38. Easiest Thing I’ve Ever Done
38
Easiest Thing I’ve Ever Done
Truth Serum
Pour a shot of vodka, a shot of triple sec, a shot of Midori, a shot of blue curacao into a highball glass with ice. Add a dash of absinthe. Top up the glass with lemonade and stir.
DANNY
“ W hy the fuck does it smell like a bar in here?”
I cracked open a bleary eye. Lucie was sitting up on the bed, her bare legs dangling over the side. It had to be early morning because although it was still dark outside the window, I could hear a jay calling from the tree on the other side of the glass. When she set her toes on the floor, I jumped to my feet.
“What are you doing?” I asked, putting out a hand to steady her but stopping short of touching her. “The nurse said to call before you get up.”
“I can make it to the bathroom by myself. And it’s you who smells like beer.” She wrinkled her nose.
I supported her as she shuffled toward the tiny bathroom. “I dropped one on myself, remember?”
“You haven’t been home?” she glanced up at me.
“I didn’t want to leave you here alone.”
She continued her slow steps. “I feel like I got hit by a car.”
“You pushed a seven-pound, five-ounce human out of your body. That’s a pretty traumatic experience.”
She paused at the doorway. “You were traumatized?”
“No, no. Of course not. I meant, it had to be hard on your body. I was glad to be here. Thank you for including me.”
She stared down at the linoleum. “Ugh!” She wiped under her eyes. “These hormones are killing me.” She closed the door.
I waited outside while she used the bathroom, listening for any sounds of distress. She groaned and cursed but didn’t call for help. After a while, she emerged, smelling like toothpaste. I offered her my arm, and she took it as she scuffed back to the bed.
“Good morning.” A new nurse wheeled in the bassinet with our baby in it. The tiny thing squeezed her eyes shut, making a breathless, huffing cry. “Someone’s hungry. Want to try feeding her?”
“Okay,” Lucie said warily, easing herself back into the bed. The top of it was already raised, and she leaned back and untied the top of the gown.
“Want me to wait outside?” I asked.
“You don’t have to. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”
She was wrong. I remembered my mother breastfeeding the twins, and Giuliana before that, but watching Lucie feed our child was like nothing I’d ever seen. She approached it with the same intensity I’d seen her use when working on her book. Lucie strived to be the best at everything, including breastfeeding. After some work with the nurse positioning the baby and after a few frustrated curses, Lucie stilled.
“You’ve got it.” The nurse made some notes on a tablet. “I’ll wait until you’re done to check your vitals.”
“That’s…weird,” Lucie said, looking down at our daughter, who’d finally quieted.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. It’s a strange feeling.”
“It’s been a few months of strange feelings, I bet.”
She chuckled. “A hundred percent.”
“Are you hungry?” I asked. “You should eat too.”
“Food service will come by soon,” the nurse said. “Be sure to ask for a tray for Dad too.”
Dad. The name sent a happy shiver through me. I reached out to touch our daughter’s foot through the blanket that covered her.
After the nurse walked out, Lucie said, “You can go home, you know, and get some rest. We’ll be fine here. There’s plenty of people to look after me.”
A chill replaced the warmth from a moment earlier. “You don’t want me here?”
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay. I’ve been an ass to you. I don’t want you to stay out of a sense of obligation.”
“It’s not obligation. There’s no place I’d rather be right now.” The baby kicked my hand. I held on to her toes.
“I don’t think I’ll be doing this again.” She tipped her chin at the baby. “I’m one and done.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m going to keep working. I…I finished my book. I’ll send it to my editor when I get home. And when my maternity leave is up, I’m going back to work at the paper.”
“That’s excellent news about your book.” Pride swelled inside me, but I wouldn’t dream of telling her I was proud of her. I didn’t want her to think I was diminishing her achievement by taking any credit for it. Not like her dad did. “And you shouldn’t give up your work. It’s too important.”
