Chapter Text
I’d been a little mad at my brothers when December ended. Robby had called me just after Christmas, telling me he was having a New Year’s party at his house. Since his older brother would also be around and was really the one hosting, there would be a keg and probably, some bottles. He was inviting as much of the ‘old gang’ as possible. Shane had joined the Air Force and wasn’t around, and Dan had quit hanging out with us. But there was still Scott and Kevin and, of course, me and Jordan. And we’d managed to get ahold of a few of the girls we used to hang out with, and some of them were going to go. I figured I’d even ask Byron, although I knew he’d turn me down.
But when I’d told Jordan about the plans, he’d surprised me. Haley was having a party of her own that same night—a quiet little event, with eight or ten guests. “Well, that’s okay,” I’d said. “You can always come over after you’re done at Haley’s.” Haley wasn’t exactly Princess Party, right? That get-together had to end just after midnight.
Jordan had gotten uncomfortable. “She invited everyone to spend the night,” he’d said, not making eye contact. “I’m sure you’d be welcome to come if you wanted. Byron and Vanessa are both going to be there.”
But even if I had actually gotten an invitation from Haley instead of secondhand from Jordan, hanging out in the Braddock house, with her parents nonetheless, was not my idea of a good party. Not when the other option involved a keg and my old friends.
So my brothers had gone to Haley’s and I’d gone to Robby’s. And I wasn’t really mad at Byron; I mean, he was actually spending more time with me during break than he had over summer, especially since Jeff wasn’t around to distract him. Jordan was a different story, though. Any time I invited him to go out and do a group activity, he either already had other plans or was too tired. Looking back on it, I can see that it was probably mostly coincidence. But while I was looking for any excuse to leave the house and get away from our family, Jordan was spending most of his time hanging out with our sisters and our parents.
I totally didn’t get it.
In any case, something good did come out of that party at Robby’s. Robby had invited his ex-girlfriend—the girl he’d dated on and off throughout high school. Jordan had counted it up once, and in three years they’d broken up at least twenty-one times. She’d brought some girls that had hung out with us when we were younger but had gone their own way during the last two years of high school. I’d never been particularly close to either of them, but that worked to my advantage. Scott and I had gotten them alone and I’d managed to get one to spend some one-on-one time with me. We had been a little too drunk for her to agree to too much, but she did say she wanted to hang out with me some more. I figured we could leave things loose; she went to UConn and was leaving to go back to school the same weekend I was going back to Ohio. We could go on a few dates and see where things went. Scott had equal luck with her friend.
I got home from a double date with Scott and the two girls one day in early January to find my mom waiting for me. I looked at the clock as I came into the kitchen. It was only one-thirty, and it wasn’t like I was fifteen and had an eleven o’clock curfew. It was kind of late for Mom to be up, though, so I knew she had to be waiting for me. “What’s up, Mom?” I asked as I walked by her and opened the fridge, hoping I sounded calmer than I felt.
Mom looked as tired as you’d expect at that hour, considering she’d worked all day and had to be at work again in the morning. “You had a whole bunch of phone calls while you were out tonight,” she said quietly.
I raised my eyebrows. The Queen of England must have called if Mom actually waited up to give me the messages. “Really? Who were they from?”
She rubbed her eyes. It looked like she’d been crying. “Tiffany Kilbourne called you a couple of times, shortly after you left. And then her sister called. She left you a message.” Mom pulled the message out and made a show of reading it, but I could tell she didn’t need to. She knew exactly what that paper said. “She told me to tell you that Tiffany had a six pound, nine ounce baby boy tonight. She said Tiff was hoping you’d stop by and see them tomorrow while they’re still in the hospital.”
Oh, boy. I shut the fridge door without removing anything. Two things: first, I tried to remember back to when Tiffany was due. That day in July hadn’t exactly been one of my favorite moments, so I’d tried to forget most of it. The date was January tenth; it was now very early on January fourth. Was it normal for babies to be a week early? I didn’t really know.
