by Jenn LeBlanc
“It’s fairly easy to be amazing when compared to the people who raised you.”
“This is true.”
She says all this like she expects anyone to have done what she did. Like the majority of the people in the world think this way, behave this way, wouldn’t have given any of this a second thought.
She slides two big, fluffy pancakes onto my plate, and I drizzle maple syrup over them and we eat in peace for a while. It occurs to me that I want Isabeau to know her home country as well as America. I know she’s been genial in every way, but will she allow me to leave the country with Isabeau?
“What is it?” she asks.
“I just…keep feeling like I need to ask permission to do things. I shouldn’t feel that way. I’m an adult and Isabeau is my child, and other than the legal documents binding her to you, there isn’t any reason for me to feel this way—yet I do.” Isabeau. I think about her name and how for the last ten years it’s signaled a pain so deep I avoided saying it out loud at all—and now? Now I can say her name and I’m referring to an actual person. It’s almost a disconnect where I still feel the loss of my baby, but now the joy of finding this child. I’m not sure how my heart will ever reconcile this.
“You’ll get over it. It’s difficult, becoming a mother, but you’ll do fine, you’ll figure it out. We're here to help.” I watch her intently as I consider this…the getting over of it. Will I? So much of this situation makes me angry, but I’m…compartmentalizing and I know it, because if I think too long and too hard about all of this I’ll certainly lose my mind.
“Daniel said I can have a dog,” Isabeau says as she hurries through the kitchen door and plops down in the chair next to me.
“Oh, he did not, Izzy. You can’t pull that with us,” her mom says.
“Pfft, fine. Can I have a dog…Mom?” she says, and I turn to look at Daniel’s mom, but she’s smiling at me, and so is Iz, and the feeling in my chest is more than I can handle. His mom looks away for a moment, and I know this is going to hurt a little for her as well, even if she was preparing all of Isabeau’s life to lose her. She won’t lose her entirely, of course but…I know, as a mother, what it means to lose a child and this isn’t quite so extreme, but I can’t help but feel for her in the moment.
“I—I don’t think I can have a dog in my condo. And right now I’m not able to take care of a dog because I have a lot of rehearsals and a couple of jobs…” I stop talking when her eyebrows snap together.
“What about me? Don’t I live with you now?”
“I’d love for you to come live with me. I need to figure out a work schedule…there’s a lot to consider. I can’t leave you home alone, right? I mean, you aren’t old enough yet, are you?”
“Yes—”
“No, Izzy, not for more than thirty minutes at a time,” her mom—grandma—says.
I take a deep breath. “Isabeau, I’m going to ask a favor of you.”
“What is it?”
“I’m going to ask a very adult thing of you right now. I’m going to ask that you be perfectly honest with me until we get used to each other. Can you do that?”
“I can try,” she says, and I smile at her.
"You can do," her grandmother says. "You were raised to be honest, Iz, don't take advantage of this strange situation."
Isabeau nods.
“Thank you,” I say. “I’d really appreciate it.”
“Hey, you guys didn’t finish up all the pancakes, did you?” Daniel asks as he walks in.
“Of course not, son. Come on. The last four are yours.”
“Four?” I ask, and Iz laughs.
“He always gets the last four. He's a pancake monster!”
“I am the pancake monster!” he yells then grabs Iz and starts tickling her until she can’t breathe, and my face—it hurts so much from smiling that I can’t help but to cry.
Sixteen
Daniel
“That was an eventful weekend,” Tris says from the back seat of the car. Neither Meli or I answer, but I see her nod just like I do.
Soso pipes in, “We had barbechoo and fry-fries and play in the sky house and I sleep in a bag on the floor. My grandma has a bag for me, too. I like the floor. There are no monsters under me on the floor.”
Meli smiles. “It was really hard to say goodbye.”
“I understand,” I say and I think I do, but my feelings are still so different from hers right now. I reach over and take her hand from her lap and pull it to my thigh, stroking the back. She’s shaking, and I wish I could pull her to my lap to comfort her. She pulls her hand away.
“There’s so much to do. I need a bed and…I guess I need to figure out if I’m actually staying in the apartment. I suppose I could buy a house now. I wasn’t planning on it because I wasn’t sure how long I’d be here. I’m still not sure how long I’ll be here actually, so I suppose I can stay in the apartment for now.” Her hands are going wild with her sudden excitement and I can see the struggle when I glance at her. She puts her hand back on my leg.
“Breathe,” I tell her with a squeeze. “You can stay where you are for now. It’s a safe neighborhood, central to anything you’d need, perfect for your life and if it won’t work with Iz and school, you have time to decide. So breathe.”
She takes a deep breath and turns to watch the world pass by out the window, and I’m struck by how much of what she said was centered on her and Iz, which I get—sure I do. I just felt pretty left out of it, and that hurts a little. I still don’t know what to think or how to feel or how we’ll all fit together. I know she was reluctant to leave Iz behind, but she also decided that this coming week was going to be crazy because she’ll be at the tryouts all week presenting her work to the consortium and Iz was nervous when it really came down to leaving Mom and Dad. Meli was really strong. I’m a disaster area so I'm trying to concentrate on everyone else…but still, these thoughts do squeeze through.
