The Vow

by Denene Millner

  “How did his breathing get so labored?” I demand.

  My mother, instinctively understanding that this would not be a good time to give me shit for giving her shit, just answers the question.

  “I’m not sure how it happened,” she says simply. “He was breathing that way when Sean brought him home after dinner.”

  “Did Sean say anything about it?”

  “No,” my mom answers. “He barely said two words to me; he was too busy running out the door.”

  “Did he say where they’d been?”

  “Sean didn’t, but Corey said they’d had dinner over at one of his friends’ houses, and that he was scared because she had two cats and one of them kept hissing and clawing at him.”

  “What?” I say. “What woman’s house did he have my child at?”

  “Corey said it was the woman from the birthday party—the white girl.”

  “He took my son over to that heifer’s nasty-ass, cat-infested house for dinner, and then dropped him off at my place like he was some sick puppy he was leaving on the side of the highway?” I ask, incredulous.

  My mother says nothing. Daddy stands quiet, staring at the floor.

  “I can’t believe that bastard. Where is he, anyway? I tried his phone, his two-way, called his office, his voicemail—every number I have for his stupid ass. Why hasn’t he called back? And why isn’t he here?” I ask no one in particular. Just as I’d worked myself into a complete frenzy, the nurse comes in.

  “We’ve got a room all set for him,” she says. “If you’ll follow me, we can take care of the paperwork while we prep your son for admission.”

  THE MACHINE they’d hooked Corey up to is noisily pulling what appears to be green and yellow snot out of my son’s throat. A monitor just to the left of his bed beeps steadily every few minutes, reassuring everyone within a two-mile radius, it seems, that the boy was breathing and his heart was pumping. Though the doctor making rounds and the nurse both assure me that Corey was a fighter and would pull through, I can’t take my eyes off my son for fear that if I close them, he would leave me forever. I ache for sleep, but it just isn’t an option. I even refuse to let the nurse show me how to convert my visitor’s chair into a pullout bed (Cedars had them in each of the children’s rooms to accommodate parents who just couldn’t bear leaving their babies in the hospital). I have no intention of using it for anything other than watching after my child.

  My mother left about two hours ago; Daddy arranges for one of his boys to drive her home back to Chino—my mother hates driving at night, and isn’t all that familiar with the roads. (In fact, I know she is working on pure adrenaline and willpower when she navigated her Celica through the streets of West Hollywood to the hospital; if she didn’t think her grandson was dying, she would have waited for the ambulance to give them a lift.) She leaves the car for me so that I can come and go as I please, but Daddy stays on to comfort me and provide support while I watch my child’s chest heave in and out from his labored breathing. I cry, Daddy listens. “He keeps me honest,” I say, nodding my head for emphasis, wiping tears from my cheeks. “He’s a good boy. What would I do without my child?” I ask, bursting into tears again.

  In the two hours that I stand sentry at Corey’s sickbed, I alternate between extreme anxiety over my son’s condition and extreme anger that his father is probably the one responsible for this mess. Not that either of us had known that Corey had asthma or that he might have been this severely allergic to animals (neither Sean nor I have allergies, and though he’d get the sniffles if a cat rubbed on him just a little too much, he’d never suffered such a severe breathing attack before), but I can’t understand how he can be so busy to get back to whatever he is plotting and planning with Brittany that he can’t see that his child is ill. I mean, how could a person be so inattentive and self-centered that he doesn’t notice his child is having problems breathing?

  But that is just like his ass—self-centered bastard! Everything is about Sean—what Sean wants, what Sean needs, what Sean’s got to have this very minute. Been that way from the moment I met him in college. He’s a spoiled brat—got it from his mama. That became clear when we were planning to have our baby and were pondering a future together.

  “I’m just saying,” he’d said slowly, “you, me, and the baby will all be better off if we postpone the wedding until I finish my studies. After the baby’s born, you graduate, and I get my residency, then we can revisit it.”