Second, I’d never told just about anyone about the scare I’d had with Tiff. I hadn’t told my friends, and I’d definitely never told my parents. For obvious reasons, I didn’t want my mom to know I was, in her words, ‘sexually active.’ I didn’t need any lectures, or well-meaning advice, and I sure as hell didn’t want Dad slipping me condoms and telling me to ‘be careful.’ Neither Mal nor Vanessa, who were, to my knowledge, the only other siblings having sex, had told my parents either. I’m sure my parents were at least a little suspicious that someone in the family was; after all, we were teenagers.
I tried to play the Tiffany thing off like Mom wasn’t thinking what she was thinking. “Oh, that’s good for her,” I said coolly. “The baby’s a week early. I bet she’s glad he came early instead of late.”
Mom was having no part of it. “Adam, answer me straight,” she said, looking me dead in the eye. “Is this your child?”
I shook my head. “No, Mom, honest. Do the math on it. I didn’t start dating her again until late May or early June. How could this be my baby?”
She paused and thought about that for a moment. “Oh, thank God,” she murmured when she realized I was right. She pulled me into a hug and, bemused, I let her. “I told Jordan as a joke a couple weeks ago that you all weren’t allowed to make me a grandmother for another ten years. I thought maybe this was the universe trying to be funny as well.”
“Believe me, Mom,” I told her earnestly, “I have no plans to have any kids now, ten years from now, or quite possibly, ever.”
Mom looked serious about that. “And what are you doing to prevent that from happening?” she asked. I cringed; here was that conversation I never wanted to have. I looked away and I saw Mom watch me closely. I looked back at her and I could see she knew without my saying a word. She sighed. “Just be careful, Adam,” she said. “Both with your body and your heart. Okay? That’s the most a mother can ask for.”
I nodded, glad Dad wasn’t here for this. He wouldn’t have stopped there; I’m pretty sure he had a whole speech planned for when he finally found one of us was sleeping around. He’d already given Jordan a version of it when he’d been caught just making out with a girl when we were fifteen. “I’ll be careful,” I reiterated.
***
The reality of Mom’s message from Tiff didn’t hit me until I woke up in the morning. I’d tiptoed around my bedroom that night, trying not to wake Jordan, who was already fast asleep in his bed. And when I awoke in the morning, he was already gone. I’d sat up and stretched and scratched and done all those other morning things when I suddenly realized: Tiff had a baby. A real, honest-to-goodness child. A son.
Not only that, she wanted me to come visit her and her new baby. I couldn’t think of a single good reason why she would want that. I hadn’t stayed in touch like I’d said I would. I hadn’t meant to be bad about it; I’d just kinda forgotten when I got busy with school and the like. Tiff had sent me a few emails and I’d replied to them, but never right away and not with much detail about my own life. I’d basically just answered her questions and not much else.
I hopped out of bed to find my stomach in a knot, although I wasn’t sure exactly why. I had been right when I’d told Mom there was no way this was my kid. It wasn’t possible that she could have had a full-sized baby this quickly if that ultrasound tech back in the day had been wrong. It wasn’t as if I could walk in there and hear her say, ‘We did a DNA test and you actually are the dad.’
I put on a little bit of clothing and wandered down to the kitchen to find that I was the last one of the family up and moving. My younger siblings had gone back to school that day, making the house much quieter. The shower was running as I passed it on my way to the stairs, and I found Jordan hogging the entire kitchen table. He had stuff scattered everywhere, but he was focusing his attention on a plain white box he was trying to wrap in pink sparkly paper. “You’re a little late for Christmas,” I observed.
He shoved the box aside and sat down. “I’m going to need Byron to help me with this,” he said, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “I spent extra money on this damn wrapping paper, but it’s so stiff and sturdy that I can’t get it to fold right. You know how he always wraps stuff and it looks like it’s a prop in a movie?”
I snorted. “Don’t they usually have the two sides of the box wrapped separately, so they just pull the box apart and not have to rewrap for every take?” Jordan lay his head down on the table, looking disgusted. “You might not want to do that,” I cautioned. “Your wrapping paper’s shedding.”
