29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“It is said that a woman becomes a mother when she conceives a child, but a man becomes a father when he holds the child in his arms.”
A Young Woman’s Guide to the Joy of Impending Motherhood
Dr. Francine Pascal Reid (1941)
T he discovery of the baby books in J.B.’s room sent me into a tailspin for the rest of the day. J.B. was reading baby books—did that mean he wanted to be involved? Or was he looking into all the scary stuff that’s going on in my body and all the truly frightening aspects of life after the baby to justify running scared? I was so confused. I didn’t even want to hope. I didn’t know what to hope for!
But finding those books in J.B.’s room brought everything to a head and forced me to do something drastic. Something I do my best not to do more than once every few months.
I cleaned my apartment.
And I mean cleaned. I did the floors, the windows, the closets, and the cupboards. I disinfected Sebastian’s litter box and scrubbed the shower walls, all the while singing along at the top of my voice. I may be tone-deaf, but it stops me from thinking about anything, and at least I have a super-clean apartment.
About seven-thirty, I finally called it quits, because the only thing I had left to do was organize my clothes and I didn’t have the energy for that. But as soon as I turned off my stereo, I heard footsteps on the stairs. It was J.B.
“I think we need to talk,” he said, running a hand nervously through his hair. I leaned against the doorway between the living room and the kitchen and looked at him. He was barefoot, with his unattractive feet on display, wearing a battered pair of jeans and an AC/DC concert T-shirt that was once black, but age had faded it to an ugly grey-brown. He looked overdressed compared to me in my gym shorts and ratty T-shirt with holes under both arms and a slash across the front that exposed an inch of not-too-taut midriff. I suddenly realized I’d yet to shower today. I didn’t need a mirror to tell me I was looking pretty bad right now!
″You think?” I asked lightly, even though my heart was going a mile a minute. “Come in.”
As soon as J.B. sat down on the couch, Sebastian crawled over to him and started butting his hand with his head. J.B. looked around the room. “You tidied up.” There was a note of amazement in his voice.
″I do that every once in a while. What do you want to talk about?” There was no way I was going to make things easy for him. Not unless he’d come prepared to grovel, and grovel well.
J.B. cleared his throat. “I think I screwed things up,” he admitted slowly. I sat down and waited for him to continue. This definitely had the potential for groveling. “You having a baby—me having a baby—I wasn’t ready for it.”
″Nooo,” I said. “Sometimes it’s hard to be ready for that. That’s why they give you nine months to get used to the idea.”
″You seem to be fine with it.”
″I’m able to take responsibility for my actions,” I told him coolly.
J.B. winced. “I deserve that. Look, Casey, I’m sorry. I screwed up. You told me and I—I freaked out. I got angry and scared. I’m sorry. I’ve been an ass.”
″You have,” I admitted.
″The thought of having a kid freaks me out. It was worse than it was with Betsey—back then I was just pissed off. I was pissed off for about a minute when I thought you did it on purpose.”
″I would never do that.”
″I know. You didn’t hear me—I was only pissed off for about a minute before I realized you would never do that.”
″Good. I wouldn’t do that. ”
″I know. And then I practically forced you to marry me—I don’t know what I was thinking.”
″Me caveman, you pregnant woman?” I suggested lightly.
″Yeah, maybe,” he said with a little chuckle. “I know you can take care of yourself—you’ve been doing it forever—but I thought that you thought I needed to do that.”
″I don’t.”
″Yes, I know. Why didn’t you tell me about David?” he asked abruptly. “You made it seem that the two of you were all hot and heavy and I was standing in your way for your ‘one chance at happiness.’ And then you lay it all out last weekend about him being gay?”
I blinked with surprise at the sudden switch of topic and at J.B. quoting me—it’s exactly what I said the morning after David stepped back into my life, when I was convinced he was part of my future and I had no idea Italian Stallion Marco existed.
″You make it sound like he’s some sort of criminal,” I protested.
