Chapter 33 Namesake
Davey
I watched as the ultrasound tech swirled around Eva’s stomach, displaying one set of perfect features and then another.
I couldn’t tell the two apart other than when the tech pointed out situational geography.
I fell head-over-heels for noses and faces of people I didn’t know but had contributed to.
Eva sobbed openly for forty minutes, swearing repeatedly that these were happy tears.
We left with two sets of pictures of babies who remained perfect, healthy, and measuring well. Eva cried the entire way back to my place. Or was it our place now? She’d certainly been angry at Derrick for infringing on her space this weekend. Her space.
“We really need to buy some baby things,” Eva sniffled, adjusting her shirt to cover her stomach.
It was the first time she attempted actual clothes in three days and—seemingly overnight—nothing fit.
“Eva, we need to buy you some clothes as well as baby things,” I said.
She glared, knowing I was right.
“This weekend, we can go,” I said.
“I’m fine.”
“Eva, you cannot live in my t-shirts and yoga pants rolled down. Cute as you are—and you are very cute—it would flagrantly thwart dress code.”
“I don’t get a pass?” Eva sighed.
“Nope. You get lots of passes, but this one… even your cute little ass isn’t getting away with it.”
“Fine this weekend. But not right now. Right now, I want to nap for three straight hours.”
“I won’t stop you. I am glad you took a day off, my love.”
“What do you have today?” Eva asked.
“Uh, I have a meeting with GC and then I’m going out to lunch with Carlos and Joe,” I said.
“You didn’t bro out enough this weekend?” Eva giggled.
“Nope.”
The car lurched to a stop and the photos flew from Eva’s hands.
“Sorry,” the driver called. “Standstill.”
“It’s okay.” I picked them up.
“Oh my God! She had it?”
“Who had what?” I asked, finding Eva engrossed in her phone.
“Daphne had the baby,” Eva said. “A good labor Cal says. Seven pounds, two ounces. Look at this face.”
I stared at the face of my new niece and held up the ultrasound photos. There was a stark resemblance.
“She’s one of us,” I chuckled. “Sweet. Does she have a name?”
“Cordelia Alma Delphine-Markham. I love that they’re hyphenating it. Then she has both sides.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “People won’t even bother to remember the Delphine part. Mum is Carlisle-Delphine. She’s still just Lady Danna Delphine.”
“Well, that’s a shame. I didn’t know that.”
“I mean, our kids will be Delphines.”
“Says who?” Eva chuckled. “Davey, they will come out of my body. We aren’t married.”
My jaw dropped.
“Oh, I am sorry straight man, but you aren’t guaranteed naming rights. You cannot even buy them. The twins aren’t a stadium. They are people.”
“Eva, you must be joking. They are Delphines. They will be known that way.”
“They will be?” Eva set her jaw and ripped her phone away. “David, you don’t own them.”
“No one owns them, but I do claim them,” I protested. “Baby, they’re my children.”
“They’re my children, too. And I have no guarantees.”
“No one has. I could marry you tomorrow and something awful—God forbid—could befall us, Eva!”
“But you wouldn’t anyhow.”
“Eva, you won’t even say ‘I love you’, so what am I supposed to think?”
“That’s not fair!”
“Neither is wanting me to say ’sure, Eva, let’s get hitched even though you can’t bring yourself to say three little words to me’.” As the words left my mouth, I knew I was wrong.
Eva pulled back, voice defiant and masking hurt. “It was a point I was making. I know you have no desire to marry me. It’s fine.”
“At this moment? No. I think we’re both smart enough to put the immediate issues of pregnancy and the business up front and worry about silly things like wedding on the way back burner. But I never said I’d not consider it.”
“Uh-huh!” she sounded near tears and stared outside for the final three blocks.
Painful silence overcame me. Why couldn’t I make it a day without saying something wrong?
It was one step forward, two steps back with us.
I was hurt and desperate to hear her say it.
I needed to be patient but wanted it so badly.
It would be permanent—final. Hearing she wasn’t even convinced the babies would have my last name made it hurt worse.
We reached our building. Eva got out without another word. There was no goodbye kiss or pleasantry. She was hurt. Even the driver knew to say nothing. I filed back into work, texted my sister to see if I could send a birth announcement, and sat through a mind-numbingly boring meeting with legal.
