Mr. Big

by Delancey Stewart

  He stood, looking completely miserable, and that made me even more angry. He didn’t get to feel sad, he was the one who did this! “I’m so sorry, Holland, I—”

  “I don’t want you to be sorry,” I said. “I want you to leave.” I hissed the last part, hating the way I was losing control.

  “I have something else to say,” he said, and I just stared at him. “Even if I’m not present in a physical way, the baby will never need anything.” He pulled a credit card out of his wallet and placed it on my small table along with a packet of paper. “I opened this account for you and the baby. All the bank information is here. I’ll fund the account whenever it gets low, and if there are any major expenses…” he trailed off, and I watched him gather himself. “I’ll support you both,” he said simply.

  I shook my head, shocked that he believed money could make up for his actual presence in a baby’s life. “I’m not yours to worry about anymore. You’re free. You can go back to being single and unattached. You don’t owe me a thing.” I pulled the front door open and waved my hand to the street outside. “Go on. Go be free, Oliver. The weight is lifted.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not that I want to be free,” he moaned. “But Holland, I don’t even know what family is. This is the one thing in life I really don’t have a clue about. I thought it all made sense before, and now…honestly, the thought I could hurt someone as deeply as Adam and Sonja hurt me—the idea that I would have the power to turn someone’s world upside down. It terrifies me. I just don’t want to let you down.”

  I stood there flabbergasted. “Seriously?” I was practically shrieking now. “Then you failed. Because that’s exactly what you just did.”

  “You’ll find someone better,” he whispered, his eyes shining as he moved toward the door. “Someone who can be sure, someone who deserves you.”

  Some kind of noise ripped out of me, something between a laugh and a scream. I was pretty sure I looked positively deranged in that moment, and I felt close to the brink of my self-control.

  Oliver turned in the doorway and looked at me for a long moment. “I love you, Holland. I think I probably always will.”

  I closed the door in his face and locked it, stumbling to the couch where I pulled a pillow against my chest and stared into space, my breathing coming in gasps. After a few minutes, the tears erupted from my eyes and exhaustion came over me. I curled up against the couch and hugged the pillow, not bothering to wipe at the tears that poured from me, not knowing how I might move forward. As my heart broke inside my chest and anger turned to a bleak despair, I wondered if the baby could feel my fear and anxiety. How could Oliver leave me like this? How could I do any of this alone? I wished I’d never met him, wished I’d never seen the possibility of a real family.

  —

  I forced myself out of bed the next morning and buried myself in work. I didn’t go out and wander the executive tower for fear of running into Oliver.

  He was wrong. In my heart I knew he’d make a good father, even if he was too busy acting like an immature asshole to see it. It seemed like he’d bailed out just because he was afraid to try. I couldn’t think about it because my eyes welled up immediately every time I did. Beyond my anger was a more painful and raw hurt. He’d left me. And though he’d explained, and he had reasons he thought were sound that had nothing to do with me, there was a kid inside me still who would always believe she wasn’t good enough—wasn’t lovable. How could anyone abandon a tiny baby? I couldn’t see it, but my mother had. There had been something about me that wasn’t enough for her to stay.

  “It had nothing to do with you, Holland.” Delia sat in my office, her long legs stretched before her. I’d called her in the middle of that first day after Oliver’s visit and she’d come the second we hung up. I had thought I’d be okay, that I’d be able to work through the confusion and pain, but I was wrong. “You know that, right? You know that people don’t put kids up for adoption because of the kids.” Delia’s caramel eyes were serious and focused as she spoke. We’d had this conversation, been having it since we were children. But we both needed to hear it sometimes.

  “I know.”

  “Holland,” Delia said, pulling my eyes back to her face. “You are beautiful and amazing, smart and funny. Any man would be lucky to have you, and Oliver knew that. I watched him with you. He knew how amazing you are. If he ran away, it wasn’t because of you.”

