by Tia Lewis
19
Tamara
“Do you want my real, actual opinion on this?” Nicole was helping me pack my hospital bag. I could tell from the sound of her voice that I wasn’t going to like what she had to say.
“Probably not, but you’re going to give it to me anyway, so go ahead.” I folded up a nightgown and put it in the bag.
“I don’t think it was right for you to give him shit about what happened at the club.”
“I knew that you would say that,” I mumbled, shaking my head.
“Well? Why did you know it? Why do I feel that way?”
“Because you’re on his side right now,” I said. “But if that were Drake at the club, fucking two women at one time, it would be a whole different story.”
Nicole sat up from her spot on the bed, looking stern. “Drake wouldn’t do that, and not because he’s Superman or has a powerful resistance to flirtatious whores. He wouldn’t do it because we’re committed to each other, and he knows that I would beat his ass.”
We both giggled.
“I’m serious,” Nicole smiled. “Besides, we have a thing between us. We know where we stand with each other. Creed doesn’t have any idea where he stands with you because you refuse to put yourself out there and tell him how you feel You’re hot one day, then cold the next. He doesn’t know which end is up.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I turned to the closet, hiding my face. I didn’t want her to see me. She was right, of course. I knew that she was.
“If you would just tell him how you feel and admit that the baby is his, I am willing to bet that he wouldn’t look at another woman. Otherwise, he’s just acting like any other single man.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I think I do, Tamara. I’ve been watching you two, and it seems like he’s crazy about you.”
I looked at her, narrowing my eyes and trying to decide if she was telling me something that she’d concocted in her romantic little brain or if she’d heard something from Drake. I couldn’t tell, so I went ahead and asked.
“Did Drake say something?”
“No, why?” She looked serious enough. I realized that I was disappointed.
“No reason.”
“Do you think that Creed’s been talking to him about you? I can find out.”
I shook my head with a bitter laugh, sitting beside her on my striped bedspread. “You know who we sound like right now? A couple of high school girls, talking about the boys that they’re crushing on. Look at the reality of my situation.” I looked down at my large stomach. It was so big that I couldn’t bend over and tie my shoelaces. “I’m nearly nine months pregnant, you’re happily married, and this is real life.”
“I know. So why don’t you put on your big girl panties, tell Creed, and admit that you haven’t been truthful with him for so long?”
“Because my goddamned big girl panties are probably too small for me since my ass is so fucking huge.” I stood up, feeling like one of those bobbleheads I used to play with when I was a kid and went to the mirror on the back of my bedroom door. I pulled up the hem of my long t-shirt. Sure enough, my ass was bigger than ever. I looked down again, hands on either side of the beach ball that had replaced my once flat stomach.
“I meant to ask you about this. Why does Creed think that you’re only at thirty-six weeks or so? You’re almost forty.”
“I know.” I went to the dresser to pull out underwear. “I told him I’m four weeks behind where I am so that he wouldn’t think that he was the father.”
“Seriously, Tamara?” She sounded like a grandmother who had just found out that her granddaughter was dancing on the pole every night.
“Could you sound a little more disappointed?” Nicole was starting to annoy the shit out of me. I packed a couple pair of socks and tried to ignore my agitation.
“Hey, he caught me off-guard that day. I had to come up with something.”
“Because telling him the truth was just too much to ask.”
“Jesus! Could you get off my back? I mean, honestly. It already hurts enough, thanks to the giant baby growing inside of me.” I pressed my hands to my lower spine.
“Here. Sit down.” I sat on the edge of the bed while Nicole pressed her knuckles into my back. It was the only thing that seemed to make the pain ease. While I was so grateful for her—and I really, truly was—something about the intimacy of that simple act was too much for me.
I started to cry.
“What’s the matter, sweetie?” She went to the nightstand and grabbed the Kleenex plopping it down beside me.
“I’m a fucking mess. I should have a man helping me with this baby. It would be one thing if I didn’t know who the baby’s father was or if he had been a one-night stand. Then I could take the feelings of loneliness and abandonment and try to move on. But he’s not a total stranger; I know him, and I see him every day, yet I’m still facing this alone. I feel like it’s too late to tell him.”
I was an emotional wreck, and of course, a lot of it had to do with being pregnant. I couldn’t chalk it all up to hormones, though. I knew that I was right. I should have told Creed. I had a million chances to tell him about the baby, but I hadn’t. Anything that he did, like sleeping with those whores at the brothel, he might not have done if he had known that I wanted us to take a stab at being a family. He might never have given them a second glance, the same way that Drake would never entertain the idea of looking at another woman because of his love for Nicole.
Nicole put her arms around my shoulders from her place behind me, rocking me slowly back and forth. “You’ll figure it out. I know that you will.”
“How? I can’t even tie my own shoes or decide what I want to eat for dinner without some major emotional upheaval. How the hell am I gonna figure this shit out?”
Nicole shrugged. “You just will. When the situation is right, the solution will present itself. I’m surer of it than I’ve ever been of anything else.”
