Family Affair

by Caprice Crane

  I feel like I just got the wind knocked out of me.

  “Okay,” I manage to utter.

  “You’re moving on,” she says. “I get it.”

  “Well, actually—” I start to say, but she plows right through my sentence.

  “I’ll agree to a no-fault divorce. We can forget everything I ever did. Forget my stupid case. My custody,” she says, with a derisive tone, as if she’s suddenly disgusted by herself.

  “Well,” I say, “I’m sure you’ll still spend time with my family.”

  “No,” she says with resolve. “I’m giving your family back to its rightful owner. You can have them back. They’re all yours.”

  “They’re yours, too,” I say, so surprised I can’t pull together a coherent counterpoint. Suddenly, all I want is for her to still want my family.

  “No,” she says. “They’re yours. You found mine for me, remember? So you win. I’m gone.” And with that she turns and walks away.

  I stand there holding the bag of bagels and the coffee, wondering what just happened. Wondering if all this time I never realized that there was some reality where Layla wouldn’t be firmly entrenched in my life. Some awful unthinkable reality.

  What the fuck just happened?

  layla

  There was something so freeing about giving Brett his family back that for the first time I feel like I can breathe. I feel almost dizzy with freedom. Who was I kidding? They were never really mine to begin with.

  I call Brooke and tell her to meet me at Runyon Canyon for a hike. It’s a new year. I can start it off healthfully, let go of the past, breathe in the fresh air, take in the beauty of the mountains. It all feels natural and cleansing, like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Except the altitude mixed with the cardio makes me feel a little light-headed once we get halfway to the top. I used to hike Runyon all the time. Am I this out of shape? Have I let myself go in marriage? Gah! I swore I’d never be that person. Well, not anymore. I stop and take a drink from my water bottle, and we keep going.

  “Where are all the hot single guys?” Brooke asks, as she steps over a pile of something brown and gooey. “And has every dog in Los Angeles come here to take a shit? Seriously. I’ve seen more piles of crap than trees!”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “It’s disgusting.”

  “I guess I’m used to it, being around animals all the time.”

  “I see no hot men.” She sighs. “This is a total waste.”

  “We’re here to get exercise. To start the year off positively.”

  Brooke looks at me like I’m possessed. “I was just near Vancouver, remember? Outdoorsy. Women, Lord help them, wear skirts and tennis shoes. I had plenty of positive healthiness. Wait a minute—are you on antidepressants?”

  “No, you jerk,” I answer. “I’m just trying to start the new year off on the right foot.”

  “Well, your right foot just stepped in dog shit.”

  • • •

  When I part ways with Brooke, I drive to Ralphs supermarket and seek out black-eyed peas and donuts. The black-eyed peas because of my Southern college roommate. She’d say, “Remember, eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day brings good luck for the entire year!” It’s apparently an American tradition down there. And me, being a sucker for traditions, always went along with it. But somewhere along the way I stopped. Now, feeling like it’s high time my luck changes, I’m all for it.

  The donuts are because I once read somewhere that the Dutch believed that eating donuts on New Year’s Day would bring good fortune. The ring of the donut symbolizes “coming full circle,” completing a year’s cycle. I suppose by that logic I could have just taken one of the bagels that I brought Brett, but this feels better. I can say good-bye to last year—the last many years—by giving my past the bagel, and by giving myself the donut. Plus, who are we kidding? Donuts taste better.

  I want to start this year with a clean slate. So it’s with that in mind that I decide to call my father. Ginny called me after I ran out of the house and left his information on my voice mail, “in case I changed my mind.” I’m not sure I have, but I am sure that I didn’t handle that situation at all well, and if he has something to say to me, I suppose I can listen.

  “Yello,” he says, when he answers his phone. “Hello, Nick?” I say. “This is.”

  “Hi,” I say. “It’s Layla.”

  There’s a pause. I wonder if my crazy reaction pissed him off, if now he doesn’t want to talk to me. I probably wouldn’t want to talk to me, either.

