3. My Ocean Blues
My Ocean Blues
SAM
The sounds of the river walkway—laughter from people on a bench nearby, the rush of the river, a car honking at the curb—all felt suddenly sharp and jarring, like someone pressing buttons on a soundtrack with the volume way up. A fat bead of sweat slid down my temple.
Of all things, my brain decided to laugh. The sound made Ellie’s jaw go slack.
I cut it off.
“Ellie,” I croaked. “This is not—I’m not—”
What the fuck was I trying to say? I think it was that this wasn’t how I pictured seeing her again, which would be a totally normal thing to say, maybe, if she wasn’t with a baby that was probably, that was—
I couldn’t even finish the thought.
I looked back at the baby again. The baby who was staring at me with these big blue eyes, eyes that came from my mom and my grandma.
Grandma used to call mine her “ocean blues”.
But it wasn’t just the eyes. The baby—Henry, Ellie said he was called—looked like a doppelg?nger of all the photos my mom had in those rows of albums at home.
The ones on the top shelf in the living room with my name emblazoned on them like I was some kind of fucking celebrity.
I hated those albums.
I was spiraling.
I had a son.
“Sorry, I know it’s not funny,” I said. “I think I’m in shock.”
“Right,” Ellie said. “Well, I tried to warn you. I could have told you I’d moved to Quince Valley, except I had no idea you were living here. Sarah told me you left town. If she hadn’t, I would have never come.”
I don’t know why that hurt so much.
“I would have said something,” she continued. “You know, about the baby. Except, I couldn’t, because you fucking blocked me.”
I turned back to Ellie, my mind still reeling. I was so confused. And this time it wasn’t just because of this life-altering revelation that was sitting before me though. It was because of what she’d just said.
“Blocked you?”
Her face went hard. “Don’t pretend, Sam. It’s not becoming of a man who’s so good at acting like a decent human being.” She closed her eyes, then plastered on a fake smile. “You know what? We have to go.”
She turned, gripping the stroller with white knuckles and angling it back down the river path. She was about ten paces away when I got the wherewithal to run after her.
“Ellie,” I said, this idiot part of my brain still insisting this wasn’t possible.
Ellie whipped her face toward me. She was livid.
Some part of me—a large part of me—felt like shit for making her feel this way, but I was still too confused to understand how or what was going on.
And I was starting to get frustrated. I felt like I was two steps behind.
Like I was running through mud trying to understand.
“I’m sorry, okay? This just doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand.”
Ellie jerked herself and the stroller to a stop. The baby giggled. It would be a really cute sound if I could hear it through the blood rushing in my ears.
“Let me help you out,” Ellie said, her eyes fiery on mine. “We made a baby. We didn’t mean to make a baby, but sometimes, it just happens.”
“But we didn’t have sex!” I exclaimed. I hadn’t watched my voice, and the closest people to us, over by the railing twenty feet away, turned to stare, their eyebrows up.
Ellie’s cheeks flooded with color.
She started walking again. “Were you that drunk? Do you not remember?”
Heat crawled up my chest. “I had a couple of drinks, but that was earlier…” I struggled to keep up with her. “I wasn’t drunk, Ellie. Goddammit, would you stop for a minute?”
She wheeled on me, her raging eyes dropping to where I was leaning over, pushing the heel of my hand down on my hip. It wasn’t hurting, but it might if I kept running.
I watched as confusion seemed to blow the tiniest bit of cool air over her anger.
“I remember every minute of our time together, Ellie. Every second, actually. I could probably do a play-by-play if I thought that’s what either of us needed.
” I’d replayed our night together approximately eight thousand times over the past year and a half.
It brought me great comfort over a very fucking uncomfortable year plus.
Ellie had been so disappointed when we’d discovered neither of us had a condom.
I’d almost come right there seeing how badly she’d wanted to be with me.
I told her there were lots of other ways I could make her happy.
I promised. Then I showed her. Multiple times. It was the hottest night of my life.
Ellie took a breath. “Sam. Just because we didn’t… ‘p in v’, doesn’t mean it’s not possible.”
Under any normal circumstances, I would have laughed at a grown woman saying ‘p in v’. But there was nothing funny about this.
Plus, she was still going. “All that other stuff we did is still sex. And I guess you have super-sperm or something, because at least one of those little mini-yous managed to hit a home run. And here we are.”
I thought back to what we’d done. How it could have been possible to get to where we were now.
And then I saw it. I rewound to the precise moment.
The way she’d bent over so beautifully for me.
How I’d leaned over her, my hand tangled in the hair at the back of her head as she arched her back for me, and me, coming just the way she asked for it.
Heat, splattering her backside. The way I slicked her with it with my hand, reaching for—
Ellie bumped onto the sidewalk, bringing me back to the present. She was heading for the crosswalk without even looking at the road.
“Hey!” I said. She dropped the stroller over the curb and I panicked, reaching out my hand.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” she snapped, shaking off my grip.
Thank Christ there were no cars nearby, because she barreled into the road, lip quivering. I chased after her, nearly skipping to keep up. I could feel the beginning pricks of pain in my hip.
How had I been so stupid?
Ellie was ahead of me again, heading for a set of three townhouses I’d walked by a hundred times before. When she turned up the walkway of the one closest, on the far right, I stopped again, disbelief rendering me unable to move.
She’d been living here. Ellie and Henry.
I didn’t live in Quince Valley anymore, I was in Greenville, the next town over.