He lifted his head back up and just as I suspected, he was covered in pink glitter. He had it in his hair and scattered across this face and even in his eye lashes. I forgot my own issues for a moment and burst out laughing as Jordan swiped a hand across his face, clearing most of the glitter off and sending it flying. “What are you wrapping anyway?”
“Haley’s birthday present,” he said. “I bought her this blue sweater with really deep pockets. She’s always complaining her hands are cold at work, so I added some hand warmers—you know, those microwavable ones—in the pockets.”
I nodded; I had some vague memory of Byron mentioning, several years ago, that Haley hated having a January birthday because most of her relatives sent her birthday presents with her Christmas presents, wrapped in Christmas paper. I wondered briefly if Tiff’s son would have the same kinds of problems, but I shook the thought off. “Are you giving that to her before you leave?” I asked Jordan.
He gave me an odd look. “Yup.” Byron and I were dropping Jordan back off at the airport in the morning. I hated the thought of him leaving while I was still mildly irritated with him, but I figured maybe we could get a chance to talk that night…or maybe in the morning while we were driving.
I shoved aside the Bellair’s bag and various crap that was at my end of the table, determined to make room so I could have some breakfast. One of the items was the receipt for the sweater. I raised my eyebrows when I saw how much Jordan had spent, but I knew better than to say anything. I didn’t want him to be as ticked off at me as I was at him.
I had a bowl of cereal in front of me by the time Byron came down from the shower. He took one look at Jordan, who’d gone back to trying to wrap the gift, and shook his head. “Oh, for shit’s sakes,” he said, grabbing the package away from Jordan forcibly, “Why’d you buy this type of paper? It’s so hard to wrap with, and you know Hay’s not going to care. She’d be just as happy with the plain box, or with old paper from the junk room.” Jordan shrugged. Byron gave a half smile. “I suppose you want my help with this.” Jordan nodded and Byron sighed, mock dramatically. “Oh, okay.”
He threw away the piece of paper Jordan had been using and dug around in the junk drawer, coming back with a tape measure. He measured all the dimensions of the box and then unrolled a fair piece of the pink sparkly paper and measured it. “Only you would measure the paper,” I observed. Byron gave me a look and continued with the tape. He placed the box in the exact center of the wrapping paper and began by making sharp creases all the way around it. He worked methodically and slowly. I stopped eating and joined Jordan as he stared at Byron’s work.
Byron squirmed, and by way of distraction, he started narrating. “The keys to good wrapping,” he began, “are nice even creases, which prevent lumps, and using as little tape as possible. If you creased right, you only need three pieces of tape on each box.”
Jordan watched as Bryon did indeed use only three pieces of tape. “Sometimes,” Jordan said slowly, “I look at you and think, ‘why didn’t I realize he was gay before he came out?’”
I cracked a grin and Byron put the gift down and flipped him off. “See if I ever help you again,” he said, but he was smiling.
Jordan reached into another shopping bag and pulled out some purple ribbon. “Yes, let’s see if you’ll ever help me again,” he quipped as he handed the ribbon to Byron, who accepted it with a good-natured sigh and began wrapping it around the gift.
I finished my cereal just as Byron presented the finished gift to Jordan. “You should have your own television show,” I commented.
“What? ‘Gift wrapping with Byron?’ No thanks. And it’s not like I have any other domestic skills.”
I rinsed my bowl and put it in the dishwasher. “Are either of you two going to need the car this morning or early afternoon?” I asked. I figured I might as well get my hospital visit over with.
The other two shook their heads. “Are you sure Vanessa didn’t take it to school?” Byron asked.
I squinted out the back window, trying to see if the Civic was in the driveway, but Jordan answered the question for me. “Mom dropped Vanessa—and everyone else, actually—off at school, much to Vanessa’s dissatisfaction. She told her that we would be using the car this week and that she’d just have to arrange stuff with us.” The grin he gave said he was taking extreme pleasure in Vanessa’s vehicle downfall.
