“I doubt that. Remember, I’ve now met your mother. I don’t believe for a second Emily would put up with that shit.” I giggle at how easy it is to slip into potty humor.
“She had no choice! She was always outnumbered. If we have a boy, your dinner table conversation will be forever changed.” Doesn’t matter what flavor kid we have, I know there will be no foul talk at my table when Fitzroy’s around.
“How about your mom’s quick pivot to asking me if I go to church. You don’t think that was a cover-up for the bomb Karl dropped at the table?”
“That wasn’t a bomb dropped at the dinner table, Nina. Karl was saving you by joking with me, distastefully I’ll admit. But that’s what we do, we heckle each other. Giving each other a hard time is a West family sport. But yes, I think my mom saw Karl’s off-color ice cream question as an opportunity to find out if her sweet son is fucking a church girl.”
“I can’t believe I lied and told her I did.”
“I think that was a wise move.”
“But she knows you don’t go, right?”
“Not exactly.”
“So, your mom thinks my brown baby is going to grow up Episcopalian? And apparently behind a white picket fence.” I roll off Leo, pull on my leggings, and toss Leo his jeans before our lying asses get walked in on. Emily is downstairs packing us enough snacks for our flight to feed the whole plane, but she may be up here any minute to tie them up in a hand-stitched baggie.
“Our baby, Nina, it’s not just your baby. And I don’t know what religion it will grow up in, if one at all, we haven’t talked about it. But I’m not going to lie and say that a childhood in Nebraska wouldn’t benefit our kid. I had it good here.” With the words our kid and Nebraska uttered in the same sentence I’m officially done with this conversation, but there’s about five more minutes of our agreed fifteen minutes of pillow talk that Leo is now fully engaged in even though I now want out.
“I want a neighborhood gang for our kid to ride bikes with after school. I want our kid to go to the drugstore and buy candy that turns his tongue purple even when we tell him not to. And I want him to play baseball in a park where I don’t have to worry about him being mugged. Doesn’t that sound good to you?”
“That sounds like the suburbs to me.”
“What’s wrong with that? You live in Pasadena, the gold standard of suburbs.”
“Yeah, but my suburb is thirty minutes from LA. Besides, that’s not how I grew up in Queens as a Morgan.”
“But this baby’s also a West.” The first brown-skinned West. Is Leo really sure his family is ready for that?
“Fine. Whatever.” I grab my mules and head out of the trophy-laden Leo shrine to shower and finish packing. And to keep Leo from seeing me cry. Adding a baby to my relationship with Leo has been something I have slowly become used to with the support of my small but mighty tribe of Fitzroy, Roan, and Marisol. Xandra’s coming around, but at this point I wouldn’t yet call her return to using smiling emojis when she texts encouragement. What’s getting under my skin is the cavalry of cornfed people and their opinions riding into my life and setting up camp. I’ve been here before, same feeling I had with the Clarkes, different family with the Wests.
After I’m showered, packed, and dressed, Emily stops me as I struggle to roll my suitcase down the carpeted hallway. “Nina, there’s something I want to show you before you go.” I quickly wipe my eyes on my sweater to make sure I’ve left no traces of frustrated tears.
“Leave your bag there, Curtis will get it for you.” Emily places her hand on the back of my shoulder and steers me to the opposite end of the hallway where the master bedroom is. I really don’t want to see where Curtis and Emily sleep, that’s oversharing even for people who birthed the man I’m fuming over right now.
As I’m about to protest, Emily opens a door to the right of her room. “This is the room Curtis and I set up as a nursery when Sadie was born. Even though she lives in Seattle, we want her to always know she has a home in Omaha.” I look around the room, there’s a sweet bed decorated in hues of purple with an enormous stuffed giraffe leaning against the wall. A beautiful white wicker bassinet cradling a big bear sits opposite the giraffe.
“Was this Sadie’s bassinet?” I stumble over my words taking in the setting. “It’s lovely. I bet she was a gorgeous baby, I saw those soft auburn curls on Julia’s phone when we had lunch in Pasadena.”
“She was a beautiful baby, but I suppose all babies are beautiful to their families. But now this bassinet is for your baby. We always hoped there would be another grandchild coming along. And maybe one day Xandra would like to visit, too, she can have Sadie’s bed.” I’m touched by Emily’s interest in meeting Xandra.
“I noticed this for the first time in our grocery store,” Emily says, steering me to the changing table. “There are special sections in the beauty aisles for Black skin and hair. What products do you think I should get for the baby? I’d like to keep them right here.” Emily opens a drawer that’s currently empty.
A collection of books on the shelf above the changing table catches my eye. Among the classics like Goodnight Moon and Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes is Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats. I recognize the books as beginning efforts to prepare for their next grandchild who will be different from their first. But I’m also cautious that no matter how much Curtis and Emily may want to know me and to love on their grandbaby, the Wests have no idea how to be with a Black child, let alone be a part of raising one. And, as painful as it is to admit, neither does Leo.
“Nina, I don’t mean to pry, but I have to say, I really don’t like it when I see um, African American baby girls, newborns really, with pierced ears. Seems so unnecessary to inflict pain on someone so innocent.” Emily lowers her voice as if there is someone eavesdropping on the two of us, “You agree with me, right? You wouldn’t do that if you have a girl?”
“I had my ears pierced before my first birthday,” I respond. And I turned out pretty damn good, I think to myself defensively. Emily seems taken aback by my answer so I assuage her fears for now. “Let’s just focus on having a healthy baby, we can talk accessories later.”
It’s my turn to sleep the whole way home on the plane. Four solid days of being “on,” I need to turn myself off for a bit. Or pretend to. Life stresses that took a back seat to ringing in the New Year with the West clan are now vying for real estate in my brain. I have five days to tell Winn, before Courtney does, that as board chair his legacy will include crafting the first Royal-Hawkins head of school maternity policy. I need to check in with Graham to make sure Xandra is heading back to school with her mind set right. And my first performance review with beloved wonder teacher, Jared Jones, is coming up fast. Amid my growing anxiety for what awaits me back in California, I steal angsty glimpses of Leo, nose buried in a thriller, the fine hairs on his arms looking fairer than I’ve ever noticed before.
When we were parking the car for lunch yesterday, out the driver’s side window there were two young Black men being questioned by mall security. It didn’t seem like the altercation caught Leo’s attention, getting to “the world’s best chili” was his focus. I saw it immediately and couldn’t shake the scene. How the two of us were in the same environment in Omaha but seeing different views out the window made me wonder if this happens with us at home, as well, and I just haven’t noticed.