for you.”
“What is it?” In the dark, I couldn’t quite make out what it was. I picked it up and felt the soft, fuzzy nap of a square jewelry box.
My hand trembled as I switched on the small lamp aside the couch. Although I’d never seen the faded silver velveteen box, I could guess what was inside. The pale, hinged lid creaked when I opened it, revealing a ring nestled inside. It was a simple thin, silver wedding band with a leaf-like scroll design curled around five diamond flecks. Modest, but pretty. The tiny diamonds sparkled in the lamp light.
“It was Julia’s. I’ve had it since she died.”
“You’re giving this to me, but isn’t something missing?”
“The diamond? I’m not sure Julia had an engagement ring. That band was probably all my father could afford at the time. Change it if you want to however you like it.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” I shook my head. “I love the ring. I wouldn’t dream of changing it, but if you’re doing what I think you’re doing, then you need to come over here and at least sit next to me.”
He lowered his eyes and made no attempt to get up. So I did.
I pushed his legs apart and folded onto my knees before him. I rested my arms on his legs and held the ring box out to him.
“Toby Faye, will you marry me?” I whispered.
He closed his eyes as if it were too much for him to process. When I’d almost given up, he whispered my name and dragged me into his lap. He held my face in his hands and stared into my eyes as my hair fell like a waterfall around our heads.
“I love you. I love you. God, how I love you,” he moaned in a raw, painful voice.
I moaned, too, pushing out of his grip to crush my mouth to his. Our mouths connected, and the floodgates opened. My tears soaked his face, and the saltiness stung our joined lips.
I pressed the box into his hand. “Put it on me.”
His fingers trembled as he took the box from me and pushed the ring onto my finger. The silver was cool against my skin, but when it reached my knuckle, it would go no further.
The breath we’d both had been simultaneously holding came out as pent up laughs.
&nb
sp; “Your mom was so tiny. Her fingers were much smaller than mine.” I held my hand up. The ring perched right above my knuckle, and we both gawked at it.
I put my hand on his warm cheek. The diamond specks winked at me, but his eyes drew my attention back to his face.
“What’s next?” he asked.
“An appointment with a gynecologist to confirm,” I said. “Then we talk to my father.”
Chapter 16 • Toby
A week later, I went with Claudia to her gynecologist appointment. Dr. Shapiro was a slightly stooped, silver-haired old guy, who looked like he should’ve been kicking back in Florida years ago. I was taken aback when he snapped on a pair of latex gloves, lubed up a couple of his arthritic gnarled fingers, and shoved them between Claudia spread legs—all without so much as offering to buy her a drink.
I held Claudia’s hand, trying not to cringe, as I watched with gross interest as he pressed her stomach with one hand and fingered her with the other.
“Yep, yep.” He smiled. “Congratulations, you are indeed pregnant. Get dressed and meet me in my office. We’ll figure out your due date.” His tone was matter-of-fact and slightly upbeat like he had no idea he’d just dropped a hammer on our lives.
The two of us sat in Shapiro’s office waiting for him to join us. I tapped my heels up and down on the carpeted floor, a nervous tick I couldn’t stop.
“You can spend your life being careful, but it only takes one impulsive, reckless act to mess it all up,” Claudia said. She stared straight ahead at a framed watercolor image above Shapiro’s formal dark wooden desk.
The indirect accusation crept over my skin and seeped into my pores. In the following silence, her hand found my clenched fist and gripped it tightly, my mother’s ring pressing into my knuckles. Claudia wore it on her pinkie, the only finger it would fit.
“If that sounded like I blame you, I don’t,” she said quietly. “I’m disappointed with myself for getting caught up. I should have known better.”
Known better than to get caught up and let me take over.
Guilt weighed heavily on my chest, but I squeezed her hand back. “We’ll get through this.”
I stared out the car window, fixated on a single date: July 29. The baby was due July 29. Years ago, there’d been a rumor no one had been able to prove or disprove, but this time there was no denying it. This one was mine. I was going to be a father, like it or not.
“We’ll just do a small ceremony, maybe dinner with my family afterwards. Nothing fancy.” Claudia’s hand covered mine. “We’ll keep it small.”
I snorted. “There’s nothing small about your family.”
Her uncle moseyed out of the kitchen as we came through the front door, a chorus of rowdy laughter floated out from behind him. Vinny had become a fixture at the house since El Capitán had come home from the rehabilitation center. Claudia kissed her uncle’s cheek, and I shook his hand. I liked the guy.
“A few officers stopped by with a case of beer to cheer your father up,” he said. “They should clear out shortly, and your father will take a nice, long nap when they do.”
“Were you drinking, Uncle Vinny?” Claudia asked.
“I can drive you home,” I offered.
“I’m fine. I had one beer about an hour ago. But you two are good kids.” Vinny gave Claudia another kiss and gently cuffed my shoulder before he left.
As soon as the door shut behind him, Claudia pulled out her laptop and began to catalog the pregnancy. “I’d like to get married before I start to show. April would probably be a good month. I’ll call the church. See what dates they have available.”
“Okay,” I agreed, but really I didn’t want to think about it. Everything seemed to be moving way the fuck too fast, but planning seemed to calm her. “I was thinking I should quit the AutoCAD program and pick up extra side jobs. I can make a lot more money that way.”
