Afterwards

by Nia Forrester

  Turned out Jamila was right. She wasn’t as certain now as she had been when she’d gotten the documents drawn up that she wanted this. Oh, she still didn’t give a crap about the money and definitely didn’t want him to buy her a damn house, but the idea that he would disavow the baby that they’d made together now struck her as obscene. The idea that she had asked him to do so was even more so. Especially since it was conceived in love—at least on her side. And now that she might lose the ability to share this experience with Chris, she wanted that more than anything.

  She was no longer resolute about anything.

  Today she had her appointment with Dr. Shayk. Chris would have been there. He would have definitely come with her if she asked him to, and maybe even volunteered to come, because if she was honest with herself Robyn would admit that he’d been coming around, and not just to the idea of her being pregnant either. He spent more time with his kids, talked about them more . . . God, had she allowed Sheryl to push her into a decision she’d only been partially committed to in the first place?

  Well, there was nothing to be done about it now, except wait and see what he might decide. Or there was always the option of simply eating her words, going up to his office and telling him that she’d been temporarily insane and wanted more than anything to raise this baby with him, no matter what happened with their relationship. What would happen with their relationship was another question altogether. After they talked on Friday evening, she offered to go home if he would take her.

  So you can think, she said when he looked at her blankly.

  So I can think? He’d sounded bitter. About what? The fact that you’re leaving me because I want to take care of you and my kid?

  The suggestion had rocked her. Leaving him? She’d never even considered that. If anyone left anyone, it would be him leaving her. That had always been the likelihood, hadn’t it? That he would leave her and all she would have was a new house that he’d paid for, probably some kind of monthly allowance and a bitter sadness that at best, in his life she was Baby Momma Number Three.

  I’m not leaving you, she’d said, sounding as shocked as she felt.

  What do you call this? You’re saying fuck you and your money, I’ll raise my kid myself. Isn’t that what it comes down to?

  No! I just want to . . . to re-set the terms of our relationship that’s all. So that you know that . . .

  That what? You’re not my responsibility?

  Yes, Chris. Exactly.

  He’d made it sound so distasteful. Like wanting him to know she didn’t expect anything was a negative when it should have been quite the opposite. And that had kept her up practically all night—lying in his bed, far away from him—the thought that maybe she didn’t understand him at all and had read him and the entire situation completely wrong.

  Her phone ringing caused her to jump, her butt literally leaving the chair. Shaking her head in exasperation at herself, Robyn reached for it. The console told her who was calling, and she only had that moment to prepare.

  She could read nothing from his tone of voice. “You free to come up to my office?”

  Her tongue felt leaden and Robyn nodded before she realized he could not see her.

  “Sure,” she said, swallowing hard.

  “Good. See you in a couple minutes.”

  Robyn stood and put a hand to her swollen middle. Inside her, the baby made a slight movement as though shifting position because she had. Taking a deep breath, she headed for the elevator and toward the answer to a question she now feared she should not have asked.

  On the twentieth floor, Lisa smiled and barely looked up as Robyn walked by. The hallway leading to Chris’ office seemed inordinately long today and she couldn’t tell whether it was because she was nervous, or because her feet hurt. Like everything else, her shoes appeared smaller of late, and she was wearing her high, but wildly impractical pointy cap-toe pumps, instead of the much more sensible raffia flats she’d shunned that morning while getting dressed.

  But what Robyn knew she wasn’t imagining was the way everyone in the offices on one side of the hallway turned to watch her progress towards the Boss’ inner sanctum. It can’t have escaped their notice that she hadn’t been there in a few days, not when she’d grown accustomed to making more than twice-daily visits.

  At the threshold to Chris’ office, she paused, because he wasn’t alone. With him was a woman Robyn did not recognize, a tall blonde with cool blue eyes and long, long legs, she stood when she spotted Robyn and came toward her, hand extended.

  “Robyn,” she said warmly. “I’m Erin Boscolo. A pleasure to meet you.”

  For a fraction of a second, her eyes fell to Robyn’s middle and then she smiled, going to shut the door to Chris’ office. While she did that, Robyn tried to meet Chris’ gaze across the room, but he was looking—or pretending to look—at something on his computer monitor. She didn’t know who this Erin woman was, but already felt betrayed.

  Wearing a tan blazer and skinny black pant, Erin Boscolo looked like she could have been sent over from Central Casting to play the walk-on role of the ‘Intimidatingly Beautiful Blonde’. When Robyn turned to her once again, she made a sweeping elegant motion with a hand, indicating that Robyn should sit on the sofa near the door. Feeling a swell of resentment that anyone should presume to tell her what to do in Chris’—her man’s—office, she swallowed it. Maybe he wasn’t her man anymore, and this meeting would only confirm it.

  “So.” Erin sat on the sofa as well, at the opposite end so she could turn to face Robyn. “Chris, are you . . ?”

  It was only then that Chris rose from his seat and came to join them, sitting in the armchair that everyone knew only he ever occupied. His face was completely unreadable, just as his voice had been when he called Robyn up to his office. Suddenly her heart was beating staccato in her chest and she was having a little trouble drawing a complete breath.

