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“You know, Emma has consistently been the most popular name for girls from 2010 to today. In the 2000s, it only took third place. The top spot went to a deviation, and actually the original, Emily.”
“Yeah, I get it. I’m conventional and boring, blah blah blah…” Amy shoves a box of bar soap onto the shelf.
“I didn’t say that,” Jonah answers, missing her smirk with his pencil poised above his notepad.
“Laurel,” he says, picking another name form the list.
“Ew, like that stupid meme? No.”
“Oh, God, you’re right.” He scratches it out. “Ok then. How about James? Blake Lively named her baby girl James in 2014, its very modern.”
“Eeeehhh…” She pauses, shifting through the basket of Health & Beauty Go-Backs. “I want something...classic? Special? Meaningful? Something...representative of my heritage? I don’t know. I’ll know it when I hear it.”
Jonah flips his notepad closed. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“You asked me to come up with a list, and reject every single one of my suggestions.”
“Jonah, that’s normal.”
“Yeah, you’re right, but… I just…” Jonah shrugs. Amy watches. Softness isn’t necessarily a rare thing with him, but these days its got an edge to it that’s...wiser. Its more settled, more sturdy. She wonders if its the emotional whiplash he’s been through since he was hired here that’s formed it.
“You’re inspiring, that’s all,” he decides.
She laughs out loud. “Inspiring because I turn down your pretentious name suggestions?”
“Something like that.” He kisses her cheek and disappears around the endcap.
-
“Check your mirrors.”
“Got it.”
“OK, so when you’ve checked everything’s clear, pull out halfway and then you can start turning the wheel in the direction you wanna go.”
Emma glances up through the rearview mirror, and slowly lifts her foot from the brake, like a pro. Amy smiles.
“OK, so just do a couple circles around here and then we’ll see if the road’s empty enough to practice.”
“Moooommm…”
“What?”
“We practiced in the parking lot yesterday. And the day before that, and the day before that, and…”
“Oh, I’m sorry I’m concerned for the safety of others and don’t want to unleash my newly-permitted daughter to the road with other drivers even worse than her.”
Emma rolls her eyes.
They drive a few circuits in quiet until Emma speaks up again.
“When’s your doctor’s appointment again?”
“Wednesday. No talking and driving.”
“You gonna find out the gender?”
“Probably. Wanna come with?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Ok, I’ll pick you up early from school.”
Emma takes a corner a little too wide. “You don’t have to try and be the cool mom now that you and Dad are divorced.”
“What?” Amy looks over, bewildered. “I’m not trying to do that!”
“I still love you,” Emma says, honest and true, without looking away from the windshield.
Amy looks down at the roundness of her belly through her blouse. “You’re ok with this?”
“I mean…” Emma shrugs. “Not gonna lie, it’s weird. And the sex tape was...entirely irresponsible and gross and humiliating. I won’t lie, I seriously thought about hating you after that.”
Amy nods, if only to herself. It had been three weeks until Emma even spoke to her after that. She even stayed with Adam instead and refused to come out of her room when Amy came over to simmer things down.
“But it happened. You’re all adults. You and Dad weren’t happy, and admitting that to yourselves was the best thing you could’ve done for all of us. I’ve always wanted a sibling. And Jonah’s annoying and dorky, but I’ll get used to him.”
Amy smiles and laughs under her breath. “He’ll always be dorky, sorry to disappoint. I honestly thought you really did hate me.”
“Nah, you’re my mom,” she says simply.
When she snakes around the backside of the last aisle, Amy sighs.
“OK, turn right at the stop sign.”
“Mom, that goes out onto street.”
“Yeah, I know.” She looks over at her, and they share a smile.
-
“Its a girl.”
“Wow. Two girls.” Adam smiles across the table in the food court.
Amy reaches to take his hand, and gives it a squeeze, his new wedding ring cold against her skin.
-
It probably isn’t the first time a girl has had her quinceanera with divorced parents, a pregnant mom, and a dad married to her best friend’s mom.