  “I’m really glad to hear from you,” he says.

  “Okay,” I say.

  And we arrange for him to come to my house.

  • • •

  It’s so odd to call this man my father. This man who’s looking around my house, picking up photographs—pictures from events that he damn well should have attended—and smiling at them. I watch him check the place out, and as he does this I check him out: his face, his posture, his wrinkles from not wearing sun-block.

  He turns, holding a wedding photo of Brett and me.

  “You look beautiful,” he says. “Was it a nice wedding?”

  “It was everything I wanted.” With the exception of having a father to walk me down the aisle, I think to myself. But Bill did it, and the day was still every bit as perfect. There’s nothing to be gained from getting digs in.

  “I’m glad,” he says, and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a newspaper clipping. He holds it out to me and I see that it’s my wedding announcement.

  “Hey, I remember that,” I say. I look at it, yellowed and torn. He’s carried this with him all these years?

  “As feeble as it sounds, I always loved you,” he says wistfully. “You were always my little girl.”

  “Not so much a little girl anymore,” I say, and I walk to the kitchen, where my black-eyed peas are simmering.

  “Not anymore,” he echoes. “It makes me feel old.”

  I stir the peas. I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know if there’s something he wants to say to me, or if Brett simply badgered him into coming around so I’d get the hell away from the Fosters. I walk back out and see him holding another photograph, and it looks like he wipes a tear away from his right eye, but I could be wrong.

  “I keep your wedding announcement in my wallet,” he says, “as a reminder that you turned out well, that you had a good life, but also as a reminder of my failure, so I don’t forget how I abandoned you.”

  “Well,” I say. “Yeah.”

  “I’m ashamed of myself. What I did.”

  “You should be.”

  “It was shitty,” he says. “It was selfish. And I’m sorry.”

  I take this in. I don’t know what to say back. It’s okay? It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay for him to leave us. It wasn’t okay for me to lose my only other parent and have to deal with it on my own, when my father was potentially in the same zip code.

  “You don’t have to forgive me,” he says. “I don’t forgive me, either.”

  “I don’t see a point in holding on to anger,” I say. “Really, it’s been so long. I mean …”

  “I know,” he says quietly. “But I’d like you to tell me how you feel. How you felt. I’d like you to have the opportunity to express what you feel.”

  “I feel like it’s been twenty-five years,” I say, not wanting to get into anything heavy.

  “It has, but I think I have twenty-five more in me,” he says. “Maybe we can start from here. I’m not saying I’m going to win any father-of-the-year awards, but I’d like to try to be in your life. If you’ll have me.”

  How do you start a relationship with your father as a grown, married, soon-to-be-divorced woman? What does that even look like? Do you go through scrapbooks and catch each other up on everything you missed? Do you start as if this is the first day of your life and pretend the past doesn’t exist?

  “I’m m
aking black-eyed peas,” I say. Completely off topic, but I just don’t know how to respond. Of course I want a dad. But I don’t know this man. This man is a stranger.

  “And you don’t have to decide right now,” he says. “I just want you to know that if you have any interest in having a relationship with me, I would love that. That it would mean the world to me. And I know you don’t owe me anything—I know that.”

  I start to feel nauseated. I don’t know if it’s the donuts I ate for good luck turning out not to be such good luck or if it’s the stress of this situation, but it comes on suddenly, and I feel nauseated and clammy and almost like I’m going to faint. Or throw up. Or both.

  And I do. I run to the bathroom and throw up.

  “Hey, are you okay?” my father says. Nick says. I don’t know what to call him.

  “I am,” I say, as I wash my face and brush my teeth. I come out and shrug at him. “I ate three donuts today. For good luck. For the new year. It’s a Dutch tradition.”

  “Is your husband Dutch?”

  “No,” I say. “I just thought I needed some good luck this year.”

  He smiles at this. Cocks his head. “You remind me of your mother,” he says.