“Great. Well, I have somewhere I have to go. I’m going to take a shower myself and then I’m leaving with the car.”
Byron had started amassing his own breakfast while Jordan was cleaning up pink glitter from every surface. “Sounds good,” one of them called as I walked away.
***
I left that morning just as planned, but despite my intentions, I didn’t go into the hospital. I drove up to the parking lot and then, without warning, I violently jerked the car back around and left. I drove around town for a while, and then ate lunch at Renwick’s. I felt like a fool sitting in that booth by myself, but not as big of a fool as I did about being scared to go visit Tiffany. Yes, I finally admitted to myself—scared just about covered it. I didn’t know what exactly I was scared of, but that made my fear even worse.
After lunch, I tried to steel my nerves, but when I got in the car, I found myself at the theater instead of the hospital. I don’t even remember what I watched; I just know that I paid $5 to see something and I didn’t even pay attention.
I got home just before school gets out at SHS. The house was deathly quiet on the ground floor, although I could hear muffled voices—and laughing—from upstairs. Whatever Byron and Jordan were doing, they were doing it together. I went up and passed my bedroom, finding the two of them sitting on Byron’s bed. “She really keeps it right next to her bed?” Jordan asked, disbelieving.
“Yup,” Byron replied. “Pointed at her pillow, same as my picture of Jeff is at school.” They laughed some more.
“If you weren’t gay, I might be jealous,” Jordan said with a shake of his head.
“Of what? A Wandering Frog? That would be a productive jealousy.”
Of course. They were talking about Haley again. What else did they have in common, really? I’d been standing in the doorway for almost a minute, but they hadn’t acknowledged me. I knocked on the doorframe, and they looked up and smiled. “Adam, come join us,” Jordan called. “There’s room for three.”
I shook my head. “What are you two doing tonight?” I asked, not giving them time to answer. “I need one of you to come with me.”
They looked at each other the same way Jordan and I usually did. I never thought I’d be jealous of Byron, but right at that moment? Yeah. “What’s the matter, Adam?” Jordan asked. “You in trouble? Need character references?”
Byron was more serious. “Everything okay?”
I shook my head, not really wanting to get into it. “I really just need one of you to come with me this afternoon or this evening.”
Jordan looked at Nick’s alarm clock. “Haley will be home soon. I’m taking her out for an evening on the town. I actually need to get dressed.” I looked at what he was wearing—his least baggy jeans and a Yankees shirt. Even though I wasn’t a big fan of the latter, there really wasn’t anything wrong with it. He hopped off the bed. “We’re taking her car, so if you need the car tonight, you only have to deal with Vanessa.” With that, Jordan left the room.
I knitted my brow and Byron looked me over. “Come here,” he ordered and patted the spot Jordan had just vacated. I came over and joined him on the bed, sitting just a little farther away than he’d hoped. “What bug crawled up your butt and died?” he asked. “You’re not usually this serious without good reason.”
I took a deep breath. “Tiff had her baby last night,” I finally admitted. “A six pound, nine ounce baby boy.”
“Oh,” Byron said brightly. “Good for her! I didn’t realize it was already time for that.”
“He was about a week early,” I pointed out. Byron just nodded, but he watched me closely. He didn’t seem to think this was something to get upset about, and he was waiting for me to explain. “She asked that I come visit her today.”
“I see,” Byron said. I get what he’s doing when he puts these big pauses into the conversation; he does that to give other people a chance to offer more information before he speaks. It works really well on Margo and Claire, but when he does it to me, it’s just annoying. “You were hoping one of us would go with you, for whatever reason,” he finally concluded. I nodded. “What are visiting hours?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I told him after a moment. “I didn’t get that far.”
“Well,” said, still looking concerned, “Find out what those hours are. I have plans here in a minute—some of my friends from Kitchen & Bath are picking me up and we’re going out for dinner and coffee—but I’ll be back by seven. I’ll go with you later this evening if they’re still allowing visitors.”
I nodded again. The two of us sat silently side by side for a while. “Did she say what she named him?” Byron asked.