“I wish that I had your positive attitude,” I muttered before blowing my nose.
“I’ll be positive for the both of us.”
Because I was a total masochist, I decided to call my mother one more time before the baby was born. Just in case she decided that she wanted to be a part of the event.
When she picked up, she couldn’t have sounded less happy to hear from me.
“What?” she answered as if the sound of my voice irritated the shit out of her.
“Hi to you too,” I responded, telling myself to keep the peace no matter what. I was at the stage in my pregnancy where my blood pressure had to stay steady. I needed to be calm for the baby’s sake. He or she kicked my bladder like it wanted to remind me who was the priority in my life now.
“What do you want? You wanna tell me that you can’t let me live in the same city as you now? Do I have to move?”
“Mom, come on. Don’t be this way. I told you why I had to make the choice that I made.”
“You got knocked up by some loser in that club full of losers, and because of that, you had to turn your back on your own mother. Yeah, I know all about your reasons.”
It was time to finally say what I had to say. I knew calling had been a mistake, and I didn’t plan on making that mistake ever again.
“You’re the one who got knocked up by a loser, Mom, and you’ve been taking it out on me ever since. All of our fathers were losers, and you took it out on all of us.”
“Who do you think you are, you little slut?” I closed my eyes, willing myself to let her words roll off my back.
“I’m Tamara, and I’m a grown-ass woman, and you don’t get to talk to me that way. The only reason that you kept me in your life was to get money from me because you knew that I was a big enough sucker to support you. Because for some stupid reason, I loved you. And I’m the kind of person who takes your problems on as my own. What a fucking joke.”
“Is that all you have to say to me?” she asked. We were on the phone, but I could i
magine the steam coming off her head.
“I wanted to ask you if you ever loved my father. I mean if you ever really loved him.”
“Does it really matter?”
“Yeah, it matters to me. You can do me this one favor, Mother. I just want to know.”
She was quiet for a long time, and then she started coughing. She sounded like hell again. That part of me that would always love her cried out and wanted to ask her if she was okay or if there was anything that I could do for her. I stayed strong, quieting that part of me. I couldn’t let her hurt me anymore, and it seemed like that was all that she would do. She had always used my love for her to hurt me in one way or another, without fail. I couldn’t let her take advantage of me anymore.
“I guess I did,” she admitted. “Your father was young and handsome. And smart. So smart. You do remind me of him. That’s one good trait that you got from him. And his looks. You got those, too.”
“I know,” I told her. “There’s a picture of him in the office at the clubhouse.” I could still remember the day that Jack showed me that picture. I had gotten a good look at my father for the first time.
“Really? I never had a picture of him, myself. But I remember what he looked like. I’ll always remember that. Yeah, I guess I loved him for a time. But that sort of love diminishes sooner or later. You can have all of the love in the world in your heart but it goes away at some point.” She coughed again, a thick, heavy cough that made me wonder if she might have pneumonia again.
“Mom, you’ve gotta start taking better care of yourself.”
“Yeah, well, I would go to the doctor if I could afford it, but since I can’t anymore…”
I closed my eyes, willing myself not to let her get to me. She could only lay a guilt trip on me if I let her do it. “Yeah, well, that’s a shame. Maybe one of your other kids could give you the money if they had any. Or you could go to the free clinic like everybody else in the neighborhood. You find a way to buy your smokes, right?”
She went silent.
I realized too late that the silence was because she’d hung up the phone. I closed my eyes, pressing the phone to my chest. That was probably the last thing I would ever say to her, and I had done it to throw salt on her wounds instead of telling her that I loved her.
No. I refused to feel guilty for being honest with her. It wasn’t my fault that I had mothered her when she should have been the one taking care of me. I had to let the remorse and regret go, forever.
“I will never do that to you,” I promised the baby inside me. It kicked like it understood me. “You can be your own person, and I’ll support you in whatever you wanna do. I swear it, Baby. And I won’t guilt you or shame you or try to keep you with me, because I know you need to be your own person, and I accept that. I want you to have everything that you need to be a whole person when you grow up. And I want you to feel loved. I want you to feel so loved and so worthwhile that you’ll never, ever have to question whether you’re good enough. You’ll just automatically know you’re good enough because I will make sure that you know how special that you are.”
I sat back on my bed, the bag packed and ready by the door. I would load it into the car when I went out the next morning. I put up my feet, resting my head on the pillow, still stroking my stomach.
“I promise that I’ll tell you when you’re getting a little too big for your britches, too. And I’ll keep you from turning into a brat because I can’t stand bratty kids who think that they can always get their own way. But you’ll have the confidence to stand on your own two feet, and you’ll have love. You’ll have all the tools that I didn’t have. If I give you nothing else, I’ll give you that.”
I couldn’t help crying myself to sleep that night, thinking about the sad life that my mother led and how I wanted to be a better parent than she could ever hope to be.
20
Tamara
Funny how my energy level had suddenly turned around.