  I burst into tears. I’ve had nobody say this to me … ever. I have no relatives who knew her, and it’s the biggest compliment and probably the most comforting thing I’ve ever heard. I remind him of my mother. The most amazing woman in the world.

  He walks to me and hugs me. It feels nice. But I feel ill. Too many emotions. Sensory overload. I hear an odd ringing in my ears and everything starts to dim.

  And the next thing I know I’m on the floor, my head propped in Nick’s lap, while he has a cell phone in his hand and is frantically talking to a nine-one-one operator.

  • • •

  I lie on the bed in the freezing-cold room they took me to and wonder if this is it for me, if I inherited a weak system from my mother, if I’m going to die. I’m afraid and antsy and frustrated at how long it’s taking the doctor to come in, and angry at my father for suddenly being here and seeing me in this vulnerable position.

  “I feel like this is my punishment for leaving you all those years ago,” he says, genuine tears in his eyes.

  “Well, I’d say between the two of us, I’m getting the worst of the punishment about right now.”

  “Does she have any allergies?” the nurse asks. Nick looks at me, pained and clueless.

  “My dad sees the role of father as more of an emeritus/figurehead/sperm donor position,” I reply.

  The nurse looks at us blankly.

  “I don’t have any allergies,” I answer.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “Stop saying that,” I grouse.

  “Okay.”

  He walks to the window. We remain in silence for a long while. “Do you want me to leave?” he finally asks. “I don’t want to, but I will if you want.”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t have anyone else.”

  He walks to me and gently touches my head. He starts running his fingers softly through my hair, moving it away from my face. I close my eyes. It feels nice. Then a doctor pulls back the curtain and steps in.

  “I’m Dr. Trevino,” he says, and smiles widely at us. “I’ve just looked over all of the preliminary test results. You’re fine. Everything’s fine. And I have wonderful news. You two are going to be parents.”

  “Oh, God, no,” my father says, laughing very nervously. “I lost my parenting license a long time ago. I got fixed during Reagan’s first term.”

  “TMI,” I say.

  “This is my daughter,” Nick clarifies. “I got snipped right after she was born.”

  “No offense taken,” I say, clearly offended.

  “Then you’re about to become a grandfather,” Dr. Trevino announces. “Congratulations.”

  I look at my father in shock. He’s beaming with pride. I’m stunned. Speechless. How can this be happening? I knew I’d missed a couple periods, but that’s happened in the past during times of shock, and with everything going on with Brett and the Fosters, I just … I don’t know what to say. I have no words. Except: “Did you shut off the stove before we left?” I ask my father. “The black-eyed peas.”

  • • •

  The phone rings when I get home, and it’s Bill. I wrestle with answering. Here I have my real dad in my house and my surrogate dad calling me.

  I answer. “Hey, Bill,” I say, trying my best not to sound pregnant.

  “Hi, baby,” he says. “Do you have some time?”

  “Sure,” I say. “Of course.”

  “It’s Ginny,” he says. And it sounds like he’s crying. “What is it? Did something happen?”

  “No. It’s just … I’m losing her,” he says. “She canceled her bridge club. You know how much she loves her bridge club. But she kept forgetting little things last time and was embarrassed. It’s breaking my heart.”

  “I know,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too,” he says.

  I have news that might brighten his spirits. He’s going to be a grandfather. But I just don’t feel like I can tell him. I’ve only known for a few hours myself, and I need time to process it all.

  We hang up, and my father looks at me.

  “You didn’t tell him,” he says.

  “I know.”

  “This is good news, isn’t it?” he asks.

  Yes. It’s good news. All I ever wanted was a family of my own. A real family. My flesh and blood. I always dreamed of the day when Brett and I would get pregnant and bring a life into the world. A little piece of each of us. Forever blended together. Forever bonding us that much more.

