“Well, don’t look to me for help. I’m not going to give you money to help you make another mistake.”
“Did I ask for money?”
She huffed out a harsh sigh. “It’s just a matter of time. How are you going to afford a house and a baby? I wish you’d quit being so impulsive.”
“Impulsive? Since when is growing up and doing what every other married adult does impulsive? Gran, listen to yourself. Do you hear what you’re saying? Really? You haven’t said one nice thing since we’ve been on the phone. Would it kill you to say congratulations?” My hopeful, content, loving mood was fading into a distant memory and the emotions that clogged my throat now were anger and frustration. Isamu could say all he wanted about love spreading, but when it came to Gran, it was a crock of shit.
“You expect me to congratulate you for rushing into something that could ruin your life? Well, congratulations, Caitlin. Don’t come running to me when it all falls apart around you.”
“Don’t worry Gran, I won’t. I know you wouldn’t help me anyway, even if it was a life or death situation. And I don’t need your advice anymore either. I’m an adult, and perfectly capable of living my life without you criticizing it. Maybe one of these days you’ll realize that.”
I heard a swift intake of breath on the other end of the phone but before she could say anything else, I slammed the phone down and lay in bed, curled up around Ryan’s pillow until I fell asleep.
The next thing I knew, Ryan’s warm hands were pulling me into his lap and cuddling me close. “Honey, are you ok?”
“I talked to Gran.”
He groaned. “I take it you told her about the baby?”
I nodded.
He sighed deeply. “I see she took the news well. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you when you told her. You shouldn’t have faced her on your own.”
“It’s done. I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. I hate her.” My shoulders shook with residual sorrow and Ryan held me close.
“No, you don’t. Catie, you’re incapable of hating anyone. That’s why it hurts so much. But you have a right to be angry, and you have a right to take your time getting over it. She’s wrong, shutting you out like she does. And one day, she’ll regret it, but it’ll be too late. It’ll be her loss, not yours.”
“It hurts so much,” I said on a whimper.
“I know. And that’s why I love you. You’re the most caring, sweet, giving person I’ve ever known. But it’ll be ok. You’ve got me and Benjie, and our baby. And you’ve got your mom. She loves you so much. You don’t need your Gran.”
“I know. But she needs me. She just doesn’t realize it.”
“Well, maybe one day she’ll figure it out. Until then, let’s concentrate on what we can control, and on taking care of Benjie and that baby inside you. I have good news, by the way.”
“News?” I picked my head up and looked into Ryan’s triumphant eyes.
“We got pre-approved for a mortgage. I made a pretty aggressive offer on the house and Joshua said it was accepted.” He smiled at me broadly and my heart leaped in joy.
“We got it?”
“We got it. I called the bank to get the ball rolling. We’ll have to eat Ramen noodles for about three years to be able to afford the place, but it’s ours if we want it. We might even get in there by Christmas.”
Christmas? My thoughts wandered back to the scene I’d envisioned earlier. Incredibly, my positive thinking seemed to have turned my greatest desires into foreseeable reality. Well, almost, I qualified, thinking that one person would be absent from our Rockwell-esque vignette. Still, I wouldn’t let it bother me, no matter how much it hurt. There was so much more good than bad going on, and I’d hold onto it for as long as I could.
Chapter 14
Life became a whirlwind of activity once the offer on the house was accepted. Boxes started stacking up in the living room, our bedroom, the hallway, every closet. Who knew we had so much stuff? I donated a lot of cast-offs and even held a small tag sale in the parking lot of our building. Mom and I had a lot of fun haggling with our neighbors over the price of our junk. Turns out we both loved watching people pay us to haul our trash away.
Between working full-time, dealing with Benjie, keeping baby appointments, running errands and packing, we had home inspections to arrange and attend and worry over, meetings with the bank and our attorney, correspondence to and from the realtor, insurance to arrange, payments to make. We were running ourselves ragged. It was also an expensive time for us. Our paychecks went into the bank and right back out again. I watched in horror as our savings account, once buffeted with a small nest egg, went drier than the Sahara.
