The Baby (The Boss #5)

by Abigail Barnette

  When it came to the food, I had Julia whip up comfort foods anyone could get behind. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and some sautéed greens and plenty of salad and crudités in case anyone wanted to preserve their arteries.

  We dressed casually, Neil in a horizontally striped blue ombre sweater and broken-in blue jeans, me in a pair of jeans and a lavender blouse with fluttery capped sleeves.

  Which Rudy hated on sight.

  “An empire waist ho shirt? Is that what you’re wearing? You look like ‘Girls of the Nineteenth Century Gone Wild,’” he cracked as he came through the front door. But he put out his arms and hugged me, asking, “How are you doing?” as he gave me a squeeze.

  “I’m all right. What about you?” I stepped back with a look of concern. If Neil was the president of hiding one’s feelings, Rudy was the shadow government. He’d been Emma’s godfather, and I knew he was taking this harder than he wanted to let on.

  “Getting by.” He looked over my shoulder to where Neil crossed the living room toward the open foyer. “And I’d ask about him, but…”

  “Rudy!” Neil half-jogged up to embrace his friend. They patted each other on the back so hard it must have hurt. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “You know I’ll be here any time, day or night,” Rudy said, and I realized that he must have felt as helpless as I did, only able to reach out to Neil, never able to break through whatever wall he’d just put up.

  “I know,” Neil assured him. “And I appreciate that very much.”

  “Are we late?” Valerie called from the door as she let herself in. She’d cut her long auburn hair into an asymmetrical bob that was chin-length at its longest and added nearly white blonde highlights.

  She’d also lost weight, judging from the gauntness of her face. She hadn’t had many pounds on her to begin with, so her appearance was a little alarming.

  I covered up my shock and declared, “Oh my gosh, Valerie! I didn’t even recognize you with that hair!”

  She smiled politely and straightened a few strands with her fingers. “I needed a little change.”

  “Well, you look great,” I said, though I knew she still couldn’t quite accept my compliment as genuine.

  “She looks like she’s wasting away,” Rudy interjected. “Neil looked better going through chemo.”

  “Rudy!” I snapped, in utter shock that he would speak to a grieving mother that way.

  Then again, Rudy and Valerie had been friends for years. She was probably used to him by now.

  She laughed and shrugged off her bright red wool wrap. Laurence took it from her and looped it over his arm atop his own coat.

  “Let me take those,” Neil offered.

  “I’m training for the New York marathon,” she explained. “I’m running for charity. Your charity, as it turns out, Neil.”

  “Really? I have to confess I haven’t been as involved with the foundation as I would like to be.” He made a noise that was somewhere between consideration and a laugh. “It’s strange, really. I worked so hard. It was so important.”

  “Priorities change,” Valerie said with a sad smile. “The work your foundation is doing is still important.”

  “Oh, please, enough of this,” Rudy said, clapping his hands. “I heard there would be macaroni and cheese, and I have saved all of my carbs today.”

  “That’s right,” Laurence agreed, finally breaking his silence. “Tonight is about sharing memories of the good times. Not wallowing in the bad.”

  I gave him a grateful smile. “We’ve definitely had enough bad.”

  “So true,” Neil agreed.

  “Not so fast,” Valerie protested. “Where is my granddaughter?”

  “Napping,” I said, and checked the watch I wasn’t wearing. “But I think it’s time for her to get up and see her grandmother.”

  “I’ll go and get her,” she offered. “Start without me.”

  “All right,” Neil agreed pleasantly. He made a wide sweep with his arm, like a maître’ d in a movie. “Dinner is served in the dining room.”

  “Did you cook tonight, Sophie?” Laurence asked as we headed through the formal living room, to the double French doors.

  “Oh, no,” I laughed. “I do not cook. That’s really more Neil’s thing.”

  “I believe what Sophie meant was, she has neither the skill or inclination to make cooking a worthwhile enterprise.” Was Neil making fun of me? Oh my gosh, was he making a real joke?

