Olivia (24 page)

“
Keep up, old man,” Dad’s little
brother teases him.

“
It’s gonna take a second to
process this. I mean, congratulations!” Dad first shakes his hand,
but then both he and my uncle stand to hug one another. “Grandpa,”
Dad teases.

Lexi and Kyle catch us all off guard, coming in
quietly through the front door. “Dad!” she yells, hearing my father
taunting hers.

“
It was a complete accident, Lex, I
swear,” Steven explains. “Kaydra told Livvy that she was
pregnant... and I thought she’d told her
you
were. It’s all good news!”

“
I don’t care who told me!” I
interrupt their argument. “I can’t believe you’re going to be a mom
already!” I hug her, careful not to squeeze too tight. She’s not
showing at all. “When are you due?”

“
In about six months.”

“
And Kaydra?” I ask, diverting my
attention back to my uncle.

“
She’s due a month
earlier.”

Lexi’s husband helps her with her coat, handing it
to my dad when he gets up to give her a hug. “We have a lot of
celebrating to do today,” he laughs, shaking Kyle’s hand in
congratulations.

“
Why so soon?” I ask Lexi quietly
as we move to sit on the couch next to her dad. “I mean, your
musical...” She had been doing off-broadway since she graduated,
but got a part in a major broadway production two months
ago.

“
I’ll just have to put it off for a
bit. Juilliard offered me a permanent position at the school, so
I’m going to do that. It has great benefits, and I still get to be
around music every day.”

“
Broadway was your dream,
though.”

“
This was my dream, too, Livvy. We
want children. We just didn’t think it would be this easy.” They
got married in July.
They got pregnant the next
month?
I start to feel queazy.

I hope my forced smile is good enough, but I can’t
fathom having children so young. Dad was more than ten years older
than Lexi is when he adopted me. And my uncle–who’s
six years
younger than my dad–is going to be a
grandfather.

My head is spinning. “I’ll be right back.” I squeeze
my cousin’s hand as I get up and head straight to the back door to
go outside for some fresh air.

Sitting on the patio steps, I revel in the cold wind
that whips against my skin, waiting for the reality to settle in. I
turn around when I hear the patio door open.

“
Can I join you?” my dad
asks.

“
Please do,” I say, scooting over
so he can sit next to me.

“
You okay?” he laughs.

“
Just shocked. How can it take you
and Mom, what, seven years to conceive a child? And it takes Lexi a
month?”

He laughs at my naïvety, but suddenly becomes very
serious. He swallows hard, looking me in the eyes. “It only takes
one time, Tessa.” I duck my head into my knees, feeling the blush
rise up to my cheeks.

“
I know, Dad,” I mumble.

“
Okay. I’m glad you know.” We’re
both silent as crisp leaves dance around the backyard. I look up,
keeping my eye trained on one particular red one that stands out
from the rest. “How can my little brother be a grandfather
already?” He runs his hand through his hair. “I’m not that old,
Liv,” he says, as if trying to convince me.

“
You’re forty-nine, Dad, and your
twin’s a grandmother. Did you know that Granna would have been a
grandmother at forty-nine? If their baby had lived?”

“
No,” he says. “I didn’t realize
that. Shit,” he says, suddenly stunned. I look at my father,
surprised at his language. He never cusses. “Sorry, but I’m going
to be fifty next year. I
am
that
old.”

My heart aches at the thought of Dad getting older.
I shake my head at him as my emotions get the best of me. I tear up
and give him a quick hug, partly because I want to be close to him,
and partly because I don’t want him to see me crying. “I swear to
you, Dad,” I say with conviction, “you will not be a grandfather
before sixty. It just won’t happen.”

“
Now, don’t make promises you can’t
keep–”

“
That’s an easy one to keep, Dad. I
can’t imagine being a mom.”

