Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Zara
I ran home as if someone had lit a fire under my ass. The motion helped shake off my tension and terror. Lengthening my strides, I ran along the road until I came back to my brother’s property. Running felt different now than it had before I became a mother. For starters, there was more of me than there used to be. As I neared The Gin Mill, I crossed my arms under my breasts to stop the bouncing .
So many things had changed in the last two years. And now I was terrified that another tectonic shift was underway, and I hadn’t seen it coming .
Breathing hard, I went around to the side of The Gin Mill building, where the private entrance was. But after I let myself in the door, I stood there at the bottom of the stairs, taking deep breaths. My mother was upstairs with Nicole, and they were expecting me. But I couldn’t go up there and panic in front of my child. And I was too stunned to level with my mother .
I sat down on the third stair and tried to calm down. The business card was still in my hand, so I studied it one more time .
David Beringer
The Brooklyn Bruisers
There was a line-drawing of a hockey stick and a puck. And a phone number and an email address. Benito—after all his efforts to help me search for Dave—would be fascinated to know how the hell my onetime hookup actually spelled his last name .
How unreal it felt to be holding this information in my hand. When I’d woken up this morning, it was with the belief that I’d never see Dave again. The moment before he’d walked into the coffee shop, my mind was on a dozen other things .
The last person I expected to see today was the one whose green eyes could always stare right through me. For a second there, I hadn’t even trusted my eyes. Two years . That’s how long it had been since I’d seen him last .
That first fall, when I was pregnant, I used to look for him in crowds. Whenever the door to The Mountain Goat opened during my bartending shifts, I’d felt a little flutter of expectation. I’d scan the men entering the bar, looking for a flash of red-brown hair and a sexy smile .
It never came. And eventually I’d stopped looking. Switching jobs broke me of the habit. I finally accepted that he wasn’t coming back, and I made my peace with it .
My family never did, though. They hated that I kept the details to myself. My older brothers and two Italian-American uncles—they all wanted to know whom to kill. Everyone wanted to take a piece out of the guy who’d “knocked me up,” as my uncles put it .
That phrase made me want to scream .
Dave had gone, and even Benito—my only confidante—hadn’t been able to find him. All we had was a first name, my crappy memory’s feeble attempts at his last name, and Brooklyn .
There are two and a half million people in Brooklyn. Quite a few Daves , too .
And anyway, getting pregnant by a stranger had been a pretty stupid thing to do. But it was my stupid thing. I forgot about Dave. Or—even if I couldn’t truly forget him—I’d stopped expecting him to reappear. As time wore on, I’d made my peace with the idea that he’d never know his child, and that a surprise child wouldn’t be welcome .
Seems I was right about that last thing .
Here I sat in the stairwell, going a little insane, while upstairs my child waited for the parent who loved her .
I stood up, shoving the business card in my pocket, and took one more deep breath. Then I climbed the stairs to the second floor. I opened the door to my brother’s mostly finished dwelling to find my mother seated at my kitchen table with Nicole in the clamp-on chair. There were Cheerios and carefully cut-up grapes on the plastic mat in front of the baby .
“Mama’s home!” my mother sang as I stepped into the room. “Say, ‘ Hi , Mama !’ ”
My baby girl opened her mouth and shrieked with joy .
“That also works,” Mom said with a laugh .
Even though Nicole was fifteen months old, she hadn’t spoken yet. I was starting to get worried, honestly. But the pediatrician said to wait a few more months before panicking .
The sight of my daughter’s face relaxed me. The tension I’d been carrying in my shoulders fell away as I walked across the room to kiss her on the top of the head. She lifted chubby arms to me, and I glanced at my mother. “Did she eat enough ?”
“This one always does,” Mom said cheerily .
I tucked my hands under Nicole’s arms and pulled her up to hug her. Since it was summertime, bare toes wiggled happily against my waist. “Hi, lady,” I whispered. “Did you take a good nap for Grandma ?”
“Good ish ,” my mother said. “Forty-five minutes .”
“Ah, well.” She’d be grumpy later, but then pass out promptly at bedtime. “Thank you,” I said to my mom. “You were a lifesaver today .”
“Stressful day?” she asked .
“Yeah.” You have no idea . But Mom was referring to the fact that The Busy Bean had lost electrical power that morning. Audrey and I had spent the day worrying about our refrigerated goods and leaning on friends for help. The problem hadn’t been resolved until an hour ago .
Silly me, I’d thought a power outage would be the most stressful thing that could have happened today. Then Dave showed up .
I felt like a jerk for not telling Mom about Dave’s sudden reappearance. The card he’d given me was burning a hole in my pocket. But I wasn’t ready to talk about it. I’d just given that man the shock of a lifetime, after he’d given me the same by walking into my coffee shop .
We were both allowed some kind of cooling-off period, right ?
The fact that Dave had brought up a lawyer right away chilled me. I’d almost bit the guy’s head off. But people don’t always say the right thing when they’re in shock. I was going to keep telling myself that. Please don’t be a dickhead , I privately begged. And if you are, it had better not be genetic .
My mother was wiping up bits of Nicole’s dinner from the table. “I’ll get the floor,” I said quickly. After each of Nicole’s meals, my kitchen looked as if a small food grenade had gone off in the proximity of her seat at the table .
“I got it,” Mom said, bending to swipe a wet paper towel across the wood floor. Mom had raised five children, mostly as a single mother. And now she put in more than twenty hours a week babysitting Nicole .
“Thank you,” I said with a sigh. I was looking forward to the day when my family would no longer have to do so much for me. I owed Benito for letting me live here until now. I owed Alec for renting me The Busy Bean at a below-market rate, and I owed Alec and Mom for many hours of free babysitting every week .
I was tired of owing my family. But I’d rather owe them forever than lawyer up and chase down Mr. David Beringer (spelled with an “e,” damn it!) for child support .
“Zara,” my mother said gently. “Is everything all right ?”
I chased the scowl off my face. “ Long day .”
“If you need more time, I could …”
“Nope, I’m good. Thanks for your help.” I bounced Nicole on my hip. One of her little hands was feeling up my left boob already. My baby wanted to nurse. I carried her over to Benito’s L-shaped sofa and sat down in our favorite corner .
“All right,” Mom said, grabbing her purse off the counter top. “Then I’m going to get to the post office before it closes .”
“Bye, Mom. Say, ‘Bye, Grandma!’” I prodded Nicole, hoping she’d give us a word at last .
Instead she grabbed at my shirt, on a mission for the boob .
My mother smiled at us and took her leave .
I tugged up my shirt and unclipped the cup of my nursing bra. “Have at it, champ .”
Nicole grabbed my boob in two hands and clamped herself on, her little mouth working immediately. Her eyes closed, and she leaned her soft cheek against my arm .
With wonder in my heart, I stared down at my baby girl. She drank milk out of a sippy cup now. Nursing wasn’t necessary anymore, really. But I wasn’t ready to give it up yet. In the early days, when I’d been so scared and tired and sure that I’d stink at motherhood, nursing was the thing that always made me feel calm. My child took daily sustenance from my body. And with the milk I gave her, she grew like crazy. And when she fussed, I’d bring her to my breast, and everything would be okay .
It still was, too. Nothing has changed , I reminded myself. It was still Nicole and me (and a half-dozen family members) against the world. Even if I never saw Dave again, we were still okay .