Chapter 33 Shiloh #3
I followed her to the living room where she bent down to ruffle the soft halo of baby curls on the toddler who was sitting on the floor amid a mess of toys, stacking and knocking down blocks.
“Goodbye, little man,” Toni said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Bye-bye,” he said, then spied me. His little face burst into a smile that never failed—no matter how tired I was—to warm my heart and remind me what it was all for. “Mama!”
“Hey, baby boy,” I said, the tears already flowing. I picked him up and sat with him on the couch. “Did you have a good day today?”
He nodded, then cocked his head and touched a chubby little finger to the tear that trailed down my cheek. “Mama sad?”
“No, baby. I’m not sad. I’m happy. I’m so, so happy.”
I held my son—August Barrera-Wentz—hugging him tight as the tears fell in earnest.
“Your daddy is coming home.”
***
“Shiloh? Come on, honey. You gotta eat.”
I curled tighter on the bed.
“Shiloh, I’m not playing,” Bibi said. “It’s been two weeks.” She sat down and brushed the braids, which were getting rough-looking, out of my face. “It’s time.”
“For what?” I croaked.
“To try again.”
Just the words made me tired. It’d been two weeks since Ronan had been shipped off to San Quentin, taking my will to “try again” with him.
I rolled over and sat up. “I have tried, Bibi. After Mama’s secret, I’ll never look at myself in the mirror the same way, and my shop was trashed. But I kept going. I went back to work and ‘tried again.’ Then I lost Ronan.” I shook my head. “It’s too much.”
“Now, now, giving up isn’t allowed, remember?” Bibi’s tone was firm, but her hand on my shoulder was gentle. “You’ve been knocked all the way down, but it’s time to get back up and return to life.”
The idea of life without Ronan made me sick.
Literally.
I pushed off the bed and ran to the bathroom. I barely made it to the toilet before the half a sandwich Bibi had coaxed me to eat that afternoon came back up. Kneeling at the toilet, I stared up at Bibi at the door. She stared back.
“No…” I breathed. “No, no, no.”
“Could it be?” I didn’t miss the glint of happiness in her hazy eyes.
“No. Impossible. I’m always so careful. We used condoms, and I’m on the pill…”
Except that Ronan and I had stopped using condoms months ago, and I got drunk the night the shop was wrecked. I puked up everything in my system until there was nothing left. The next day, I was a mess. Not thinking. I couldn’t remember taking my pill that day.
“But I slept with Ronan,” I murmured. “That I remember.” I clapped a hand to my mouth. “Oh my God.”
I pulled myself together enough to drive to the drugstore. When I came back, I locked myself in the bathroom with the little stick and waited. But I already knew. My sense of smell was insanely strong, and my stomach felt queasy whenever I stopped crying long enough to notice.
The five minutes was up. I picked up the stick, and there was the little pink plus sign. It fell into the trash, dropped from nerveless fingers.
“Just like Mama,” I whispered.
Except I loved Ronan. The night we slept together was beautiful—a flicker of warmth in a cold storm.
Bibi was waiting on the couch. “Well?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Christ, saying the words out loud sent a shiver of fear down my spine.
Bibi smiled to herself, then scattered the cats and patted the cushion next to her. “Sit. Let’s talk.”
I dropped beside her. “There’s nothing to talk about. I can’t have this baby, Bibi. I can’t run a business and have a baby. I can’t.”
“Well, the fact that you’re talking about running your business is an improvement, since as of three hours ago, you wouldn’t get out of bed. Already this baby is motivating you.”
“I’m serious. Ronan is gone. For ten years. He won’t even talk to me. I can’t even tell him he’s a fa—” The word stuck in my throat. “I can’t do this alone.”
“You won’t be alone.” She held up her hand. “I know, I’m an old lady, but Ronan gave you a bunch of money—”
“That I can’t bring myself to spend.”
“You can if it’s to take care of the child you two made,” she said, and that glint of happiness was back.
I shook my head. “It’s not the money, Bibi. Or the work even. I can’t be like Mama. Keeping a baby and then resenting him or her. Making them feel worthless their entire life.”
Bibi leveled me with a harsh look. “You honestly believe you would do that? After everything you’ve been through? Because I don’t.”
“No,” I admitted. “But I can’t know the future, except how impossibly hard it’s going to be. And if I do manage to keep my head above water, people won’t see the work. They’ll see a single mother with the father in jail. I’ll become a statistic.”
“I’m not going to hear you talk like that, Shiloh,” Bibi said sternly. “That’s small thinking. Behind every statistic is a human being with a story. Like your mama. She told you her awful secret but not how hard she struggled after.”
“But you know the whole story, Bibi. You’ve always known. They all did. Why didn’t you or Bertie or someone tell me?”
“Because Marie made us promise. She swore she’d do it her way, in her time.”
“Drunk, in front of everyone? In front of Ronan?” Shame wanted to curl me back into a ball.
“Her way and her time were all wrong, obviously. And over the years, I wanted to break my promise and tell you proper. But you know why I didn’t?”
I shook my head.
“Because it didn’t matter.” She reached to touch my cheek.
“You are a treasure to me, Shiloh, and have been since the moment you came to live here. I knew telling you would only make you question your worth. Instead, I tried to raise you to believe in yourself. To let your value come from within. And I think I did a pretty darn good job. You know how I know? Because you love Ronan Wentz with your whole heart.”
I nodded. “I do. I love him so much.”
