Heartless (43 page)

C
rew

O
ne week later
…

“
P
izza’s here
,” I call from the front door of the house we now share.

Calypso calls it my Tuscan villa. She even nicknamed it Villa Avorio for the ivory stone on the front façade. She says houses this size should be named.

We’re all moved in. Still unpacking. Getting organized. We spent all afternoon organizing Calypso’s library and neither of us felt like cooking, so it’s pizza for dinner.

For the third night in a row.

Still a bachelor at heart, living a bachelor lifestyle. Only now I have a hot as fuck woman by my side, loving on my daughter and generally making life a hell of a lot more tolerable.

Calypso secures Emme in her high chair and I break out the paper plates.

She takes a slice of pizza and hunches over the counter for a second. Her face is white, and her forehead glistens.

“You alright?” I ask.

She raises a finger, turns her head, and then nods. “Yeah. Just felt sick for a second.”

I fix her a glass of ice water and she takes a seat, taking tiny nibbles from her pizza.

“Must be coming down with a stomach bug or something,” she says.

“Yeah.” I sit my pizza aside and watch her fight off what are clearly waves of nausea, and then I do some quick math. “Are you . . . are you pregnant?”

Her tired eyes meet mine, and her hands immediately go to her breasts.

I laugh.

She doesn’t.

“I . . . I kind of feel like I might be.”

Without hesitation, I rise and grab my keys.

“Where you going?” she calls after me, but I’m already bursting through the garage door on a mission. By the time I back my truck out, I spot Noelle’s little silver BMW pulling up.

Shit. Forgot we invited her over tonight.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Noelle skips up to my driver side window, peeking in the truck to see if I’m alone.

“Making a quick run to the pharmacy.”

Her tongue pokes against the inside of her cheek. “Looks like you’re in a hurry. Emme okay?”

My hand slicks along the steering wheel. The sound grates on my nerves, but the sensation soothes me.

“Emme’s fine.”

“What’s wrong with Calypso, then?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar!” She points a finger in my face. “Your nose just wiggled. What are you lying about?”

“Just grabbing a test for her, that’s all.”

“A test?” Noelle crunches her face. “Like a pregnancy test?”

Fucking women. Always have babies on the brain.

“Yes.” I sigh. “Spare me the lecture. It’s a long fucking story, and I don’t have time. Just go inside and don’t say anything to her. Don’t bring it up.”

“I hope she is pregnant.”

My gaze snaps toward my sister. “What?”

She lifts her palms in the air. “Just saying. I hope she is.”

“Why would you say that?”

“I think she’s good for you. She makes you a better person.” Noelle stares into the window leading to the kitchen dinette. We watch Calypso spoon feed Emme something orange. Probably carrots or sweet potatoes. Maybe squash. Emme grins and reaches for the container, pulling it from Calypso’s hands and dumping it in her dark hair. “I can’t even make you a better person, and I’m your goddamned twin. Look at her. Those two. You wouldn’t even know they’re not blood. I like her, Crew. And that says a lot.”

“You should go help her,” I say to Noelle. Not because Cal can’t handle it, but because I know she feels like shit right now.

“On it.” Noelle knocks on the hood of my car and heads inside.

* * *

“
Y
ou coming out anytime soon
?” I’m lying in the bed, flipping through channels. It feels weird to have a satellite dish and two hundred channels we sure as hell don’t need, but this is life in suburbia.

This room is enormous. This house is enormous. Everything about this lifestyle is unapologetically extra-large.

My room is clean thanks to Calypso. She couldn’t sleep her third night here, so she’s gradually been moving into my suite. When she sleeps in my bed, she calls it a sleepover. The two times we fucked, she made me reassure her we were just fuck buddies. Nothing more. And then she went on a spiel about how she hates that term but doesn’t know what else to call it. I suggested friends with benefits, but she said that made it sound like a business arrangement, and that wasn’t sexy.

So that’s where we are now. No label. No expectations. No discussion of the future or anything remotely complicated.

The lock on the bathroom suite pops and Calypso steps out, three pregnancy tests in her shaking hands.

I climb out of bed, tearing the covers off to get to her. Her palm spreads, revealing three bright blue plus signs on three blue-capped tests.

My fingernails dig into my scalp. I think about my sister’s words earlier tonight.

This is a good thing.

This can only be a good thing.

This is good.

But I’m more concerned with her. She’s been through a lot lately.

“You okay?” I cup her face in my hands and pull her lips against mine. “Everything’s going to be fine. We’ll figure this out. We’ve got plenty of room. We’re here. We’re fucking suburbanites now. We can do this.”