“I like living where we live. I love Barb’s. I hate the suburbs.”
“Understood.” Where was she going with this? I opened my mouth to ask, but there was a commotion in the hallway. Leo walked in with a sack from Dolci Momenti. The buttery, sweet aroma of pastry instantly covered the stale beer, sweat, and antiseptic smells in the room.
He took one look at Lucie and clapped his hand over his eyes. “Sorry!”
My mother bumped into his back, then shoved him aside. “Don’t be childish. Everyone in a five-mile radius is going to see Lucie’s boobs. Baby’s got to eat. How are you, Lucie?”
“I’m okay.” She tried to arrange her gown to hide her breast and failed. “Even more in awe of you now. You pushed out five of these?”
“Not all at once.” Mom winked. “The secret is pregnancy amnesia. You’ll forget how terrible it is by this time next year.”
Lucie shuddered. “I don’t think I will.”
Giuliana came around to the side of the bed where I was standing and peered at the baby. “Who does she look like?”
I exchanged a mystified look with Lucie. “I don’t know,” I said. “She looks like herself.”
Tony hip-checked me to the side. “I hope she looks like Lucie. Everyone knows I’m the good-looking one in this family.” He leaned over the bed to stare too.
“What’s going on in here?” The nurse stood in the doorway, hands on her hips. “Only three visitors are allowed at a time.”
“We’re family!” my mother said.
“It’s true,” Lucie said, shocking the hell out of me. “I don’t mind.”
“It’s hospital policy,” the nurse insisted.
Tony shot her his dazzling smile. “We’ll work out shifts. Just give us a minute, okay?”
She blinked. “I’ll be back in five to check.”
“Looking forward to it.” He winked.
Knowing none of my family would leave the room voluntarily, I pulled him and Giuliana away from the bed. “Give Lucie some space. You can ogle the baby later.”
“She’s asleep,” Lucie said. “Mrs. Carbone, would you like to hold her?”
Faster than I’d have thought possible, the baby was in my mother’s arms. She gazed down at her. “She has Lucie’s nose and mouth. We’ll have to wait for her to wake up to see her eyes.”
“They both have magnificent hair,” Elena said. She peeled back the baby’s pink cap. “And so does she. What’s her name?”
Cold prickles erupted in my belly. “I…I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it. Lucie, do you know what you want to call her?”
Her eyebrows scrunched together. “No. But we’ll figure it out.”
My lips curled up in a tentative smile. I liked that we.
“Can you come here?” Lucie asked.
I shuffled past Giuliana and Tony to get to her side. She held out her hand, and I stared at it, shocked, for a moment. Then I took it.
“Danny, I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the past nine months.”
My chest felt tight. We were here because of one of those mistakes. Was she regretting it all? “I’m sor?—”
“Let me finish. Please. What I’m trying to say is that I’m going to keep making mistakes. And goddammit, I’m going to hate it every time I do. However. I’m learning to accept that I’m never going to be the world’s best mother. I can only try to be the best mother I can be. The best person I can be.”
“You’re already a great person,” I said.
She snorted. “Even at forty years old, I’m a work in progress. But I…I love that you’re so confident in me. That you accept me for who I am. That you’re fucking here for me. I?—”
“Oh, wow, I didn’t expect a party.” Lucie’s friend Savannah squeezed in with a gigantic bouquet of sunflowers. Carly and Tessa followed. They beelined to Lucie and hugged her. When they jostled me out of the way, I lost contact with Lucie’s hand.
It was okay. She’d want her friends. I took the vase of flowers from Savannah and set them on the windowsill. I wished I’d thought to get her flowers. I could slip out and run downstairs to the hospital gift shop. No one would even notice I was gone in all the noise. I edged behind Savannah and Giuliana, but the nurse barred my way.
“More people?” she thundered. “Here. At least wear these.” She held out a fistful of surgical masks.
I took them from her. “Sorry, we’ve got a lot of family. I’ll step out for a minute.”