“Dunno,” I replied. “I didn’t actually get to talk to her. Mom took a message from one of her sisters.”
Byron cringed, much like I had when Mom had told me. “How did that conversation go?” he asked.
“Better than I would have expected,” I admitted. “I think she knows, but she didn’t say anything about it.”
“What can she say? I mean, last time I checked, by the definition of the law, we were adults. We’re legal to do just about anything except drink and rent a car. It’s not like you broke any of her rules, anyway, right?” Byron pulled his knees up to his chest and addressed me over them. “It’s not like you and Tiff were doing it in the house or anything.”
I looked away and, probably, blushed. His eyes grew huge. “You did?” he asked. “When?”
“Fourth of July.”
“Wow.” Byron shook his head and focused back in on the point. “Why are you worried about going to visit her? You’ve generally never needed me and Jordan as a security blanket before. That’s more my shtick.” I turned back toward him and although he was serious, he’d put on a little smile. “You know it’s not your baby and you don’t have any responsibility, beyond being a decent human being. So what’s the problem?”
“I guess…” I thought about that again. “I’m just worried about why she wanted me to come. Me, as opposed to her other ex-boyfriends.”
“Adam, I think that she’s looking at it from the point of view that you were there when she started this journey, so she wants you to see where it ended. I mean, obviously you weren’t there when the baby was created, but you were there when she found out he existed. And you were there for several crucial steps along the way.”
Before I could reply to that, Jordan came back down the hallway. I had to do a double-take before I was sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. He was wearing black pants—not jeans but something much nicer—and a black button-down shirt, tucked in. He held two ties in front of his chest. “Which one?” he asked.
Byron had obviously been expecting this. “Well, what’s Haley wearing?” he asked.
“A white dress with a red design on it,” Jordan answered. He then looked at the ties and his brain caught up to his mouth. “Oh, I see. I should try to coordinate.”
“Or at the very least, not clash,” Byron confirmed. He looked at the ties also and shook his head. He jumped off the bed and went into his own drawer, where he emerged with a red tie with narrow black and white stripes. “Here.”
I watched all of this without comment, because I felt like my mouth had dried up. Jordan, who didn’t like to wear anything vaguely resembling form-fitting, was going out looking like he just forgot his suit jacket? He looked pretty good, too. “Thanks. Now let’s see if I can tie it before Haley gets here.” He wandered back off toward the bathroom.
I looked at Byron, my mouth still dried up, and he explained. “Today’s Haley’s birthday,” he said. I nodded; that also explained why Jordan had given me a strange look when I asked him if he was giving Haley her gift before he left. “He asked her what she wanted to do and she said she wanted to go dancing. Jordan found this place where they serve you dinner and then give you a ballroom dance lesson. It’s unbelievably corny, but Hay’ll eat it right up.” A horn honked outside. Byron went to the window and waved outside. “That’s Morgan and Teresa. I’ll see you later.”
He hopped off the bed and grabbed his shoes from the corner, leaving with them still in his hand. I lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. I heard him hop his way down the stairs and then there was a moment while he put on his shoes and coat before the front door opened and shut. A few minutes passed before a second set of feet went down the stairs, more sedately this time. The door opened again and I heard Jordan greet Haley and her exclaim over something. After a moment, they left as well.
The house was far too quiet for about two minutes before the back door slammed so hard I thought the house was vibrating. That could only mean one thing: Margo was home. She had been in such a mood for so long that I was actually getting used to this type of behavior out of her. I waited a few minutes to see if anyone else on their way home. According to the calendar downstairs by the door, Claire had art club on Tuesdays, while Vanessa had gotten a job working Tuesdays and Thursdays at the library. But Nick didn’t have any scheduled plans, so he might have been right behind Margo.
When a sufficient amount of time went by to assume that Nick wasn’t coming, I got up and joined Margo in the kitchen. She was making herself a snack—peanut butter on graham crackers. “Margo?” I said quietly. She looked up from her peanut butter and scowled, going straight back to her knife. I couldn’t believe I was about to do this, but I sucked it up. “Can I ask you for a favor?”
