The Beautiful Now

by M. Leighton

  I tell him about how smooth my pregnancy went after those first mornings when I was so sick. I tell him how my water broke in line at the grocery store and how an old woman stayed with me outside until the ambulance came, telling me all she’d learned about Lamaze and breathing techniques from watching reruns of Doogie Howser and St. Elsewhere. I tell him how terrifying it was to be a teenage girl, all alone, delivering another life into the world when I couldn’t even take care of myself. I tell him how holding Celina for the first time, however, was all it took to turn me into a protective mama bear who would do anything for her child.

  “She changed my life. For the better. She makes me a better person just by being.”

  Together, on our rock, I fill Dane in on his daughter. Her colic, her teething, and the musical little laugh that could turn my whole day around—I spare no detail. I tell him about the first time she said Momma and about the smashed peas I could never get her to eat. I tell him about the first time she got strep throat and how she wanted to be a ballerina when she was a little girl. I tell him about the tips I saved for six months so I could buy her a tutu. I tell him about her awful second grade teacher and her amazing third grade one. I tell him her favorite color (purple) and her favorite food (pizza). I tell him about her love of music and rom-coms, and her fondness for pets that I believe she got from her father.

  Dane smiles at that. “What else did she get from me?”

  “Are you kidding? The list is ridiculous.” So I name all the similarities I can think of. Her laugh and her skin and her perfect teeth. Her love of the outdoors and her rebellious streak, and even the birthmark right above her belly button.

  “She seriously has one there, too?” He grins as he asks.

  “Yep. I don’t know if something like that can be hereditary, but she’s got one almost exactly like yours.”

  Without seeming to be aware of it, he rubs his belly as he stares at something over my head. “That’s cool.”

  My heart melts. Yes, it is cool. It’s also cool that I’m on a rock, on the rock, with the boy I’ve loved since I was twelve, telling him about his daughter because he already loves her enough to want to know her. That is cool.

  I tick off every single thing I can think of that he shares in common with his little girl. I don’t think even I was aware of how much of her father Celina carried until I lay it all out for him. She’s absolutely, one hundred percent, unquestionably the child of Dane James.

  “Did she ever ask about me?”

  “Of course, she did.”

  “And what did you tell her?”

  My throat clogs. “I…I told her you were dead.” I see his jaw clench and I rush to add, “When she was old enough to start asking about her daddy, I didn’t want her thinking you didn’t love her, and I didn’t want her trying to find you and risk all of you getting hurt because of Alton, so I told her you died when she was a baby. I…I’m so sorry.”

  Dane’s muscles tighten. His tension is like a chill in the air, but after a couple of minutes, his words tell me that he’s doing his best to come to grips with this.

  “I just… I wouldn’t want her to think I didn’t come around because I didn’t love her.”

  “I didn’t want her thinking that either.” I take a deep breath even though my chest is so tight it feels like my lungs might collapse. “I hope you believe that I did the best I could. Always. For both of you. I loved you so much, I…I think I’d have done anything, gone to any lengths to keep him from hurting you.”

  I can’t imagine how hard it must be for him to come to terms with all this. I can almost feel his struggle. But he’s winning. Because he’s strong. He’s a fighter. That’s just who Dane James is.

  And his daughter is just like him.

  “I have a daughter.”

  I nod.

  “I have a daughter.” He repeats it with a tiny bit of wonder leaking through.

  This gives me hope.

  “You do.”

  I remain quiet for a while. It seems like Dane is sort of trying it out, taking it for a spin, and I want to let him.

  Finally, he breaks the silence again “So how’d you make it on your own all this time?”

  “It wasn’t always easy. After Alton left my room that night, when he tried to rape me, Momma gave me her engagement ring. She told me not to take less than five thousand for it.” I can’t help the bitter laugh that breezes through my lips. “I think that was her final way of looking out for me. She couldn’t find the courage to stand up to Alton. Or maybe she just didn’t want to, didn’t want to risk the life she’d managed to find here. I don’t know, but at least she didn’t put me out on the street to starve. She did what she could to give me a head start.” My heart is heavy as I remember those final moments in Shepherd’s Mill. I can’t help but relive all the feelings that were slamming around inside of me.

  “I don’t know how you ever forgave her.”

  “Sometimes I’m not sure I have.” And that’s true. Sometimes I want to shake her or slap her or scream at her for what she put me through. But I never do. Because she’s my mother. She’s Momma. “All I had was that ring and twenty bucks when I left here. I’ll never forget it. It was awful. That morning, I remember looking out at the sun as it was coming up over the fields. It had turned the clouds blood red, and the fields and your barn…they looked like they were on fire. And that’s how it felt. Like everything I’d ever loved was being burned to the ground. And there was nothing I could do to stop it. I remember thinking that even the sky knew. Even the sky knew.” I pick at the seam on my pants leg. “I cried all the way to the Greyhound station.”

  “Jesus.”

  “At least I had that much, though. It was a start.

