Mr. Big

by Delancey Stewart

  Between Delia, the developer with the knife, Pamela, and a few other people who stepped up to help peel off long panels of cardboard, the present was finally revealed. And I was finding it hard to breathe for the tears that were threatening to spill out of me. Oliver stood next to the huge thing looking uncertain, glancing between me and Delia, and then up at the soft smiling face of the enormous stuffed giraffe next to him. The giraffe was at least twice as big as the one I remembered from the nursery in Tessa’s house, and I had no doubt it was the biggest and best giraffe Oliver could find. It wore a blue bow tied around its neck and the ridiculousness of having the silly huge thing standing there in Cody Tech’s main conference room, coupled with the overwhelming outpouring of friendship from my co-workers and Oliver’s strange speech, was almost too much. I couldn’t speak for a few minutes, trying to pull myself together.

  There was a quiet chatter in the room as people tried to figure out what the appropriate behavior might be for such a situation, and I wanted to tell them I didn’t know, either. But I figured I should at least stand up. I did, and walked on shaky legs toward the huge stuffed animal, my heart swelling as I looked up at it. “Thank you,” I said, when I was close enough for Oliver to hear me. It was the closest I’d been to him in months, and I had forgotten the magnetism he radiated. His proximity made me want to melt into his arms, the vague scent of his cologne sent my insides quivering. I chanced a look at him, and felt swept away by the emotion I saw in his eyes. What was all this? What was he doing? It only made things so much harder to stand this close to him again, to have him bringing gifts and apologies. I loved the giant giraffe—I loved what it meant, what he knew it symbolized to me. But if I couldn’t have him…it didn’t matter. I felt my heart breaking all over again, and began to be angry with him for doing this to me in front of a room full of people. People I worked with, no less. “I don’t—” I began.

  “You don’t need to say anything,” he said. “But I need to talk to you.” His voice was low enough that most people in the room couldn’t hear him. Delia and Pamela pretended to be examining the giraffe, and that left Oliver and me together, secluded before the crowd. “I need to ask you to forgive me, Holland, but I don’t know if you can. I was so wrong. So…I ruined everything.” He shook his head and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, his jaw flexing beneath the scruff of his beard as he searched for words. “I was so afraid,” he said, meeting my eye. “I was so afraid of being betrayed again, so ready for someone I cared about to hurt me, that I imagined it into being.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t do anything. I know. You were honest with me. You were up-front and genuine, and I panicked and ran. I’m so sorry I haven’t been here for you through this pregnancy. I know it can’t have been easy. But I want to be here now, if you’ll let me. I want to be part of this, I want to know my child. I want the chance to love him. To love you again.”

  I stared at him, trying to piece together the words and then feel out what they meant. I knew I still loved Oliver, despite the months apart—some of the most difficult of my life. And I knew I could forgive him. But I didn’t know if I could trust him. “I want to forgive you,” I said, my voice weak and shaky to match the state of my heart. “And I do. It doesn’t do us any good to have regrets, to hold grudges.” I’d learned that lesson as a child. There was too much pain in wishing to change things you couldn’t. “But I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t know if I can give it. What’s coming next…I have no idea how it will be, or how I’ll be…” I trailed off. Motherhood was an unknown frontier for me. I already felt like a different person from the one he’d met less than a year ago, the girl who was so focused on ticking things off her plan that she would have done anything to get to the next step.

  “Do you still love me?” Oliver asked, his chin high. So brave. I could see how hard it was for him to ask that question, how aware he was that I might say no.

  “I do,” I admitted.

  “Then tell me we can try. Tell me you’ll let me take care of you and our son.”

  My head was nodding before my heart or mind had really confirmed what I wanted to say, but it felt like the right thing. I wanted Oliver next to me, a part of me. I wanted to be a family, and if that was what he was really offering, the only answer was yes.