“No. Stop.” Lucie’s voice rang out clear over the others. “Danny, come here. I’m not done. Tessa, scoot over and let him through.”
Not done? Shit, what was she going to say? My feet didn’t want to move, but my siblings’ hands pushed me to her bedside. Someone snatched the masks from me. Smirking, Tessa grabbed my shoulders and shoved me to sit on the bed beside Lucie.
“Sorry, I—” I tried to stand, but Lucie grabbed my hand and pinned me in place. This close, I could see the shadows under her eyes. She needed rest, not a million people squeezed into her tiny hospital room. When she kicked me out, I’d take my family with me and make them wait until the baby was home from the hospital to visit.
Her hand was cold and a little dry, so I rubbed warmth into it.
“Danny.” She squeezed my hand. “What I’m trying to say is?—”
“Lucie,” a voice boomed. “Who are all these people?”
Rolling her eyes, she muttered, “Fucking wonderful.” Then louder, “Hi, Dad. Hi, Mom. These are my friends. And family.”
Despite the Jack and Coke we’d shared last night, Marvin’s—Dr. Knox’s—presence prickled at my back. I could feel his judgment and indignation that Lucie had claimed my undereducated, lower-class family for her child.
But she carried on. “Carrie’s got the baby. You can hold her in a minute. Put on a mask first. I have something I need to say to Danny.”
Her brown eyes blazed. “Danny, what I’ve been trying to say is that I appreciate you. All the things you do for me. How you keep coming back, no matter how hard I try to push you away. That you still like me even though I’m far from perfect.”
“No one’s perfect,” I said, “but you’re pretty close.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s what I’m talking about. You willingly delude yourself about me, and I don’t understand why.”
One corner of my mouth quirked up. “You’re the smartest person I know. You know why. It’s because I love you. I see all the good parts of you, even the ones you can’t.”
“Goddammit, Danny. Why is that so easy for you?”
“What, falling for you? Easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
“No. Saying it.” She took a deep breath and held my hand tighter. “I love you too, Danny Carbone.”
My head swam like the crowd of people had sucked all the oxygen from the room. “You…you do?”
“Yes.” She lifted her other hand to my cheek. It was cool enough to steady me. “And I want us to be a family.”
My gaze caught on her plastic hospital bracelet. “Is this the hormones talking, or do you really want that?”
“It’s true, my hormones are super fucked-up right now. But I can’t imagine living the rest of my life without you in it. I’m a better person with you than I am without you. I want to be my best self for you, and for her.”
“Jesus Christ.” I surged forward. My mom tutted at my curse, but I didn’t care. I hugged Lucie and kissed her temple.
“Come on,” she murmured in my ear. “I may be a mother now, but I’m not your mother. You can do better than that.”
I pulled back far enough that I could kiss her lips. Gently, since there were still a dozen people in the room and she’d just been through a grueling physical ordeal. But she didn’t want gentle. She tunneled her hands into my hair and yanked, then crushed me to her. I deepened the kiss, no longer caring about our audience. I shoved my hands between her back and the rough hospital sheets and gathered her to my chest.
Leo’s whistle, muffled behind his mask, broke into my focus. Reluctantly, I pulled away and stared into her eyes. “Really? You want me? I’ve still got the ring back at my place.”
“I want you,” she said. “No ring, no wedding, no house in the suburbs. Just you, me, and…Mia. What do you think?”
The muttering in the room stopped. Behind me, Savannah sucked in a breath.
My heart swelled in my chest. “It’s a beautiful name. Almost as beautiful as she is.”
Savannah whooshed out a breath.
My mother announced, “A good Italian name. Now, what about a middle name? My mother’s name was Paulina, but maybe you have a family name you’d like to use, Ellen and Marvin?”
They could argue about her middle name all they wanted. I didn’t care. All I cared about was that Lucie wanted me. Loved me. Wanted to be with me. Forever.