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LILY
After I left Con’s place, I wandered around LA for hours, unable to face going to Halley’s condo. There were too many memories there. I’d find somewhere else to go. Anywhere. But when the rain kicked up, I admitted defeat and made my way back. I had to walk past Con’s apartment building to get there, and I forced myself to look straight ahead. I wouldn’t look up longingly at the penthouse, and I definitely wouldn’t turn my head to stare into the lobby in hopes that he was emerging from it. I couldn’t stop my ears from listening for him though. Desperately hoping to hear my name break through the quiet night. And then to hear an explanation. An apology. And I couldn’t stop my mind from creating the picture of our reunion — romantic as a movie in the pouring rain.
But it never came. Instead, I just got soaking wet by walking so slowly, and I ended up in Halley’s condo alone.
I couldn’t leave this late at night, but I could do the next best thing. For the second time, I yanked my suitcase out from underneath the bed and threw it, open-mouthed, on the bed. Again, I began yanking my clothes from their hangers and filling it with all that I had brought and all that I had accumulated over the last few months. I couldn’t fit it all. That was fine; I didn’t need it all. I began rooting through, throwing out the fancy work clothes I’d bought to impress Con. I wanted to shred the expensive lingerie, but the lace was surprisingly sturdy. I settled for throwing it in a heap on the ground with the clothes. I’d throw it all away before I left.
There was no question in my mind where I would go. Before I dropped off into an exhausted sleep, my suitcase still on the bed beside me, I booked a one-way ticket to Ohio. By this time tomorrow, I’d be back in my childhood bedroom in Yellow Springs. The one that was incongruously right off the kitchen because our house had been pieced together over multiple generations until the rooms sprawled out with no particular allegiance to a normal floorplan. My mom would be baking something in the kitchen. Hard to say what, but the sweet, yeasty smell of cinnamon rolls or banana bread would wake me up as much as the muffled thud of the oven opening and closing and the brisk metallic clink of the whisk glancing against the side of the mixing bowl.
I know I slept because when I woke up, my mouth had a thick, cottony coating and there was grit in the corners of my eyes. It had been fitful though. Haunted. I’d been searching for Con everywhere in my childhood home, convinced he was there. I kept finding new rooms. Some were filled with plants, making me think he had to be close by. I never found him though.
On the way to the airport, I thought about the actual rooms of the little Yellow Springs house. It was technically two, but my mom’s room had a closet so large that it seemed like it should have been a third bedroom. It even had a window. It would easily fit a nursery. My mom wouldn’t hesitate to switch rooms with me and be the one to sleep off the kitchen. She would love having me back. Dote on her grandchild.
And be completely heartbroken for me.
I called her from the terminal. She knew something was wrong just by the way I said hello. She insisted on meeting me at the Dayton International Airport even though I told her I could take a cab.
“It’s a thirty-minute drive. It’ll cost a fortune,” she said, and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
I thought I’d be ready to see her. It took me all day, with the layover in Chicago, to cross the country. I thought surely by the time the sun was coming down on what felt like the worst day of my life, I would be ready to tell my biggest supporter everything. I wasn’t though. When I found her at baggage claim, I couldn’t answer the questions written all over her face with anything other than a halfhearted shrug and watery smile.
The silence between us was almost painful as we waited for my suitcase, then drove the thirty minutes home. I could feel the effort it took her not to barrage me with questions. It made the air feel stiff. I wanted to spill it all, but it was like it was all bound up inside me. If I loosened the bindings, I might explode.
When we pulled into the driveway, it was dark. My mom turned off the car and turned to look at me. Her face was shadowed with concern in the sickly yellow light of the overhead. She laid her hand on my shoulder, and we sat there until the car darkened again.
“We should go in,” I said, the first words I’d spoken since we left the airport. My voice cracked with disuse.
She nodded and led the way, carrying my shoulder bag while I dragged my suitcase over the paving stones that led from the driveway to the front door. Once inside, I confounded her by leaving my suitcase beside the door and walking toward her room instead of mine. She followed me into it, not saying anything when I walked to her large closet and pushed open the door. I’d been in and out of this closet my entire life. I’d made the cavernous, half-empty space my fort when I was a child. I borrowed out of it as a teenager.
I walked the length of it, stopping at the window and stretching my arms out wide. They barely brushed the sleeves of her sweaters to the left and the rough edge of her jeans hanging on the other. Plenty big enough for a small nursery.
I turned around, and nearly smiled for the first time when I saw the bemused look on my mom’s face. She was trying so hard not to push me with questions, but I could tell she was dying to know what on earth I was doing, measuring her closet with the length of my stride and span of my arms.
“I’m pregnant,” I said.
Her eyes widened.
I shook my head before she could ask any questions. “I don’t really want to talk about…I mean, I just want to focus on the future. I want to move home and raise the baby here, at least while I’m in school. Is that okay?”
She nodded, eyes still wide, a sheen creeping across them. I could see the corners of her lips trembling with the effort of not curving into a smile. I’d expected the tears; the smile was a surprise.
“You’re happy?” I asked.
She shrugged, but the smile slipped free, spreading across her face like wings. “I’m getting a grandchild,” she said. Then it dimmed. “But are you happy?”
She could see that I wasn’t, so I didn’t pretend to be.
“I’m–” I turned back to the window, staring out into the darkness at the fir trees that lined the side yard. I could see the lights of our neighbor’s house glinting through the foliage. I thought of standing on the sidewalk in LA, staring up at the bottom side of Con’s terrace in the sky. A world away. Had I ever thought I could belong there? It seemed ludicrous now. I was a small-town Ohio girl. He was king of the city.
“You’re what, honey?” my mom prompted gently, and I realized I’d never answered her question.
“I’m going to be happy,” I said to the trees.
Later, she made us hot chocolate and we sat on the couch, legs pulled up beneath us, an afghan over our laps like there was a winter storm outside instead of just a sharp October chill. Telling her about the baby had been like uncorking a bottle. Now the rest of it came spilling out. She winced when she heard who the father was, but on the whole, she stayed remarkably calm.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said when I was done. “I can tell you loved him.”
Lovehim, present tense. But I didn’t correct her.
Her eyes flickered to the fireplace. The flames replicated in her eyes, reminding me of the night Con came home late to the romantic dinner I’d set up hours ago. God, had it only been twenty-four hours ago? I couldn’t believe it.
“I’m so happy to have you here,” she said slowly, “but I hope you don’t feel trapped here, back in your childhood home. Because if he really is the head of a top tier Hollywood talent agency, you’re going to have all the financial support you could ever need to raise this baby while going to school.”
I’d thought of that, but the idea of it didn’t give me any comfort. In some ways, it made me sick. In the end, I’d be taking money from Con after all. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been after it. That I loved him. He would pay me off the way he was trying to pay off Kim.
“I know,” I said dully. “I’m not worried about money. I just don’t want to raise my baby alone.”
Tears finally came to my eyes, instantly causing my mom’s to overflow. She set her hot chocolate down on the coffee table with a thunk and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing hard. I didn’t have it in me to return the hug, but I leaned heavily against her and didn’t fight the embrace. I’d been running on adrenaline for the last twenty-four hours. Now I was emotionally drained and bone tired. Tomorrow I’d get up and figure out my life. Tonight, I needed to cry.