I place a hand on her taut lower belly.

Knowing I’ll be here for her from day one makes me feel a little less like some douche bag who keeps knocking up women and more like a man owning up to his life choices.

My parents would be proud if they had any fucking decency.

“How you doing? You okay? We’ll call the doctor first thing tomorrow.” I smooth her hair, brushing it away from her eyes.

“I’m . . . happy, Crew.” The corners of her lips lift, apprehensive at first and then taking up her whole face. “Really happy.”

C
alypso

“
G
ot the mail
,” I say to Crew when he walks in the door. He’s been gone all day, scoping flip houses and signing papers on a new one. Two weeks ago we moved in together, and one week ago I found out I was pregnant with his baby.

I nod toward the stack of mail on the counter. He sees it immediately, the blue envelope with Accusure DNA on the return label.

Crew clears his throat, the hollow beneath his cheekbone pulsing.

I’m feeding Emme strained bananas. She watches her dad and pushes the spoon away because she wants him to pick her up. He always goes to her first when he gets home. Those two are inseparable.

My back is to him now, but I hear the rip of the envelope, the crinkle of the paper as he unfolds it, and then silence.

I wipe Emme’s face with a wet wipe and unbuckle her. Staring into her eyes, I know she’s Crew’s. Everything from her big blue eyes to the tiny dimple in her pudgy chin. She has his long fingers, the ring one slightly bent, and I swear they make the same facial expressions when they’re angry, which is rare. They both sleep with their arms above their heads when they’re really tired, and they both crinkle their noses when they laugh.

Emme is Crew’s.

I place Crew’s daughter on my hip and go to him.

“You’re quiet.” I rub his back, rise on my toes, and set my chin on his shoulder. He smells like a construction site. Oil and metal and wood shavings. A tiny hint of this morning’s aftershave.

He folds the paper and pats it with his hand, sliding it across the counter. And then he turns to us, his facial features softening in the early evening light.

“She’s mine,” he says, scooping her from my arm. She reaches for his face and giggles.

“She’s yours?” My hands clasp against my beating heart.

He nods, kissing his daughter on the nose before she grabs a chubby fistful of his dark hair. He winces but doesn’t complain.

“Thank God.” I slip under his other arm, my hand on his chest and my head against his shoulder.

For a moment, it feels like the three of us—four, technically—against the world. We can do anything as long as we’re together. Somehow we all click. We work. We fit, like we were somehow always meant to be a family.

It feels right.

My stomach churns for the fifteenth time today. I managed to eat some chicken soup today, but I had to load it with a zillion saltine crackers to keep it down. And an hour ago, I swallowed half a banana and a glass of milk.

I lift my hand to my mouth. I can taste everything in the back of my throat.

“Be right back.” I dash off to the bathroom. When I’m done, I wash my face and brush my teeth. I feel momentary relief, but I know it’ll return. It’s a small price to pay for the most beautiful experience in the world. Standing in front of the mirror, I pull my shirt up just enough to see my belly. It’s flat now. Nothing to see. But in a few months, it’s going to fill out.

I place a warm palm on my stomach and try to poof it out. I try to imagine what I’ll look like at four months or five months or nine months. I never made it past three in the past.

Everything that’s happened has led to this little miracle growing inside me.

Had I known about Father Nathaniel’s ploy, known I was truly fertile, this never would’ve happened.

I love this baby more than words. Whenever I think of it, my entire being’s enveloped in radiant warmth. That’s love.

“There she is,” Crew says when I return downstairs. He’s in the family room playing stacker cups with Emme. She rolls everywhere now. I bet she’ll crawl in the next month or two.

“We need to baby proof,” I remind him, staking a seat in a nearby recliner.

“We need to do a lot of things.”

“I’m making a list,” I say. “I’ll add babyproofing. Maybe we can knock it all out this weekend?”

“This weekend’s Easter.” His voice is low, and he examines a yellow plastic cup between his fingers.

“Oh, did you want to do something special for Emme?”

His jaw squares and he shakes his head. “My parents are having a get-together at their house in Lake Tahoe.”

“I didn’t think you were invited.”

“I’m not,” he says. “But we’re going. All of us. I need to tell my dad what’s going on, introduce him to my family, you and Emme. And if he doesn’t accept it, then that’s on him.”

“I . . . I’m your family? You consider me your family?”

He crawls up from his spot on the floor and moves to me, rising. He takes my hands from my lap and pulls me up.

“Calypso, you’re family. Why would you even question that? You’re carrying my child. You’re with me every day. You’re the closest thing to a mother my daughter has,” he says. “If that’s not a family, I don’t know what is.”