  Oliver looked uncertain, like he wasn’t sure I really meant it, and then his face cleared and a smile spread over his full lips. He leaned in and wrapped his arms around me carefully, pulling me to him.

  I let my head fall against his hard chest, feeling the steel of his arms around me, protecting me, claiming me. And once again, I felt like I’d arrived at the place I’d always meant to be, the place I’d searched for my whole life. Home.

  Some of the people in the room had wandered out, back to work, back to the grind of the regular day. But many had been too curious to leave, and now they erupted in a chorus of hoots and cheers, applause clattering in my ears. Someone in the room called, “Kiss her!” And Oliver did.

  The kiss was tender and searching, and I felt Oliver asking me for reassurance, for certainty. I tried to offer it, but my heart was a drum that echoed in my dizzy head, and my legs were rubber. If Oliver’s arms hadn’t been around me, I’m not sure I could have remained standing.

  “Duchess, are you okay?” he whispered, his mouth leaving mine to whisper in my ear.

  I nodded, though I wasn’t at all sure. Everything had happened so fast. I stepped back to my chair, gave the remaining guests a sheepish grin and bobbed my head at Delia to continue passing gifts down. I’d have a stack of thank-you notes to write—there were so many presents! But the best thing I got was the knowledge that I wouldn’t be alone in this, that Oliver was here, would be here.

  Being without him for months had given me time to think. And the same thoughts flew through my head over and over where he was concerned. It didn’t matter if we worked together. It didn’t matter if he was the CEO or that some people might jump to conclusions about how I’d gotten my position. I could live my life worrying about what everyone else thought of me—I’d certainly done a lot of that as a kid. Self-consciousness was like a tattered old sweater that still felt comfortable and familiar, but one that was best left in the back of my closet. I would choose to be happy instead, choose to embrace the good things in my life and work to keep them close.

  As I opened the last gift on the table, the baby kicked, as if to signal that he was on board with the resolve I’d found.

  Chapter 27

  Oliver

  I had arranged to have all of Holland’s shower gifts delivered to her apartment, where I put them away as she sat in the yellow glider and directed me. She kept trying to get up to help, but with only a couple of weeks left before her due date, I didn’t want her doing anything she didn’t need to do.

  “Are you sure you won’t let me move you to my house?” I asked her again, taking in the crowded nursery in her new two-bedroom apartment.

  She didn’t argue this time, just sighed and shook her head.

  “You’re not sure?” I teased.

  “I’m not sure about anything.”

  “You’d have so much more space,” I pointed out again. “And I’d be there to take care of you. All the time.”

  “Choosing to live together shouldn’t be something we do out of convenience,” she said. “And this situation is decidedly not romantic. I’ve never lived with anyone. I want that choice to be well-thought-out. A clear next step in the relationship.”

  I knelt at her side. “You just described where we are.”

  She stared at me, exhaustion in the tiny lines at the edges of her mouth, her eyes.

  “What if we made it temporary—just so that you and the baby aren’t alone at first? So you’ll have me there to help? And then, later, when things settle down, we can really decide.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “We’ll keep the apartment. Just in case.”

  “
In case…?”

  I shook my head. “Of whatever.”

  “I don’t have the energy to move now, Oliver.” Her voice was a sigh. She’d been having near-constant contractions, which the doctor had said was basically her body practicing for the real thing.

  “You won’t lift a finger,” I told her, my heart lifting. It was crazy. When I’d first met Holland, having her anywhere—having her literally, being inside her, possessing her—had been all I could think about. Now, having Holland and the baby at my house was all I wanted in the world—to have her laughter, and the sounds of my son, in that quiet house. I still wanted her with a ferocious lust I found hard to control, but I wanted so much more than that now. I was eager to fill my big quiet house with new memories, a new family. I knew Sonja and Adam would have wanted that, too.

  —

  That afternoon I drove Holland with a few bags of her personal things to the house. The movers were already packing up the apartment, and had promised to have one of the spare rooms in my house set up for the baby by the following day.

