Hester starts laughing.
“Not funny,” I snap, swabbing my face with a baby wipe. Which makes my eye sting and water. She’s giggling more, laughing outright now, practically holding her stomach.
“Sorry. Sorry. I’ll be serious.” She makes an elaborate attempt to keep a straight face and hands me this fuzzy thing that looks like a pillowcase with arms.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a sleeper. You just zip him into it.”
I zip up Cal, who has stopped bawling and is looking at me nervously. Then I put him against my shoulder and pick up the diaper bag. Just a few weeks ago, I never needed to carry anything, just shove my license and my ATM card in my back pocket. Now I’m a pack mule.
After a shit-ton of that dinner was awesome and thank you so much, I stick one hand out to Waldo, ready to say good-bye. He clasps it between both of his hairy hands and kind of wags our hands back and forth while staring me in the eye like he’s reading my aura or seeing through to my soul or making sure my pupils aren’t dilated.
My voice, which has been going on and on with the this was great’s, falters and grinds to a halt.
“You’re connected to Calvin,” he says, not like it’s a question.
“Uh,” I say. “Not really.” Cal wriggles, and I boost him back up, hand on his butt. He smells like diaper rash cream and laundry detergent. “I don’t know what that means,” I add. “Sir.”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Waldo says, lowering his chin and looking at me over his granny glasses, bushy gray brows drawn together. He finally gives me back my hand and says, “Anon, then, Timothy.”
“Right on,” I say, fisting and unfisting my hand. He’d held on to it kind of tight.
Right on? Jesus.
Just as I’m about to shift into drive, Hester taps on the window. When I open it, she rests her elbows on the sill. “Have you done that with anyone else?” she whispers.
“Uh, you mean sex?” How bad was I?
“No—the forgetting. All of it.”
“What do you want me to say, Hester?”
Yep, you’re the only one I totally forgot. Nope, you’re one of many. The truth is the first, as far as I know. Then the thought sinks in. The gear knob slips through my fingers as I imagine a tangle of girls I’ve left behind in guest bedrooms, backseats, empty classrooms, hair rumpled, shirts askew, faces accusing, all trooping my way with redheaded babies in their extended arms.
Takes me three more tries to get my shaky hands to shift from park.
“Never mind,” she says.
Waldo’s watching me, a thick-set statue in the doorframe, when I surge forward out of his driveway.
“See,” I say, crashing on my back on the couch with Cal on my chest, “this is why you never hook up with some random person for some random reason at some random place. Sure, she could have an STD, she could get pregnant. No picnic. But really, you find yourself in the life of someone you don’t know and don’t get and they’re in yours too and there’s no fucking way out.”
Cal bobs his head against my collarbone.
My phone vibrates with a text. Hester again. If she asks me what color the nail polish on her toes was, I am going to lose my mind.
Again, don’t know how to thank you.
Thank me by getting the adoption ball rolling ASAP, I am dead serious, I text back, holding the phone up over Cal’s back. Vaguely guilty typing this, with his fluffy hair brushing my chin. But he has to be a blip in the rearview mirror before Dad does my year-end performance review.
Sleep well, she responds.
Ironically, I have to assume.
A car wheels into the Garretts’ driveway and, after a second, I peer out my window to see Sam and Jase standing by Jase’s Mustang, which I know he’s been giving her driving lessons in. He’s got his hands in her hair and she has her arms around his waist, her head on his chest, and I just want that.
I’m like some weird voyeur, but . . . it’s all quiet, peaceful. No big rush to make the moves, just easy, natural. As much of a creep as I am for watching, for not making any noise, not clearing my throat to let them know I’m there, I’m even worse for this, like, wanting. Like a vise grip on my shoulder, I feel it harder than any craving for booze or that kind of oblivion. It’s something that actually . . . aches . . . instead of nagging like a mosquito I can’t manage to swat. Jase says something, and Samantha laughs, buries her head against him, fits right into him even though she’s almost as short as Alice and he’s almost as tall as me.
I’m a douche wanting what my best friend has. He loves her, she loves him . . . the rest can wait. There are no crazy complications, no classmate you can’t imagine screwing, no baby you don’t remember making.
