Afterwards

by Nia Forrester

  Deuce suddenly became busy fidgeting with the Maybach’s sound system. Chris slapped his hand away.

  “I asked you a question.”

  Deuce shrugged. “You know. I do a little somethin’ . . .”

  “What does that mean? You wrappin’ it up?”

  Deuce laughed explosively. “I know you ain’t about to preach to me about birth-control.”

  “You better watch your damn mouth,” Chris said, his voice lowering. “Know what you talkin’ ‘bout before you try to step into grown-folks’ business. If you’re talkin’ ‘bout Robyn, that baby is very much wanted. By us both.”

  The words had just come out. A spontaneous utterance of what he knew immediately was the truth.

  Deuce nodded and then looked out the window. Chris glanced at him but only saw the back of his head.

  “What about me?” Deuce asked quietly. “Was I wanted?”

  He could equivocate, or explain, or justify. Then Chris remembered something Robyn had once told him—that not every question required a strictly honest answer.

  “You’re my first-born. Of course you were wanted.” He grabbed and squeezed the back of his son’s neck and then let his hand fall, returning it to the steering wheel.

  “So . . .” Deuce said turning around again. “There is this one honey, right? Her name’s Fabia. Italian chick, but built like she’s Black . . .”

  Chris let his son talk. And just listened.

  Sheryl was waiting when they got to the house, and her husband was nowhere in sight. Wearing a white terry jumpsuit, she looked as good as always, but to Chris held none of the appeal that Robyn had when she opened the door for him and Deuce in a gray sweatshirt dusted with flour and stretched to capacity to accommodate her belly, and black Capri tights with bare feet. Robyn had kissed him on the cheek when he walked past the threshold and her mother had too, then both of them had made much of Deuce telling him how handsome he was.

  Sheryl, sour expression in place, simply stepped aside to let them both in. In one hand, she held a glass of red wine aloft.

  “Took y’all long enough,” she said. And to Deuce’s retreating back as he headed upstairs. “Ain’t got nothin’ to say? Rude!”

  “Hey, Ma,” Deuce said stopping on the stairs and looking back.

  “Thank you,” Sheryl said. “So what’d you get?”

  “BMW X3. They’ll deliver it next week.”

  Sheryl huffed as though that was bad news. “Okay, g’on upstairs and take care o’ that mess you left in your room.”

  When Deuce was gone, she turned to Chris. “You couldn’t get him the X5 or X6? I seen a kid at his school with the new model.”

  “Bad enough he’s even getting a BMW,” Chris said. “Part of me felt like I might be fucking him up for life by giving him something like that.”

  Sheryl rolled her eyes. “Oh please. Like you should be ashamed that you rich?”

  Chris didn’t respond, knowing that Sheryl wouldn’t understand. Her life philosophy was, ‘take what you can, when you can.’ The idea that maybe he shouldn’t hand everything to Deuce just because he could would escape her. And that was why he knew that what he was about to propose would work out just fine.

  “Where’s your man?”

  “He’s out. Why? Did you . . . need me for somethin’?” she asked, taking a slow sip of wine.

  Chris ignored the implication. “Let’s sit down,” he said.

  Sheryl led the way into the living room and took a seat on the brown leather sofa, resting her wineglass on the coffee table. Chris took a seat opposite her, and considered for a moment, wondering if the step he was about to take was wise, or very, very foolish.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you asked me for,” he began. “For us to settle up . . .”

  Sheryl’s eyes brightened and she straightened her back slightly, leaning forward.

  “I think that makes the most sense,” he continued.

  She smiled. “So you finally came around, huh?”

  “Yeah, whatever you want to call it, Sheryl. Bottom line would be that I give you a lump sum. And for the next two years, I give you child support for Deuce until he’s eighteen. When he goes to college, that becomes a conversation between me, him and his school; and you and I would have no more financial dealings of any kind.”

  “What about the house?” she asked, all-business again. “The car?”