Despite my protests, Mom continued to help us with the finances. And really, we couldn’t have done it without her. She insisted on paying for a lot of the extra, unexpected bills as they came up. Ryan and I planned to pay her back, but every time we mentioned it, she either changed the subject or argued with us. She kept alluding to her wise investment but refused to give us any more information about it. I didn’t want to pry, but curiosity was eating me alive. Where did she get all that money?
During this hectic time, my body was changing. Little by little, my stomach grew and my clothes shrunk. My jeans were now held together, or apart, by a rubber band because I hadn’t had any time to shop for maternity clothes. Besides everything else that was going on, work was crazy, with a strange influx of new little patients, and the doctor decided to increase our office hours to help the parents who had full-time jobs get to appointments with their kids.
Benjie continued to be warm and cold to the idea of the baby. He eyed my growing stomach dubiously, his moods swinging from protective and excited to standoffish and downright rude. Ryan and I threw up our hands on more than one occasion, at a loss for ideas.
I noticed a trend, too, because Benjie would usually be at his worst when he’d just seen his mother on one of the visits that started after she completed her state-sanctioned parenting classes. I woke him up because he’d overslept and instead of giving me a hug like he normally would, he shrunk away from me and said, “No, Catie. Don’t touch me!”
“Benjie, why don’t you want a hug? That’s all I was going to do.” I reached for him again but he shrank back further and eyed me warily.
“You’ll make me get sick. I don’t wanna die.”
I was aghast. “What? Benjie, why would you say that?”
“That thing in your belly. Mommy said it’s a zombie. Mommy said you’re gonna die and if I touch you, I’ll catch it and I’ll get sick too.”
That did it. I looked at Benjie sadly and said, “Honey, that’s not true. I’m so sorry you’re in the middle of all this. But I can promise you, Benjie, I’m telling the truth. I’d never lie to you. Get dressed and I’ll take you to school.”
I left the room and reached for the phone before I lost my nerve. My fingers shook as I dialed, but this had to be done, and I wasn’t even going to wait to bounce it off Ryan. This was woman-to-woman.
“Hello? Ryan?” Nancy, the frigid bitch, answered.
I took a deep breath and said, “Guess again. You and I need to talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” she said with a sneer in her voice.
“Good. Then I’ll talk and you’ll listen. Don’t even think about hanging up on me, either. I’ll have your ass investigated for child abuse if you try.”
There was fuming silence on the other end of the phone line, so I took advantage of it and plowed ahead.
“You will stop filling that wonderful little boy’s head full of nonsense. Do you hear me? This is enough. He’s an innocent little boy, not a pawn for you to use. You’re mad at Ryan? Fine. You shouldn’t be, because you’re the one who left him. You’re mad at me? Fine. But I only got involved with Ryan after you cast him aside like garbage. So, if you’re pissed off, that’s your problem, but take it out on us, not him. You’re done using him and frightening him, do you hear me? Enough is enough!”<
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“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, ice in her voice.
“Yes, you do. What I should do is kick your ass, except you’re not worth it. But Benjie is, and if you mess with him again, you’d best be prepared for the consequences.”
“So now you’re threatening me?” she asked with a purr. I was sure she was considering calling the police on me again. She must have forgotten what happened the last time she tried to pick a fight with me.
“No. I’m guaranteeing it. Mess with him, and you mess with me. You might not care about what you’re doing to him, but I do. I love him and it’s my job to keep him safe, and that includes from you. You can’t hurt him anymore, you spoiled, manipulative bitch. Go ahead, call the police. See what they say when I tell them all the shit you’ve done. Leave him alone!”
I hung up and turned to find Benjie standing there with wide-eyes. He was shaking. With a moan, I gathered him up into my arms and held him while he burst into tears.
“Honey, I do love you. I love you with all my heart. No one is going to hurt you, ok? Not with me here. You don’t have to worry about anything. I’ve got you.”
“Catie, I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t want to go live with Mommy. I want to stay here with you and Daddy and the new baby.”
