by Dina Silver
“Close the door on your way out.”
As soon as I’d shut the door behind me, Keri was waving me over towards her.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Commence blurting. “I’m pregnant,” I said with a smile.
All eyes on belly.
Her jaw dropped before looking at my face. “You’re kidding!”
“Nope,” I said and sat down next to her in my chair.
“Oh, my God, Syd. Wow!”
“Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“And here I thought we wore the same size!” she said, disappointed. “Whose is it?”
I dreaded that question. Not because I wished I was with Kevin, or wished I was married at that point in my life, but because no one knew how to respond without making me feel like I was doing something regretful. Like they felt sorry for what I was going through. Like they couldn’t help but pity me.
“A guy I went to college with. We’re not dating, never were, he’s waaaay out of the picture.” I made a hand gesture like an airplane taking off. “I’ll get into the gory details another time if it’s okay?”
“Of course, wow, I just can’t believe it,” she briefly placed her hand over her mouth. “Are you keeping it?”
“I am,” I said with a smile. “Can I count on you for babysitting?”
“That’s why you weren’t drinking the other night at the bar. Trevor thought you were lying about the antibiotics.”
I turned on my computer screen. “Why’d he think that?”
“I don’t know, maybe because who ever really lets antibiotics stand in the way of a cocktail?” she laughed. “He’s going to be so bummed.”
I turned to face her. “Why is he going to be bummed?”
“Because he thinks you’re cute…has a little crush on Momma,” she burst out laughing.
“You’re hilarious.”
Keri placed a hand on my knee. Her perfectly French manicured nails caused me to make my hands into fists. Primping had taken a back seat during those months.
“So, are you excited?” she asked.
No one had posed that question to me before, and her inquiry made me smile and light up. Just because I chose to have a baby at age twenty-two, out of wedlock, and with no place to live, never meant I didn’t want the same over-the-top kindness that is bestowed upon every other pregnant woman. The kind where people offer you their seat on the bus, or cock their head and grin as you walk past, or carry your groceries to the car. I longed for the obligatory compassion and excitement that was given to every lady with a baby.
“I am kind of excited,” I told her. “A little scared and a lot nervous too, but ever since the day I decided to keep it, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t look back with any regret.”
“Well, that’s great, I’m happy for you.” She patted her lap and then unwrapped a granola bar that was on the table in front of her, offering me half. “And no, I will not babysit, but I will take you out anytime you can get a sitter.”
“I will hold you to that.”
Keri scootched her chair closer to mine and leaned in with a whisper. “What in God’s name did Midge say?”
I rolled my eyes. “She reminded me of my rights, and basically said to act like it wasn’t happening.”
“Bitch,” she said, mouth full of granola.
“Honestly, I’m sure she’s less than pleased with the whole thing, and I don’t really blame her. It was a little deceptive on my part and she knows that I know that.”
“She’ll get over it, in fact she’s probably forgotten about it already.” She wiped her chin and we both laughed.
“Do you know what you’re having?” Keri asked and sat straight.
“I’m going to find out this week, actually.”
“That’s exciting, any preference?”
“Not really,” I said and began to check our call log on my computer.
“Well, I hope to have a boy one day,” she announced. “And I’d like him to play on an NFL team, preferably the Bears, and be a quarterback…oh, and blonde. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed Chicago Bears quarterback,” she said with complete confidence.
“I see,” I nodded as if it was possible. “What if he’s a blonde Major League baseball player?”
“Unacceptable,” she shrugged.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Two days later I was given the news that there would be no professional football players in my future; I was having a girl. I phoned Kendra from a payphone in the lobby as soon as I left my doctor’s appointment.
“It’s a girl!” I was beaming. It was real. She was real. Inside of me was a little girl. One who would need guidance and love and self-esteem. A girl who would stand at my ankles and look up at me with reverence and admiration, and expect that I would and could protect her from anything in the whole world. A delicate little lady who would one day ask me about life and death, and sex and love, and all of the scary things I had had to learn on my own. A little sweet angel that would never have to question my love and support for her. A precious, innocent heart that was mine to care for and nurture. My little girl.
My heart was pounding fast as reality set in. I was months away from having a daughter, and still struggling at how to be one myself.
“Oh, Sydney, that’s wonderful,” Kendra said “Well, we certainly know a lot about girls around here, I’m just tickled to hear that, tickled pink!”
As hard as it was for me to believe when I think back, my dad and I still hadn’t seen each other or spoken since my college graduation, and there I was almost five months pregnant with his granddaughter.
“Will you let Dad know?”
“Of course I will if you’d like, but maybe you’d like to tell him yourself?
“You can tell him.”
Three days later I arrived home from work and there was a giant package in the lobby of my building addressed to me. I lugged the cardboard box upstairs and opened it on my bed. Inside was a note from my father:
Congratulations on your little girl. She is lucky to have such a wonderful mother. Mom and I can’t wait to meet her and see you.