  “Yours to keep, free and clear.”

  “Free and clear? You have a mortgage on the house, don’t you?”

  At various times over the years, he’d considered buying it for her outright, but the bottom-line was, he didn’t trust her with the deed to a million-dollar house. He still didn’t. But another option, a simple solution he’d never thought of was suddenly crystal clear. If Sheryl squandered her money and sold the house to live the high-life with her no-good man, Deuce could come live with him. Hell, Deuce could come live with him now if it came to that. There was no reason to hold the reins so tight. And if Sheryl was at the other end of them, he didn’t want to hold them at all.

  “I’ll pay the mortgage off,” Chris said.

  Sheryl gave a small smile and blinked languidly, reaching for her wineglass once again. “So generous. I wonder what brought this change of heart about.”

  ___________________

  Chris dialed the number and was startled by how quickly she answered, sounding sleepy, but not as though she had actually been asleep.

  “Thank you for today,” he said. “For . . . you know, with Deuce coming over and everything.”

  “You don’t have to thank me, Chris,” she said. “It was my pleasure.”

  He didn’t like the way she said that. Like they were strangers, like he’d been just another guest in her home, someone to whom she had no emotional ties, like a next-door neighbor.

  “How are you?” he asked. And how’s the baby?

  Silence.

  “What d’you mean?” she asked finally.

  “I mean, how are you . . . really?” he asked, not liking the caution he heard in her tone.

  She didn’t know what to make of this late-night phone call, probably. He didn’t know what to make of it either. All he knew was that he couldn’t sleep and that his impulse had been to just get on his bike and head back to her mother’s place; to call her and have her open the door and welcome him back into that yellow room, where he’d gotten some of the best sleep of his life. But then what?

  More silence.

  “Robyn? You still there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Say something.”

  “I’m trying to think of something,” she said. “Something that won’t make you run away from me.”

  “I didn’t know what to do,” he admitted. “I told you, I’m not . . .”

  “Prince Charming. Yes, I know.” Her voice was emotionless.

  “And with my kids, I haven’t been the best father.”

  “I saw an amazing father today,” Robyn said.

  “That was one day, Robyn. A couple of hours. You’re talking about . . .”

  “We never talked,” she said. “I told you, and you left. And cut me off, and never called or . . .” Abruptly, she stopped midsentence.

  All the anger and hurt he’d known she must have had were finally coming to the surface.

  “We can do it now,” he said.

  “Do what now?”

  “Talk.”

  26

  Robyn eyed Tracy’s glass of wine longingly, wishing she could have one herself. But she wouldn’t take the chance, even though Dr. Shayk told her it was fine to have one small glass occasionally. It wasn’t worth it; not if the cost was fear of miscarriage or fetal alcohol syndrome. According to WebMD, her baby was now about an inch and a half long and almost completely formed. She would be beginning to move, and her little tooth buds were growing. If wine made her woozy, then Robyn didn’t want to know what it might do to the tiny fetus inside her.

  “So what di
d you tell her?” Riley was asking. “Did you make an appointment?”

  “No, I told her I needed to talk to Chris first. I mean I appreciate the help, I guess.”

  Robyn was relaying to Riley and Tracy her phone call with a realtor Chris had sent her way. The woman—named Iris Greenberg—had caught her completely off guard calling just as Robyn was about to leave the office for the day. She’d stuttered her way through the conversation, finally managing to reschedule their chat altogether by pretending she was late for a meeting. She was planning to buy a house and had told Chris as much ages ago, but before talking to a realtor she needed to get her financial ducks in a row. While his help was appreciated, having a baby felt like a big enough production for the moment.

  “And then . . ?” Tracy prompted. “Did you talk to him?”

  “No, I haven’t spoken to him since she called,” Robyn said. “It’s not like it was before. I don’t see him that often.”