But I worked here. And Ellie and our son were right there, behind a door not thirty feet away from where I liked to walk on my lunch break.
The place I liked to catch the spring air and remember how to breathe.
There was a work van parked in the driveway, a minivan pulled up tight behind it.
Before I knew what was happening, Ellie had turned around and was dragging the stroller backward, bouncing up the steps one by one.
Fuck. I should have been there, helping.
But by the time I got there, she’d already reached the top and was digging around in her purse.
She’d turned the stroller into the corner of the stoop.
It was facing away from me, so I couldn’t see inside.
But something made me put my hand on the handle. What if it rolled back down?
“Ellie,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“No shit.” She chewed her lip as she dug around inside, then made this sound of frustration before starting to pull handfuls of stuff out of the large bag.
Gum and receipts and lip balm. Wrappers and little baggies with what looked like rice crackers inside.
A container of something with jaunty pink writing on it—baby juice?
My vision was getting blurry. Something hot burned at my throat.
I never thought I’d see Ellie again. She’d transitioned in my brain from a real person to these deep, well-worn fantasies. Like someone I’d made up. I could barely reconcile her with the woman before me. The one now dumping her purse fully upside down onto the concrete stoop.
“Can I help you?” I asked weakly. The question was laughable. Because obviously I’d neglected to help her from day one.
“No!” Her eyes were brimming with tears. “I can’t find my keys.” The baby had started to cry. “Fuck.”
“What can I do?”
“You can not ask me that! That’s what you can do!
” Ellie reached into the stroller, making a few clicks sound.
Then she pulled out the baby. He was covered in blankets.
She wrinkled her nose as she clutched him to her chest, making a slightly revolted sound before kissing his head.
His scalp was furred in a layer of dark fuzz. Pudgy arms that flapped like wings.
My son.
I was pretty close to hyperventilating.
Ellie looked at me for a moment over his head. “Actually, yes,” she said. “You can help.”
I forced myself to breathe normally. I’d do anything. Everything. “What do you need?”
“Tell me why you’re so surprised about this, Sam.”
I swallowed, my throat filled with sand.
That’s not what I expected. Physical labor I could do.
An errand. Breaking the door down so she could get inside.
But this? What was I supposed to say? I’m an idiot and didn’t think about how human anatomy works.
I’m an idiot because I decided I’d venture out one last time before settling down.
I’m terrified because I don’t remember a whole month of my life.
Ellie’s nostrils flared. “Don’t even think of lying to me.
Because I emailed you. More than once. You stopped responding when I said I needed to talk to you.
Then I told you exactly what was going on, and still nothing.
I guess I should have gotten the hint. But I didn’t.
I tried calling you. I got Sarah to give me your sister’s number, but she blocked me too.
Do you know how that feels? To be treated like a stalker when all I was trying to do was inform you that you have a fucking child?
I don’t need any help, by the way. I don’t want a single goddamned thing from you.
I just wanted to tell you, because it’s the right thing to do.
But I guess you wouldn’t know about that. ”
I couldn’t believe what she was saying. Each word felt like a hurled stone. Each one a painful thud that filled the inside of my ribs with shame.
“It’s not like that,” I said. “I promise. I can explain.”
I realized how clichéd those words are the second they were out. But I could. I could. It was the perfect storm of coincidences and terrible, unfortunate pieces of time that lined up in the worst possible way.
I opened my mouth to tell her some semblance of that, but her face softened and she closed her eyes. “Con. Thank God.”
I felt a presence behind me and turned to see a tall, handsome redheaded man next to a middle-school aged kid who looked just like him. The man looked familiar. I’d seen him before. The kid was looking curiously between me, the pile of stuff on the ground, and the baby.
“Everything alright?” the man asked. Not me. Ellie.
“No. I’m locked out, and I have to go get Tommy in an hour.”
“Oh. Okay, hang on.” He jogged over to the townhouse two doors down from Ellie’s and disappeared inside.
“Hi,” the kid said to me. He was still hanging out on the sidewalk next to me. “I’m Archie.”
I don’t know why, but I felt like this was the nicest anyone had ever been to me before. I was eternally grateful. “Hey,” I said. “Sam.”
“Are you a friend of Ellie’s?”
I looked up at Ellie, who looked half like she wanted to murder me still, and half like she was as confused as I was. I think if I said yes, she was a friend, she’d lean toward that first thing.
“We knew each other once,” I said, which I was sure wouldn’t make sense to a kid.
But the kid shrugged. “Okay.” Then he looked at the baby, who was giggling, reaching for him. “Hey, Henry! What’s up, man!” He looked up at Ellie. “Want me to hold him, Ellie?”
“I’m sure he’d love that,” Ellie said. “But he pooped his pants pretty badly. I need to get him changed.”
The boy snorted with laughter. “Ew. I mean, sorry.”
“No, ew’s right.” She smiled briefly at the kid, before looking over at me, the smile gone, like a ghost that never was.
“Here we go,” the man said, reappearing at his door.
“I’ll get it,” I blurted. I went over and took the keys from the guy before anyone could argue. Then I went back to Ellie’s door, unlocked it, and tossed the guy his keys back without looking at him.
“Hey, he’s a good throw,” the kid said.
“Ellie, please let me explain.” I kept my voice low as she wrestled the stroller into the foyer.
But she shook her head. “No. I don’t care.”
“Let me help, then. I can—”
But she’d already slammed the door in my face.