I took lunch at the tennis club with my buddies. It had been weeks since we’d all been together in the same space. Things got harder with children, but it was good to be back together.
“You started the beard again?” I asked Carlos.
“Yeah. It’s that time of year,” Carlos said.
“I tried. Eva shut me down. Apparently every type of beard oil known to man makes her want to vomit right now.”
“Pregnancy is fucked,” Joe said. “How is she?”
“Good, I guess. The babies are coming along.”
“I still cannot fucking believe you, man,” Carlos snickered. “How the fuck did you end up in this bind?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it doesn’t seem to get easier.”
“Oh, yes, newborns are notoriously easy. Who would have thought otherwise?” Joe teased.
“No, I mean, everything is a fucking social minefield. Everything from circumcision down to what night nurse we use is an argument. Then, there’s their names.
She refuses to discuss first names because we just fight.
Okay, fine. Well, Daphne had her baby girl this morning.
Eva argued with me over the last name—like it wasn’t a fucking given that the boys would have mine. ”
“Oh, Daph had the baby?” Joe asked. “Good for her and Cal.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “Good, but they hyphenated the damn name.”
“Well, I mean, given your sister is a Delphine, they fucking would.”
“Joe, c’mon,” I groaned. “We aren’t that different.”
“You are,” Carlos laughed. “And this girl has you over a barrel.”
“I know,” Joe said. “She’s pretty, but what the fuck, man? She’s living in your house, spending your money, and she’s not willing to let you have the last name? That’s some shit, man.”
“My advice?” Carlos said. “Wait her out. If you fight about it now, she will just dig in. These things work out, but fighting with a woman—especially a pregnant lady—is a losing game.”
“Wait until she gives birth. She’ll be too tired to argue.”
“You do not know Eva, Joe. Eva could fight me over whether the sky is blue any given day.”
“Then why stay with her? You don’t have to,” Joe said.
“Because I love her.”
“Love her?” Carlos slapped his knee.
“Fuck, man! You barely know her,” Joe added. “Who are you?”
“I dunno. She drives me crazy, but when I finally get her number and think I have her all to myself, it’s glorious. Then, she pulls away. Why the fuck won’t she just say it back? It’s got to be some sort of sick power move, right?”
“Nah,” Carlos sighed. “You’re just too fresh in it and it sounds like your girl is a little scared. She’s fine. She will come around. When I worry about my wife fighting me on something for an eternity, I know it’s best to drop the rope—especially with the kids.”
“That must take a lot of self-control—something I lack,” I sighed. “I panic and fly off the handle. She’s not like any other woman I’ve been with. I cannot outsmart or outargue her. I cannot buy her off, either. She wants an all-out grovel and even my best doesn’t seem like enough most days.”
“I don’t understand this woman. Doesn’t she want to have an easy life?” Joe asked.
“She doesn’t want to sit around eating bon-bons.
She slept on my office couch part of Friday night so she could manage a tech thing with her team—and so our CISO could go home to her young children.
She is the most motivated person I know—like Daphne.
You know what is BS? Eva got the birth announcement from Cal and not me. ”
“You haven’t laid hands on him lately?” Joe teased.
I glared. “Of course not!”
Joe shook his head. “I don’t get her. She should realize how lucky she is that you even want to try to make it work. I know I wouldn’t.”
Carlos butted in. “That would make you look like a dick. Look man, I see two people who were thrown into a situation Joe and I had time to adjust to. I don’t see an ungrateful person not getting how lucky she is.
I got told that shit all the time when I went to college, you know?
Oh, aren’t you so lucky to have made it?
Yeah, well, I still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I do know those people only see me as an outsider and don’t value me.
Davey, she’s not like you. She’s adjusting to all of this.
And you? You’re barely out of your fuck up era. ”
“My fuck up era? You mean like the one where I had a random hookup with a beautiful girl at a bar and got her pregnant?” I sighed. “With twins, no less? Or the one where I accidentally fucked my sister’s direct report and knocked her up with twins?”
“Both. But you’re trying,” Carlos said. “It will work out. Those kids are yours. If she didn’t love you, she wouldn’t even bother sticking around. Like you said, she doesn’t want or need your money. She’s with you, for you.”