  “I’m Chris’ personal attorney,” Erin explained, her voice kind. “He shared with me . . .” She reached down and pulled a document out of a black calfskin briefcase. “This document. The relinquishment of rights you asked him to sign.”

  Robyn nodded, saying nothing. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears now, not just feel it.

  “He isn’t going to sign it, Robyn,” Erin said, her face almost mournful.

  Though she didn’t dare show it, inside, Robyn’s heart rate increased even more, but this time in elation.

  “Not only is it doubtful that it would be enforceable in New York State—which I think you probably know—he simply doesn’t want to.”

  At that, Robyn looked at Chris.

  “Why is she here then?” she asked, leaning forward, her palms open as though supplicating. “If you aren’t going to sign it and don’t want to, why is . . ?”

  “This is the language you chose,” he said. And this time, she could read his face, and his voice. He was angry. “Legal-ese. So that’s the language we’ll speak.”

  “Are you represented by counsel, Robyn?” Erin Boscolo asked, her voice still kind.

  “I am counsel,” Robyn snapped.

  “And you want to represent yourself in this matter?”

  “What matter?”

  Erin Boscolo produced another document, this one she handed to Robyn. Robyn didn’t look at it. Instead she looked at Chris.

  “It’s an access and visitation agreement. Wherein you would agree to give Chris reasonable access and rights to visit with his child once he or she is born, and that . . .”

  “I know what that means,” Robyn said dully. “Chris, you don’t honestly think I would deny you . . .”

  “I don’t know what to think,” he cut her off. “I know I was in a relationship with a woman who’s having my kid, who then decided that though she didn’t mind the relationship, she’d prefer I not parent our child.”

  “That is not what that was about!” Robyn said. “You’re deliberately . . .”

  “Then what was it about?
You thought you’d what? Liberate me from fathering?”

  “Yes!”

  “Okay folks, let’s not get too far afield,” Erin Boscolo held up a hand.

  “Shut up, Erin,” Chris said, his voice calm once again. “Robyn has something else she wants to say.”

  Robyn could feel the tears gathering at the backs of her eyes and in the tightness of her throat. Chris was looking at her like an adversary. Not like someone he’d shared intimacies with, laughed with, held close in the middle of the night. He had shut her out.

  “Well you’ll excuse me for saying so, Chris, but you weren’t the most enthusiastic parent with your other kids. And I know it’s complicated and I don’t have the history of it, but I. . .”

  “Damn right,” he said. And then he was standing and moving closer so he was towering over her. “You don’t have the history. But like you said, you met Sheryl. So you must have some idea.”

  “And Karen?” Robyn challenged looking up at him. “Is she the same way? Or maybe you just didn’t . . . want to be a father?”

  A little of the steam seeming to go out of him. And just that quickly, it went out of her as well, because her moods were attuned to his now, whether she liked it or not. It was virtually impossible to gain satisfaction from his discomfort. That was what love did to a person.

  “Things are different now,” he said, his voice more quiet now. “You know they are.

  Robyn swallowed hard again to keep the tears at bay.

  She wanted to touch him, to put her hand at the side of his face, but this conversation was not of the type that gave the confidence that she should. “If you could only look at it from my point of view. The best has happened. And the worst has happened. I’m in love with a man, and pregnant with his baby. But as far as I can see, he’s ambivalent at best about being a father.”

  For what felt like an eternity, they stared at each other until Erin Boscolo cleared her throat.

  “Robyn,” she said. “I think what this document means is that he does want to be a father. Notwithstanding his prior experiences with . . . notwithstanding prior experiences. To this child, he . . .”

  Without taking her eyes off Chris, Robyn extended a hand to the lawyer. “Do you have a pen?”

  Erin Boscolo produced one and Robyn finally tore her eyes away from Chris, flipping to the last page of the agreement without even skimming it, and signed on the line above her printed name. Handing the document back to Erin Boscolo, she stood and in so doing found herself inches away from Chris. She could smell his familiar scent, and even feel the heat radiating from his body. She wanted to touch him, and to explain.

  Robyn couldn’t help but believe that if they were alone, and in his bedroom, just the two of them, she could make him understand. She gave him the agreement not to push him away, but to convince him that she had no ulterior motive in pulling him closer. She wasn’t Sheryl and she wasn’t Karen. She didn’t want a house or child support, she just wanted him. But he was right. She’d chosen the very distancing language of the law to speak for her, but only because it was language she was comfortable with. Still, it had done the opposite of what she’d intended. And now there was no undoing what had been done.

  “You’ll make sure I get a copy when you’ve signed?” she said.

  “Of course,” Erin Boscolo answered for him, her voice bright. She probably felt she’d earned her no doubt exorbitant fee.

  Robyn opened the door and walked quickly down the hall, determined to make it back to her office in case the tears broke free.

  ___________________

  Winning wasn’t supposed to feel so damn shitty.