  They talked on the phone, though. Late at night, sometimes Chris would call her and they had long, meandering conversations. Robyn knew that he was slowly moving toward a new place, a different place than he’d been when he left for Paris, but still, it wasn’t like before. It was nothing like before. Now they smiled and waved in the hallways at work, or emailed about business. When he saw her, he touched her belly and asked how she was feeling, but their conversations were awkward because Robyn was finding it hard to be his acquaintance or his friend when each movement of the baby inside her served as a reminder that once, they had once been so much more.

  A lull fell over the table and Tracy and Riley exchanged a look that Robyn couldn’t read.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Riley said.

  “It’s not nothing,” Tracy said giving Riley a chiding look.

  “Then what?” Robyn asked looking from one to the other.

  They were downtown at a quaint and unassuming neighborhood restaurant on Clinton Street known for its decadent bakery and delicious Sunday brunches. But they were there for dinner because it was only a hop, skip and jump from the spa where they had spent the last few hours being pampered.

  Though it should have been relaxing, Robyn found that she was too averse to being touched by the masseur to relax. While she knew, on a purely intellectual level, that another man touching her in this context was far from disloyal, it felt that way. Like her pregnant body was now marked, and Chris alone had the right to it, whether he wanted those rights or not. Rather than simply request a masseuse instead, she’d tried to work through it and instead wound up feeling tense throughout the entire thing.

  “Robyn, Chris is planning to buy you a house,” Tracy said sighing deeply as though exhausted by the effort of maintaining some pretense.

  Robyn laughed. “No, he’s not! A long while back, I told him I was looking, and he probably . . .”

  But Riley and Tracy weren’t laughing. They were looking at her with a mixture of sympathy and apprehension, like they had bad news to deliver.

  “He did that for both his . . . the other women he has kids by,” Tracy said slowly. “Bought them a house, got them set up and, ahm, taken care of.”

  Robyn felt her face grow warm and reached for her glass of water, taking a long swallow.

  When she raised her eyes again, Riley and Tracy were still giving her that same sympathetic look, and she felt the full weight of her humiliating circumstance. Was Chris really planning to get her “set up” in a house, just as he had with his other . . . baby mommas? Set her aside and get her “taken care of” like just another financial obligation? Like a bill he had to pay?

  Was that how he saw her?

  “Look, I’m sure it’s different with you,” Riley hastened to add, reaching across the table to touch Robyn’s hand. “And Chris is nothing if not financially responsible, so he just wants to make sure you’re okay. And that the baby is looked after. So . . .”

  “But Robyn’s not that kind of woman who gets looked after, Riley,” Tracy said. “She’s an accomplished, intelligent career woman that Chris is in an adult relationship with. So she should smack him across his face and say ‘no thank you, asshole’.”

  “We’re actually not in a relationship,” Robyn reminded them, her voice dull. “Not anymore.”

  Tracy waved that off. “Not at the moment, no. But that’s just because he’s going through some things. It’s a phase, believe me.”

  “Tracy,” Riley began.

  “What? She doesn’t belong in column A with the gold-diggers, she’s in column B with the women you buy a ring for, and the sooner she lets him know that . . .”

  “Tracy, you don’t know . . .”

  “The ring comes first, Riley.”

  “Right, because that’s how you and Brendan did it,” Riley returned.

  “Oh my god, you did not just go there.”

  “Yeah, I actually did.” Riley nodded, taking a sip of wine and looking at Tracy evenly.

  Robyn listened to her friends bickering, feeling herself getting smaller and smaller, wishing she could disappear. For weeks she’d been secretly hoping that what Tracy said was true, that Chris was still adjusting, and that maybe he might still come around. But this seemed to suggest something else entirely. He wasn’t ‘coming around’ to anything other than the realization that Robyn was yet another woman with a kid he’d have to take care of.