  “Sean, what the hell are you talking about?” I said, water welling in the corners of my eyes. The baby shifted in my belly and stuck his butt out, forming a huge, hard lump just next to my belly button. Ordinarily I would have gently rubbed my tummy and talked to my little one to coax him into shifting his tiny body so that I could feel more comfortable, but I couldn’t move my hands, or any of my limbs for that matter. My fiancé, the father of my unborn child, was telling me, his seven-months-pregnant girlfriend, that we needed to put our life together on hold, with seemingly no guarantees that we would pick up where we left off once he finished whatever the hell he thought he had to do without me and the kid. “What exactly does ‘revisit’ mean?”

  He cupped his hands together and dropped his face into his palms. His locks hung long and low. I couldn’t see his face, but I sensed that he was searching for the right words to say to me to keep me from going postal on his ass. I beat him to the punch.

  “If I’m hearing correctly, you’re saying that you want me and this baby to wait around four years while you build a life for yourself,” I said, my voice getting louder, but still quivering. “What exactly are me and the baby supposed to do without you? Are we to simply sit back and be comfortable being statistics—another single mom and a baby boy without a daddy around? Is that what you have planned for our lives? Has my input suddenly become irrelevant? Because up until now, I thought we were in this together.”

  “We are, babe,” he said, exasperated. “But there’s just no way that I’ll be able to focus in med school if I’m worried about working to make ends meet. I can’t concentrate on my studies and change diapers at the same time. All I’m asking for is four years.”

  “Negro, do you know what can happen in four years?” I said, incredulous. “Our baby will be getting ready for kindergarten. Taking care of a baby alone can force me to postpone completing my studies and take a job outside of my career, which could mean the end of my dream of being a journalist. You could find someone else and…”

  Sean cut me off.

  “Viv—you’re reading too far into the future,” he said.

  “You’re forcing me to!” I said.

  “You choose to be a pessimist about it,” he said quietly. “I’m going to be optimistic and trust that in four years, we’ll be just as much in love with one another as we are this moment, and that our son will grow up to know that his dad made this decision for his own good.”

  “You mean for your good,” I shot back. “The only one who benefits here is you. Who put this in your mind, anyway—your mother? What, did she lock you in a room and preach to you about how my baby and I are going to ruin her dreams of having a doctor for a son? Does she think I’m going to steal your money? Is that what’s going on? She’s all but said so to my face!” (I wasn’t exaggerating; Mrs. Jordan summoned me to her home one Sunday afternoon, sat me down, and, under the guise of telling me what I “needed to hear,” proceeded to accuse me of using my pregnancy to trap her child.)

  “My mother has nothing to do with this,” Sean insisted. “I just think this is a sound decision. The moment I graduate from med school, we can talk about a wedding.”

  “Well, I have news for you, Sean Jordan,” I said, snatching my engagement ring off my finger and tossing it into his lap. “You can keep your damn ring. You can keep your damn wedding plans. And you can forget about me marrying your selfish ass. I don’t want to be married to a man who thinks it’s okay to make a baby and not care for it or its mother.”

  And wit
h that, I stomped out of the college dorm we shared, and out of Sean’s life. Though he was there for the baby’s birth, and did a decent job of supplementing my income with cash to buy diapers and food, the primary care of my child came from me, with help from my mom, and an occasional check from Sean’s mother (though I refused to cash them after we got into an argument about what I should be spending it on: I mean, if I know the baby needed Similac and I needed rent money, why should I spend the much-needed cash on baby clothes he was just going to grow out of?). By the time he graduated from med school, I was so busy being a mom, freelancing at various newspapers, and trying to build a name for myself as a credible journalist, and he was so busy trying to become a cosmetic surgeon, that love and weddings never came back up. In fact, I didn’t start thinking about building a life together with Sean until my child was old enough to ask me why his dad and I weren’t together.