She still didn’t turn away from her food. “Really?” she asked, sounding nearly as enthusiastic about me talking to her as I felt. “You think I would ever do anything for you?”
I sighed at sat down on the counter next to the peanut butter. “I remember a time when you would have given your right arm to hang out with me,” I observed.
“Yeah, well, that was a long time ago.” I thought back about it; it was two years ago when Margo was in eighth grade that she’d followed Jordan and me around as often as we’d let her (which wasn’t that often). Now she didn’t want to be in the same room we were in.
“Listen,” I finally said, still in a quieter voice than she was used to hearing out of me, and I think that’s why she finally looked up from her food and even put the knife down, “I need someone to run an errand with me. All I need you to do is come with me for about an hour.”
“And what do I get out of this?”
I wrinkled my nose. “The ability to hold it over my head that I actually asked you for help?” Margo made a big show of getting ready to pick up the knife and start ignoring me. “What were you hoping I’d give you?”
She was clearly softening. “Can we stop on the way home and get a milkshake?” she asked.
“That’s it?” I asked. “That’s all you’re going to ask for?”
Margo shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve got anything better going on,” she said. “I guess it’s as good an excuse as any to get out of the house.”
***
I left Mom a note and we were in the car a short time later. “So where are we going?” Margo asked.
“The hospital,” I said as we turned onto Burnt Hill. Margo raised both her eyebrows. “The maternity ward,” I continued.
She snorted. “Who do you know in the maternity ward?” I didn’t answer immediately and she grinned. “I get it. Some ex-girlfriend of yours is there, right?” Margo leaned over, in best little-sister fashion. “How many babies you got floating around out there, Adam?”
Even though I knew she was kidding, I got all worked up from that. We approached a stop sign and I applied the brake a lot harder than I meant to do. Margo never wears her shoulder belt and so she nearly flew into the dash board. “What the fuck, Adam?” she swore as she righted herself.
I shrugged. “Seatbelt check,” I joked. She scowled at me, assuming my reaction was just a comment on her teasing, and put her seatbelt on properly.
We pulled into the parking lot before Margo spoke again. “So why are we here exactly?”
I took a deep breath and she watched me carefully. “We’re going to visit Tiffany and her new baby.”
“Tiffany?” Margo repeated. “Your ex-girlfriend, Tiffany?” I nodded and she looked away. I thought maybe she was regretting her earlier jest, but instead she just shook her head in disgust. “You can’t go up to visit a new baby without bringing a gift.”
I realized she was probably right. “Well, what do you get for a baby?”
Margo rolled her eyes. “Toys. Or tiny little baby clothes.” I sighed and turned the car back around.
A quick stop in the baby store later, we were back at the hospital. Margo and I went inside and checked with the information desk and then headed up to the fourth floor. We had to sign in before we were allowed to even enter the ward. Margo held the gift—a little Red Sox uniform and a small toy—in a gift bag. “Why did you want me to come with?” she asked in a whisper.
I hushed her. “There’s Tiffany’s room.”
The door was closed and I knocked, feeling a sense of dread come over me, and it didn’t go away too quickly. Tiff’s mom opened the door, and she didn’t look happy to see me. “Adam?” she asked, as if she really couldn’t believe I was standing in the doorway in the maternity ward at the hospital. I almost couldn’t believe it either.
I came in, even though she really hadn’t invited me to do so. Margo trailed behind me, turning shy. It’s not really her nature, but she has moments like this. I actually like her better when she’s not talking, anyway. “Hey, Tiffany,” I said.
Tiff was sitting in bed. She kinda looked like hell. Her hair was greasy and hung on her head; she wasn’t wearing any makeup and her only clothing was a hospital gown and a pair of slippers. But she smiled when she saw me and beckoned me nearer. “Adam. I’m so glad you came!” She reached forward and I went ahead and gave her a hug. She’d put on weight in her face, but she didn’t look one bit different when she was smiling. Tiff noticed that I’d brought someone with me, but she didn’t seem put out at all. “Hi, Margo,” she added with a waggle of her fingers.