“You’re not going to live with Mommy. You live with us, and soon we’ll all be together in our big new house.”
“Promise?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t we all be together?”
“Mommy said you’d forget to pack me in a box to move me to the new house. Catie, I don’t want you to forget me but I don’t wanna get put into a box.”
“Benjie, you’ll sit in your car seat in the car when we move. We’re not going to put you in a box.”
“And you’re not gonna die?”
My stomach clenched again. That awful woman had done a number on my boy. “No, Benj. I’m pregnant, not sick.”
“Ok. I’m sorry, Catie.”
“Me, too. And I’m sorry you heard me yell at your Mom.”
“It’s ok. When I get in trouble, I get a talking-to. You gave one to Mommy ‘cause she’s bad.”
“She’s not bad, but she’s done some bad things. Understand? But she’s still your mom, and she does love you. She’s just a little mixed up right now. Go on, sweetie, get ready for school. We’re going to be late.”
He wiped his dripping nose on my shirt and scampered out of the room, leaving me in a heap on the floor. My stomach clenched again, but I noticed a difference this time. It wasn’t my stomach. It was the baby. It moved! I felt it!
I smiled big. It seemed I’d gotten my Benjie back and by all indications, I wouldn’t be the only one looking after him.
Chapter 15
“Heidi, this is great, really, but I have no furniture to sit on, and nothing to serve food to our guests on. How the hell are we supposed to give my mom a party when everything’s packed?” I gestured around us at the mountain of boxes in my living room and glared at my friend, who appeared very unconcerned about both my plight and the mess in our apartment.
“But we promised we’d throw Maria a party, and you’ve been so busy we’re having a hard time planning anything. We’ve been trying to pin you down so we could go over all this stuff and it’s almost too late now.”
“And I’m not busy now?” I asked, pointedly staring at the mountain of boxes strewn all over the apartment. Some stacks nearly reached the ceiling.
She looked around sheepishly. “Well, ok, you’re busy, but it’s now or never, you know. Maria deserves this ‘Welcome Home’ party and if we wait too long, it’ll be sort of pointless. She won’t be new anymore.”
“But why do we have to hold it here at the apartment?”
“I didn’t think we’d be able to rent a hall or anything this soon to the event.”
“Did you call and ask?” I wondered aloud, exasperated.
“Well, no. But I figured—”
“You figured it would be easier to host it here. Heidi, I have no problems with a party. In fact, it’s a great idea. It was a great idea when you first brought it up before she got here. But not at my house. Not right now. Two months ago, maybe. But when everything I own is in boxes, not so much.”
“I tried to get it all planned before, but you’ve been busy. I’ll call the bar. I bet Ernie’d love to host a party for us.”
“Um, the bar? Ernie’s bar? It’s sort of, uh, informal, isn’t it? For my mom? Heidi, I’m just not sure.” I wrinkled my nose in disgust. It was a great place for us girls to hang out, but Mom deserved better than our beer-soaked hangout.
“It’ll be great, I promise. I’ll decorate. Oh, but I forgot— you can’t drink,” she said, apologetic.
“I don’t have to drink just because I’m in a bar, you know.”
Her face lit up. “You’re right. I didn’t think of that.”
I shook my head. She was not usually this airheaded. “Good lord, your brain is fried, isn’t it? Did you stay up all night planning your wedding or something?”
“No, we were practicing for our honeymoon, if you must know. Peter is quite imaginative—” she started with an avid look in her eyes. I held up my hands in surrender.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“So is the bar ok? I’ll make it nice.”
“I guess. Call Ernie and get it set up. Let me know if you need money, ok? I’m going to be late to pick up Benjie if I don’t leave now.”
“Alright. I’ll call Ernie. Thanks for letting me do this,” she said, squealing a bit and giving me a gigantic hug. “It’ll be so much fun!”
“Thank you, sweetie. It means a lot to me that you’d do this. I should have done it myself months ago.”
“Hey, what are friends for?”