  And now I’m wondering why I even bothered. I can finally see who Sean really is. As I hover over our son’s sickbed, I realize that his actions couldn’t have spoken any louder. He’s ignored all of my desperate phone calls, pages, and voicemails because he doesn’t care to answer them—clearly, whoever he’s with is much more pressing than me and his son.

  I reach over and stroke my son’s hair. “You’re going to be all right, baby.”

  Just then, Sean comes bounding into the hospital room, eyes red and bucked, breathing like he’s just run a marathon. “Oh God, Corey—are you okay?” Sean says, rushing over to the bed.

  “Hey, Dad,” Corey says weakly. Even though he has an oxygen mask on his face, I can tell he is trying his best to smile. He’d been asking for Sean; I was way tempted to tell him his father wasn’t shit and didn’t come to see him because he was holed up with some heifer somewhere, but because my son needed to keep up his strength—both physical and mental—I simply told him his dad was on his way.

  Sean touches his son’s hand gingerly, then looks up to meet Daddy’s gaze. He grinds his teeth, making his temple and jaw vibrate—something Sean does when he is most angry. He stares pensively at Daddy, and then he turns his attention to me.

  “Viv, what happened?” he says quickly.

  “I think I should be asking you that same question,” I say, crossing my arms.

  “Viv, now’s not the time to give me a hard time,” he snaps. “What’s wrong with my son?”

  “Well, my son suffered a severe asthma attack, probably brought on by whatever animal you had him around yesterday before you kicked him out of your car.”

  Sean screws up his face and turns his whole body toward me. “Vivian, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the diagnosis the doctor gave me last night when I was here and you were, well, wherever it was that you were that you couldn’t answer my emergency phone calls, voicemails, and pages letting you know your child was rushed to the hospital and hooked up to a bunch of machines to help him breathe,” I seethe. “If you weren’t around your animal, you would have gotten the scoop on what was up with your child last night, when he needed you to be here most. Don’t worry, though, we’ve got it under control.”

  “Who the hell is ‘we’?” he says, looking at Daddy, who is trying his best to focus on Corey so as not to be drawn into the drama, and to protect the kid from it, too. “You talking about thug passion over here?” Then he directs his ire at my friend. “You may be called Daddy, but there’s only one Daddy in my son’s life and that’s me—please believe that, money.”

  “Hey, man…” Daddy starts. But I raise my hand to cut him off.

  “How about you start acting like one, then?” I say to Sean, standing up.

  “What?” Sean says, incredulous. “Let me tell you something, Vivian Evans. You don’t have a monopoly on being a good parent, and you’ve definitely become way too comfortable giving me less credit than I deserve. If telling you where I was last night will get you to focus on my son instead of my whereabouts, then here goes…” he starts.

  “You know what, Sean? I don’t give a damn where you were, frankly,” I say.

  “No! I’m going to tell you so you know,” he says, holding his hand up and talking quickly. “I took Corey with me to my publicist’s place so we could start making some media planning for my practice, and then after I dropped Corey off I stopped off at Starbucks to get a cup of coffee, but I parked illegally and a cop came by and towed my car, with my cell phone and pager in it. It took me all night to get my car back, and I didn’t get your messages until a half-hour ago.”

  Just as I am thinking of a verbal assault to launch back, I catch sight of my son out the corner of my eye. When I look at him, he is crying softly. Realizing how jacked it is that his mother and father are practically clawing each other’s eyes out in front of their sick son, I stop myself from saying anything else, and walk toward his bed to comfort him. Just then, the doctor comes in.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Jordan,” he said.

  “Actually, my name is Ms. Evans,” I say, still staring at Corey and patting his hand. I mouth “I’m sorry,” to him, but he continues to tear. “My son has his father’s surname. This is Dr. Jordan,” I say, pointing the doctor in Sean’s direction.

  “Nice to meet you, doctor,” Sean says, extending his hand.