-Dad
I tore through the tissue with tears in my eyes and unearthed a pink quilt, pink teddy bear, pink bunny, and a tiny pink hooded towel. It was my dad’s way of making peace and finally acknowledging my baby, and his grandchild. I called him up immediately after opening it and we talked for over an hour.
Against everyone’s better judgment, I called Kevin with the news. I left a message on his answering machine that I was having a girl, but never heard back from him.
The next week Kendra and I went home to my parent’s house for dinner, where my mom had made an embarrassing array of pink foods. Grapefruit salad, strawberry smoothies, pasta with a cream sauce and pink frosted doughnuts for dessert. It had only been a few days, and already I hated the color.
Over the next few weeks, I began shopping for maternity clothes, started doing almost everything at a snail’s pace, and bought a book of baby names. I wanted to come up with a temporary nickname - something to refer to her as while she was still in utero – and while I contemplated the top 100 girls names over the last few decades. One day, my favorite barista at the new Starbucks on Michigan Avenue commented on my bun in the oven, and made reference to my affinity for their cinnamon scones…he declared I must be carrying a cinnamon bun! Hence her working title was born. Until the day she and I would meet in person, I would refer to her as Cinnamon. A moniker I shared only with immediate family.
When the weekend came for Ethan to be in town for his sister’s birthday, he called again and asked if I’d changed my mind about getting together. I said no. It had been months since we’d seen each other, and I was desperate to spend time with him, but I couldn’t bring myself to let him see me all puffed up and pregnant.
“I’m going to be in town for five days, it’s ridiculous for us to not get together at least once,” he said, shuffling papers in the background.
“I know where you’re coming from, and my mom thinks I’m being crazy too, but I just can’t have you see me this way.”
“Sydney, please, what do you think is going to happen?”
“I don’t know, I’m just not comfortable with it. I guess I would feel embarrassed. I can’t explain it, I would love to see you…but I just can’t.”
He paused and released a long breath into the phone. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said.
“You’re pregnant,” I joked, and laughed at myself as I stood at my sink rinsing dishes and setting them in the drying rack.
“No, Syd, but I’ve been seeing someone…casually,” he defended his statement. “She’s a friend of my cousins.”
I didn’t say anything right away. Not because I had any right to feel slighted or angry, simply because I was stunned. I admittedly took Ethan for granted, easily assumed that one day there might be a chance for us to rekindle our relationship. I was naïve, and to hear that he was with someone else was like a slap across the back of the head. It stung.
“Syd?”
“Sorry, you caught me off guard.” I stood holding my plate from last night’s dinner, covered with dried spaghetti sauce.
“I was hoping to see you, and talk with you in person. I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else. It’s not serious, but I thought you should know,” he said the same words I’d said to Kevin. “She’s a friend of Andrew Harrington’s also, and I thought Taylor might say something to you.”
“She hasn’t said anything,” I eased his mind. “Who is she?” I asked for further clarification.
“Her name is Robin, and she’s from Wisconsin where my cousin Emma lives, but she…Robin that is, recently moved to Boston.”
“How convenient,” I said, and immediately regretted it. He did not deserve one ounce of pettiness. Not from me.
“Anyway, it’s not serious…” he sensed my discomfort and started to backpedal.
I politely interjected. “It’s okay, Ethan. It must be a little bit serious if you’re telling me about her, and you wanted to tell me in person.”
He cleared his throat. “I just thought you should know. We’ve been hanging out and I wanted to be honest with you.”
I really didn’t know what to say. He had every right to date other people, and certainly if I had the right to bear another man’s child, it wasn’t my place to tell Ethan how to live his life. When he’d said those words to me, I felt like I was standing at the edge of a dock, watching a boat sail away with Ethan and our relationship. I was sad, and it took everything I had not to be selfish, and tell him how much I still loved him.
“Thank you for telling me, E,” I said.
“Don’t get all weird on me, okay?”
“I’m not, I promise. I’m happy for you. I am just struggling with how to react and what to say,” I said honestly. “I must admit that I’m sort of glad you didn’t tell me this in person.” I took a breath. “She’s one lucky girl.”
He snickered. “Alright, well, I’ll call you anyway when I get in. Please try and think about changing your mind, okay? It would be great to see you.”
“Okay,” I said, but I had absolutely no intention of letting him see me this way. I loved Ethan, and I always would, and having to face him looking the way I did would have been too much for me to handle. Especially since he was in a relationship with someone else. I pictured his face, looking at my belly, and instantly relating it to me having sex with someone else. All the while making this Robin chick look like even more of a prize. Maybe that wouldn’t have been the case, but I couldn’t take the chance, and I didn’t have the self-confidence to look him in the eyes after he looked at my stomach. And I had no intention of making Robin and her flat stomach more desirable than she already was.
I was numb when I hung up the phone. My mind went back to that day when Ethan had all but begged me to stay loyal to him and committed to our relationship. Where would we be now had I not been so self-involved?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
grace
“Chloe!” I yelled as she closed her locker. “I’m going to L.A.!”
Nana Lynne had sent me an airline ticket for my seventeenth birthday. She’d been promising to have me out west for years, and finally came through during my junior year of high school.
