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Lissa sucked in her breath, her eyes filling with tears at the sight of her first born, her largest baby, looking weak and small in his glass enclosed crib, flanked by medical devices mounted to movable stands. Her baby lay there naked, save for a diaper, and all the tubes and monitor tags stuck to his skin.
“Isn’t he cold?” she asked.
Julio spoke to the nurse.
“No, she says the room is quite comfortable.”
Her baby’s eyes were closed, as if sleeping. She could see a tiny flutter of the eyelids and hoped his dreams were sweet and pain free. “I love you, Marco Julio,” she said through the window.
“Come on,” Julio said with a catch in his voice. “There’s nothing we can do for him now, let’s go see our other boys.”
# # #
It wasn’t until two days later that their three babies were released from the hospital. While they’d been waiting for the children to recover, work had come to a grinding halt, and Julio’s mother had insisted that they bring the children to her home in Barcelona, so they could recover fully.
Lissa didn’t argue, she had only one thought on her mind, bringing her boys back to health.
When they arrived at the home in Barcelona, Julio’s mother showed them to the living room which had been converted into a makeshift nursery, complete with a day bed and three cribs. Japanese Shoji screens for privacy. Lissa and Joan settled in with the babies, as Julio went upstairs to his room.
Julio’s mother, Gracile Torres was a tall, athletically built Spanish woman, with olive toned skin and dark, piercing eyes. When she moved, she had a grace about her, belying her age. Several of her female relatives, a sister, a sister-in-law, Lissa couldn’t keep track, had moved into to one of the guest rooms. They helped with the cooking, the cleaning, and the tending to the three babies. But, no one was more constant than Lissa. She never left their side except to go to the bathroom. She prayed and spoke and tried to make up for all the time she’d not been near them, her heart still reeling from what could have been an unspeakable loss.
She barely slept, and in the morning, the sun rose in Barcelona, and the fragrance of homemade bread and coffee filled Julio’s family home.
Marco, the sickest of the boys, the one she could have lost, was sitting on one of the Aunt’s lap, laughing, and looking like his old self-again.
“Marco Julio,” Lissa said, as she gently reclaimed her son from the older woman’s arms. She kissed her boy softly on the head. “Do you feel better? Momma’s so happy, you feel better.”
Her other boys heard her voice and were trying to stand up in their cribs. Ryland reached out his arms to her. He looked much better as well.
“I think these boys have seen enough of those cribs.”
Julio stood in the doorway, a huge smile on his lips. His mother walked into the room. “Bring them into the kitchen, Lissa, I had Julio set up a big area where they can play while we have breakfast.”
While they ate, Lissa began to relax for the first time in days. The boys were back to their normal, healthy selves and they were having a blast playing with in the makeshift play pen in the middle of the large kitchen.
Lissa was starved and the food was delicious. She reached for another hot rosemary biscuit, slathering it with butter and washing it down with the delicious coffee and fresh cream.
“Mamacita,” Julio said, “What do you think of my new family?”
Lissa felt his hands rest gently on her shoulders, he was standing right behind her. The touch of thumb as it grazed against the exposed skin of her neck felt like fire. She stiffened. What did he mean? Exactly.
Julio’s mother didn’t say anything, she just waved a wooden spoon at his head and glared at him. Julio laughed, and Lissa wondered what that was all about.
He went over to the play pen and let himself in. A moment later, he and the boys were laughing and playing together. Lissa’s heart swelled. If only, he wanted more than just a drive by family. If only this would be permanent.
Her appetite, suddenly fled. He’d joked before about his mom wanting a wedding, but there would be no wedding if he didn’t ask her to marry him. That was obviously not in the cards. He liked having sex with her and having his kids around, but clearly that was as far as he wanted to take things.
Over the next few days, Julio was gone, back in work mode, leaving Lissa and Joan and the boys as continuing house guests in his family home. Lissa had offered to help out with the work, but Julio refused. Telling her to take a break, to relax and enjoy all his relatives. He insisted that he had everything under control.
The days were full, as everyone of Julio’s numerous relatives stopped by to visit and meet the new additions to the family. They went on outings into the city, spent hours in the kitchen learning how to cook, and went shopping. Julio’s mother, had a big surprise. One afternoon at Senora Torres’s insistence, Lissa and the two aunts helped her push the three strollers through the business district of the old city. It was stunning, and it was also nice for each of her boys to have a stroller of their own.
To date in their young lives, the triplets had gone on their outings in chariots of a different nature. With only Auntie Joan and momma Lissa to take them for the rare stroll’s around Central Park in New York, they’d determined from the get-go, that with only two sets of hands – three strollers would be impossible. Lissa had no interest in putting the lives of three baby boys at risk by stuffing them into one of those ungainly triplet’s stroller contraptions.