I want the best for Jase—and Sam—who deserve all that. But at the same time, I wish my missteps could be canceled out by the times I did the right thing. Which I can probably count on one hand.
Finger?
Less than a week ago I had Alice here in my bed, and now I’ve got the baby from the pits of hell.
Blue eyes so red, he looks like he needs an exorcism, deep painful breaths, knees yanked hard up to his chest. It’s bum-crack of morning, Cal’s miserable, and I have no clue how to fix him. He wants nothing to do with my nose, but whenever I put him down to try to get a bottle or something, he screams even louder. My ears hurt so bad and I want so damn much to put him down and go into another room, shut the door. Go outside, onto the lawn, down the street, to the beach. I mean—no one’s ever died from crying, right? Maybe he’ll just wear himself out?
So. I don’t leave. The least I can do. I just keep on holding him while he thrashes around like a hammerhead on a line.
And cries. Endless. And wicked loud.
“Cal. I don’t know what the f— I don’t get what you want. What you need. I wanna help you here, kid. Help me understand.” He pauses for a second, like he’s thinking my words over, then starts screeching yet again, desperate.
I’m asking for direction from someone who has had less time on the planet than I’ve had in recovery. Pick him up and put him on my stomach, hold tight to his tense, flailing body. He collapses, sweaty, all his damp red waves flopped down, instead of sticking straight up as usual. After a long while, as though it’s taken time to collect his strength, he raises his big heavy head back up and looks me straight in the eyes.
Smiles.
This goofy, toothless smile, his head bobbling back and forth like it weighs extra to show emotion. It completely changes his whole face—from worried crinkle dude to jolly Buddha guy. Hi, Cal. Hey, kid. I grin back at him.
Dad. Hi, Dad.
That whatever, that blood bond, that “Luke, I am your father” thing . . . I don’t know, but maybe I get it. A little.
Then, like his smile has taken all his energy, he slumps his head to the side, grabs a handful of my chest hair, snorts loudly, and tumbles off to sleep.
My left hand still covers his whole butt. The other hand is bigger than the side of Cal’s head. I can hardly breathe, but I’m damn sure not gonna move and wake him up. So I just stay there, listening to his snuffly breaths, almost counting them, breathing in that same slow rhythm. He’s partly me. Because of me. I did this.
For the first time, that idea doesn’t make me sick, or guilty, or wrong. For the first time, I really know he’s mine.
Chapter Thirty-one
TIM
“Mom always lets me sit in the front,” Harry tells me, wedging his skinny, seven-year-old ass into that very seat as I sweat to install Cal’s car seat in the middle of the Garretts’ van. Cal’s wiggling and trying to whack me with his stuffed duck. George is cracking up over it.
I smell Alice’s salt-air scent before I see her standing next to me like a mirage. All the craziness around me and in me shuts down. Catch a whiff of peppermint—minty soap, or candy she’s sucked on just now.
“Better?” she asks. “No permanent side effects?”
“
Mom does not ever let you sit in front,” Duff says from the way back. “That’s bull, Harry.”
“Tim, tell him he can’t say that. It’s bad,” George says.
“Watch your mouth,” I call over my shoulder. Hypocrites are us. I expect Duff to call me on this, but instead he just kicks his shoes against the back of George’s seat.
“Completely recovered,” I answer Alice. “All systems go.” I concentrate on polishing off my water bottle. Alice doesn’t need to know she was in the shower with me this morning.
But she flashes her killer grin and says nothing.
“Do you have class tonight?” I ask as Andy hurtles out of the house.
“Whew, thanks for waiting, Tim! Can you speed? I’m late for band and I swore to Alyssa I’d bring her Munchkins before the game—you don’t mind stopping at Dunkin’, do you? Do you have any cash? Is my hair a mess? Did I put on too much mascara?”
“You’re fine,” Alice says firmly. “Tim is not your ATM.” She turns back to me. “No—I had night duty, but that’s done for now. Come by after the game?”
I cough, nearly spitting out the water. “Um. Do we have a plan?” Why am I asking? Who cares?
She stretches. Air’s crisp. Sun’s out. She sweeps her hair off her neck. “We can improvise.”