  I hadn’t told Delia everything about Oliver, about his family. I filled her in now, my voice cracking and thin. She listened intently, and gave a sharp nod when I’d finished.

  “That right there is a huge pile of bullshit and not one part of it has anything to do with you. Of course he’s gonna be messed up after that.”

  “It doesn’t change what’s happening now,” I said, feeling hollow. “It doesn’t matter if I understand. He’s still gone.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what to say, honey. Part of me wants to be pissed off at him for being confused and stupid. But men are like little boys sometimes, Holl. Carl pulls shit like this all the time, and I have to push him back onto the path.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “With both girls, he completely freaked out. And he doesn’t have a trunkful of baggage like Oliver. I think it’s the way some guys grow up—they freak out first. Carl couldn’t run away cause he put a ring on it as soon as we found out about Gigi.” She waved her hand in the air and grinned. “But he wanted to. He told me later it was some kind of Peter Pan shit, like the idea of having kids meant that he was finally going to have to be a grown-up for real. Never mind that the man was already six-foot-two, paying a mortgage, and holding down a job. It was the idea of responsibility. Knowing it was a choice he couldn’t undo.”

  “But he came around?”

  Delia nodded. “He didn’t have a choice.”

  “But Oliver does,” I pointed out, unable to stop playing devil’s advocate. “We’re not married. We haven’t even known each other long. And I still don’t know if he really believes it’s his.” The last part was a whisper. I hated the idea that it mattered. It was a baby, a defenseless and innocent child. Why should it matter where the DNA came from? But I knew it did.

  She smiled weakly. “To some men that matters a lot. It’s that whole evolutionary caveman thing.”

  “He opened a bank account. Gave me a card for it.”

  “At least he’s doing something,” she said.

  Surprise whipped through me—it felt as if Delia was taking his side in some small way. “It makes me feel like a prostitute,” I whispered.

  I dropped my head onto my arms and Delia walked around to sit on the edge of my desk, her hand rubbing my back.

  A knock sounded at my door and I raised my head. Pamela appeared.

  I swallowed hard and tried not to look completely undone, my hands pushing my hair away from my face and wiping at my eyes. “Hi,” I said.

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “It’s fine,” I said, standing. I put a hand on Delia’s shoulder. “This is my sister, Delia. Delia, this is Pamela. She works with Oliver.”

  I had to give Pamela credit. Delia and I had been fucking with people for years by introducing each other as sisters. It was essentially true, we’d been raised together and no one was closer to me than she was. But the color of our skin was a tip-off to most people that we did not share the same DNA, and we’d met plenty who looked horribly confused when we named each other sister, and others who had to ask clarifying questions. Pamela just smiled and shook Delia’s hand. “I’m so glad to meet you. And actually, it’s perfect that you’re here, then!”

  Delia smiled at Pamela. “Why’s that?”

  “Well, some of the other girls and I were working on the shower for Holland.”

  “Oh fun!” Delia said. “I hadn’t gotten myself together enough to get one planned for her, but I’ve been meaning to. Could I invite a few non-Cody folks?”

  Pamela grinned. �
�Of course!”

  I was watching them both smile and nod, feeling like a secondary part of this whole plan, until Pamela turned to me. “I don’t want to force the idea on you, Holland. Is this still something you’d like? It’s just…the girls up in the office were so excited about the idea—there’s been a lot of sadness around here for a long time. And lately, things have been so much better—thanks to you.”

  Was she talking about me and Oliver? I shook my head to stop her. “The shower is still fine,” I said. “It’ll be be really nice.”

  She clapped her hands in a small show of excitement. “I’ll email with potential dates, okay? Delia, do you have an email so we can coordinate?”

  Delia grabbed a pen and a notepad off my desk and scribbled her information, handing the note to Pamela. “Thanks for planning, Pamela.”

  “I love babies,” Pamela said, her eyes fogging for a minute as she smiled at us. “And this gives me an excuse to buy adorable tiny shoes!” She turned and walked toward the door, but then spun back around. “Do you know the sex yet?”