“
Well, just because you can’t
imagine it now doesn’t mean it won’t happen. I mean, I hope you
have a long time to enjoy being an adult without immediately
transitioning into being responsible for someone else’s childhood.
That’s a big leap, in a short amount of time.”

“
You mean Lexi?” He
nods.

“
Even I couldn’t imagine being a
father at 25.”

“
Kelly was a mom at 21.”

“
And I told her she was out of her
mind,” he adds quickly. “I’ve never been more happy to be wrong
about something, though. She’s been an incredible mother to those
kids. But even she wonders what more she could have accomplished if
she’d waited.”

“
But Dad, she’s accomplished so
much with them. She’s got her own successful bakery.”

“
She wouldn’t have been able to do
that on her own, though,” he says. “I did that for her. It was as
close to the dream as she could get.”

“
What did she want?”

“
She wanted to be a professional
chef. She had enrolled in culinary school. She was good... but she
was in love. Madly in love,” he laughs. “Thomas really wanted to
start a family. So she gave up her dream.”

“
Lexi has to do the same,” I tell
him, feeling sorry for my cousin, even though she doesn’t seem sad
about it.

“
Hopefully it’s just a
postponement. She’s too talented to limit her audience to the
babies she sings lullabies to.”

“
Yeah,” I say with a quiet laugh.
“Lucky babies, though.”

Dad smiles and nudges my knee with his. “I don’t
want you to ever give up on your ambitions, Livvy. There’s plenty
of time for relationships, and marriage, and babies... but your
life is just starting.”

“
Dad–”

“
Jon seems to have a good head on
his shoulders and he knows his own personal goals,” he says, “but I
worry he’s not the best influence on you these days.”

“
Dad, is this about the
painting?”

“
Among other things. I just can’t
help but think that things are moving really fast. I mean, I see
that promise ring on your finger, and I remember how quickly that
was put there. You two don’t need to rush into
anything.”

“
We’re not, Dad.” He looks at me
sideways, and I can see his doubt. I can’t look him in the eye when
I repeat my response. “We’re not.”

“
I’m not sure I believe you,
Tessa,” he says, looking down at his hands as he plays with his own
wedding ring.

Before I have to lie again, someone else comes out
on the patio. My uncle Matty is impeccably dressed in clothes
better suited for his hometown of LA than for the cold winter
that’s settling over Manhattan. “Little Liv!” my uncle
exclaims.

I stand up quickly to give him a hug, and hear Dad
stand up behind me. He walks past us, and I barely hear his quiet
utterance as he pats his brother on the back. “And here’s part of
the reason I don’t believe you.”

I stare after my dad, watching him go into the
house.

“
What was that about?” Matty
asks.

“
I told him Jon and I weren’t
rushing into anything...” Matty understands what I’m referring to.
“And he said he doesn’t believe me, and that you’re part of the
reason, apparently.” My heart stops beating for a second. “Did you
tell him, Matty?”

“
No, no, of course I didn’t tell
him, Liv! What happened in Mykonos stayed there. I
promise.”

“
Well, then... why would he say
that?”

Matty takes a seat on the patio step and looks out
over the yard. “It’s not that he didn’t ask me, point blank–because
he did. Maybe he doesn’t believe me?”

I rush down the steps to stand in front of him,
worried. “What did you say?”

“
I said, ‘I’m her uncle, who do you
think I am?’ And then he said something to the effect of, ‘clearly
she would have been better off with her uncle Steven.’ What do you
think that was supposed to mean?”

“
Steven
?
Who raised the daughter who remained a virgin until the age of
twenty-five
when she got married?” I
slouch down next to my uncle on the step, once again putting my
head into my hands.

“
Well, you made it two-thirds of
the way, Liv,” he says as an obvious joke that I don’t find funny.
“Not bad in my book.” He puts his arm around me, giving me a
reassuring hug. “He knows nothing for certain. Don’t worry about
it.”

“
Why would he even ask you,
though?”