  “I’m too busy being the breadwinner,” I teased. I was far from it. Neil’s investments alone made more money in an hour than I made in a year. But it was fun to tease him about his retirement.

  “I’m a stay-at-home grandfather, now,” he reminded us, giving me a little wink.

  This was normal. This was Neil.

  I almost resented having to share him with the others tonight, but in reality, they were the reason he was like this. I was sure at least half of his carefree banter was forced to keep from bringing the entire dinner party down, but something in his eyes had changed. He was at ease, even if only for tonight.

  I had to be grateful for that.

  Despite the down-home nature of the food, the dinner was far from anything I would have seen on the table back home in Michigan. Julia certainly hadn’t used Velveeta in her macaroni, and I know my grandmother would let us all starve to death rather than serve us mashed potatoes garnished with chives. Comfort food is comfort food, though, and I was surprised at how well it did its job. Though we’d gathered for a somber reason, everyone seemed to be in good spirits.

  Valerie held Olivia in her lap and fed her little bites of food, and I had to forcibly restrain myself from making any comments about what might not be mashed up enough or good for her tummy. Valerie was a mother, too, and she had just as much right to make stupid little daily decisions for Olivia as I did.

  Rudy and Neil and Laurence laughed and joked with each other, and I was surprised to see how well Laurence fit in. I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me. Valerie, Rudy, and Neil had been friends since college; it stood to reason that she would be dating someone with a similar personality.

  For the most part, I just listened to the evening. Valerie and Neil told cute stories about Emma growing up. Rudy remembered designing her a gorgeous dress for a formal dance, only to have her choose something “off the rack and looking like a burlap sack”. I didn’t know Emma as a child, and hearing all the tales of how rebellious she’d been from the very beginning fascinated me.

  Valerie stroked her hand over Olivia’s blonde curls. “She looks so much like Emma.”

  “I was looking through some old albums this morning,” Neil said, his eyes twinkling with fond memory. “Thank god Olivia’s childhood will be digital, otherwise I would have to keep all the photographs carefully separate.”

  Huh. I didn’t know that was what he’d been doing. He’d told me he’d gone downstairs for a workout.

  “I haven’t been able to look at any pictures, yet,” Valerie said, clearing her throat. Her smile became a shield and a mask all at once. “But I’ll get there.”

  “Of course you will,” Rudy reassured her. He patted the tabletop on either side of his completely cleared plate. “You all are going through something, but I promise, there will be a time that you’ll be able to hear Emma’s name or see her picture without feeling just the sadness.”

  I supposed I’d never thought of it that way, but he was right. That was how grief worked. Eventually, you got to the point that you could just move on and love the person, without hurting yourself in the process. “That’s really smart, Rudy.”

  I expected a snarky response, but he just nodded. “When Burt died, I thought my world had ended. I would never love, again. I would never hear his name, hell, I would never be able to watch Cannonball Run without bawling my eyes out just as hard as I did at my Burt’s memorial.”

  Valerie made a face. “Why on Earth would you ever watch Cannonball Run?”

/>   “I’m sorry, who is Burt?” I asked, looking to Neil and Valerie for context cues. They both clearly knew the name.

  “Burt was a friend of ours at school.” Neil said, taking a sip from his after-dinner coffee.

  “I knew him from primary school,” Valerie added. “He and Rudy were a couple for… How long was it?”

  “Ten years,” Rudy said with a hint of pride. “Eighty-five to ninety-five.” For me and Laurence, he clarified, “He passed away from a long illness. Although he had such a bad habit of leaving wet towels on the floor, I would have killed him myself by ninety-six.”

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.” I felt stupid and insensitive for not knowing. Neil had never mentioned Burt. Maybe he’d thought it wouldn’t ever come up, or that I wouldn’t care because my relationship with Rudy was antagonistic even on our best days.

  Rudy shrugged one shoulder. “It takes a long time, but someone told me the same thing I just told you all. And they were right. I got there eventually.”

  I wanted to believe him, but it might have been easier for him to say two decades from his initial loss. We were still mired in fresh grief.