  I shook my head and Pamela left.

  “That’s amazing,” Delia said. “Something to look forward to, right?”

  I tried to smile, but my heart still felt empty. I hoped I’d be able to find a smile by the time this baby was born.

  —

  The next months were some of the worst of my life. My back and hips had begun to ache and I wasn’t sleeping well. The doctor assured me all my complaints were perfectly normal, but by the time I reached the middle of my seventh month, I was ready to be finished with pregnancy. I wanted my well-behaved and predictable body back, I wanted to sleep again. I wanted to be able to sit at my desk for more than ten minutes without having to get up to go to the bathroom, and eat without heartburn. I hadn’t realized how good I’d had it before I’d invited another human being to share my body.

  My heart felt like a lead weight in my chest, and seeing Oliver at work made it feel like someone was twisting my guts around inside me. I’d bumped into him in the coffeehouse once. He’d walked in as I sat at a far table, and I’d watched him stand in line and order after glancing around. I was pretty sure he’d seen me, but he didn’t look my way again until just before he left, coffee in hand. Then he stood in front of the door, his whole body turned toward me, and his eyes on my face. I felt myself flush under his gaze, and when he raised a hand and waved, I dropped my gaze. I couldn’t wave at Oliver. We weren’t casual acquaintances. His absence from my life only made me feel my love for him that much more acutely, and the feelings hadn’t dissipated with the passage of time.

  When the MLB deal was finally signed, almost four months after our April meeting, Cody Tech hosted them at a local restaurant, and all the key executives attended. Before the MLB people showed up, Oliver and Rob made toasts to the Cody Tech employees who’d been fundamental to making the deal.

  “This would never have come to pass if it weren’t for our Director of Analytic Application, Holland O’Dell.” Oliver’s eyes found me at the back of the private room we’d rented for the occasion where I sat sipping water. He raised his glass my way and I raised mine back—the closest we’d come to conversation in months. He talked about how I’d developed the idea on my own, how I’d gotten the meeting with MLB, how the work had brought the board’s confidence back and saved the company. His words glowed with praise, and under any other circumstances, I would have been thrilled. It almost made it feel like I really had achieved all that myself, but having Oliver’s attention on me in this way just made me want to run.

  Once the MLB executives joined us, I shook the appropriate hands and then slipped out. I didn’t want to be social with Oliver, it was too hard. And I wasn’t excited about the idea of him getting too good a look at the way my body had changed since we’d been together. If he’d been attracted to me before, there was no way he could be now. The pencil skirts had been swapped for loose-fitting pants, and the fitted tops had been abandoned long ago for flowing tops that didn’t pinch or cinch. I felt like a growing hippo, and the last thing I wanted was to let him evaluate the changes in my physique with those dark eyes. Under normal circumstances, if a man had hurt me the way Oliver had, I’d make a point of looking incredible every time he saw me, to help remind him what he’d been stupid enough to give up, to prove I was fine without him. Though I had no doubt he’d made a mistake and that he’d regret it, the less-confident part of me wondered if Oliver was breathing a sigh of relief when he saw me waddle from the party.

  I drove home wishing again that I’d never met Oliver, and then wishing he was still in my life.

  With Oliver’s money, I’d rented a two-bedroom apartment in my building, and Carl and Delia had helped me move.

  Delia stayed over sometimes now, and I spent a lot of time sitting in the glider in the new nursery. Life was bittersweet. I was on the brink of the most joyful event I’d experienced so far in this life, and my heart was wrung out as a result of the greatest loss I’d felt at the same time. I had begun to wonder what might have happened if I hadn’t pushed Oliver away, if I hadn’t been the one to put so much space between us in the first place. I felt an overwhelming regret at the same time as I was feeling an increasing joy over the impending birth of my child. Torn between the two extremes of emotion, I spent most of my time in silence, waiting for things to pass, waiting for my heart to heal, waiting for my body to finish its metamorphosis from woman to mother.

