12. Kayla
Months passed, and it felt as if they were gone in the blink of an eye. Somehow, at the same time, they were crawling past as slowly as a glacier melting. Kayla had always been stubborn to a fault, and so often throughout her life, it had been classed as a bad thing. But honestly, she didn’t know how she would have made it through till now without being as stubborn as a mule. Somehow, her “worst” trait had seen her through.
Quitting a stable career to go back to school and start from scratch in a different field had been hard. Working as a server to make whatever connections she could in various restaurants had been hard. Being seven months pregnant was hard. Doing all of it, with one thing stacked on top of the other… It was amazing that she still had her sanity intact.
But there was a flip side to all of the work and late nights and nausea and aching feet and studying. She was so darn proud of herself that sometimes it made it all feel like none of it was hard at all. The feeling of floating on cloud nine didn’t always last very long, and more than once, there had been tears in various bathrooms and a feeling that the persistent nausea that had plagued her pregnancy was going to knock her backwards at any given moment… But even with all of it on her shoulders, she kept trudging forward. She knew her future self would be grateful for it, especially when she was already kind of grateful for it all in the here and now. Besides, if her mom could do it, then so could she. There had been a precedent set, so even if sometimes it all felt impossible, Kayla had living proof in the form of Liz Harvey that it was doable. Not easy, but possible.
Though no amount of pride was going to make her financial situation any easier.
She was sitting at her mom’s kitchen table… well, now it was her kitchen table too. A lot of people would balk at the thought of moving back in with your mother at thirty-two, but with a decreased income and a baby on the way, Liz had pretty much insisted she move back in, and Kayla didn’t have to be told twice. She was lucky enough to have a good relationship with her mom, so she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. But now she was sitting at their kitchen table, looking at the budget she’d drawn up on the back of a water bill, the numbers making her head swim. Even saving a massive amount of money on rent each month had only done so much to give her a bit of breathing room.
Babies needed a lot of stuff. Clothes and diapers and toys, somewhere to sleep and somewhere to have a bath, bottles, blankets… there seemed to be a new thing added to the list every day. Kayla hadn’t focused on the aesthetics or anything and instead bought items that were going to be at least safe and functional, although her mom seemed determined that this child would be well-dressed come hell or high water. Not that Kayla was complaining about that either, not when Liz would randomly appear with a very small sweater in hand and a million-watt smile. She’d only seen the pregnancy as a good thing, and Kayla couldn’t begin to count the ways that her attitude had made each day easier, rubbing off on her by osmosis.
What hadn’t helped was Kayla giving herself the mission to get back to Italy in order to tell Elio what was going on. After paying her bills, filling her car with gas, and checking things off of the baby’s “to buy” list, she was scraping literal pennies together to get a plane ticket to Italy. But airfare across the world was expensive, and it had been a whole lot easier when she’d had a law firm paying her way.
Looking at the budget written out in front of her, she knew that she was being kind of ridiculous. Well, not kind of… Just straight-up crazy. Several times, unable to sleep in the middle of the night, she’d sworn off the whole mission, called herself every version of “stupid” under the sun, and given up the entire scheme for the sake of whatever was left of her sanity.
But by the time morning rolled around and she had a few hours of sleep under her belt, Kayla knew that she wouldn’t be able to let it go. That stubborn streak was at work again, and she knew that if she didn’t at least keep trying to inform Elio of the pregnancy, then… well, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t exhausted all of her other options. Phone calls didn’t even get through, and if they did, they went to an automated voicemail. Email was out. She couldn’t find a postal address for him, so apart from attaching a postcard to a carrier pigeon, getting herself on a plane was the only option left.
If she didn’t tell him… well, for one thing, it made the whole pregnancy feel like a dirty secret. And she definitely didn’t want her child to feel like they were a secret. Kayla’s dad may have opted out of being in her life, but at the very least, he had known about her existence. And Elio… maybe she was being idealistic, maybe she was just truly screwed up in the head, but she really had had a wonderful time with him on Malbia. Those few short days were on a constant loop in her head, their meals together, sitting on the sofa while the storm raged outside. The vineyard that glowed golden while the sun set and she tasted the wine that Elio had worked so hard on. Their night together and running away the next morning, not knowing how hard she would be trying to find a way back months later.
So here she was, counting pennies and falling short of a plane ticket once again. Kayla’s life always seemed to come back around to her sitting at a kitchen table wanting to smack her forehead against a solid surface.
“Have you had dinner yet?”
Liz set down her grocery bags on the kitchen counter and started unpacking them with well-practiced efficiency.
“No,” Kayla said. “Let me know what you want and I’ll get it started.”
Liz rolled her eyes at her. “I can cook dinner one night, you know. We can have pre-made lasagna and a salad. It doesn’t have to be this Michael-star quality all the time.”
“Michelin star.”
“What?”
“Not Michael star. It’s Michelin star.”
“Well, whoever’s stars they are, they can keep them tonight because I’m heating up some lasagna and tossing together a salad.”
“Okay.” Kayla wrote out a number on her budget neater, not wanting to mistake her sloppy three for an eight down the road.
