No Expectations

by Morgan Thomas

  “You probably cheated.” Jesse chirped, grumbling about how Breanne had inside information.

  “Why did she need to give you that before Tess got out of the bathroom?”

  Breanne looked at her mother apprehensively before turning to stir the macaroni salad. “No reason.”

  Jesse perked up, “She won the bet, Aunt Janie. I said Tess wouldn’t have the guts, and she said we would be meeting her within a month.”

  “Breanne! You give that money back to her right now. You don’t bet on your sister!”

  Breanne rolled her eyes. “You’re only mad because you would’ve lost the bet too, and then I’d have a hundred dollars instead of fifty.” When Janie shook her head at her daughter and turned to pull the chicken off of the stove, Breanne stuck her tongue out at Jesse.

  “Mom, Breanne stuck her tongue out at Jesse.” Tess smiled proudly on her way into the kitchen when Janie turned and smacked her oldest daughter on the shoulder with the spatula in her hand and told her to grow up. When her attention was back on the chicken, Tess stuck her tongue out at Breanne in return.

  “Tessa Mae, you put that tongue back in your mouth.”

  Tess grinned at the back of her mother’s head, wondering after all these years, how her mother still knew exactly what they were doing without looking at them. Breanne gave her sister a victory look and handed her a tray of potatoes to season.

  “I like her.”

  “I know. You’ve made that very clear.” Tess smiled at her sister, appreciating her lack of subtlety.

  “So when is she moving in?” Jesse piped up from the dining room.

  Tess rolled her eyes. “Dear God, Jesse, she’s not moving in. We’re just…”

  “Friends?” Breanne finished for her, sneering when her mother turned to see where the conversation was going.

  Jesse bounced in her chair, intrigued by her older cousin’s choice of relationships. “Isn’t that how all of you work? What do they call it? U-Hauling?”

  Breanne sneered at her cousin, mocking her sister, “They can’t U-Haul if they aren’t dating, Jesse. My sister’s a hussy. They’re just sleeping together. Don’t you know lesbians do things backwards?” She flinched when the spatula met her shoulder again. “What, Mom, it’s not my fault your daughter is a hussy.” She stifled a laugh and ducked when the spatula nearly grazed her shoulder a third time.

  “That is enough, Breanne. Your sister is not a hussy. If she wants to bring a friend to dinner, she is allowed to, and she does not have to explain herself to either of you.” She gave the two woman a look that said they hadn’t better argue and then turned her attention to her youngest daughter, “Well?”

  Tess groaned, realizing she should have known that her mother’s way of getting the two woman to shut up was only so she could pry her for information herself. “We’re…” She started to say friends, but knew the term wouldn’t suffice her mother, and she told herself in all honesty, she had too many feelings for Courtney to use the word friends anymore, so she resorted to “seeing each other.”

  Janie gave her daughter an approving look and laid a hand on her cheek. “Good. I like her. She’s good for you.”

  Tess rolled her eyes. “You’ve met her once, Mom. Today. How do you know she’s good for me?”

  “Because she’s not Hillary,” Breanne sneered, earning an approving look from both her mother and Jesse.

  “She’s a nice girl. You like her, Ali loves her, and Brad beamed about her when he dropped Ali off.”

  Tess watched as her mother wiped her hands on a towel and reached out to take the plates she handed to her.

  “You’ve been smiling all day, little love. I haven’t seen that cell phone of yours in your hand once, and you don’t have dark circles under your eyes. Besides,” she placed a stack of forks on top of the plates in Tess’s hands, “she knows how to make barbeque sauce, I like her.” She kissed her daughter on the forehead and shooed her out of the kitchen. She set them on the picnic table and started making plates for the kids, smiling when Courtney noticed she was outside and walked up to help.

  “Is there some secret formula for what goes on the plates or just a little from every bowl?” Courtney grinned when Tess threw her an apologetic look.

  “If it helps, they like you.”

  Courtney beamed. “Of course they like me, I’m freaking awesome!”