″This is nothing about his sexuality,” J.B. roared. Well, not roared like a lion roars, but almost a shout. I blinked with surprise again. “I couldn’t give a damn about that! I’m pissed because you made me feel like shit because I screwed things up between the two of you. I beat him to the post, or whatever stupid thing you said. And now you tell me he’s gay, so there wasn’t any hope to begin with for the two of you.”
″Well, no,” I said meekly. “I mean, yes, I said that, and yes, he’s gay. But I didn’t know that when I first went out with him.”
″The first time twenty years ago, or the first time a couple of weeks ago?”
″Both. He told me the day after I kissed him and he didn’t kiss me back.”
″So you knew he was gay when you got pregnant?”
″Well, yeah,” I admitted. “When I found out I was pregnant. I can’t believe Coop didn’t tell you this.”
″He didn’t. What was the point of making me feel I was in the way?”
″Well, you were. Sort of.” Okay, I’m not supposed to be the one feeling guilty about anything here. I could see a thundercloud of annoyance and confusion pass across J.B.’s face, and I hurried to explain. “David wants a baby too, so he asked me if I would have a baby for him. Or rather, with him. He thought we would raise it together. He would be the father, and I would be the mother. ”
″I get how that works, thanks.”
″And I was trying to decide if that’s what I wanted to do—when I got pregnant. When I found out I was pregnant,” I corrected. “By you. Or with you, whatever the proper grammar is. So David and I couldn’t have a baby together, so technically you did get in the way. I guess I should have told you this, but—I was kind of pissed off at you, you know! And I didn’t want to hear you say, ‘I told you so.’ So I didn’t say anything about it to you.”
A snort of what might have been laughter came from J.B., and with it some of the fire and brimstone that had been blowing out his ears. He sat down on the chair across from me. “So you keep me in the dark about this guy, make me go on thinking that the two of you are all hot and heavy and he’s probably going to be the one raising my baby, all because you’re pissed off at me? Do you know how pissed off I was this last couple of weeks—thinking about the two of you? Thinking that you’re making all these plans about my baby and I wasn’t going to have any say in it?”
I bit my lip. Suddenly I thought back to that night when J.B. told me he hated thinking about me kissing anyone else. If he got that upset just thinking about a kiss, then he must have been going crazy with all this running through his head. No wonder…
″I’m sorry,” I whispered. This was not how I had pictured the groveling part of it!
″I thought he was taking both of you,” J.B. said gruffly to the cat curled up in his lap. “Were you going to have a baby with him?”
″I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “I talked to Coop and he didn’t think it was a good idea, but you have to admit it was the perfect solution. It would have got me the man and the baby without having to deal with the rest of the stuff.”
″Some people want the rest of the stuff, you know.”
″I know. I just want to be a mother. I want a baby and now I’m having one, and no matter what you feel about it, I’m so happy I can just cry.”
″You doing a lot of crying these days?”
″I’m hormonal,” I told him stiffly. “Get used to it.”
″Yeah, well, I guess I better,” he muttered. And yet again, I blinked with surprise.
″What’s that supposed to mean?”
″It means, you want me to prove something to you, I will. I’ll prove that I can take responsibility for things and that I want this in my life. I’ll prove that I’m not a complete selfish asshole. ”
″I don’t really think you are,” I admitted faintly. “I just think there are some assholic tendencies that flew out there for a bit. But, J.B., I can do this on my own. I want to.”
″You don’t want me involved?” J.B. asked stiffly.
I shrugged helplessly. He sounded serious, like he really meant it. I know he’s not an asshole, and deep down, I think he would make a good father, despite what he might think. Of course I would want him to be involved, but I don’t want him to take part because he feels some obligation, some pity for me. I want him to want it.
But then I think about the baby books up in his room. I had to assume he was reading them, or else they made a handy nightstand.
″I do want you involved,” I told him simply, with my hand back on my belly. “But—”
J.B. gave my hand a squeeze. “I’ll prove it to you,” he vowed, all very serious-like. “I’ll show you this is what I want. Okay?”
″Okay,” I whispered, with a sudden, fervent wish that J.B. would kiss me right then.
But he didn’t.