“What, that’s it?” Liz said, sounding skeptical. “No more fighting, no verbal kickboxing, just okay?”
“You want to fight over dinner?” Kayla asked, twirling her pen in her fingers.
“I mean, it’s always very entertaining. You’re not sick, are you? Cause I”ve never seen you give up your territory in the kitchen so easily.”
Kayla just rubbed her neck with a sigh. “I’m not sick.”
“But something’s up. Come on. Out with it.”
Kayla kept her mouth shut even though she knew Liz was going to hound her into talking about it sooner or later. She already felt like such a burden on her mom. She didn’t want to let her money troubles bleed onto her as well.
But unfortunately for Kayla, Liz was far too perceptive and just as stubborn as her daughter. She appeared at Kayla’s shoulder, a bag of lettuce in hand and peered over her shoulder.
“A budget?” she asked. “You’re not worried about money, are you? What did I tell you when you moved back here, huh? Once my kid, always my kid. If you need money, you come to me. There’s no reason to stress yourself out over a bunch of numbers, Kayla. It’s not good for you, and it’s not good for that little passenger you’re hauling around.”
Liz put the lettuce down on the table with a definitive slap, and Kayla couldn’t help but smile. She had always enjoyed her mother’s rather aggressive pep talks. Kayla sighed and pushed her budget away, knowing she was about to have an offloading session with her mom right now, whether she felt like it or not. She should never have acted so blasé about pre-made lasagna. It had been the first giveaway that something was wrong.
“It’s not the money, exactly.”
“What is it then?” said Liz, perching on the chair beside her and pushing her glasses up her nose in preparation. Whether she meant it to make Kayla smile or not, the result was the same. Kayla’s anxiousness was already starting to melt around Liz’s intense and prim concern.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to move on with, well, everything until I let Elio know what’s happening and…” She trailed off, her dread about the whole thing making a swift return. But she didn’t exactly need to finish her sentence. Liz knew. She knew how important this was to her, for Elio to know. The last thing she wanted was to feel like this pregnancy, her baby, was just some dirty secret.
“I wasn’t going to bring it up right this second,” Liz said. “But seeing as you’re not in an argumentative mood, I better take the opportunity while I’ve got it.” With that, she stood up and went back to the counter, rummaging through her purse.
“What are you talking about?” Kayla asked. “What harebrained scheme have you cooked up now?”
Liz didn’t say anything. She plopped a thick envelope down on the table in front of Kayla. Dreading what she was about to find and already half knowing, Kayla opened it. A bundle of cash was in there, crisp new notes straight from the teller. Kayla felt the world slow down a little, and Liz took the opportunity to talk before Kayla tried to shove the cash back at her.
“I’m not taking it back,” Liz said, knowing exactly what was going through Kayla’s mind. “And I’m not silly. I know how to look up the price of a plane ticket. So that is for you, to go and find this gentleman and give yourself some peace of mind.”
She nodded and folded her hands on the table in front of her, waiting for Kayla to start rebutting.
“That’s for your retirement…” was all she managed to sputter.
“And what’s a couple grand going to get me in retirement? Huh? A few weeks of groceries, some gas in the car? Maybe make a dent in an electric bill, big deal. And I’ll be sitting there in my retirement, with my groceries and working lights, hating myself because all I can think about is the time when my daughter needed to do what she felt was right and go see her kid’s father on the other side of the world. You think I care more about some money than the future of my grandkid? For your future? Money comes and goes — who cares? I could win the lottery tomorrow and this conversation will mean nothing. But flying across the world to do the right thing by this man, that’s not something you get another chance at.”
With that, Liz slapped the stack of bills where they sat on the table and shoved them further towards Kayla’s grasp. Kayla didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing at all. Instead, she stood up and wrapped her arms around her mom and held tight.
“I’m too hormonal for this, you know,” Kayla said, trying to blink away her tears before they fell onto her mom’s neck, and failing miserably.
“Yeah, I know. But I figured I’d use that to my advantage. May as well use mom guilt for the powers of good, you know?” Liz pulled back and wiped her thumbs under Kayla’s eyes, then kissed her on the forehead.
Kayla felt… a lot of things. All of the thoughts were too loud, too much, and too big to process properly right now. Gratitude was definitely a front-runner, as well as a bit of residual reluctance to take her mom’s money, but she’d already lost that battle. Mostly, she felt reinvigorated. It might go terribly, flying to Italy to see Elio in person. In fact, statistically, it was more likely to go very, very badly than anything else. But she was doing the right thing, and at least she could live out the rest of her life with a clear conscience. Not only that, but having her mom dry her tears and hug it all better, still protecting and caring for her at thirty-two… It made Kayla excited for her own baby in a way that she hadn’t been yet. Excited not just to see her baby newly born and tiny, but also fully grown, an adult in the world that she could have conversations with, that even when her child was thirty-two, she would still be there to look out for them, to give them money from her retirement fund and send them halfway across the world.
She’d find a way to repay Liz somehow. But for now, she just relaxed into her mom’s hug and felt truly hopeful for the first time in months.