  But now? How am I supposed to feel? I have so many mixed emotions. Yes, I’m thrilled to have a baby. But I’m going to be a single parent? That’s what I land on. And that’s what I tell my father.

  “It’s great news in theory,” I say. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  “Then I’m thrilled for you,” he says.

  “But this isn’t how it was supposed to be,” I go on. “I was supposed to be happily married. I was supposed to do this with a partner. I know what it’s like to be raised in a single-parent household. I know the stress it put on my mom, and I know how it felt for me.”

  “I get it,” he says. “You didn’t have a father. But that baby sure as hell is going to have the world’s best grandfather.” He almost seems happy.

  For me, it’s a look into a future hell of chasing babysitters, missing recitals, trading weekends with Brett, the man who’s cast me into this pit. But for Nick, it’s a glimpse of redemption. He’s definitely happy.

  Despite the queasy feeling bubbling inside me, the happiness is contagious.

  brett

  Nick and I arrange to meet at his investor friend’s office. He’s some current or former player at a record label—I can’t tell which by the lobby—and I wonder if this is Nick’s desperate way of trying to salvage a career in music and seeking favor by hooking this guy up with me. I also feel awkward about it, since Layla and I aren’t even speaking, and I can’t help but wonder if he has inside information about her and this is all just a ploy to either divulge it to me or get info for her about me.

  Turns out it’s neither. This is a business meeting through and through. His friend, Wayne Stanhope, is short and pudgy, with shifty eyes that dodge around the room and a receding hairline. I wonder if the tightly pulled ponytail he wears isn’t receding it even farther.

  “This is Wayne,” Nick says. “Wayne, this is my son-in-law.”

  “Son-in-law?” Wayne says, with profound surprise. “You’ve been busy.”

  “Nice to meet you, Wayne,” I say, momentarily stunned by the way I was introduced. Prior to now I’ve never been anyone’s son-in-law. Technically I was, but I didn’t know the guy, so the wording never came into play. It’s kind of cool, the way he’s adopted me. And I feel more than a pang of guilt over Layla and the situation with m
y family. I’ve been thinking about her a lot during the past few days.

  We go over the proposal, and then Nick takes it upon himself to try the prototype. I didn’t know he was planning to do this—he just takes one of the sample garments and exits, reappearing moments later with his unbuttoned and untucked shirt, the Wonder Armour sucking him in. His mushy, unshapely body actually seems to benefit from being stuffed into the compression garment. He’s not fat by any means, but he’s clearly not been doing any sit-ups. If he showed up at a few of my practices I could certainly whip him into shape. I refrain from telling him this. I don’t know too many rock stars (or rock-star wannabes, in Nick’s case) who live at the gym. Except maybe George Lynch or Henry Rollins, but they’re the exception to the rule. Man, are those guys huge.

  “Hey, this isn’t bad,” Nick says.

  “I might like to try one on myself,” Wayne says, and proceeds to unbutton his shirt and disrobe right there in the office.

  Not wanting to give the impression I’m not a team player, I awkwardly hoist off my sweater and start to unbutton my shirt. Soon after, all three of us are dressed in Wonder Armour and stretching about the office. I don’t have to imagine what a bizarre scene it is, because Wayne’s assistant walks in and stops short when she sees us all standing and maneuvering our bodies to test the fit, and the look on her face says it all.

  “What do you think?” Wayne asks.

  She looks to each of us for a beat and then deadpans, “If Cirque du Soleil calls, I’ll put them right through.”

  • • •

  Nick and I leave together, and we’re not three feet out the front door when Nick’s cell phone rings. It’s Wayne asking him not to show the prototype to anyone else. He’s sold. He wants to be an angel investor. I’m stunned by the quick turn of events and ask Nick what he wants out of the deal.

  “I just want you and Layla to have a good future,” he says.

  “You know we’re separated, right?” I ask. “Headed for divorce?”

  “Yep,” he says, seemingly undeterred.

  “Okay,” I say, confused by his generosity but not wanting to seem ungrateful.