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“Over now, Agatha? I have no say in it?”
“No, Christopher. This is my life. You don’t even know me!” She yelled and tried to shut the door on him.
“Because you don’t let me, Agatha.” He pushed the door open and saw the entire living room was full of cardboard, plastic, and plastic bags. The couch was covered in pink clothes and baby toys.
“Get out, Chris. Get out of my house and my life. I don’t need you. I have never needed you.” She pushed against his chest to push him from the house, but she had no hopes of moving him. They both knew that.
“Stop it, Agatha.” His arms pulled her to him. He held her tight as she pushed and twisted to get free and cried. Tightening his hold on her, he kicked the door closed behind them. Whatever had happened that day had been hard on her, and what he had learned since meeting her was that when her emotions ran high, she pushed people away. Anger was her go-to emotion.
Looking around the room more closely, he saw a playpen amongst the mess, and a baby was peeking over the side, looking at him. Only the baby’s black curly hair and dark eyes were visible, along with two tiny hands holding on to the top of the playpen.
“Agatha, there’s a baby here,” he whispered to her, not taking his eyes from it. In his arms, she stiffened and pushed away from him again, but he tightened his arms around her. “She’s staring at me. I think she might be dangerous.”
After feeling her laugh at his joke, he relaxed his hold a tiny bit. The baby seemed content, so he kept holding Agatha. Agatha needed holding right now. Whatever she had been doing had brought a baby into her house.
“I have to get this all cleaned up,” she said into his chest.
“I will clean it up. You do whatever needs to be done with the baby.” He ran a hand over her hair before releasing her.
“Poppy, her name is Poppy.” She walked over and picked up the baby from the playpen. Poppy was in tiny pink footie pajamas with a duck on them.
“Hi, Poppy. I’m Chris.” He gently took the girl’s hand and shook it.
Knowing something was up with Agatha, Chis started to clean the living room. He found a garbage bag and filled it with plastic and cardboard. There were more bags of stuff on the floor that she hadn’t even opened yet. At this point, he was not going to ask questions in case she tried to toss him out again. He didn’t want her to be alone.
Once the second bag was full, he glanced at Agatha on the couch and was only met by one set of brown eyes, the others were closed in sleep. With a smile, he slid the wide-awake little girl from her arms. For her part, Poppy didn’t cry or seem nervous that a stranger was holding her. She just smiled at him with her two little teeth.
Over the years, Chris had never spent time with any kids, even his sister’s kids. When they had been this young, he had been thinking about nothing but football. It seemed he had missed a lot for his football dreams—dreams that didn’t even feel real anymore. It had only been a year, and he was already over those dreams.
Setting Poppy in her playpen, he carefully carried Agatha up to her bedroom. She must have been exhausted because she didn’t even stir. Once she was in bed, he turned his attention to the baby again. Taking her out of the playpen, he sat her on his lap and worked through her bags, opening packages of pink clothes and little toys that Poppy inspected with interest as he went.
Once again, he cleaned the floor after filling another bag with garbage and wondered what to do with all the stuff. He asked Poppy but only got a smile in return. The only thing he was sure of was that Agatha was all in with this baby. Poppy was here to stay.
Two giant boxes of diapers didn’t say weekend visit, nor did hundreds of dollars’ worth of clothes and toys. With the baby in his arms, he decided some stuff could be put away; he just needed a place to put it. With his empty arm, he carried the tan highchair to the kitchen, deciding to put it by the island.
There was a manila folder on the mostly empty counter, like the one she had been looking at weeks before when she had been so prickly. Was it about the baby girl or something else?
Flipping it open, he saw adoption papers, signed by a judge and none other than Agatha C. Lovely for a Poppy Joy Chambers. They were dated today. Chris sat down and stared at the papers. He couldn’t really believe it. He had woken up beside her this morning, or would have if she hadn’t woken up first, and she hadn’t said anything. Nor over the last three weeks he had known her. She had to have known. She had to have been working on it.
Did she think he would disapprove and tell her not to do it? What would he have said? At this point, he didn’t know, but he knew she thought he would be mad. That’s why she tried to end it; because she thought he wouldn’t be happy with her having a child.
Looking at the curly black hair, he knew he had to prove himself, because this child was hers now. If he wanted Agatha, he had to accept this little one and any others she might bring home. And he wanted Agatha.
Also in the folder was a hand-printed list of when things needed to be done. Poppy was going to need to be fed soon based on the sheet. He was not going to fail at this.
An hour later, he had Poppy’s diaper changed, made and fed her a bottle, and she was fast asleep in his arms. But he had no idea what to do with the baby now. As far as he knew, she had no crib in the house, and the playpen was miles from Agatha’s bedroom upstairs.
He checked all the other rooms to see if she had actually put up a crib while he was gone or even days before in preparation but found nothing. All the rooms looked like the one he had stayed in, just different color schemes and layouts. All rooms had a queen-sized bed and a dresser. Some had stuff on the walls, some didn’t. He didn’t see how six grown women and two kids had lived in the house at the same time. There were only eight bedrooms, and that included the master. He was tempted to check the attic for a crib but figured she would have hauled it down already if she had one. With that, he gave up on finding a crib.
After a few false starts, he silently got the playpen up to Agatha’s bedroom. Then he took the baby and put her in the playpen and covered her with a pink blanket.
Downstairs, he tossed the bags out the back door to be dealt with later and organized the living room a little more so that it didn’t look like a pink bomb had gone off in it. Life was going to be different here tomorrow. No more sleeping in and having sex when he wanted her.
Agatha was a parent now. And he hoped that she would let him help her. He wanted to do this with her.