  He fixed me with a raised eyebrow. “Now enough of this sad bullshit. I think it’s time Laurence and Valerie hear the tale of how Emma and Sophie first met.”

  I looked at Valerie. “She already knows, I’m sure.”

  Valerie tilted her head. “I know she met you when you weren’t very dressed. Is there a story here?”

  My face blazed hot, but Neil was laughing behind his hand, and I wanted so badly for him to keep laughing and feeling good. “Um, it was more like…”

  Neil chuckled. “It was far more horrifying than Emma let on, if all you knew was that Sophie was pants-less.”

  “She didn’t…” Valerie looked between us with widening eyes. “No.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Neil confirmed with a nod, his lips pressed together.

  “Her plane came in early, and I had spent the night with Neil.” How graphic was I supposed to get here? What the hell? If laughter was the best medicine, maybe it worked as an antidepressant, too. “She kind of overheard me…yelling something.”

  “I believe it was ‘fuck me hard,’” Rudy supplied for me, giving me a shitty little smirk over the rim of his water glass.

  Laurence looked absolutely scandalized, and Valerie let out a whoop of laughter, the intensity of which I had never, ever heard from her. “Oh my god, you’re kidding.”

  “No, no. He’s got it wrong,” Neil said, giving me an apologetic glance. “It was actually, ‘I want you to fuck me harder.’”

  Valerie snorted. “Sophie the power bottom. Am I using that right?”

  Rudy and Neil both shook their heads, and Neil chuckled, “No, you are not.”

  I covered my burning face with my hands. “She never let me live it down, either.”

  “But that was hardly the best part,” Neil went on. “Sophie went skipping off to the kitchen for something, wearing one of my shirts, and that’s when she ran into Emma.”

  “She asked me what grade I was in.” I shook my head. “But that was Emma, wasn’t it? She never pulled a single punch with me.”

  “Nor with me,” Neil agreed.

  “Though, she may have physically longed to punch you on numerous occasions,” Valerie teased him.

  I can’t wait to tell Emma all the dirt we dished on her, I thought, and it sliced me up like a disposable shaving razor the hotel provides when you forgot your own.

  It was almost as though everyone had the same thought right along with me, because we all went quiet and contemplative. Neil was the first to break from the spell. “So. We still have our paper lanterns to light.”

  “Yes,” Laurence said, pushing his chair back a fraction. “What a lovely idea, Sophie.”

  “Emma would have scolded us about sending trash into the environment,” Valerie began, and my heart fell at the thought that she would slam the memorial I planned, but she went on, “But I’m her mother, so I don’t have to listen to all of that nonsense.”

  “Not to worry, I have that covered. These are made of one-hundred percent biodegradable rice paper and bamboo,” Neil assured us.

  “What about the little bits of wire?” I asked. He shushed me with a look.

  We filed out of the dining room, and everyone went to get their jackets. Though the days had gotten warmer, we were still on the Atlantic, and the wind could be brutal. I zipped Olivia up in her snuggly teddy bear coat with the little ear flaps on the hood and followed everyone to the patio, where the lanterns waited.

  “There are five of us,” Rudy said, frowning. “Why are there six lanterns?”

  “One is Olivia’s,” I explained. “I was hoping we’d be able to make this a tradition, and do it every year. At least while Olivia is growing up.”

  “Or we burn someone’s house down and go to jail,” Neil added cheerfully.

  The moist beach made walking in my sandals a little difficult. Though it was pretty cold, I kicked my shoes off at the fence line and dug my toes into the sand.

  “Young lady, you will die of pneumonia,” Rudy scolded with a roll of his eyes.

  The lanterns were larger than I had expected. When I’d seen them in the air before, they’d looked handkerchief sized. Instead, each was about as big as a wasp’s nest, and oval in shape. Valerie held the first one, and Neil took a lighter from his pocket, protectively cupping his hand around the flame. He lit the fuel cell from beneath the lantern, and we watched as the thin white paper illuminated from within. The sides rustled, and as smoke began to curl from the top, Valerie gave a gentle upward push and the lantern rose into the night sky.