I try not to smile too big.

It’s weird having a place in this world, belonging to someone. I didn’t think I’d like being tied to anyone, not after what happened with Mathias years ago. I wanted to be free to float wherever the wind blew me.

But nothing compares to this, to having a place to hang my hat. Having a home. People who want to be with me. People who need me.

“You really think it’s a good idea to go, though?” I ask. All I can think about is his awful mother and her callous words. “It’s a holiday, and with your dad’s heart condition . . .”

“If not now, when?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I just don’t want anything tragic to happen.”

“If my dad passes and never gets to meet his granddaughter, that would be tragic. If he passes and never gets to see me owning up to my life choices, taking responsibility for my decisions, that would be worse.”

I glance at Emme, watching her roll to her back and shove a rubber giraffe in her mouth. She’s cutting teeth on the bottom. I know, because she bit me this morning and it actually hurt. She’s cute, that one, but she’s officially a biter.

“All right,” I say. “Guess we’re going to Tahoe this weekend.”

C
rew

“
W
hat are you
doing
here
?” My mother greets me Friday night from behind the locked screen door of my parents’ lake house. Her voice is hushed, spoken between clenched teeth. Mom’s arms fold tight across her chest, and she checks over her shoulder. The sound of political pundits arguing drifts from behind her, probably coming from the family room where my father glues himself to cable news shows in his free time. “I thought I made it
explicitly
clear that you were
not
to come this weekend.”

Calypso holds Emme a few feet to my right. My mother doesn’t see them. Yet.

“I need to talk to Dad.”

“Absolutely not.” Her words cut through the screen.

“He should know.”

She shakes her head. “It’ll upset him too much.”

“He needs to meet my family,” I say. “God forbid anything happens. I want him to know the truth. I want him to know everything.”

“Your
family
? You mean that bastard baby?”

I won’t sit here and allow her to bash my innocent child. From the corner of my eye, I see Calypso’s lips purse and her eyes roll.

“Dad,” I call loud enough that he can hopefully hear it from the front door.

“Are you crazy?” Mom steps outside, pulling the big door shut behind her. The screen door slams against the front of the house then bounces, staying open a crack. “Leave. Leave now.”

She searches for my truck; only her menacing stare falls on Calypso and Emme standing off to the side.

“
All
of you.” She shoos us away.

“Why don’t you hold her, Mom?” I put the offer out there.

Her pointed stare falls on Emme, whose carefree grin is washed away in lieu of sheer terror when she sees my mother.

“No. Thank. You,” Mom says through a clenched jaw.

“Deny her all you want, but she’s your granddaughter. She’s a part of you,” I say. “You can’t choose to not be her grandmother. You can only choose what kind of grandmother you’re going to be.”

For a moment, I think she’s contemplating this. Whether or not she holds Emme is going to determine where we go from here. If things take a turn for the better. If things get ugly.

Mom’s fingers twitch and knit and dance. She looks at Emme. Looks away. Her arms fall to her sides, landing with a loud clap against her thighs.

“I’d rather not.” She’s so fucking stubborn.

“Fine.” I push a forced breath past my flared nostrils. “Then get out of my way.”

“And where do you think you’re going?” she snips.

“Talking to Dad.” I push past Mom, my shoulder brushing hers.

I have to do the right thing.

I have to come forward about all of this.

Man to man.

The front door creaks open and the screen door is pushed. Noelle steps out. Her expression sobers and she shoots me a look. I’m pretty sure she’s trying to say,
“What in the ever loving fuck are you doing here?”

Mom clutches her cross necklace and spins around, relieved to see it’s only my sister.

“Your brother and his
associates
were just leaving,” she says.

“Enough.” My voice booms, deep and hard in my chest. “You will
not
speak about them that way.”

Noelle stands between us, her back to my mom so she can’t see her face. She mouths something, but my blood is boiling so feverishly I can’t think straight enough to interpret her message.

“Emme’s my daughter,” I say. “And Calypso is carrying my child. Like it or not, they’re my family. They’re not going anywhere. We’re a fucking package deal.”

“Oh, Lord.” Mom throws her hands in the air and stares up at the perfect, country-blue, cloudless sky.

“Some people have real problems,” Calypso says.

“Calypso,” I say. She doesn’t need to fight my battles.

“Seriously.” She ignores me, stepping forward. Her furrowed stare smacks my mother, who takes three steps back until she’s pressed against the doorbell. “Your son is a great person. You’re what’s wrong here. I’ve never met anyone who loves their child more than Crew. Maybe you should take some notes. He’d move Heaven and Earth for that baby. He completely changed his lifestyle for her. He stepped up the minute she was placed in his arms. Made her his first priority like the good father he is. Maybe you could take some notes from him?”