“Can we get going, plleeeease?” Andy groans from the front seat. Harry’s now in back.
“Harry burped in my face on purpose!” Duff says. “That’s rank.”
“After the game? You’ll be here? I’ll . . . be here too.”
Christ.
“Sounds good.” Alice looks down, pushes her toe into the soft tar of the driveway.
“Tim! Come on! I know you two are all busy, but have some mercy here.”
Check the rearview mirror of the van, because this thing is humongous.
Cal, who had zonked out, now pops his eyes open, so wide-awake in the back-facing mirror thing. He goggles at Alice, and then gives his biggest, goofiest smile.
“Wow,” she says. “Look at that.” She sets her finger in the corner of Cal’s mouth. They look at each other for a second, as if they’re adding each other up. Then his smile gets wider.
“Yeah, he just started doing it.”
She bends closer, brushes his hair back. “There you go, Tim.”
“Huh?”
“There’s your missing dimple. Cal’s got the other one.” She touches her finger into the little crease on his cheek.
God, I hadn’t noticed, but it’s true.
Alice backs off, drags her heavy purse up her arm, and heads toward the house, giving me one quick grin over her shoulder.
“Fi-nal-ly,” Andy says as I climb in.
“Buuull,” Patsy yells now, experimentally. I shake my head at her. She leans back, looking like I’ve offended her deeply.
“Why don’t guys ever put emojis in their texts? How are we supposed to have any idea how they’re feeling!”
“Most of the time we have no clue ourselves, Andy,” I mutter.
I love the Garrett kids, but my mind is definitely in another place now. Plus, they’re all fighting like fisher cats the entire drive. By the time we get to the crowded SBH parking lot, vans and SUVs parked everywhere, I have a headache like a frickin’ ice pick, sharp between my eyes.
HESTER—PLS. NEED YOU TO TAKE HIM TONIGHT. PICK HIM UP FROM SB HIGH. TEXT IF NEED DIRECTIONS.—YOUR SO-CALLED COPARENT.
The last was dick mode, I know, but c’mon. Alice aside, I could fall asleep right here. The twenty-four-ouncer with an espresso shot didn’t make a dent.
“Whassup,” asks a familiar voice as the little guys and I are wedging our asses into the second row of bleachers. “Long time no see, Tim Mason.”
“What are you doing with my sister?” I ask immediately.
Troy cups a hand behind his ear, shrugging helplessly. Word is his hearing’s shot on one side because his dad whaled on him a bit too hard a bit too often.
Then he moves in, arms outstretched, lurching in for an actual hug, not noticing that I have a person strapped to my chest. When he encounters the front pack and the feathery back of Cal’s head, he edges back, then just readjusts his reach and loops his arms around my neck. “Missed you, man! What the hell? You’re a manny now?”
“What? No,” I say, before I realize that I sort of am.
“Hi!” George says cheerfully. “You’re Tim’s friend?” He sticks out a hand. “Name of George. That’s me.”
Troy fist-bumps George’s outstretched palm, which is just messed up, then checks out Harry and Patsy, who are watching this exchange curiously. Cal’s sucking his hand with these loud slurpy sounds.
“Don’t talk to him. He’s a stranger,” Harry stage-whispers to George, suddenly Mr. Play By the Rules despite his totally illegit bid for the front seat.
“Naaah. Tim here, he and I go way back,” Troy says easily, flipping his too-long hair out of his eyes. He looks, as always, like Hollywood’s idea of a teenage drug dealer. I’ve never been able to figure out if this is irony on his part or pure stupidity. I’m thinking Door Number Two.
“Need anything to take the edge off, Mason? You look tense as hell,” Troy says. “No wonder, am I right? Hear you’re home for the duration now.”
“I’m fine,” I snap. Troy backs up, palms extended.
“No big,” he assures me. “’S all cool. Priorities change and all that.”
“This is Tim’s baby,” George tells him chattily. “Name of Cal. He got him at a party.”
“Geez,” Troy says profoundly, shifting his glance between Cal’s head with its telltale red hair, and me. “I heard rumors, but whoa. Talk about your misspent youth coming back to haunt you.”