  “Back in those days, twenty bucks could get you to Greensboro, North Carolina, so that’s where I went. When I got there, I asked the clerk at that bus station how far the nearest pawnshop was. Luckily, it was only three blocks away. I walked straight there and showed the guy Momma’s ring. He gave me six thousand two hundred and eleven dollars for it. Six thousand dollars.” My snort is mirthless. “That’s what I had to start a life. A whole life. A teenager, pregnant and all alone. I had no one and nothing, but I had six thousand dollars.”

  I pause, staring up at the vast sky, reliving those early days. In some ways, they feel like last week.

  “I got a motel room for the night, and the next day I took a bus to Baltimore, Maryland. Momma used to talk about Baltimore when I was really young. She’d visited once and loved it. I thought maybe I would, too. I guess it made me feel a little less lonely, too, in a weird way. Like someone I knew was there. Anyway, when I got there, I stayed in a cheap motel for nine days. That’s how long it took me to find a place that would rent to a minor. It was preacher, Greg Shatley, and his wife took me in. They let me stay there for a hundred dollars a month. I’m sure they took a loss, but I was so grateful I didn’t argue. I lived above their garage for three years. They were the only family I had.”

  I’m lost in thought, in memory, and when the silence stretches on, I hear Dane’s quiet words like bullets to my heart. “I’d have gone with you. I’d have been your family.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, my heart near bursting. “I know. I know you would’ve. And you might’ve hated me for it later when your dad’s life was ruined over a selfish little girl who couldn’t stay away from the boy she loved.”

  “I wouldn’t have hated you. I couldn’t. Believe me, I tried.”

  That hurts, but in a different way. To know how betrayed he must’ve felt, to know how he must’ve gone from being confused to being angry to being hurt and back again, sticks in my soul like a needle the size of an oar.

  “I…” I don’t even know what to say now. Maybe there’s nothing to say.

  “I’m glad you found someone to help you. At least you had that.”

  “Yeah. They were great. And I loved that little place. It was mine, all mine. No one to tell me how to live my life, ho
w to act, how to raise my child. I got to start over. In a tiny loft that overlooked a pond, I got to start over. That place was where Celina took her first steps, where she said her first words. It’s where she learned to crawl and where she was potty-trained. It’s where she became a toddler and I became a mom. It was good in a lot of ways. They even watched her for me while I worked those first few years. I waited tables at a diner across from Guilford College. It was walking distance from the Shatley’s, so it worked out perfectly.”

  “Then why didn’t you stay?”

  “Mr. Shatley got reassigned to another church. It was a great opportunity, so I can see why they took it. They had to sell the house, of course, and unfortunately, the new owners wanted to put their teenaged daughter above the garage, so I had to move. That’s when I realized that if I were ever going to be able to give Celina a good life, a stable life with a stable place to live, I’d have to go to college. I needed to make something of myself. For her.”

  “And you did.”

  “I guess. We’ve done okay. Until she got sick. That’s really why we came back. Medical care and…and a place to stay. I just couldn’t afford it all anymore, so I had to come back home. Like a whipped puppy.”

  “You didn’t come back like a whipped puppy.” There is derision in his tone.

  “That’s what it feels like sometimes.”

  “I’ll help you with her, you know.” His words are gruff, almost grudging, but I don’t take it personally. This is the way a man who’s been hurt responds.

  “I don’t expect that, Dane. That’s not why I told you.”

  “Why did you tell me? Why now? Why not when you first came back?”

  I draw my knees up toward my chest and rest my chin on them. “I was afraid you’d hate me and that would be…that would be so hard.” My chin trembles. “But more than that, Celina was afraid you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her. She wanted to meet you first. Give you both a chance to get to know each other. And now that you have, she’s ready. Besides that—” I have to pause before I continue so that I don’t burst into tears. “Besides, she’s decided she wants to have the bone marrow transplant and she…thinks there’s a chance she won’t make it, and she wanted you to know before she has it.”

  I pull my chin in until my forehead is resting on my knees instead. I don’t want to sit here and cry in front of Dane. Not again. It seems like that’s all I do anymore—cry.

  I hear the shuffling of material against rock seconds before I feel a big warm hand settle on my back. He doesn’t move it, doesn’t rub my back or do anything more to try to comfort me, but it comforts me anyway. The simple touch, the gesture itself, speaks volumes. It says that, while he isn’t very happy with me right now, and while he’ll probably be aggravated with me for a long time, he doesn’t hate me. He still has enough tender feeling for me to want to comfort me.

  I guess that’s something.

  “I want to be involved, Brinkley. With her, with her treatment, with all of it. I’ve missed the first fourteen years. I don’t want to miss any more.”

  “I understand. And you’re her father. You can see her as often as you want.”

  “See her?” He says it in such a way that it sounds negative.

  “Yes, but only if you want to.”

  He makes an irritated grunt.

  I feel a bit confused. He just told me he didn’t want to miss any more time, yet he seems to balk when I offer him all the time he wants.

  “So we’ll have like, what, joint custody?”

  That makes my heart speed up. Words like “custody” make me think of a nasty court battle and children torn in two by parents who hate each other and use their kids as weapons. I don’t like that word at all.

  “No. I mean, we don’t have to do anything legal like that. I wouldn’t ever try to keep you from her.”