“It’s very difficult—impossible even—to love another with your whole heart if you can’t find any of that love for yourself.”
I shook my head. “I still feel dirty now that I know. I am Mama’s pain, walking around in a flesh-and-blood body.”
“Once the shock of it loosens its hold, you’ll be able to think more clearly. And if you sit down and actually talk with your mama, you’ll have the whole truth. Understanding unlocks doors, child.”
I bit my lip, thinking. Bibi was right in that I needed to talk to Mama. Really talk. I couldn’t think about my own situation until I did. They were bound together, and I couldn’t make a decision about my future until I fully understood my past.
I hugged Bibi, kissed her cheek, and booked a flight to New Orleans.
When I arrived in Louisiana three days later, I took an Uber straight to Mama’s little shotgun house on Old Prieur Street in the Seventh Ward. My heart in my throat, I knocked on the door.
Mama answered, a look of shock registering on her face for a moment. Then she nodded as if she’d been expecting me all along.
“Come in.” She offered me a seat in her small living room, neatly and colorfully furnished. “You look…different. Radiant.”
“That’s a word for ‘scared shitless’ I haven’t heard before,” I said and heaved a breath. “I’m pregnant.”
Mama’s eyes widened, and for a moment, I thought she was going to hug me or cry. Or both. But she bottled herself back up and indicated for me to sit on her neat couch in her neat living room.
“Ronan’s?”
“Of course,” I said stiffly.
“The one who’s now in prison?”
I crossed my arms. “Yes. For a crime he didn’t commit.”
Mama pursed her lips as if she’d heard all that before. “Would you like some water? Something to eat?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you going to keep it?”
The question caught me off guard, whacking me in the chest. “And they call me direct. Must’ve gotten it from you.”
She arched a brow.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so. I can’t imagine trying to get a business that already crashed and burned back on its feet while raising a baby alone.”
“So you came to me?” Mama shook her head, her curls falling around her face softly. “I have no advice. I’ve done nothing but make mistakes. Starting that night with your father.”
“You didn’t make a mistake that night, Mama. What he did to you…that wasn’t your fault.” I shifted on the couch. “But I have to know… Why did you keep me? You had every right not to.”
“Because I thought I could do it,” she said.
“I was like you. Strong. Driven. Ambitious. I wasn’t going to let anything stop me.
Not my broken heart or the violation of my body by someone I thought loved me.
So I pushed through. I tried. For four years, I tried, but every time I looked at you, instead of seeing the beautiful child you are, I saw him lurking beneath.
” She shivered and hugged herself. “Pushing through didn’t work.
I couldn’t keep you, and I hated myself for giving you up.
I’ve been stuck in that purgatory for years. ”
“And now?”
She looked at me, her dark eyes heavy. “Does it matter? There’s nothing left of me.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “But, Mama, did you ever get help? Talk to someone professionally?”
“I never told anyone what happened until the day I gave you to Bibi.”
“Why not?”
“It was humiliating and degrading, and I’m already a private person. I don’t like anyone in my business. I try to work hard and take care of myself.”
I sat back, marveling to hear my words come out of my mother’s mouth.
“You could have been talking about me,” I said. “I’m private and a workaholic. And…closed up.” My hands went to my belly. Until Ronan.
“I’m sorry, Shiloh,” Mama said. “For ruining your grand opening. For not being there for you. For failing you so badly.”
I moved to sit next to her and took her hand. Mama stiffened, then clutched mine back as if, now that she had it, she didn’t want to let go.
“You didn’t fail, Mama. You never had help. There are certain things we just aren’t made to face alone.”
I thought about Ronan in prison, how he believed being alone was the best thing he could do for me.
“It’s hard, asking for help,” Mama said. “I was so lucky to have Bibi.”
“I am too,” I said, smiling gently. “She’s…everything.”
“I’m assuming she knows about your situation?”
“Of course. I think she wants me to keep it.”
“I’m sure she does.”
“She wants to help,” I said slowly. “And I have the money Ronan gave me.”
Mama’s hand in mine tightened. “And…you have me. If you want.”
I glanced up quickly. “What?”
“I have a lot of work to do. Healing, I guess. But I’m your mama.” She brushed my braids off my face. “I think it’s time I acted like it.”
Tears flooded my eyes. “Can I…hug you?”
“No,” she said, her own eyes shining. “I’m going to hug you.”
Mama pulled me into her embrace, and I sank in, reveling in her softness, the scent of her…different from Bibi but familiar too.
“But I don’t know for sure if I’m keeping this baby,” I said when we pulled apart, wiping my eyes. “It’s still so scary and…daunting.”
But a vague vision of the future came to me, with my shop where it had been before it was vandalized. And there was a little person waiting for me at home while I worked to create a life for Ronan to come back to.
Maybe I can do this. Maybe.
“No matter what you choose,” Mama said, “I’m going to try to be better for you. I can’t promise I won’t make mistakes, but I’m going to try.”
I didn’t know what Mama trying might look like or if I could count on her, but when all is said and done, that’s all you can hope for. To trust and keep going.
On the flight back to California, my hands couldn’t leave my stomach alone, cradling a roundness that wasn’t there.
“You’re his too,” I whispered to the baby that wasn’t even a baby yet. Just a collection of cells—his and mine. But I knew without a doubt in my heart that Ronan would make an amazing father. That he’d love our baby with all that he had, fiercely, just like he did me.
And maybe I’d be a good mother too.
I had a chance. My heart was wide open.