Noelle bites away a smile and gives me a look. No one has ever told Susan Forrester off.

“About damn time,” I mouth to my sister. She nods.

“And who do you think
you
are? Speaking to
me
like
this
? On the front porch of
my
house? Where are your manners, young lady?”

The front door behind my mother opens. My father steps out.

“What’s going on here? Heard the doorbell.” His beady eyes drift from person to person, his fingers slicking the sides of his mustache. He clears his throat and stares at me.

“Dad,” I say. “I want you to meet my family.”

He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look at Calypso or Emme. His stare is locked on mine.

I take Emme from Calypso. “This is my daughter.
Your
granddaughter. Emme. She’s five months old.”

His head tilts back as he studies her.

“And this is Calypso,” I say. “She’s carrying my child, and I’m going to marry her someday.”

Calypso shoots me a look. I haven’t asked her. We haven’t even discussed it. But none of that matters.

I
am
going to marry that girl someday.

“Conrad, are you okay?” Mom fusses over him, her hands smoothing his shirt and her palm slicking down the buttons. “Do you need to go sit down? Are you feeling stressed? Let’s get you inside.”

“Susan.” He flinches at her touch. “Enough. I’m fine.”

“I know you’re extremely disappointed in our son. I don’t blame you. I am as well. He let us down.” She looks at me and speaks to my father. And then she dabs her tear-less eyes.

My mother never cries.

And this is just an act.

“Susan.” Dad slips his arm around her shoulder and pulls her into his chest. “Crew, apologize to your mother.”

“For what?” I laugh.

“For upsetting her.” He clutches at his chest, sucking in deep breaths. He points a finger at me. “I asked you never to let her down. Do you remember that?”

He moves to a wicker rocker and plops down; my mother takes the one beside him. Her face is buried in her hands. She’s like one of those gray birds that pretends they’re injured so you leave them alone.

Can’t understand how my father hasn’t figured out her modus operandi over all these years.

“I won’t apologize for the choices I’ve made in my life,” I say. “I’ll own them. I’ll make the best of them. I’ll stand up for my family and what I believe in. And if you can’t be proud of that, then that’s on you.”

Calypso takes my arm, looping her hand through my elbow in a silent show of support.

“So that’s all I wanted,” I say. “I didn’t come here to cause problems. Just wanted you to meet my family. Oh, and by the way, I’m not a math teacher. I’m a contractor. I flip houses. I used to play poker.”

Mom’s face pinches before she looks to my father to watch his reaction. We all do.

He rises, his face cherry red. He’s raspy, his breath whistling through his nose.

“You made your bed, Crew.” He reaches for the screen door handle, then he stops and turns back to me. “You know how I feel about gambling. And you know how I feel about making your mother upset. She’s the love of my life, Crew. What hurts her, hurts me. I’m going inside. I need to rest.”

Mom follows him, stopping for a moment. “Noelle, you coming?”

Noelle looks to her, then to us.

“Well, come on.” Mom stomps her foot and clucks her tongue. “Let them leave, Noelle.”

“They’re never going to change,” Noelle says to me, under her breath.

“Nope,” I say.

“Noelle,” Mom calls out to her again.

“I don’t want to leave Dad.” Noelle’s bottom lip trembles, her chin wrinkling. “What if something happens?”

“Noelle.” Mom stomps her foot, her voice overriding Noelle’s soft words. “Get inside. Now.”

“You stay or you go,” I say, “that’s up to you. You’ll have us either way. I would never turn my back on you, Noelle.”

“Stop talking to Crew. Come inside and help me fix dinner.” Mom jiggles the door handle to get her attention. “Let them leave. They’re not a part of this family.”

Noelle’s eyes glass over, but she doesn’t fully cry. It’s not her style.

“Then I can’t turn my back on you either.” She ignores my mom. “You have room for one more?”

“Hell yeah,” I say.

She doesn’t say goodbye to my parents. Instead, she follows us to the truck. Mom goes inside, slamming the door behind her. After I buckle Emme in the back and climb up front, I glance back at our family’s vacation home like it’s the last time I’ll ever see it.

The shadowy outline of Mom’s figure hiding behind the front window curtain tells me she’s watching us leave.

I can only hope she’s learned as much from this moment as I have.

You fight for the ones you love.

Always.

Even if they’re not perfect.

Even if it scares you.

“Ready?” I take Calypso’s hand and interlace our fingers. The click of Noelle’s seatbelt comes from the backseat.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Noelle says.