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“No, I won’t.”
“It’s your kid. I’m not.”
He’s got me there. Not in the way he thinks, though. Yeah, he’s technically, genetically, not mine. But he’s Sunday’s. He’s my kid’s brother. I figure that makes him at least a little bit mine, right? I just don’t know how to explain that to him. If by feeling that way, I’m overstepping a boundary or making someone uncomfortable or, God forbid, igniting his actual father’s wrath.
But I want him to know it. I wasn’t planning on doing this today, or until I talked to his mom, but fuck it. I get to my feet, dragging August up with me. He doesn’t get a chance to protest because we’re out the nursery in a split second, my hand on the doorknob for the room next door in another. Twisting it open, I flick on the lightswitch and usher him inside.
It’s not just baby furniture I’ve been struggling to assemble lately; a bed, a bookcase, a desk, and a desk chair have all taken at least a decade off my life, and the storage system taking up half of one wall almost claimed a finger. “It’s pretty bare, I know. But I figured you could decorate it yourself.”
“This is my room?”
I nod. “Thought the baby might feel better knowing their big brother is right next door.”
Wordlesslessly, August spins in a slow circle in the center of the room, taking in every detail, face blank like he can’t decide how to feel. The longer he remains silent, the more nervous I get. I fucked up, right? Went too far? Fuck, I knew Sunday would wanna kill me for this but I thought August would… I don’t know. Appreciate it? Think it’s cool? I just wanted to do something nice, to make him feel included, to—
“Oh.” I almost forgot. Digging in my back pocket, I thrust the contents at August. “Here.”
He stares at the tickets in my hand like I’m offering him a bomb.
“They’re for the Wolves game in San Diego next week. It’s on a weekday so you’d have to miss school but it’s just one day and—fuck, I should’ve asked your mom first, right? I—”
The elaborate plan I’m about to suggest in order to not incur Sunday’s wrath for making plans without her dies in my throat, killed by the boy who throws himself at me.
Knocking the breath from my lungs in every way possible, August latches onto my waist. He hugs me like I might disappear, tight and unrelenting. “Thank you.”
It takes a minute before I’m able to do anything other than blink rapidly at the top of his head. When I regain control of my shocked limbs, I wrap them around August, hold him just as fiercely. “You’re welcome, kid.”
Anything, literally anything, for you.
31
SUNDAY
When I was sixteen,I had a Pinterest board named ‘baby shower aesthetic.’
I would strategically open up the board and leave my phone unlocked on the dining table or the kitchen counter or, once, in the bathroom while my mom was showering. I hoped she’d see it. Hoped she’d have a change of heart. Hoped I’d walk downstairs one morning and find our living room decorated with bouquets of irises and lavender, a table of artfully frosted cupcakes, one of those cheesy light-up‘oh baby’signs in the center of a balloon arch.
From the day my test turned up positive to the day I gave birth, I never stopped hoping my parents would change their minds, John would change his mind, the friends who treated me like a freaking pregnant pariah would change their minds. It was only when I was alone in a hospital room being stitched up in a place no stitches could ever go, a tiny, crying baby suckling my nipple, that the hoping stopped. It finally sank in that it would be me and that kid against the world, and it probably always would be.
Which is why, several hours after I first descended Cass’ staircase and found his house’s interior looking like purple had thrown up all over it, I still can’t quite wrap my head around it.
To be fair, I haven’t really had the chance. Within milliseconds of coming downstairs, I was swept up by a wave of enthusiastic congratulations and emphatic squeals over a stomach that grows more prominent every day and, bless her heart, Lynn.
Lynn and her easy affection and her sweet words and her mothering motherness that I’ve never really experienced. I fuckingloveLynn. She kinda terrifies me a little but I think that’s more a ‘me’ problem. A symptom of chronic neglect.
Philophobia, if I was gonna be dramatic about it.
Anyway. Moral of the story; I’ve been too busy to really take in my surroundings, and it’s only after the sun sets—who knew baby showers were an all-day affair?—that I get the chance.
With every breath, I inhale lavender-scented air. With every glance, my eyes land on something purple or something with my name on it. The kids, my kid and the friends he’s never really had, thunder around upstairs. The other adults are outside. The sound of chatter and laughter andlovecomes from all angles, and as I slump on the sofa, I close my eyes and soak it in.
All those sounds? Coming from people who love my baby. Who care enough about me to make sure I eat and drink and sit down at regular intervals because my ankles are reaching that lovely swollen stage. Who care enough about August to make sure he doesn't feel left out, to shower him with gifts and attention too. I’m in a house with rooms for both my kids, owned by a man who went out of his way to ensure my son knew he had a space here too.
For the first time in my life, everything is… well, pretty damn close to perfect.
When the sofa cushions dips beside me, I recognize the expensive perfume wafting from the culprit. My head falls to my sister’s shoulder. “I know this was you.” It couldn’t have been anyone else. As nonchalant as she acted earlier, staring around the room like it was the first time she’d seen it, I know my sister—I know her heart, every thorny inch of it. “Thank you.”
“Don’t.” Ruddy hair tickles my face as she shakes her head. “I’m just making up for something I should’ve done a long time ago.”