  “Pleasure,” the doctor says. “I’ve read the X rays we took of your son’s chest earlier this morning and it looks like the Albuterol is working well. I don’t like to have kids his age on it for too long, but as soon as his levels are back to normal, which should be over the next day or so, we’ll take him off of it and send him on home.”

  “So he’s going to be okay,” Sean asks. The smile in his eyes mixes with the mist of his tears.

  “He’s a trouper,” the doctor says. “He’ll be back to homework at the kitchen table by the end of the week.”

  “You hear that, champ?” Daddy says, grabbing Corey’s hand and giving a thousand-watt smile. “Homework’s just around the corner!”

  Corey wipes the tears from his eyes, and smiles.

  Disgust washes over Sean’s face. He glares at Daddy, but turns his attention to the doctor. “Hold up, Doc—I’d like to talk to you some more about his condition. Do you have a minute?”

  “I’m actually on my rounds, Doctor,” he says. “Can you take a walk with me?”

  “Sure,” Sean says. He turns to Corey. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, son,” he says. And with that, he shoots a final look at Daddy and me, turns and follows the doctor out the door.

  Daddy stands up. “Hey, Viv, can I holla at you for a minute?”

  I screw up my face even more. Not that he’s done anything wrong; Daddy has been a critical support for me as I wondered whether my child had taken his last good breath. But I am in no mood to have to coddle Daddy over Sean’s rude behavior, and I am sure as hell not ready to recap the disastrous couch episode of a few hours earlier. I have no words for it anyway; I need to focus on Corey.

  “Can it wait?” I say as I kiss Corey’s hand and stare into his eyes.

  “Actually, it would help if I could talk to you now,” Daddy urges. “It’ll just be a minute.”

  I look at my watch, then back at Corey. “Baby, I’m going to turn on the Disney Channel. Watch it until Mommy comes back into the room. I won’t be long.” I give him a peck on the cheek and head for the door, Daddy on my heels. “So, what’s up?” I ask.

  Daddy looks down at his feet, as if the words he is searching for could be found in the laces of his Air Force Ones. I could barely hear him when he finally does speak. “You know, nobody should spend a lifetime trying to make someone love her,” he begins. “You deserve someone who’s going to appreciate and respect you—take care of you…”

  Aw, damn. Not this. Not now.

  “We’ve been having a good time together over these past few months, and I’ve gotten pretty attached to you and Corey…”

  “Look,” I say, cutting him off, “I don’t know if this is such a good…
”

  “Let me finish,” he says, holding up his hand. “Please, I’ve waited a minute to tell you how I feel about you.”

  “And standing in the hallway outside my son’s hospital room is a good time?” I snap.

  “Come on, Viv—I can’t think of any better time,” he says. “Love doesn’t wait for the right time, it just happens. Just like it did back at my place tonight. And I’ve fallen in love with you…”

  Just as Daddy is launching into his soliloquy, Sean walks out of a room a few doors down. He is looking at what appears to be a brochure, but as he approaches us, he looks up. A thousand daggers would have felt better than his icy stare. The nerve to toss me dirty looks? Please. I stare right back, making my eyes just as steely. I suck my teeth as he passed. When he hits the double doors leading out of the children’s ward, I turn my attention to Daddy.

  “Look, this isn’t really a good time to talk about this. And even if it was, I don’t think our being more than friends is a good idea. I really do like you, but I think I made a mistake tonight. I’ve always made it my policy not to mix business with pleasure,” I say, trying desperately to let him down easy, quickly. I hold back on the part about how bad the sex was. For a rapper who brags about his ability to hit that, he missed my mark on every level.

  “Viv, I’m not asking you to marry a brother. I’m just asking you to give me a chance to get to know you better, and we can see where it goes from there. Can you at least give that a try?” He licks his lips; his dimples were deep enough to fit a small fist. I smile at him nervously, and then look up the hallway again. I look back at Daddy, and lean in slowly. I kiss his cheek. He smiles.

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin ’bout,” he says.