“
He said that none of us could look
him in the eyes when he showed up that morning in
Greece.”

“
That’s probably true,” I concede
with a sigh.

“
But again, honey. Anything he
thinks happened is just an assumption on his part. I’m not going to
say anything. Ever. I mean, after all, I don’t really know if
anything happened, anyway. That’s an assumption on my part,
too.”

“
Right,” I mumble.

“
Where is Jon today? I expected him
to be right by your side, all day.”

I tell Matty about his situation. My mom eventually
comes out on the patio with us, listening to our conversation.

“
Matty, what did Livvy think about
your news?” she asks.

“
What, you’re pregnant, too?” I
joke with my uncle.

“
Ha.”

“
Matty’s going to move in with us
for awhile,” she says.

“
What? Why?”

“
The show’s on an indefinite
hiatus,” he explains, “and there’s really nothing for me in
California anymore.” I hear a tinge of sadness in his voice. “I’m
going to stay in the guest room while I look for a place of my own
here. And I’m going to help your mom at the Art Room.”

“
Really?” I ask, looking
expectantly at my mother. I can see the relief on her face and in
her posture. She nods quickly with a smile. “That’s
perfect.”

“
Mommy?” Trey interrupts us, poking
his head out of the back door. “Daniel won’t let me watch the
parade.”

“
Did you talk to Daddy?” she
asks.

“
He said to talk to
you.”

“
That doesn’t sound like Daddy,”
Mom mumbles, getting up out of her chair and following my brother
inside. “Let’s go see what they’re up to.”

“
Well, if he’s letting you stay
with us, Dad must still trust you a little.”

He cringes a little, as if keeping something from
me. “Now Liv, that’s just an assumption on your part. It’s
impossible for me to get into trouble when I’m living right under
his nose. Literally.”

“
I guess you’re right.”

When dinner is served, Lexi and Kyle sit at the
“adult” table with my parents, her parents, Clara’s mom, Jen, and
her husband, Brian. Matty stays with me, Clara, Lexi’s brothers and
Trey. It’s sad. When Lexi got married, I never thought she’d be so
quick to move beyond us. Clara and I commiserate together. Her
current boyfriend had flown home to be with his parents.

Just after dinner, most of the family scatters to
other commitments or different sides of the house. Clara and I
retreat to my bedroom–after my cousin has grabbed a beer out of the
basement fridge. “If you drink fast, I’ll get you one,” she offers.
I decline it, though, disliking the taste.

“
Can you believe Lexi’s going to
have a baby?” she asks me.

“
No, I’m in denial,” I tell her. “I
know that she’s quite a few years older than me, but I still feel
like we grew up together, you know? The thought of babies freaks me
out.”

“
Yeah,” Clara says. “But she’ll be
a good mom. You can tell. Now if it was me...”

“
That’s not even something I could
imagine, Clara. You? A mom?”

“
Someday, Liv,” she says, sounding
offended.

“
Well, yeah, but not now. Not
anytime remotely close to now. Right?”

“
Oh, definitely not. If I got
pregnant now, I’d have an abortion.” Her bluntness about this
catches me off-guard.

“
Really?”

“
Totally. What would you do?” she
asks.

“
Ummm... I wouldn’t get pregnant,”
I tell her.

“
Oh, I didn’t realize you and Jon
were abstinent.” Her flippant comment is meant to be sarcastic, and
it’s not lost on me.

“
No, but we’ve been extra careful
when we have done it in the past.”

“
It’s easy to get carried away,” my
cousin warns me. “It’ll happen to you.”

“
No, it won’t,” I tell her
defensively. “We aren’t stupid.”

“
You’re calling me
stupid?”

“
If you’re being careless, maybe,”
I answer. “Jon and I have a lot of things we want to do before we
have to be faced with such heavy decisions.”

“
What, like you have to graduate
from high school?”

“
Well, that’s a pretty high
priority, but no. We have dreams about school and
careers.”