Iz wasn’t very happy when we actually decided to leave her behind, but I think from her perspective it was more because she loves to come down and hang out with me in Hollywood, and it’s exciting.
I park behind the studio, and Tris gets out, pulling a sleeping Soso over his shoulder and waving as he wanders toward the front door. “Do you want to come in? Or do you want to go to your house?”
“I think I’ll get a car. It’s fine. I’m good.”
“What? You don’t want to talk or…get some dinner, maybe practice?” I ask and get out when she does, walking around the car.
She leans against the door, her hands twisting as she inspects her nails and looks everywhere but at me. “Daniel I…I don’t know how to say this.”
“Then just say it,” I say and try to take one of her hands but she avoids me, crossing her arms.
“I want to be alone right now. I need, I think… I just need to be on my own right now.”
A large knot forms in the pit of my stomach. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, I have a lot…that was a lot. We agree on that, right?”
“Yeah,” I say and watch as she opens the app on her phone and orders a car before I can stop her. If she goes home and leaves me to my own devices, my brain is going to go crazy.
“Yeah, so I need to go home.”
“What about us?” I feel so unsettled.
“What do you mean by us? There’s still an us. I just want to go home. I need to concentrate on my work. I have a lot this week, and just looking at you has me thinking about her and I really can’t be distracted right now. I need to concentrate, because suddenly I really need this opportunity. Otherwise I’m going home.”
“Home? Wait, you can’t go back to France.”
“Actually, I can do whatever I want to,” she says, and my blood runs cold, slowing in my veins.
“What’s happening here?”
“Nothing is happening, Daniel. I’m telling you that I need to go home and work on my presentation for the consortium. I can’t be distra
cted by you—”
“I’ve never been a distraction before.”
“You’ve always been a distraction,” she says, and I take a step back when I hear a car pull up behind me.
“Oh, okay, well, let me know when…or if or…I, um—” I reach for her. I need to touch her, I need to feel her, to know we’re okay or…something.
“I’ll call you,” she says. Then she slides into the car and she’s gone. Just like that. I’m left standing in the parking lot staring after a stupid little car with a pink mustache and I have no idea what just a happened.
“Hey!” I hear Tristan and turn toward the front door.
“Hey.”
Another car pulls up, and he opens the back door and buckles a sleeping Soso into the backseat, talks to his in-laws for a second and waves as they drive away.
“You look like you could use a drink,” he says as he walks up next to me.
“Maybe just one,” I say.
“So,” Tris says, drinking from his Coke and no rum.
I shake my head. “This week has been a rollercoaster, but the last thing I expected was for her to take off as soon as we got back here like she isn’t interested in me anymore. I get that a whole life-changing-event thing happened, but at what point was I rendered useless? This is our family—I mean, technically speaking, we are a family,” I say nervously. I know Tris has an eyebrow raised but I’m not going to look to verify. I’m not certain of anything and saying it out loud doesn’t make it so, it only highlights how very uncertain of everything I am.
“Are you ready for that?”
“Fuck if I know, man,” I answer. I’m…frustrated, I guess. Like, I can’t even name any of the emotions I’m feeling and I just want Tristan to shut up, which means he’s going to push my buttons on purpose.
“Maybe she doesn’t think you’re ready.” Push.
“What does it matter? Are you ever truly ready for a family? Were you?”
“Different circumstances, Daniel.” Push.
“Yeah, sure, but…”
“Daniel, she's been ready to raise her daughter for the last ten years. Have you had a single thought about being a dad yet?” Push.
“No, Tristan, I haven’t. I’m fucking twenty-five and she’s been MIA. My only thoughts were about finding her and getting her back. That was the extent of my thinking up until this point.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly what though? Seriously? Just because we’re now an insta-fam doesn’t mean my objective has changed. I want her in my life, forever, for better, for worse, for whatever the rest of it is. All of it. I want her here with me.”
“And Iz?”
“Yeah, of course. I mean, it’s a package deal.”
“Last week, Iz asked to come visit you and you said you didn’t have time.”
“Because I didn’t. Because my audition is this week and I’m doing nothing but rehearsing for that.”
“Okay, but insta-fam means it doesn’t matter whether you have time or not, she’s here. And she’s yours. She isn’t your creepy but cute little sister anymore, Daniel. She’s your kid.”
“Fuck, I know, okay? It’s really hard to wrap my head around, but I get it in all the ways I can manage to get it. Okay? Please try to refrain from freaking my fucking shit out right now. I'm barely holding it together. I’m sure this will work itself out,” I say, but the shredded label from my beer bottle says something completely different.
“Kids and all their stuff doesn’t just work itself out, Daniel.”
“Why do you always have to come in here like Papa Smurf with all the reality telling how it should all be? Why can’t you just try to be a friend for a minute?”
“Is that what you need right now?”
“Fuck yes, bro. I don’t know what Meli is thinking. She's… That’s all I’ve ever wanted is to be with her, and if she decides I’m no longer what she wants from life because of Iz…”
“You jealous?”