  “It’s nice to be back here,” Holland said, walking slowly down the hallway toward my room. She turned to look into the spare room, the one I’d planned as the nursery, and I stepped up close behind her.

  “Do you like it?”

  Holland said nothing, but her shoulders shook, and when she turned to look at me, tears ran down her cheeks. “When did you do this?” she asked.

  The room was painted with a jungle scene, the walls full of tropical trees and plants with jungle animals peeking out between fronds and under branches. “A couple weeks ago,” I said. “I hired a local artist who promised she did great monkeys.” The monkeys were pretty kick-ass, swinging from the upper limbs around the room.

  “But we weren’t even…”

  We weren’t together. We weren’t even speaking. “I hoped,” I admitted. “I knew I would try for as long as it took to get you back, to be part of my son’s life.” It was easy to tell her this, and even I was surprised to feel my ego stay where it was, relaxed and willing to show my weaknesses.

  Holland looked around the room again, stepping inside. “Where are all your clothes?” she asked.

  For a long time, I’d hung rolling racks in this room because I hadn’t wanted to face my parents’ old bedroom. But slowly, over time, I’d been going through things in there, sorting through the things they’d left behind. “They’re in the master bedroom,” I told her.

  Her eyebrows rose, and a smile crossed her lips. “Was that hard?” she whispered, a hand finding my cheek.

  I closed my eyes and let myself lean into her palm. “Yes and no.”

  We walked together across the hall, and Holland looked around the spacious master bedroom. My clothes still hung on the rolling racks in the center of the room. “I haven’t managed to get through both closets yet,” I told her. “I’ll finish it today. We can sleep in here soon.”

  “When you’re ready.” Holland put her arms around me, leaning her head into my chest. I inhaled her, the sweet cinnamon scent of her hair, the underlying freshness of her skin. “I’m proud of you,” she whispered. She pulled back, squinting for a split second and dropping a hand to her stomach. “I might rest for a bit,” she said, her voice making it sound like an apology.

  “You should,” I said, and I walked her back to my old bedroom. “I’ll finish the closet while you sleep.” I wanted to share that big light-filled master bedroom with Holland, to give her a beautiful place to call her own. My old high school bedroom wasn’t exactly the kind of place a new mother would find relaxing.

  When Holland was settled, I went back to the master, turning on the light in the closet and stepping in gingerly. It was like entering a museum or a library, a quiet hush in the air and the scent of my mother’s perfume lingering on her clothes. I stood in the center of the walk-in, letting the smell envelop me, taking me back to my childhood. That scent brought back so many memories: the sound of my mother’s heels clicking in the entry as she and my father got ready to go out for the evening, her arms going around me as she kissed me goodbye and gave the babysitter careful instructions. It made me think of being in the car with her when I was a child, running errands or being picked up from school. I saw the three of us, together on this big bed watching movies when I was in elementary school. Being among their things, with the scent of my mother surrounding me, it was hard to believe they were gone.

  I shook my head to clear it and began sorting the clothing into piles to donate. It was an arduous task, my heart threatening to shred with every memory that came along with touching their things. But over the course of an hour, the closet began to empty. I was getting ready to take a break when I noticed something. A shoe box had been tucked away beneath my mother’s coats, pushed to the back of the closet on a shelf. I reached in and pulled it out, the light weight of whatever rattled in the box making me certain this was not a forgotten pair of shoes.

  I carried the box to the bed and sat with it in front of me, some alarm inside telling me there might be something here I didn’t want to find. I’d begun to come to terms with my family’s origin, with the fact that I might never know myself the way most people did, reassured by an understanding of their bloodlines, their place in the bigger scheme of humanity. I wasn’t eager to have any more surprises that might unravel my understanding of myself further. But I couldn’t just push the box away, either.