As they strolled up the ancient cobbled streets of the Plaza Dominica, attracting curious looks and smiles from everyone they passed, Ryland began to fuss. She wondered if that was because he’d never once had a stroller all to himself. Ryland, was in no hurry to get anywhere. He had the most laid back personality of any of her boys. But, he didn’t like being alone, ever.
When they’d first stated going on outings in the double and single strollers, Joan thought it would be a good plan to mix up, who got to ride shotgun and who got to be in front, and also who got a stroller all their own. But, it became quickly apparent, that Ryland was only happy in one spot, the spot in the back of the double stroller. Marco didn’t care which stroller he was in, provided he was in the front. He was the most eager of her baby boys, the most competitive, the most likely to walk first. But, since Hunter was a squirmer and his fussing eventually got on Marco’s last nerve, they’d adopted a consistent pattern. Marco in the lead in the double stroller with Rlyand in back, and Hunter in the single stroller, where he could squirm to his hearts delight.
But, here on the Plaza Dominica, Ryland was fussy because he was facing the world without one of his brothers close at hand.
“Let’s go in here,” Senora Torres said, and she pointed to a tiny tailor’s shop with beautiful men’s and women’s suits in the window.
Lissa had learned already that there was no point in arguing with the boy’s mamacita, and as the noon day sun was beginning to give her heat stroke, she happily consented and the caravan of women and babies let themselves inside the small shop.
A short, but handsome older man came up to Senora Torres, and smiled broadly and began speaking in rapid Spanish.
Then he looked at me.
“You are the mama?” he asked. His English wasn’t half bad.
“Si,” I answered, practicing my Spanish language skills.
He called loudly into the back room, and a scrunched up older woman about five feet tall came hobbling out. She had measuring tapes draped around her neck.
“We measure the boys. Okie dokie?” asked the owner of the shop, looking to me for permission
“What’s all this?” I asked, Senora Torres. She had a devilish grin on her face. Clearly, this had all been previously arranged.
“My treat. I thought the babies could use some new clothes. You understand, my dear, that in Spain, how a man dresses is very important.”
“But, these are babies, not men,” Lissa pointed out.
“No
matter.”
Lissa gave her consent, having been raised to believe that it was ungracious and selfish to decline a heart-felt gift. So, they set about it. One by one, they lifted one of her boys into the air, while the tiny tailor stretched her measure tape expertly at all the important locations, while she yelled out numbers and the owner took notes.
After a sharp exchange of angry words, the owner’s face looked delighted, then he walked up to the wizened old woman and pinched her loving on the behind. She blushed, the most beautiful thing Lissa had ever seen. And then she looked at him, her tired old eyes sparkling with love.
He smiled back at her, the same look of complete happiness glowing on his face. Then he bent down and kissed her on the lips, and she went back to work.
Her heart tightened. Here were two people who were obviously a couple, obviously still in love. Lissa wondered if she would ever know that kind of love with another man. It made her think of Julio. More and more she believed that Julio might be the man for her. She could see herself falling in love with him, wanting to be with him for the rest of her life. But, did he have any of the same feelings towards her? And if he expressed such sentiment would it be sincere, or something he was doing to please his mother.
Lissa had certainly gotten the impression that Julio’s mother might have ideas about pressuring her son to marry her, but as wonderful as she imagined life might be with Julio around for the long haul, the last thing she wanted was to be in a loveless marriage. She also couldn’t stand the idea of Julio growing to resent her, for making him sacrifice his true path in life, so he could quote unquote do the right thing by her and the boys.
After the tailors, they had lunch in an outdoor café, which was shaded by the tall ancient buildings on either side. Her three identical baby boys were the talk of everyone in the restaurant.
Everyone seemed to know Senora Torres, and even though Lissa didn’t understand much of what was said, it was clear that many of them asked after the father, Julio.
Thinking about Julio made her sad. He’d been away now, and hadn’t called for almost two days. She understood that he was probably throwing himself at the task, or prepping the office and the staff required to work on the deadline for the consortium project, but his total absence in her life after so much closeness, left her feeling like one of her body parts was missing.
She also felt left out, set aside, not kept in the loop. It was as if he wanted her to stop thinking about work, to stop believing that she had say at all about what went on in his life.
As she sipped her coffee, Lissa wondered if Julio hadn’t called in at night, because he was lying in bed with some other woman.
The images of he and Willa having sex, or perhaps with another black woman, like the one from the photograph, made her gut clench.
“Are you alright, girl? You look a little green.”
“Oh, nothing’s wrong, I’m just a little tired,” Lissa lied.
“Then we’ll go home,” Senora Torres declared, and so they did.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
