He Let His Ex Name Their Baby (From Grovel to Redemption #8)

1. Dulcie

DULCIE

My husband’s ex has named my baby after her father.

I find out with one hand inside my coat pocket, trying to scrape blue paint from beneath my thumbnail before anyone notices.

At the preschool where I teach, a four-year-old asked whether the baby could hear her singing through my belly.

I let her try. I arrive still carrying the sweetness of her off-key song.

Then the woman behind the jewelry counter lifts a silver cup out of its box.

Benedict Ludlow.

The letters face Cressida.

“Oh, that’s exactly right,” she says.

She takes it by its small curved handle and turns it beneath the light. My husband stands beside her, his dark coat open over a charcoal suit, and inclines his head. The assistant looks pleased with herself.

I look at Magnus.

He told me we were collecting a gift for the baby. When he called, I asked if he could spare an hour afterward to look at cribs. He said we would see.

He did not mention that Cressida would be here.

“Benedict?” I say.

Cressida raises her eyes. “My father’s name.”

“I know.”

I know because Dorothea keeps a photograph of Cressida’s late father in her Brookline drawing room.

Because this family speaks of him with the particular warmth they reserve for people who belonged without having to ask.

I know because Cressida, who dated my husband before I did, has told me more than once that our son would have adored him.

I don’t know why his name is on my baby’s cup.

Magnus puts a hand lightly against my back. “Come and look at it.”

The pressure is familiar. Move here. Stand beside me. Smile at the person speaking. I used to love being drawn into the circle of his attention. Now I have to make myself step forward, although my feet ache and the baby is wedged high beneath my ribs.

At thirty-two weeks, there is no elegant way to lean across a counter. My coat falls open, showing the knitted dress I wore to work. A pale smear of dried glue runs along the cuff.

His mother sees it.

“Have you come straight from that school?” Dorothea asks.

“Yes.”

“You could have changed. We would have waited.”

Magnus told me to be here at four. I left another teacher stacking the little chairs so I could make it.

The assistant sets a padded tray in front of me. Cressida places the cup on it with care. She wears cream, the soft expensive kind that never seems to encounter rain or somebody else’s lunch. Her nails are the color of the inside of a shell.

“Who chose this?” I ask.

“The cup?”

“The name.”

Cressida glances at Magnus before answering. It is a quick, easy glance. The kind I should be able to give him when someone asks us about our child.

“I did. I thought it was a lovely way to bring the families together.”

“My family?”

A little silence opens.

Dorothea lifts her chin. “Don’t start making distinctions where none are intended.”

I turn to Magnus. “You approved this?”

“Yes.”

He doesn’t look surprised. He doesn’t look caught. His hand stays on my back as though I am the person who needs settling.

“We haven’t decided on a name.”

“We have now.”

The assistant looks down at the open box. I hear the faint movement of tissue paper beneath her fingers. Somewhere behind us, a door closes, and a man laughs at something another customer has said. This is an ordinary afternoon for everyone else.

“I sent you a list.”

“I saw it.”

“You didn’t answer.”

“Benedict is a good name.”

I swallow. “That isn’t what I asked.”

Cressida’s expression grows gently strained, as if I have made her kindness difficult to complete. “Dulcie, it’s a keepsake. It isn’t as though I’ve taken anything away from you.”

“You’ve put your father’s name on my son.”

“Our son,” Magnus says.

“Yes. Our son. So why am I the only person here who didn’t know?”

His fingers press once against the back of my coat.

I move out from under them.

It is a small movement. I don’t mean it to be dramatic. I only need to be able to breathe without his hand telling me how to behave. But Cressida sees it, and Dorothea sees Cressida seeing it, and suddenly the space around the counter feels arranged against me.

The cup is beautiful. That makes it worse. It has a rounded base and a tiny raised vine around the rim, leaves so carefully worked that I can see the veins.

I would have loved choosing something like this. I would have held it up to Magnus and laughed about a baby being trusted with silver, and perhaps he would have looked at me in the way that makes the rest of a room recede.

I wanted to make that memory.

They have already made it without me.

“Can the engraving be removed?” I ask the assistant.

Her eyes go to Cressida.

The humiliation is so sudden that I feel it behind my ears.

“It was a commissioned piece,” she says cautiously.

“I understand. I’m asking whether?—”

“It won’t be removed,” Magnus says.

I look up at him. He is not raising his voice. He rarely has to. The steadiness of it usually makes people hurry to agree.

“Magnus.”

“The name has been decided.”

“Without me.”

“You’re here now.”

I almost laugh. The sound gets stuck somewhere painful.

Dorothea adjusts the strap of her bag. “Most women would be grateful to see this sort of welcome for their child. Not everyone has the means to begin a family tradition with something that lasts.”

“My parents gave me a blanket my grandmother made.”

“How nice.”

The words are mild. Her gaze returns to the cup.

I put both hands on the edge of the counter, then take them away. I am suddenly conscious of everything about myself that can be inspected: the paint, the glue, the sensible shoes stretched tight across swollen feet.

I have spent a whole afternoon being useful and loved by children who want me to look at what they have made. Here, I can’t get my own husband to look at what he is doing.

“I don’t agree to Benedict,” I say.

Cressida’s mouth tightens.

“Dad would have been so touched,” she says to Magnus.

“I know.”

He answers her immediately.

I wait for him to answer me.

The assistant reaches toward the cup and pauses. “Would you like to take it today?”

“Yes,” Cressida says. “Please wrap it.”

“No,” I say.

Magnus turns fully toward me now. For one wild, stupid second, the attention feels like relief.

“Enough.”

I stare at him.

“We can discuss this at home.”

“You just said it was decided.”

“We can discuss your reaction at home.”

My baby shifts beneath my coat. A heel, or perhaps a knee, pushes against the place my ribs are already sore. I press my palm there, less to ease it than to remind myself he is with me. He is inside me. None of these people can possibly have forgotten that, but I need the reminder myself.

“I’m going outside.”

Magnus’s gaze moves to the assistant. “Give us a moment.”

I don’t know whether he means me or the transaction. I step away before I can find out.

The door is heavier than I expect. Cool Boston air reaches my face, and for a second I simply stand on the sidewalk with my hand still on the brass handle.

People move past carrying shopping bags, talking into phones, holding each other’s sleeves.

A woman with a stroller bends to tuck a soft toy beside her baby.

I look away.

Through the glass, Magnus remains beside Cressida. The assistant lays tissue over the cup. Dorothea says something, and Cressida touches the edge of the box.

I wait for my husband to come after me.

I wait long enough for the cold to get through my dress.

When the door finally opens, he is carrying the wrapped box under his arm.

“Come on,” he says. “The car’s this way.”

I look at the silver ribbon. At the thing I said no to, coming home with us anyway.

“What about the cribs?”

“Not today, Dulcie.”

He starts walking. After a moment, I follow, keeping enough space between us that he cannot guide me with his hand.