With that, she scampered off (Heidi was one of the few people I could actually say scampered) and I waddled off to pick up Benjie.
Heidi called me that afternoon and told me she had good news. Ernie had agreed to let her hold my mom’s party at the bar the following Saturday, and he even promised to clean out the back banquet room that for years had been used as storage. And he only charged us $50 to rent it for the evening.
Mom was thrilled with the idea of a party and before we knew it, we had about a hundred guests lined up. She asked that we invite all of Ryan’s coworkers as well, and Kelly and Heidi were positively drooling over getting to see all those ‘hunky men in uniform’ off-duty. As the guest list grew, so did my trepidation over getting them all inside the banquet room and feeding them all, but Heidi assured me she’d take care of it. She told me on more than one occasion that she had it covered.
And did she! She was a one-woman army, fearlessly planning a party that would surely become the talk of the town. Heidi insisted on buying balloons and streamers and she spent hours making a Welcome Home sign for Mom. When she had to work, she sent me and Kelly out on shopping sprees with very specific lists of things she wanted us to get, and heaven help us if we got the wrong thing! She was making me exhausted, but inside, I was touched by all the small details she threw in to make Mom’s night magical. It served to remind me how much love I had in my life from so many different places. Kelly and Heidi loved me, and they knew how much my Mom meant to me, so they weren’t only doing this for her, but for me as well.
The night of the party came and we all met at Kelly’s house to get ready, since hers was the closest to the bar, and there wasn’t enough room (or hygiene) in the bathroom at Ernie’s to get four women ready, especially when one of those women had an expanded waistline. I’d bought a maternity dress for the occasion, and I loved it. It was black with little jet beads that sparkled when I moved and it served to soften my rather obvious baby bump. I felt pretty. The girls and Mom all looked amazing, too, and even though I envied their tiny waistlines and limber movements, I wouldn’t have traded them for the world.
“Maria, I want you to wear this,�
� Heidi said, holding a beautiful magnolia blossom out to Mom. “It goes in your hair. Do you want me to put it in?”
“Oh, Heidi, thank you so much! You’re such a sweet girl. I can see why Caitlin loves you so much,” Mom said as she rushed to hug Heidi.
“Here, sit over here and hold still,” Heidi instructed, easing Mom onto a backless stool. Mom’s hair had been styled into a graceful updo, and the waxy-white petals of the magnolia blossom looked gorgeous against Mom’s dark hair.
“Mmm, smell that? That’s what my youth smelled like. There are magnolias everywhere in Florida, and I used to love to play outside when I was a girl. The scent of magnolia reached my nose with every whisper of the wind. Magical, I tell you.” Her eyes closed and she breathed deeply, a look of beatific peace on her face. She was transformed in that moment to a much younger woman, as if the magnolias had somehow bloomed into a youth potion that was activated by smell. Love welled up inside me, clogging my throat with happiness. She was radiant, my mother, and I knew I’d always remember this moment, the way she looked, the way she made me feel.
“Well, are we all ready?” she asked, the spell from the flower broken. “We’d best head to the bar. It wouldn’t do to keep our guests waiting.”
We all nodded and picked up our purses. Kelly had rented a limousine for the evening and we all piled inside, laughing like teenagers about to go to Prom. The chauffer had opened a bottle of bubbly and placed it on ice, and Mom, Kelly and Heidi all filled crystal flutes and drank deeply. They really seemed to hit it off, and I was gratified. Of course, who wouldn’t love them?
Music was blasting from the bar as we arrived. The chauffer helped us out of the limo and we were greeted by our escorts.
“You look beautiful,” Ryan murmured in my ear as he put his arm around my waist and escorted me inside. “And you smell good enough to eat.”
“Later, though. This is my mom’s big day.” I smiled at my husband and bent down to pay some special attention to my stepson, who was wearing an adorable suit I’d never seen before. “Hey, Benjie. Lookin’ good, my man.” I gave him a hug and he squealed in childish delight as I buried my face in his cologne-scented neck and nibbled.
Holding On (Hooking Up) Page 10