“No, we should both continue going to school,” she said without looking up, her fingers typing briskly on the keyboard.
“I know it’s important to you to finish school and get your degree.” I watched her, no doubt in my mind that as we talked, she was compiling a list of things that needed to get done. “I want you to, but to do that, we’re going to need more money. I won’t make any sitting in classes three nights a week.”
She looked up from her screen. “Toby, you only have six more months. Stick it out. You’ll finish before the baby comes. Finishing this class means you’ll make more money in the long run.” Sighing, she closed the laptop and pushed it away. “I’d like to get your mother’s ring resized first, but how soon after do we start telling people?”
It was one thing to talk about it with a doctor in a private office, but telling the world made it a surreal reality.
“Wait until you start showing and people ask,” I said.
“Very classy, but my parents need to know.” She blew out and wrapped her arms around her torso, hugging herself. “My mother will think I’ve ruined my life, and Dad … he’ll take it as a personal insult.”
For her, I wished there was a way to skip this part—skip the worrying about what everyone was going to think. At that moment, the anticipated disapproval of her family was the heaviest weight of all.
I wanted to step on the gas and blow through it. Otherwise, I might lose my nerve.
A barrel of voices entered the room, quashing our exchange, and her father’s precinct pals filed out the front door, wishing us a goodnight.
On their departure, Claudia made a dash for the bathroom to pee, and I wandered into the kitchen. Pops sat at the kitchen table, his walker close by. A collection of empty beer cans congested the sink. It looked like her father and his friends had killed the whole case.
“Giants are having a good season so far.” I leaned against the counter.
“Their defensive line is shit,” he said.
Claudia returned from the bathroom and came to my side. I reached for her hand, the one with my mother’s ring on her pinkie finger.
“We have some good news,” I began.
She tugged on my arm. “We’re doing this now?”
“Yeah.” I squeezed her fingers before addressing her father. “Claudia and I are getting married.”
“Really?” His eyes swung like a pendulum from her face to mine. “Is this to be a traditional wedding in the church?”
I didn’t trust him or the question. It was too composed.
“Yes,” Claudia answered.
“Not you,” he told her and crooked a finger at me. “Him. I’m not even sure what his religious convictions are.”
“I was confirmed Catholic, but I don’t believe in ritualized religion,” I said.
“Would you burst into flames if you stepped a foot inside a church?”
“No,” I replied, digging deep for restraint. “I’m not unspiritual, only agnostic.”
Pops shook his head, his expression rife with protest. “Don’t you think conflicting religious practices will affect your relationship?”
“It hasn’t so far,” I said.
“Dandy.” He shifted in his seat and grunted. “Marriage is a long-term commitment. It requires compromise and shared interests as well. Your family … well, let’s just say, with your upbringing, I’m not confident … Oh, hell.” He stalled, lowering his chin. With a growl, he looked up, his harsh glare securely in place. “I want my daughter happy and well-taken care of, and between the two of you, you don’t have one leg to stand on financially, spiritually, or emotionally.”
“Don’t feel the need to hold back, old man.” I hadn’t really prepared for this, but it was go time. “Claudia will be done with her degree next year, and I make a decent living and own my own house—”
“Your mother left you that ramshackle bit of a house. It doesn’t demonstrate your ability to provide for my daughter.” Pops shook his head.
“Daddy, we’re going to be fine,” Claudia said.
Her father was tough, and over the years I
’d known him, his opinion had gained weight with me. Sweat pooled under my armpits, but I refused to let him see me falter.
“I promise to take care of her,” I replied. “I'm planning to make more money and buy a nicer house.”
He let out a gusty sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose as if he were counteracting a headache. “Claudia, you want to do this when you haven’t finished school? What’s the goddamn hurry?”
I looked at her. She squeezed my hand and pleaded with me. “Not now. Not tonight.”
“What’s going on?” Her father picked up on our ambiguous exchange, and his regard fastened tight to our faces.
“Mr. Chiametti, Claudia…” At those first few unsteady words, Claudia pinched my hip, pleading my silence with her wide, unblinking gaze. “We can’t keep it a secret. He’s going to find out eventually if he doesn’t already suspect it.” I unclamped her contorted fingers from my hip and held both her hands before turning back to face her father. “Claudia’s pregnant. You’re going to be a grandfather.”
A fuzzy silence fell over the room—the house, our world. All the color rushed from Claudia’s face. With a gasp, she reached blindly for the back of the nearest kitchen chair. I caught her by the waist and directed her to sit down. Her dad cursed.
“How the hell could you let this happen?” Pops twisted in his chair, his accusing glare fastened to me.
Claudia took my hand in hers. “We love each other, Dad. It’s all that matters.”
“Foolish words. Love doesn’t pay the bills, and it sure doesn’t feed a baby. And with this guy?” He threw a dismissive nod in my direction. “He’s barely able to take care of himself. How do you expect him to take care of you and a baby?”
Claudia sunk further into her chair. “Dad—”
I took a step toward him. “I’m right here. If you have something to say, say it to my face.”
“Gladly.” Her father grabbed his walker and pushed to his feet, bringing us nearly toe-to-toe. Steely cold eyes met mine, the brief hint of warmth from earlier, long gone. “You’re a no good nothing from a lousy family, and goddamn it, now you’ve disgraced my daughter.”
Keeping Claudia (Toby & Claudia Book 2) Page 16