The Better Half(43)
“You better be ready to deal with all my seasons,” I insisted, knowing the discomforts that pregnancy and infancy were about to rain down on us.
When Leo was done responding to my list of concerns, I turned to complaining late at night to Marisol. I told her Leo was not taking seriously my feelings of wariness about having a baby with him when we barely knew each other. Marisol also grew tired of my hand-wringing and finally told me don’t believe everything you feel and then called it quits on her late-night support hotline.
After the evening on the beach and Marisol’s tough-love therapy, I started to notice Leo’s baby fever seeping into my skin. The more time I spent with him, watching eagle-eyed for signs of I don’t know what, the more I could imagine a mini-us. We’d get coffee, and I would watch Leo gaze and smile at a dad wrestling with the release button on a stroller. The dad’s real struggle prompted me to imagine Leo smoothly popping the contraption open with one hand while balancing our kid and my cappuccino in the other. Evenings I would catch Leo hiding his online reading of the stages of embryo development like he was watching porn. Before I knew it, we were reading the same saccharine sites together nestled in bed with a bag of Ruffles, my chip repertoire recently expanded.
Walking Pasadena’s streets as carefree as we had all summer, I reminded Leo this is what it could be like going forward without a kid begging to swing from our arms. Leo would reminisce about his storybook childhood in Omaha with his parents at his games, at his school concerts, at the helm of every large, rowdy family holiday that often started with Nerf gun wars with his sister, Julia, and cousins in the backyard. His favorite memories, though, were being with his dad when his mom traveled with her sister. His father never made the West brood shower, eat broccoli, or go to bed on time. Leo so much as insisted Marisol and I travel out of state and out of cell range at least twice a year so Leo could father wholly uninterrupted. In Leo’s mind, a hovering mother was no good for anyone. The child, the father, and most certainly not the mother.
It was during the late-night pillow talk when Leo marveled at his sheer luck that the mother of his child is the queen of childhood development. When he promised he would do everything possible to support me staying in the professional world, it slowly came to me that perhaps I really wouldn’t be going round two of the parenting game feeling alone like I had with Graham, who had spent Xandra’s childhood raising a start-up rather than a daughter. My opposition to becoming a mom again turned to optimism when Leo claimed he would happily be the one to hold down the fort with our baby when I had evening events at school. He even suggested we have a second set of hands around to help like Marisol has, since we would be dual working parents and we also needed our own adult time together. I allowed myself to consider that perhaps this surprise baby could be a blessing after our birth control blunder.
As I began to see the bits and pieces of how the two of us could raise a baby together, it did start to sound more feasible than terrifying, especially the nights Leo would come over after I had an evening committee meeting. While sipping a robust red to my Pellegrino, Leo would cook for us from his wide Italian repertoire. No one had cooked for me since Marisol and I lived together and she would whip up late-night quesadillas after a Friday night bar crawl.
“So, what are we up to, two proposals or three?” Marisol asks before popping a second gin-and-vermouth-soaked olive in her mouth.
“No Chardonnay today?” I ask, avoiding Marisol’s question.
“I’m gonna need something stronger than Chardonnay to get me through your pregnancy. And your diversions never work, Nina, my drinking habits are not the topic here. What’s the latest from Leo?”
“One rushed marriage proposal, but I think Leo was delirious from seeing his baby on ultrasound. Uh . . . let’s see, three conversations about living together and one request to spend New Year’s in Omaha with the entire West clan. Apparently, cousin Karl is dying to meet me.”
“You chose living together, right?” Marisol prides herself on knowing me well. I love it when, after a lifetime of friendship, I can still surprise her.
“I’m not ready to share my space with a new man AND a new baby. I’m going to Omaha for a few days in late December when Xandra flies out to meet Graham in Miami over New Year’s.”
“No shit. I can’t wait to hear how Operation Mixed Baby goes over in the heartland. And I really can’t wait to hear what White people do with their weird uncles at holidays.” Marisol raises her glass in a gesture of good luck.
“The baby is more than enough for now. Moving in together, marriage. That’s a whole other can of I don’t know what that I have no intention of opening right now.”
“You always put off emotional tasks, sister.” We both nod in agreement knowing how true that statement is. “Speaking of tasks, tell me what’s happening with sharing the joyous news with your ex and with Xandra.”
“I’m telling Graham tonight and then Xandra first thing when she gets home next week for Christmas break.”
“Ohhhh can we call Graham together and put him on speaker? I promise, I won’t say a thing. I want to hear him squirm long distance. So fun!”
“I don’t need extra mess, Sol, I’m trying to be a responsible adult here.” Marisol and I erupt into giggles knowing how absurd trying to be adult sounds when the two of us get together about Graham. “How about if I call and give you the CliffsNotes after?” I suggest, knowing Marisol would grab the phone ready to give Graham a verbal beatdown before I could even eke out a hello.