But it probably is the first time invitations printed with a name like ‘Emma Delaney Dubanowski’ have ever been associated with this sort of event. And probably the first time the father-daughter dance has been waltzed to a Billy Joel song.
“Wow, there’s so much…” Jonah says, sliding into the chair beside her with a plate full of food.
“Pink?” she finishes, wasting no time in taking a forkful of rice.
“I was gonna say cowbell, but yeah, that too.”
Billy Joel, Adam’s choice, had given way to traditional Hispanic music. Emma and her friends now make up the majority of the crowd on the dance floor, orbited by Amy’s own parents, reviving their lost years of the bachata.
Surprisingly, Emma has chosen a traditional gown: long, full, ruffled, and pale pink. It had been a shock to Amy that her first daughter had wanted a quinceanera at all. While Amy’s upbringing was one generation closer to her roots, it wasn’t like they were exactly orthodox. She wasn’t required to even speak the language, let alone have a party symbolizing the transition into her own womanhood. But Emma had asked for one, and Amy’s parents were only so happy to oblige. Amy was sure it was just an excuse to have a party with her friends, but all the same, it meant everyone had to be on speaking terms and dress up and celebrate Emma, which of course was the easiest part, so none of those things could be inherently bad.
“I’m really glad you came,” she says through a mouthful of charro beans. “Damn, this is good.”
“Ah, is that why I’m here? Just to be your lackey and bring you food?” Jonah smiles, the spinning lights from the dance floor bathing half his face in blue.
“Yup. Pretty much the only reason.”
“I knew it.”
Amy looks out over the dance floor, where Emma has her head thrown back laughing, the tiara she’d crowned her with during the ceremony glinting under the spotlights. She is beautiful, and Amy is proud of the young lady she is. Their differences are those that all mothers and daughters have, and if she’s lucky, she and this new baby will butt heads in all the same ways.
She hopes her daughters see her mistakes and make their own, and turn out all the better for it.
She doesn’t realize she’s tearing up until Jonah presses his lips into her hair.
-
Foil balloons shine under the streaks of sunlight pouring through the blinds.
Those big obnoxious kind that are shaped like the letters, popular on Pinterest and mom blogs—not that she reads or has ever read a mom blog.
“GIRL” spelled out in metallic pink, spilling refracted light across the hospital room, floating cheerily like cotton candy clouds.
Clouds.
She blinks.
“Hey, Mama…” It’s an unfamiliar voice that greets her. A nurse checking her vitals.
“Is...everything ok?” Amy shifts in the bed. Stiff, familiar pain burns in her belly.
“Everything’s great. Baby’s fine, sleeping in the nursery. Dad just left to get something to eat. And you’re recovering just as expected.” She hugs her clipboard to her chest and smiles proudly, young and green.
Amy thinks there should probably be protocol for not calling the woman that birthed the baby ‘mama’ and the man who spent the most time in the room the ‘dad.’ Was she referring to Adam? Jonah? She rubs a hand over her clammy forehead.
“Great,” she says offhandedly, and then, “Can i see her?”
“Sure. I’ll bring her over.” The nurse gives a cheery little smile and slips from the room.
She looks back over at the balloons, swaying slightly on their strings. She wonders who brought them. She had decided from the beginning that she definitely wouldn't be having a Cloud 9 baby. She would be no where near the premises when this thing started happening. And yet, of course against her own will, it came like a flash, liquid wet and warm and splattering the floor right there next to the cans of Shasta. From there its a blur. She remembers the white chaos of the room, her doctor at her feet instructing her when to push, though she had gone on instinct anyways. She remembers Jonah’s hand in hers, and Adam on her other side.
She remembers feeling the warm weight on her chest, Adam’s hand brushing over whisps of wet, dark hair. There are few moments of consciousness after that, at least few she can remember as groggy as she is now.
“Cheyenne picked them out.”
She glances over at Jonah, easing the door closed behind him before he stops midway to her bedside and stuff his hands his pockets.