  Chapter 25

  Oliver

  I watched Holland for months across rooms and through conference room windows when she didn’t know I was there. I watched her body change, her skin begin to glow, her amazing breasts become even more perfect. I still thought of almost nothing but her…and increasingly, of the baby. I knew now with certainty that it was mine. The time apart, and Holland’s frugal use of the money I’d set aside confirmed to me that she’d never been out to manipulate me. I hated myself for ever thinking it.

  Pamela handed me itemized receipts each week from Holland, a strict accounting of what had been spent out of the account. Besides the apartment rental and a crib, most of the items were small and monetarily insignificant. She wasn’t trying to use me. I got the impression she was doing everything she could to avoid letting me help at all.

  During the months I spent outside Holland’s orbit, I accomplished a lot. I pulled the company back together after hiring a new lead counsel and announcing the MLB deal officially just in time to reassure the board members who’d still been thinking of selling. I appointed a new chairman in Adam’s place—Burton Pax. I was certain he could keep the board’s favor on our side. More than anything, I’d proven to myself that I was a competent and capable CEO. I’d doubted it when I left, believed that I was just a figurehead, that Adam was coddling me. But now I had to give him credit—he knew I could do it, and maybe I had been doing a good job before. I had just been too confused to see it.

  Even in the face of my success, I felt torn apart and empty. I lay awake nights, replaying the last conversation I’d had with Holland—and the one with Pamela that preceded it. I’d never been less sure of a decision. In college I’d been too arrogant to bother thinking much about what I did. I just did things. And lately I’d accepted the possibility that after starting my company Adam may have been the one to gently steer the ship, though I’d always thought I was at the helm. I’d grown into my responsibilities, and before my parents died, I had been firmly in command at Cody Tech—though Adam had always been that calm, guiding presence when I’d needed it. But now? I was on my own.

  At work. At home. In my head. In my heart. I was alone. And it was possible I’d made the biggest mistake of my life in letting Holland go.

  “You did the right thing,” Pamela said, leaning against the edge of my desk one late afternoon. “If you couldn’t be there one hundred percent, you couldn’t be there at all,” she said. “Right?”

  I spun my chair to face her, pinching the bridge of my nose between my f
ingers before I spoke. “What do you mean, ‘right?’ ” I’d spent a good amount of time blaming Pamela for my misery and wondering if I should ever have listened to her. Even in my anger, however, her words made sense. How could I be a father? How could I be part of a family when my own had turned out to be such a sham?

  “I’m just asking,” she answered. “Oliver, just because I said that to you doesn’t mean I was right.”

  I shook my head. My emptiness wasn’t her fault. “No, you were right.”

  Pamela slid into the chair across from me. “Can I say something without you getting mad at me?”

  “Probably not.” Pamela had a knack for hitting things right on the head, and since I’d been in the office a lot more since breaking things off with Holland, we’d developed a relationship that felt to me the way it might have felt to have a sister. “Go ahead.”

  “Well, I usually am right.” She nodded as if affirming this idea for herself. “About most things.”

  “And you’re so humble.” I lifted an eyebrow at her.

  “Right. That, too.” She grinned. “But I was just going to say that maybe when it comes to relationships and things…well, I’m not like an oracle or anything. I mean, look at my own life.”

  “You’re a single mom. You were counseling me from that point of view.”

  “Yeah. A single mom who’s never really been in love.”

  That made me look up, and pulled me briefly from my wallowing. “Kenner’s dad?”

  She shook her head, a sad smile on her face. “We were young. I didn’t really know what I was doing, what I felt.”

  I thought about that. I’d had those relationships, too, where I wanted so badly for it to be love, but where I’d known down deep it wasn’t.

  “Watching you these last couple months, though…” She paused, shrugging her shoulders and squinting at me. “You’re a disaster.”

  “This talk has been fucking uplifting. Thanks so much—” I stood, ready to be done hearing about how screwed up I was.