  Tess watched her pick up a plate and add a little bit of food from each of the plates at the table. I could stare at you all day. Just looking at Courtney warmed Tess and made her smile. She thought about what Courtney said to her in the bathroom that morning and scolded herself for not telling her the same thing. Her mom was right. Everyone loved her. I’m happy when I’m with you, she thought, laughing when the woman flung a noodle across the yard at her nephew.

  “Tess.”

  Courtney and Tess turned towards the front door in unison when they heard Tess’s mother’s voice. The look on her face immediately told the woman something was wrong and had Tess moving towards the door. Janie held a phone up towards her daughter.

  “It’s the hospital.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Courtney thought about the look on everyone’s face when Tess had apologized and sped out the door. More-so, on her drive home, she thought about the look on Breanne’s face when Jesse had mumbled nice knowin’ you at Courtney, and Breanne had elbowed her so hard she had choked on her food. Courtney had excused herself, but at Breanne and Ali’s insistence, she had stayed for dinner. After she helped clean up and thanked everyone for the meal, she had been stopped by Breanne, who handed her a bag of food.

  “Thank you for staying, I’m sure it was probably awkward, especially with Jesse’s stupid comment.”

  Courtney shook her head and smiled warmly at Breanne. “No, everyone is really nice.”

  Breanne let out a loud laugh and put her hand on Courtney’s shoulder. “Awww, the fact that you said that tells me how nice you are. I’ve been told that meeting us is torture. We like you. Tess likes you.”

  “I like her too…” Courtney looked at Breanne skeptically, wondering where the conversation was going. “If this is because she ran out of here… It’s alright. They have a history, it happens. I wouldn’t expect any different.” She frowned when Breanne looked at her sympathetically and sighed.

  “Oh, I really like you.” She hugged Courtney and told her not to be a stranger before waving her off.

  Courtney was relieved to see Chris’s car in the driveway when she got home. She was rehearsing the reaming out she was going to give him in her mind while walking through the front door, when the stench hit her. It was enough to elicit her gag reflex and had her covering her face with her arm. When she was certain she wasn’t going to blow chunks on her kitchen floor, she moved her arm enough to yell for Chris.

  “What the hell is that smell?”

  When Jasper came bounding in from the living room, she bent to scratch his ears and her gag reflex was immediately revived by a sticky yellow substance on the floor in front of the sink. “Seriously Chris! What the hell!” She stood up and looked at the kitchen. There were washcloths and towels tossed in random places, there was some sort of powder spilled on the kitchen counters, and the smell was nauseating.

  She made her way back the hall, yelling the whole way. “I swear, sometimes, Chris, I could strangle you! I don’t even understand what happened in here, but I am not cleaning up after you anymore! You are twenty—” Courtney stopped mid-sentence when she heard the wail and nearly tripped in the hallway. Seconds later, Chris appeared from the guest bedroom and scowled at his sister before pacing up and down the hall, bouncing a blue blanket lightly his arms.

  “Do you think you could be any louder,” he hissed, “I don’t think the neighbors heard you!” When the blanket started to make a fussing sound, Chris made “shhh shhh” noises and continued pacing the hall.

  Courtney watched as her brother paced from one end of the hallway and back again, making
a methodical shh sound the entire way. His hair was a mess, he had something spotted on the front of his shirt, and his five o’clock shadow looked as if it had grown to ten. She opened her mouth to speak, but the look he shot at her had her closing her mouth again. After what seemed like an eternity of watching him pace, he finally walked out to the living room and motioned for her to follow.

  Chris laid the blanket gingerly in a bassinet that was set up in the corner of the living room. After he had removed his hands, he pulled the blanket down so it rested just below the shoulders of a baby. He turned several times as if he were going to walk away from the bassinet, but kept turning back to it and adjusting the blanket until finally removing it and turning up the heat.

  Courtney watched her brother in bewildered amusement. “What are you doing? It’s nearly eighty degrees outside.” Courtney watched as Chris walked back to the bassinet to watch the baby and looked back at the thermostat as if contemplating turning it up higher. He frowned and looked back up at his sister.

  “He could suffocate himself if he pulls the blanket over his head, and he doesn’t like the swaddle thing, he gets angry.”