All throughout my third trimester I’d been sleepy as hell, taking at least one nap every day—sometimes two. Harris had been a godsend during those days, always covering the bar for me without me needing to ask. He was so eager to be helpful and so happy to be seen as valuable and needed.
But in the last few days leading up to my due date, I felt better than ever. In fact, I wanted to take down the living room curtains and wash them. I wanted to scrub my floors and disinfect my entire apartment.
I realized as I cleaned the kitchen sink one night that I was nesting. I couldn’t believe it was happening. Everything was so real.
The only thing that was lacking was the bedroom furniture, a crib and the clothing I would need for the baby. Nicole promised up and down that I had nothing to worry about and shouldn’t buy anything. I was starting to feel a little anxious, especially once the nesting behavior set in. Would I bring my baby home to nothing at all? Hell, how would I bring him or her home without a car seat? But every time that I so much as mentioned needing things, she would shut me down.
I figured out why she was so confident the morning after I scrubbed the sink and started disinfecting my new apartment. When I walked into the clubhouse, I was so distracted by the heartburn that had been bothering me all morning that I didn’t notice all the cars in the parking lot. It wasn’t until I stepped inside and heard a chorus of female voices yell “Surprise!” that it all came together for me. I looked at two dozen grinning faces and was knocked speechless, my hands over my face. Nicole, Darcy, and Violet ran over, giggling.
“You guys. You really shouldn’t have done this!” It was incredible, what they had done without my knowing it. I’d known that they were buying things from the registry, but Nicole had done a fantastic job with keeping the shower a secret. I looked around the room, with the pink and blue crepe streamers, balloons and paper storks on the walls. “I’m sure Drake loved this,” I said with a smirk.
“He had no say in it. None of the guys did. This party is girls only.” She gave me a hug, then directed me to a big chair at the back of the room. It was literally surrounded by gifts, to the point where I didn’t know if I could get through the pile.
“I’m overwhelmed,” I managed to say. Everybody beamed at me. I had never felt so much love and acceptance in my entire life, and I made myself a promise to remember that feeling. My baby deserved a mother who knew what that felt like. I never had the chance to experience so much love, acceptance, and positive energy but today was a great time to start.
Nicole dropped to a crouch beside me. “I did invite your family,” she murmured, stroking my arm. “I never heard back from any of them. I’m sorry.”
I shrugged it off. “That’s not surprising,” I assured her. “If there’s nothing in it for them, they can’t be bothered. It’s no big deal.”
“You sure?”
“It’s fine. Thank you for thinking to do it.” I accepted a glass of sparkling cider and blushed as everybody toasted to the baby and me. I felt a kick like he or she understood what was happening. When I announced it, everybody laughed.
“All right, baby, stop kicking your mama half to death,” Nicole scolded, shaking her finger at my belly. “Or go on and come out either way.”
“Oh, please do! Just not now! I don’t know if everyone wants to watch that happen!” I laughed.
“How much longer do you have, darlin’?” Erin, Phil’s new girlfriend, called across the room with a smile.
“Only two more days,” I admitted. I heard a chorus of gasps around me.
“Two days? We’d better get these presents opened, just in case that baby decides to come early!” someone joked.
“I couldn’t get the guys out of here any sooner than this,” Nicole explained to everyone. “Believe me, Drake, and I went around the block about it a few times.”
“You could have had it somewhere else,” I pointed out. “At my place, even.”
“But then you would have known about it, silly. This was the only place that I could th
ink to have it where you wouldn’t get suspicious. Come on, open some of your gifts!”
I did as I was told, while Nicole wrote down the names of who gave me what and what they had given. I had to stop once or twice to get a hold of myself since I was so emotional every time that I thought about how sweet everyone was being. I almost wished my mother were there so she could see how different my life was from hers. She had never one had a shower. No one cared enough to give her presents. My life was filled with love and the support of friends who cared about me and my baby. Her childbearing years were filled with emptiness and bitterness. To think, I had almost made the mistake of shutting these people out of my life when all that they wanted to do was help me raise my child with dignity. I could have ended up exactly like her. What a nightmare.
I would never end up like her. I would not let history repeat itself. Instead, I would do everything in my power to avoid ending up like she did: angry, resentful and alone. I hadn’t spoken to her since that last conversation in which I’d told her that I couldn’t support her anymore. She wanted nothing more to do with me. That was fine. My life was already less stressful thanks to her absence from it.
It was a great party. We played games, ate some great food courtesy of Darcy, and hung out like girlfriends. It became very apparent to me that it was the last time that I would be able to do something like that before the baby came. Thanks to all the gifts that I’d gotten—they’d all be so generous, more generous than I could have imagined—I didn’t have anything to worry about.
I sat back looking at everything. The nursery furniture, the high chair, the car seat, the pack and play playpen, a bouncy seat, a walker, clothes up to the first year, diapers for several different ages, bottles, wipes, toys. It was all so amazing, I wanted to get it all home and set it up right away. The nesting instinct was hitting me full force again.