  The lid pulled off easily, the dusty green top lifting to reveal two items inside, one of which I knew immediately. The bear. A jolt of recognition hit me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, seeing the image again. The bear, the car door slamming. The hand on my cheek. I’d seen this bear hundreds of times in my mind, but never knew where the image had come from. And here it was. Here it had been all along. What did it mean?

  I lifted the small stuffed bear to my nose instinctively, inhaling a stale memory. Mine. This bear was mine. My heart recognized it even if I couldn’t recall anything concrete about it. I set the bear on my lap and turned my attention to the other item in the box: an envelope with my name on it in my mother’s handwriting. I opened it, removing a folded piece of stationery. A picture dropped out of the folded letter, of a woman who looked like my father, holding a baby. On the back was written: Eileen and Oliver.

  I took a deep breath and opened the letter.

  Dear Oliver,

  Parents make many choices, and not all of them turn out to be right. I am writing this letter, with your father’s approval, because we made a choice long ago and I still struggle with it. Maybe it wasn’t right.

  I don’t know what the circumstances might be that have led you to this letter. Did I finally change my mind and hand it to you? Did you discover it? Am I still there to tell you in person how sorry I am for keeping secrets? For doing something I thought was right but may have been more wrong than anything else I’ve ever done? I wish I could see the future, see the man you will be, and know how this will affect you. But for now, all I can do is tell you the truth and hope you will forgive us for not doing it sooner.

  Your father and I were there when you were born, Oliver. That might sound ridiculous, but it’s an important distinction because you are adopted. I am not your birth mother, and your dad isn’t your birth father. But we have known you all your life, and we are as closely related as we can be without being your parents.

  You never really got to know your father’s sister, Eileen. You’ve heard of her. We were always very careful about how we spoke of her around you. Eileen made some choices, too, and I can say—with all the certainty that seeing how those choices hurt your dad can bring—that some of them were wrong. But her decision to have the baby she became pregnant with when she was nineteen was a good one. And you were a blessing not only to her life, but to your dad’s and mine. Eileen came to live with us when she was pregnant with you, since her mom and dad were gone. The three of us worked together to care for you when you were a tiny infant, and I couldn’t have loved you m
ore if you were my own baby.

  When Eileen found a good job and felt ready, she moved out, taking you with her. We thought she was doing well, believed she could handle everything. And she might have. But life isn’t fair. Your mom got very sick, Oliver. You were only two when she came back. The cancer was already stage four when she was diagnosed, and she knew she didn’t have long. She didn’t want you to remember her sick, so she brought you back to us. You were both with us for a while, until your mom went to the hospital. The last time we visited her there, she gave me this bear to give to you, and she asked us to keep you, to raise you.

  She also made us promise never to tell you. I didn’t understand it at the time, and honestly I still don’t, but Eileen wanted you to believe Adam and I were your parents. I hope that in your mind we still are. Maybe it’s just something I do to make myself feel better for keeping this secret, but I tell myself you are luckier than most kids. You got three parents for a while—three people who loved you more than anything or anyone else. Three people who believed you made the earth turn.

  I’m sorry, Oliver. Your dad and I argued about this secret, about what a vow made to a dying woman really meant, about what this information would do to you. And if you’re reading this letter, we probably never overcame the bonds that promise put on us, never agreed about how or when to tell you the truth.

  If you’re angry, I don’t blame you. Secrets rarely do anyone any good, and they have a dangerous power to hurt. Even if you are angry, though, please know how much you were loved. From the very first time I saw you I loved you, and I have never stopped.

  Your mother,

  Sonja

  I stared at the picture for a long time after reading the letter, waiting to feel angry or hurt. But I didn’t. With the small bear in my hand and the picture on the bed in front of me, all I felt was understanding. The pieces of my heart that had shattered when my parents had died began to meld together again, the pain scattering like dust motes in the light of understanding. I gave the bear a small kiss, and put it on the pillow of the bed just as Holland’s voice shattered the calm in the house.