  Courtney stared at her brother for a minute, not sure who the man was that was standing in front of her. “Swaddle thing?” she mimicked. “What is that, Chris?” She motioned towards the bassinet.

  “He,” Chris corrected his sister, “is a baby, Court.”

  Courtney nodded and gave her brother an obvious look. “Whose baby is that, Chris?” Courtney watched as the stress seemed to dissipate from her brother’s face and the dimples she was so accustomed to seeing popped out through the stubble on his cheeks. He looked away from the blue bundle for a brief second to beam at his sister before returning his gaze.

  “Come look at him.”

  Courtney walked towards the bassinet from the edge of the hallway, her irritation growing, to look at the sleeping baby. As filthy and disheveled as her brother seemed to be, the baby was the polar opposite: spotless and clean. Courtney looked at the baby’s wrinkled hands and tiny mouth and was shocked at how tiny everything about him was. “Okay, I looked at him.” She turned her sarcastic gaze to Chris. “It’s a baby.”

  When Chris didn’t break his intent look from the baby to look at her, she asked him again, more frustrated this time. “Who does the baby belong to, Chris?” She looked back as the tiny infant cooed in his sleep and watched a tiny dimple appear on the baby’s cheek. Courtney couldn’t help but smile, thinking about her brother’s dimples. Chris. The realization hit her like a ton of bricks. She looked at the baby and back up at her brother, the shock apparent on her face.

  “Yeah.” Chris shook his head in confirmation. “Meet your nephew.”

  Courtney couldn’t find words. She just kept looking at the baby and then back at her brother. “How… who… when… I don’t even… wow.” Not able to form a complete sentence for the first time in her life, she leaned on the arm of the couch behind her.

  Chris, still beaming, looked over at his sister. “I’ll explain, but first I’m going to shower and change and clean up his stuff in the kitchen. He is only going to sleep for an hour or so. I don’t have that much time.”

  Courtney watched as her brother wheeled the bassinet into the kitchen, where he could see the baby, and started cleaning the kitchen. My baby brother has a baby, she thought and watched as her usually messy brother cleaned every square of the kitchen. She watched as he loaded the dishwasher, washed bottles, and lined them up along the counter, putting scoops of powder in each one. She watched as he loaded up all the dirty washcloths and towels and wheeled the bassinet to the laundry room with him to throw them in to be cleaned. Who are you, she thought, amazed at the process that was unfolding in front of her.

  When he started wheeling the bassinet back the hall, Courtney stopped him. “You can leave him out here while you shower, Chris.”

  Chris looked at the bassinet hesitantly and back at his sister. “It’s okay, I got this.”

  Twenty minutes later, a freshly showered and changed Chris sat on the chair across from Courtney, the bassinet sitting safely next to him. Courtney still hadn’t moved from the arm of the couch. Jasper had his head nestled on her knees, and she was scratching his ears methodically, so many thoughts running through her mind, she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Chris opened his mouth to speak, but just as he did, an alarm went off from the phone in his pocket.

  “Hold that thought.” He jumped up out of the chair and wheeled the bassinet into the kitchen to grab a bottle. Courtney watched as he mixed it and made his way back to the living room with the bottle and a tiny bottle of medicine. He set them on the end table and sat back down in the chair. He looked at the time on his phone and then back at the baby, before reluctantly putting the phone back in his pocket.

  “What is that?” Courtney glanced towards the bottle of medicine sitting next to the bottle.

  “Reflux medicine. He spits up a lot. If I give it to him before his bottle, he keeps more of it down.”

  She nodded, wondering how her dimpled, immature, mid-twenties, brother knew what reflux was. “This is surreal, Chris. How did this happen?”

  Chris took a deep breath. “Well, a few months ago, I got a registered letter from an attorney’s office. It was paperwork with a picture of an ultrasound that requested I sign off parental rights to an unborn baby. The girl that was pregnant wanted to give the baby up for adoption and needed me to sign over my parental rights so she could.” Chris turned his attention to the baby, who started fussing, but continued talking.