  Chris went straight to his home office and turned on the computer, sitting behind the large mahogany desk. Resting on the keyboard was his copy of the agreement Robyn had drawn up. It was moot now, because she’d agreed to give him access to the baby once it was born, but still, he looked at it, reading again the final three clauses; they were the ones he’d focused least on, in part because Erin told him that it had little legal effect.

  It’s basically dicta, Chris, she said. A kiss along with the kick in the ass.

  But now he read it with different eyes. He was not as angry now, as he had been. Not as . . . hurt. The clause read:

  3.1 This Agreement shall operate only as confirmation that Robyn Crandall will have sole physical and legal custody of the Child, and shall assume all financial responsibility and decision-making authority for matters related to his/her health, education and welfare, as outlined in Sections 1 and 2 above.

  3.2 Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to disallow the development of a close and mutually beneficial relationship between Christopher Scaife and his unborn biological Child who is the subject of this agreement.

  He couldn’t get out of his head how she kept saying she loved him. Even in the middle of a legal dispute, an argument, she kept saying it. Like it was obvious and unremarkable. Every time he heard it, it made Chris jumpy and uncomfortable. How the hell did a woman say she loved you on one hand and on the other, decide that she wanted you to give up your parental rights to the kid you had together?

  And then he remembered a story Robyn had once told him about her relationship with her own father, and about his sporadic appearances in her life. She spoke of eventually detaching from him emotionally so that now he was “just a nice man” who would never be her Dad, no matter how hard he tried. Though she’d tried to sound cavalier, Chris remembered thinking that he could see the residual hurt in her eyes, like a tender spot, with discomfort that remained tolerable, just so long as no one touched it. And she’d advised him not to become that kind of father with Jasmin. But he hadn’t listened. And Robyn had been there, never asking—though she had to be curious—about whether he’d made any headway in trying to become a real parent to his daughter, to all his kids. In the time they’d been together she’d seen him with his kids on three occasions. Three. That didn’t even amount to once a month.

  Now that she was having a baby of her own, despite their relationship, maybe Robyn wondered what it would be like, watching their kid wait for him to call or come by. Chris knew what it might feel like, because Karen told him her own experience watching Jasmin’s hope turn to disappointment. Heartbreaking.

  “Will you be having dinner in here this evening?”

  Chris looked up at the sound of Mrs. Lawson’s voice and started to nod, but instead shook his head.

  “Nah. I’ll just come to the kitchen,” he said. “No need to bring it all the way in here.”

  Mrs. Lawson’s eyebrows rose almost imperceptibly. “Oh. Alright then. I’ll just get everything set up for you.”

  She turned to walk away but Chris called her name to stop her.

  “Are you eating dinner right now, too?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said slowly, warily.

  “So let’s eat together then,” he said. And then seeing the surprise on her face. “If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t.” She smiled at him. “I’ll have everything ready for us in five minutes.”

  “Good,” Chris said.

  As she walked away, he looked one last time at the agreement and slid it into the top desk drawer.

  Mrs. Lawson had laid out placemats on the center island, and cutlery, two glasses at each place—one for wine and another for water. When he walked in, she took their plates from the warming tray and smiling at him, indicated that he should sit. Looking down at the meal, he smiled.

  “Salmon,” Chris said, picking up his fork. “Again. And string beans. Man, you make a man want to run away from home.”

  Mrs. Lawson took her place across from him. “Do you want to say the grace?” she asked, just as he was about to dig in.

  Chris smothered a smile. “No, why don’t you go ahead?”

  Chris shut his eyes and waited as Mrs. Lawson completed the ritual. When she was done and he opened his eyes, she nodded as though giving him permission to begin.

  “So I
haven’t seen Miss Crandall over here this week,” she remarked.

  Chris looked at her, his fork poised midair. “That’s because she hasn’t been here,” he said pointedly.

  Mrs. Lawson pursed her lips and speared one of her string beans, chewing painstakingly. If there was anything Chris knew how to recognize, it was a woman who needed to get something off her chest. He had a feeling he knew what it might be, and the last thing he wanted right now was to respond to anyone’s interrogation about Robyn.

  “Remind me what your son’s and daughter’s names are again,” he said.

  “Craig and Simone,” she said, smiling right away.

  “Which is older?”

  “Craig. He’ll be thirty-four soon. Simone is twenty-eight.”

  Chris looked at her, taking in the smoothness of her face, the brightness of her eyes. He figured her for about sixty, though she looked much younger.

  “Are you close to them?”

  “Oh God, yes,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder if we’re too close.”

  “What could be too close?”

  “My daughter told me the first time she had sex,” she said shaking her head, as though in exasperation at the memory.

  “I think Robyn’s probably that close to her mother,” Chris said.

  Where the hell had that come from? He wasn’t even thinking about her.

  “There are worse things,” Mrs. Lawson said, looking at him slyly.

  “Like not being close at all, you mean.”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  “My parents died when I was just a teenager.” Chris said. “I don’t know if I ever told you.”

  She nodded. “I knew.” She paused in the eating of her meal and looked right at him. “That’s a terrible loss when you’re young. I lost my mother when I was thirty-five and it just about killed me. Even then.”