  Still, how the hell could he think she would let him buy her a house? Well, in fairness, he had always given her expensive gifts and she had never once refused one. So to now turn squeamish because of the scale and price of his intended gift . . . was that hypocritical? But whether it was or not, the idea of taking something like this from him made her feel literally sick to her stomach. The idea that he believed she would accept it, made her even more so.

  “Robyn, I don’t care what Riley says,” Tracy said, leaning across the table and grabbing both her hands. “Do not let him do this for you.”

  “Tracy, let her decide for herself what she wants! You have to stop making her feel like . . .”

  “I’m not making her anything. Do you remember the time we met that piece-of-work he has his older son with? Do you?”

  Riley said nothing.

  “Exactly,” Tracy said. “Robyn has nothing in common with someone like that. And this is the moment when she needs to draw that line, make it bright and clear and bring it to Chris’ attention that if she wants a house she is perfectly capable of buying one herself. Unless what he’s talking about with that house is a ring, a white dress and the whole goddamn package.”

  ___________________

  Robyn had two appointments for the day.

  The first took several hours and involved driving around with a woman who clearly didn’t relish being asked to show real estate that was way south of the standard to which she was accustomed. By the time they arrived at the fourth house, Iris Greenberg was barely controlling her impatience. Shifting from one foot to the other, she waited as Robyn ascended the stairs, trying and failing to conceal her sigh.

  “Three bedrooms, two and a half baths,” she recited, sounding bored. “A family room and yard, with a quarter of an acre.”

  “And how much?” Robyn asked from the top of the stairs before peeking into the first bedroom.

  Iris Greenberg called out the asking price but didn’t bother to join Robyn upstairs to look things over. That was fine; Robyn was perfectly prepared to do the search on her own if need be, but she didn’t know any real estate agents, and a bird in hand . . .

  The first bedroom was small, and looked more like a home office. It had a tiny closet that had clearly been added just so the space could qualify as a bedroom at all. But it looked out onto the backyard which was level, fenced in and quite large. Large enough for an outdoor sitting area, or a swing set.

  Smiling, Robyn moved on to the next room. Better. Large and airy, it had two windows side by side, also providing a view of the yard, and an en suite bathroom, which looked to ha
ve been remodeled recently. The tiles were white, making the bathroom appear pristine. Perfect.

  The third bedroom had somewhat of an awkward shape, with a tiny nook in one corner that just might house a dresser of average width, or a desk for a kid to sit at and do their homework. There was a bathroom just off this bedroom as well, and walking through it, Robyn saw that it adjoined the smaller home office type room.

  Hearing squealing and laughter, Robyn walked back out onto the landing and peered out from the window at the end of the hall which faced the street. Kids across the street were playing in the prematurely fallen autumn leaves, tossing them overhead and dancing around in them. A woman came out of the house and admonished them, pointing at a rake before heading back inside. The two kids—two little girls with chestnut hair—giggled to each other and began tossing the leaves once again.

  “Are you interested in seeing the kitchen at all?”

  Iris Greenberg seemed to have manufactured something akin to interest, so Robyn went back downstairs, allowing herself to be led through the lower level. Eat-in kitchen, family room, and a porch, a small entryway and a sizeable dining room with molding and chair-rails running throughout. Best of all, the house was only ten miles from her mother’s townhouse. It would be no trouble at all getting over there for Sunday dinner, or if she needed a babysitter in a pinch, getting her mother to come over here.

  If she wanted to host Thanksgiving one year, there was room for her mother and brother to stay the night if they wanted. Someday she might even have dinner parties, or a gathering of girlfriends. Riley and Tracy might come over and bring their kids for play-dates. Realizing just how much the house had already sent her imagination soaring, Robyn turned to the realtor.

  “I’d like to make an offer,” she said.

  ___________________

  To say she was exhausted when she got to Burns & Wiley would have been an understatement. Her body was telling her that it was time to go home and lie down, but she couldn’t. She needed to get this out of the way while she had the nerve. She had to be resolute.

  That was the word her mother had used the evening before when she told her what she planned to do.