“Very sweet. Very pink.”
He smiles, an uncertain thing until he blinks up at her, and that wonder, that awe that she really has no idea how he sees, tugs at the corner of his mouth and sits soft in his eyes.
She smiles back.
“Is everything ok?” she says, stretching a hand out along the sheets. He takes it.
“Yeah. Everyone’s great. Don’t worry. One big happy family.” He nods meaningfully.
“I’ve said this about a million times but...I know this isn’t how things usually…”
He shakes his head. “There is no normal way. Normal is just a construct.”
She rolls her eyes with a grin. “You and your constructs.”
The door opens again and the same nurse pushes the hospital-standard bassinet, a little bundle nestled inside.
“Does Daddy want a turn first?” the nurse asks, scooping up the baby, tucked snuggly in a pale pink blanket.
“Oh, I’m not…”
Amy smiles off his bewildered look. “Oh he absolutely does.”
“Ok, sure.” Jonah gulps.
He holds her for just a minute, close against his chest and her head supported on one elbow, textbook perfect. Then, he sits aside the bed, and Amy peeks down to see tiny fingers poking over the edge of the blanket and all jokes are off.
She’s perfect. The same way Emma was perfect. She’s tiny and round and pouty and perfect and her hair sticks up in all angles, thick and dark already.
She holds her to her chest, cradles her against her heart, and it all clicks.
She’s hers.
She’s Adam’s, sure. And Emma will love her. And Jonah will be there but...
But for all the wrestling she’s done over seven months, all the decisions and discussions within herself and with others. All the changes of the past few years. All the times she thought things would always be this crappy for her, that it was just the way things were. The times she thought happiness—no, not happiness, fulfillment—was something she let go of long ago. All the times she’s stared up at the metaphorical brick wall of her life and laid another row into it. Each time she’s faced the facts that taking responsibility for others meant losing a piece of herself and it was just something she’d have to learn to live with. It all comes to focus when she traces a finger over this baby’s cheek.
She’s hers, and no one else’s.
She’s so lost that she doesn’t notice the nurse has left until Jonah speaks up again.
“Moments of beauty.”
He’s still sitting next to her, watching, grinning like she’s hung the moon. And then…
“Ok but the nurse calling me Daddy makes me uncomfortable on so many levels.”
She guffaws. “Your face was priceless, I’m sorry. I had to…”
“How does it feel using your baby to publicly humiliate me?”
“She’ll get used to it.”
“Right.”
-
Sosa.
She hadn’t expected signing her maiden name to the birth certificate to feel quite so good. Quite so...right.
Camila Marie Sosa. It’s perfect.
She fits right into the routine, easy and adaptable to whatever the day calls for. She has to be, because the lease is up on the duplex in four months and Amy’s working fast and furious to find a house. Not to mention by that time, she’ll be back at work and her mom will keep the baby during the day.
The purity of that moment she first held her, first studied her face, is over, but now it’s threaded through everything else. Things are back to normal now, but she’s beginning to think Jonah’s mantra isn’t so idealistic after all.
She’s happy. Solidly happy.
It isn’t perfect, but it’ll work.
Jonah walks her to her car one evening, and she just feels like it’s right.
She turns to face him. “Do you...Do you wanna like, move in?”
“Oh.” He looks taken aback.
“I mean I totally get it if you don’t. Want to.” She shrugs. “But I wanted to ask anyways.” She’s done with making excuses, especially to herself.
“No, um…” He shifts. “I’ve kinda been saving for a house and…”
“Oh.”
“And so…”
“Yeah, no. I get it.” She waves a hand.
“...maybe we can look...together?”
She blinks. “Oh.”
He smiles wide, in the way that makes his cheeks and eyes crinkle.
“Ok.”
“Sounds good?”
“Yeah.”
“Goodnight, Amy.” He leans down to kiss her, and she reaches up to hold him there, to delay their parting for just a little while, pressed against her crumbling Nissan in the yellow parking lot glow.