  Courtney watched as her brother checked the baby’s diaper, gave him a few drops of the medicine, shook the bottle, and started feeding him, all while telling her about how he had tried to talk to the woman, to no avail. After what seemed like only a few seconds, he stopped feeding the baby and put him up to his shoulder, patting his back so lightly that Courtney wasn’t sure what he was trying to accomplish.

  “When I tried to talk to her…told her that I wouldn’t sign away my rights, she had her attorney serve me with more papers, saying that I wasn’t allowed to come within so many hundred feet of her. She told me that she wasn’t keeping him and didn’t want me to have him either. When the infant burped, Chris lightly laid him back on his arm and started feeding him again. “My attorney told me that it was an unfightable case, especially since the baby wasn’t born yet, and even if I fought it, I would lose. He advised me to sign the papers and go.”

  Courtney nodded, listing to her brother intently, in awe when he stopped feeding the infant again and put him back up to his shoulder to burp.

  “I didn’t know what to do, Court. I walked out of his office. I tried to go back to class, but I had the picture in my wallet and I spent every class just staring at it. I couldn’t imagine a piece of me out somewhere…” He laid the content baby back across his arm. “So I took a leave from school and talked to a few more lawyers, more expensive lawyers, and found one that would take my case. A few days ago, he called me and said that my son had been born and the paperwork was done. He was mine, and I needed to pick him up from the hospital.”

  Courtney stopped him. “So he’s yours? Legally? She signed off her rights?” She watched her brother nod as he raised the baby’s hand to lightly bump his hand to his own. “Just me and you, right, champ?”

  Courtney slid from the arm of couch down to the cushion in utter amazement of what she had just heard and looking at her brother in a different way. “You’ve been doing this, on your own, for the last few days?”

  Chris nodded again. “The first night in the hospital, the nurses showed me how to do everything. They had to keep him so they could do his ah… boy part snipping.” Chris winced towards the infant. “Sorry, pal.” He nodded towards the bassinet. “I got online on my phone at the hospital and ordered as much stuff as I thought I would need, and had it overnighted to the house so it would be here when we got home. I have the doctor on speed dial, I think he’s going to change
his number if I call him again.” Chris chuckled at his apparent incompetence.

  Courtney stared at her brother in disbelief, thinking about her father’s statement that Chris didn’t buy a shirt without consulting her first. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She couldn’t remember one secret that the two hadn’t shared. “I could’ve been there for you. I could’ve helped…”

  Chris shook his head. “You couldn’t have done anything, and you did help. When I showed up on your doorstep, you let me stay, no questions asked. I needed that. I just needed time to process. I never imagine I would win. I just kept thinking that I had a son out there somewhere, and he was never going to know me.” When the infant opened his eyes, Chris smiled at him and made a face. “I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark.”

  “You don’t have to apologize, Chris.” Courtney sighed deeply, tears welling in her eyes. “I am so proud of you. Who are you and where is my immature little brother who can’t wash his own dish?”

  Chris’s smile beamed. “Do you want to hold him?”

  Courtney smiled widely. “Of course I do! He needs to meet his favorite aunt!”

  Chris grinned and walked over to sit beside Courtney on the couch. “You’re his only aunt.” He laughed when he handed the baby to Courtney and she replied with, “Yeah, so I win. Duh.”

  Courtney took the baby, carefully, nervous that she might break him.

  “Make sure you hold his head, his neck isn’t strong yet.”

  Courtney nodded at her brother, nervous, but not enough to refrain from picking on him. “Look at you going into Mr. Dad mode.” She looked down at the baby in her arms. “He’s so tiny. Is he supposed to be this tiny?” She looked up at Chris with concern.

  This time it was his turn to pick on her. “He isn’t even a week old yet Court, he was almost eight pounds when he was born, a perfectly healthy size.”

  Courtney played with the infant’s fingers, amazed at the miniscule size of them. “I’ve never even seen something this tiny before. I feel like I’m going to break him.” She suddenly understood her brother’s need to have the baby in his sight at all times. Something about the infant terrified her. “Well aren’t you a handsome little man.” The baby stared up at her with the same blue eyes that her brother looked at her with. “What’s his name?”