“I probably am a little jealous. Fuck. Can I be? She swooped in and got all of my parents’ attention, and I’m thankful for that—seriously, Mom was lonely with me all the way across the country. But Iz was suddenly the most important thing to them and I was booted unceremoniously from the nest. I wasn’t expecting the same exact thing to happen with Cam, okay? It stings a little. Is that what you’re wanting to hear? I love Iz. I’m figuring out how I feel with all of this, and I need Meli in my life to do that. Everything hinges on her, on us. It would just be easier if I could figure out my place in all of this.”
“Yeah,” he says and leans back and sips his drink, and just like that the interrogation is over.
“Yeah? That’s it?” I ask, and I feel a weird calm come over me.
“Pretty much, man. Women and children turn your life upside down. You’ll never be priority number one ever again and you have to figure out how to manage in this new reality pretty goddamned fast if you’re going to keep up.”
“So basically I’m just the bag man,” I say, and just having that little bit of direction helps more than anything else.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“Okay then. I can be a bag man.”
Meli
I should be rewriting my composition and making sure my proofs are ready for my try tomorrow, but I’m online looking at the cutest little bedroom sets I’ve ever seen. I’m having a hard time deciding between The Little Mermaid and The Lion King, though Beauty and The Beast should also be a front runner, because France. Daniel will know what she likes though.
Then I remember that I’ve missed all the moments in which I actually have unilateral decisions about my child. Isabeau is old enough to have her own opinions, and I need to wait until she can help decide. Maybe Daniel and I can go shopping together, or we could all go shopping together. Or maybe I should have her room ready, or I could just buy that bed and then we could buy all the fun stuff that goes on it when she gets here. Daniel would know what to do.
I close the computer and start pacing in my front room again. I wonder how Daniel is. He was so upset when I left him at the studio—but I had to go. I needed to be alone. I needed to think, because he always makes everything so easy for me and I just…I needed to think through everything on my own.
He’s been texting me though, asking how I’m doing, which is sweet, and he doesn’t push. He doesn’t ask for anything. I just keep telling him I’m rehearsing, and he keeps checking on me.
When I got to America I was worried about how it was going to be between us, but it was like nothing had ever happened, like ten minutes and not ten years had passed. And now…
There’s so much between us, it feels unsurmountable. I sit at my keyboard and stare at the sheet music covered in scrawls from my changes. I close my eyes and wish Daniel were here for inspiration. It’s always worked better with Daniel playing my music. He’s been my muse forever, the conduit by which my music finds its own life. It's like he can hear what I'm thinking before I even write it. Can he do this and not try to push more out of me right now? Can I look at him and not see my daughter? I’m so nervous. I need something…
My daughter…
I call Daniel.
“Hello?”
“I need you.”
Fifteen minutes later, he’s at the door and we’re staring at each other and so much is running though my head I can’t think. I can’t concentrate. I can’t boil it down to a single thing, an action, a simple move. So I stand and I wait, because this is Daniel and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that he’ll know exactly what to do.
He takes my hand and pulls me toward my keyboard. He holds my hand as he sits on the bench and pulls me next to him. He shuffles through the sheets of music on the stand then puts his hands on the keys and starts to play.
And I remember.
It isn’t just that this, with him, is easy. It’s that it’s right. It’s always been right. It’s never been wrong.
Time passes as we work quietly
with just the notes of the piano, the sound of the pedals, the shuffling of pages, and scritch of the pencil to comfort us. The light fades, and Daniel switches on the small lamp over the keyboard and shines it so it catches perfectly for both of us—and we continue.
I have no idea how long we work but I do know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that whatever comes next, this, between us, was meant to be.
“Keep going, I just need to stretch,” Daniel says and gets up, and fifteen minutes later I’m smelling warm garlic bread and spaghetti sauce and once again my stomach is out of control with hunger. I stand and follow the scent to my dining table, where Daniel pulls out a chair and slides me up to the table to eat. And I do. Without a single thought to anything else.
“This is perfect,” I say and realize those are the first words I’ve spoken since I called him.
“You’re welcome.”
“Thank you. And thank you for coming.”
“Always. You should know that by now. Whatever you need.”
I look up at him and I believe everything he’s said. I watch as he grates the cheese and swirls the spaghetti a bit, then he looks up. “I need us. I need this to not be a question. I need to know that no matter what happens next, it’s you and me and we will deal with whatever comes at us. That’s what I need.”
“You’ve got it, Camellia. I’ve been looking for you for ten years. I’ve never had anyone in my life as important as you are to me. I know we started young and maybe some people think that means we don’t know each other, but I think it’s the opposite. You and I—we never had any lies or games between us. It was always just you and me and what we felt. We weren’t old enough to hide from each other and we weren’t skilled enough at lying by the time we were old enough to try and pull anything. You and I, Cam, we were always meant to be together. You literally are my better half—you make me want to be a better person. I’ve lived my life knowing that I needed to make you proud, that I needed to follow my heart and do what was right, or I was going to have to explain to you just how much I fucked everything up. Cam. You have my heart. You always have.”