“That’s awesome!” Chloe raised her palm for a high five. “When?”
I leaned back against the wall of lockers and tossed my backpack on the ground. “Probably over spring break, in April,” I said and unwrapped my breakfast, a strawberry frosted Pop Tart.
“I’m so excited for you! Are you nervous?”
“I am a little nervous, but really excited. I’ve been dying to go to California.”
“Will you see your dad?” she asked.
I broke the Pop Tart in half and handed it to her. “I doubt it,” I said, but she and I both knew that I wished I would.
I was very insecure where my father was concerned, and although I longed to meet him, I rarely mustered the courage to ask about him. As long as he wanted nothing to do with me, I felt it wasn’t my place to force the issue. And no one ever encouraged me to do so, least of all my mother. But even though I was going to Los Angeles under the guise of visiting my aunts and my Nana Lynne, I had hoped to meet my father, Kevin Hansen.
My bag was packed a week before I was set to leave on April 16th. Mom had taken me to Target for a new bikini, matching flip-flops and a sundress. She talked with my aunt Sharon towards the end of March, and they arranged for her to pick me up at the airport. Four days before my flight, I received an email from her.
Hi, Grace,
We’ve had some drama around here this week. My mom slipped on her kitchen floor last Monday, and broke her hip. She’s been in the hospital for a few days, and just found out that she’s going to need surgery on Saturday. I am so sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like we’re going to have to reschedule your trip. We were really looking forward to having you here.
-Sharon
I was devastated. I instantly forwarded the email to Chloe, and she texted me back within seconds. NOOOOOOOO!
I replied with a lone sad face icon, and threw my phone on the floor next to my carry-on bag.
Chloe was the only person who had any idea what I was feeling. We’d talk for hours about our elusive father figures, and about how we coped with the guilt surrounding our desire to be with them. She couldn’t discuss her longing to see him with her mother because her mother hated him and forbid Chloe from mentioning his name. And I wasn’t comfortable talking about Kevin with my parents, because I didn’t want to hurt my dad’s feelings. But when my mother found out about Lynne’s surgery and my cancelled trip, I truly believe she understood the depth of my disappointment.
No person who has a decent relationship with both their parents could quite comprehend the disconnect that people like Chloe and myself lived with. We’d imagine what our real fathers might be like, but grasping those images was like trying to hold water in a strainer. The task is frustrating, and ultimately the strainer winds up empty.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sydney
Ethan came and went without seeing me, and I was sorry that I missed an opportunity to be with him, but felt good about my decision. He told me he’d be home for the holidays as well, but if I hadn’t let him see me at six months, I certainly wasn’t going to let him see me at nine months.
One person I was looking forward to seeing was Taylor. She was surprised, yet supportive when I told her the news about the baby, and we’d planned to get together when she was in town for Christmas. Taylor had moved to Manhattan, and worked for a huge event planning company. She was a public relations assistant, and helped arrange press junkets and book signings for celebrities. She was always traveling and sending me photos of her looking gorgeous standing next to someone fabulous. I still have the photo of her and John Grisham standing in front of the Empire State Building.
We both had a huge crush on him.
It was a far cry from working for Midge, but I was thrilled for Taylor. She was planning on being in town for five days, so she and Kendra planned a baby shower for me during that time, three days before Christmas. I didn’t register anywhere, so I got lots of random pink outfits and animals, and since none of my friends had (or were even thinking about having) kids, the only gifts that served any real purpose were from my mom and Taylor’s mom, Mrs. Gold. My mom bought me an oval shaped bucket that she said was a bathtub, and filled it with baby shampoo, washcloths, and a grooming kit. Mrs. Gold outdid everyone and handed me a page from a catalog with a picture of a crib and changing table from Lazar’s in Lincolnwood, worth hundreds of dollars, and priceless to a single mother who would have no paycheck for three months.
My mom asked if I wanted gifts for myself or for the baby that Christmas (indicating I could not have both), and I quickly responded that I would rather have baby gifts than any more tent-like, black maternity tops for me. She promised that once I was back in shape, she would take me shopping for new clothes. I’m still waiting.
New Year’s Eve, my parents took pity on me, cancelled their dinner reservations at the club, and invited me to sleep over. And as much as I hated moving off of my couch unless absolutely necessary, I was relieved to have something to do. I’m sure everyone thought if I had to spend the holiday alone with my two-ton tummy, I was sure to cry my eyes out over a bucket of Baskin Robbins mint chocolate chip. So my dad bought some non-alcoholic sparkling cider, and the three of us stayed up and watched the ball drop in Times Square. Sleep was nearly impossible for me at that time, due to the fact that I could never find a comfortable position and just when I did, I would have to get up and pee. Besides that, it was a really nice evening, and my relationship with my mother began to turn a corner.
She would call and ask if I needed anything. She drove downtown to my apartment every once in a while and would clean up the apartment for me while I was at work. And every now and then she’d even leave fresh groceries in the fridge, and homemade cookies on the counter.