  “You already have.”

  I swallow my gasp. “But-but I explained that to you. Those were different circumstances. I told you now because I want you to be part of her life.”

  “But only occasionally.”

  “No, not at all. Be around her as much as you want.”

  “How can I do that when she lives with your mother? I’m not exactly her favorite person. It’s not like I can just show up there every day, any time I want, to see my daughter. That would bring the bitch out in her faster than I could spit.”

  I turn to him, gripping his forearm with my fingers. “Dane, we will work this out. We’ll do what we have to do. For Celina.”

  He doesn’t move when I touch him. He doesn’t even shift his eyes away from mine. He sits like a big, hard stone and stares at me. I want to know what’s going on behind his eyes, but I’m afraid to ask. This hasn’t gone as I expected. Not that I really knew what to expect.

  Dane stares at me so long it begins to make me uncomfortable. I can’t decide if he’s thinking about Celina or he’s thinking about how much he’d like to hurt me. His face, his mouth, and his eyes are so intense, I shrink away from them.

  When he opens his mouth again, however, his words sound neutral.

  I wonder at his thought processes.

  “Tell me about the transplant.”

  “They’ll give her several big doses of chemo and a couple of rounds of whole body radiation in order to deplete her own bone marrow. They have to do that before they can transplant the donor marrow.”

  “Will she be hospitalized?”

  “For some of it, yes.”

  “And what about this donor?”

  “Well, we don’t have one yet. A sibling is really the best way to have a true match, but since she has no siblings, they think she’ll be able to use mine.”

  “Because you’re her mother or because you’re some other kind of match? How does that work?”

  “Because I’m her mother, yes. Parents are basically half-matches rather than full matches like a sibling would likely be.”

  He goes silent again, his eyes boring into me. Or maybe through me. I’m not even sure he’s seeing me at all.

  “I want to be her donor.”

  Not a question or a request. It’s a statement. It’s as strong and as determined as the man himself.

  “Dane, you don’t have to—”

  “I want to. I haven’t been able to give her anything for her entire life. I want to do this for her. So she’ll know that she’s my daughter and I love her.”

  I feel my face want to crumble and I steel myself against the urge to bawl. “She won’t have any doubts you love her. I don’t. The way you are with her… Dane, you were already falling in love with her. I knew it and I think she did, too.”

  “I want to do this, Brinkley. Don’t take this away from me, too.”

  Too.

  Like I’ve stolen so much from him.

  But the truth is, I have. And it’s impossible to undo the damage I’ve done.

  “Okay, Dane. Okay.”

  “Good. So when do we go?”

  “Go where?”

  “To Duke? We’ll need to find a place to stay there if she’ll be in and out of the hospital, right?”

  “You-you’re going to stay the whole time?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

  Why wouldn’t he indeed.

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to call her doctor and tell him what we’re going to do. He’ll have to make all the arrangements. And you’ll have to give a blood sample, too, for them to test. They tested mine to be sure, too, so it’s routine.”

  “Fine. Whatever. I’ll do whatever.”

  My lower lip wobbles, dammit. “Thank you.” I blink furiously.

  “For what?”

  “For still being the person I always knew you were.”

  “When this is all over, we need to talk about the future. I want to be a part of her life. Permanently.”

  Her life.

  Not mine.

  I swallow again. And again, it’s difficult.

  “Okay.”

>   “Maybe the two of you should come over tomorrow night for dinner. I’ll grill and we can tell her then. Do you think she’d like that?”

  A single tiny sob makes its way out and I have to cover my trembling lips with the tips of my fingers. I nod. “She’d love it.”

  “I’ll pick you up around three or so. I’d like to spend some time with her before dinner.”

  “We can walk over. You said the foot bridge, right?”

  “No, I want to come and get you.”

  “Okay. Three o’clock.”

  “Three o’clock.”

  He stands, and when he looks back at me, I know that I’ve lost ground with Dane, emotionally, between him and me. His eyes don’t hold the same fire that they did even three days ago. “Do you want me to walk you back?”

  “No, I’ll be fine. I’ve walked that path a zillion times.”

  He hesitates, but only for a few seconds. Then he nods and makes his way to the edge of the rock. He hops down and starts off through the wheat.

  I make myself get up, even though my legs feel too heavy to move. I chastise myself as I climb down off the rock and start back toward the house.

  This is what I wanted for Celina.

  I want him to love her first. Love her more.

  She’s his daughter. She has to come first.

  He doesn’t have to love me to love her.

  He doesn’t even have to like me.

  As long as he’s good to Celina, I couldn’t ask for more.

  Only it hurts.

  It hurts to know that I’ve lost his heart and might not ever get it back, that he will be in my life and completely out of reach for as long as I live. We’ll be right back to square one, only this time my love will be unrequited. Not only will I never have the man I love, but he will never love me now. Not again. Not after this.

  I let the tears fall as I walk, the wheat turning to long, blurry shafts of light in the darkness. I see the yellow dot of my bedroom window get closer and closer, yet I don’t want to go home. Everywhere seems too painful to be right now, even in my own skin.