  We sent them off one by one, each floating over the sea and out of sight while we stood on the beach and watched them disappear. I expected someone to say something really profound; instead, we all just stood around in companionable silence until it became too cold to linger. I retrieved my shoes on the way back to the house and made a point not to complain about the fact I couldn’t feel my toes. I didn’t need Rudy’s gloating, thank you very much.

  There wasn’t much to do after that. We chatted a bit, and Rudy was the first to say goodbye. That prompted Valerie and Laurence to follow suit.

  “Grandma will miss you,” Valerie cooed to Olivia. I felt a bit guilty that she hadn’t been spending as much time with the baby as we were, but we’d all agreed that, for right now, having a routine was of utmost importance. In the future, we’d send Olivia to stay weekends with Valerie, but for now, she only rarely got the chance to come out to Long Island.

  “Maybe she could come stay with you, sometime,” I offered. “Now that things probably seem more…normal.”

  “I’d like that,” Valerie said with a grateful smile.

  I wanted to hug her and promise her that I would never, ever try to take her place in her granddaughter’s life, but that wasn’t how Valerie and I operated.

  After they left, I sighed in relief. “I know it was my idea, and I’m glad you got to have a good night with your friends, but wow, I forgot how exhausting it was to be around other humans.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.” He scooped Olivia from my arms, and she rubbed her chubby face into his neck, already nodding off.

  “Oh, wow,” I whispered. “She isn’t even fighting it.”

  “We should expose her to hypothermia every night,” Neil whispered back. He cradled the back of her head in his big hand so it wouldn’t loll off his shoulder. “I’ll go put her down. With any luck, I can do it without waking her.”

  “Oh my gosh, we could actually have a peaceful night?” I laughed in relief at the idea.

  “I wouldn’t say peaceful,” he said with an arched brow.

  What the fuck?.

  I had no idea how to interpret that wink whatsoever. We hadn’t slept together in over three months.

  “Um.” I decided in an instant that I was not going to go to bed and lay there, hoping in vain
that he would make an advance, wondering when he would be interested again. “I don’t mean to be… Are you…”

  “I am. I’ll meet you in the bedroom.” He said it the way the old Neil would have said it.

  My stomach tickled like I’d gone over a weird hill in a car. I practically sprinted to the bedroom. Having sex with Neil used to be so natural, a part of our lives I took for granted because it was just always there. Now, I was as unsure of myself as…

  Well, as unsure of myself as I had been the first time we’d had sex, almost a decade ago.

  I went through my lingerie drawers in the closet, listening for any indication that Neil might be returning. I wanted to make him thirst for me from the moment he laid eyes on me. We’d spent the last few months in our sweatpants-and-sadness depressive phase. Maybe he didn’t see me the way he used to see me.

  That would have to change tonight. If he was ready, so was I.

  I chose a black silk Carine Gilson chemise with a gold and white floral motif and a black lace hem. It was sexy and delicate, but not over the top. Nothing that would put pressure on him. I could just as easily go to sleep in it.

  Pulling the pins from my hair, I bent at the waist and combed my fingers through, trying to scrunch some life back into it. I checked myself out in the trifold mirror. Not too bad.

  “Sophie?”

  “Coming,” I called, giving my hair one last shake.

  Neil stood at the end of the bed, already shirtless, standing there in just his blue jeans. His lips parted when he saw me, and his chest rose with a jerky breath.

  He’s changed his mind. My hopes plummeted.

  Then, he whispered, “You’re so beautiful.”

  I took a step toward him.

  “No, no.” He smiled his half-smile, his eyes glittering with wonderment. “I want to remember you. Just as you are now.”

  He’d said things like that before, but usually when it mattered.

  Maybe tonight mattered.

  Of course it does. I mentally rolled my eyes. This meant everything. He was coming back to me. Even if it was just this little piece of us and nothing more. It was the first step on a journey to being with each other again as lovers, rather than partners in tragedy and new responsibilities.