“My misspent youth funded yours, Rhodes.”
“True,” Troy says, looking unaccountably stung. “But I get to go to college baggage free. Sucks to be you, I guess.”
“Wait here, guys,” I tell the Garretts, then give Troy’s forearm a shove in the direction of the back of the bleachers.
“Ha. I knew you’d go for it, Mason,” he says smugly. “Phonying up for the kiddos, huh? What can I getcha?”
“The truth. What are you selling my sister? She’s screwed up enough.”
“Your sister?” he says thoughtfully, with the wide-eyed, I’m so wrongly accused look that hasn’t gotten him out of detention since middle school. “You mean Nan?”
“Cut the bullshit, Troy. Yes. Her. What’s going on?”
His slow, faux-surfer voice goes hard as physics. “I don’t mess with family drama. You want to know what’s going down with the girl, ask her.”
George scoots around from the front of the bleachers, extending Cal’s bottle and then yanking on my sleeve. “Hurry up! The team’s coming out now! Hurry!” He pulls on Troy’s army jacket. “You can come too. Are you a soldier?”
“Kind of,” Troy answers cheerfully.
“A freedom fighter against the war on drugs?” I ask, and he laughs, pointing his finger at me like a gun.
“Ex-act-ly. Lead on, midget.”
“More civilians than soldiers get killded during any war,” George tells him. “Look—there’s the team!”
At this point, the Stony Bay and Maplecrest teams jog, two by three, onto the field, round into a circle.
“Raah!” Cal says, shifting angrily in the front pack. “Raah. Raah. Raahaaah.”
“He cwying, Hon. Do somfin. Cal cwying.” Patsy sounds like a pissed-off truck driver, at odds with her little sprouty ponytails.
“There’s my brother!” George says to Troy. “He’s number twenty-two. Right over there. The one who just stopped that big running guy in the orange shirt.”
George, Harry, and Duff all have their eyes riveted to the field.
“Nice tackle for a loss,” Duff calls. “Take that, Maplecrest High—you stink.”
“Duff said another bad word,” George singsongs.
I’m thinking of a few that would put him to shame.
Patsy watches me try to feed Cal, and then looks at me with this betrayed expression, lower lip trembling. “Hon . . .” she says, like it’s my funeral.
“Maybe I could, like, walk her around,” Troy suggests. “I’ve got this half sister. She’s an infant. I mean, being on the move helps, man, I know that.”
“Are you jacked?” I ask.
His face twitches, miffed. “I, like, deal it, man. I don’t, like, do it.”
Yep, you’re a real man of principle, Troy. I assess his clear eyes, his healthy color. Messed up that I never asked or wondered about this before. But then, first things first. “Back and forth, then, in front of the bleachers where I can see you,” I order.
So here, in Surrealland, my friendly neighborhood drug dealer soothes a kid I’m babysitting, while I try to change my own kid’s diaper on my lap—not a brilliant idea, that—and Harry, Duff, and George cheer Jase on like this is all totally normal and fine.
“Hoo boy,” Duff says under his breath. “Jase got burned deep on that pass.”
Cal yanks his mouth away from the bottle like this knowledge personally pains him. I shove it back in. “Just chug it, kid.”
Troy has Patsy up on his shoulders and is hovering near us, pointing out Jase on the field. “Check it out, little babe. See how he was smart and stayed in his lane on the punt return so the returner couldn’t get outside of him?”
“No,” George says solemnly, edging closer to Troy. “But is that good?”
“It rocks, little dude. It, like, so rules.”
The game’s winding down when Hester taps me on the shoulder. I unsnap the BabyBjörn thing and haul Cal out, pushing him unceremoniously into her arms so fast, she nearly drops him. He looks back at me, lower lip wobbly, gives this tentative version of his smile. Dad?
I take him back, hold him against my shoulder. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, kid.” Low in his ear.
She’s studying me, squinting, hand to her mouth, chewing a thumbnail. “Ready to let him go now?”
I stand still for a minute, put my hand on the back of his head, the little folds of skin there, like extra skin he’s waiting to grow into. Kills me a little bit.