Margo waved back silently, taking in every sight. “I hope you don’t mind that I brought her along,” I said. I was feeling a little better now that I’d actually seen Tiffany. “We were out running errands.” I looked around the room as well. There was one of those little bassinets that babies sleep in at the end of the room near the door, but no baby in it. Tiff’s sister Shannon had been seated by her feet on the bed, but now she joined Mrs. Kilbourne near the bassinet. Finally, I located the baby—Maria was sitting in an easy chair next to the bed, giving him a bottle. I couldn’t really see him because he was wrapped up in a blanket, but he was tiny. It was hard to believe that I’d ever been that small, even though I knew that I was much smaller at birth.
Shannon gripped her mother’s arm. “Let’s go get some coffee,” she suggested. Mrs. Kilbourne didn’t look thrilled at the suggestion, but she grabbed her purse off a shelf and followed her daughter out the door.
Margo inched closer to the chair, Maria and the baby. “I’ve never seen a baby that small before,” she said, feeling less shy now that the ‘adults’ had left.
Maria smiled. “Cute, isn’t he?” Margo nodded. “The best thing about nephews,” she observed, “is that you get to cuddle them and feed them and spoil them. But when they poop or cry, you get to give them back to their mom.”
“That sounds about right,” Tiff said. The baby popped the bottle back out of his mouth and I got a look at his face for the first time. He was wrinkly and not exactly attractive, and his tiny arms were pulled up near his face. But he opened his eyes and they were so blue it was almost startling. “Give me my kid,” Tiff continued to Maria. “It’s my turn for the cuddles.” Maria obliged, handing him over as gently as if he were made out of glass. Tiff received the baby like an old pro; I guess handling newborns comes instinctively for mothers. She threw a cloth on her shoulder and then put him on it, his stomach against chest and his head on her shoulder, and began rubbing his back. “Maria, why don’t you take Margo down to see the nursery? She’ll love it. It’s where all the babies whose moms are sleeping get taken. There’s usually at least five of them in there, all in a row.”
Maria scowled; she knew she was being dismissed and she clearly disliked the idea. Margo didn’t seem to notice; she looked over at Maria enthusiastically. “Okay,” Maria finally consented. She grabbed her purse off the chair she’d been sitting in and Margo followed her eagerly.
They didn’t wait until they left the room to start talking. “You used to date Nick, didn’t you?” Margo asked. Maria nodded. “Can I just ask you one question?” she continued as they left the room. “Why?” We didn’t get to hear Maria’s response.
I took the chair Maria had vacated and turned it so it was facing Tiff and her son. She continued to rub his back for a while before pulling him away, satisfied. “He’s a good burper already,” she said, smiling at me. I returned the smile, but mine was much more subdued than hers. “Oh,” Tiffany said. “I need to make a proper introduction. Come over here, please.” She patted a spot next to her on the bed, much like Byron had done earlier. I rose from the chair and sat right next to her. She turned to me a little so that I had a good look at the blanket covered creature in her arms. “Adam Pike, I’d like you to meet Adam Carey Kilbourne.”
I looked at him—Adam—for a moment and then back at Tiffany. “Adam Carey?” I asked.
“Carey is my mother’s maiden name,” she explained.
I shook my head. “I’m more stuck on the Adam part,” I admitted.
“I had a hard time picking out a name,” she said. “I joined this online support group for teen moms, and all the girls were naming their kids all this trendy stuff, or making up names like JaQua’reon. I didn’t want to do that. I decided I wanted my son’s name to have meaning and substance.” I nodded and she went on. “I couldn’t think of anything better than naming him after someone.”
“I was named after my grandfather,” I observed.
“Were you? That makes it even better, then. See,” Tiffany looked very serious as she spoke. “Eric, my ex, isn’t really interested in the baby. He’s denying this is his son.” She looked down at the baby, who had closed his blue eyes and gone to sleep. “We’re going to have to take him to court, get a DNA test and then, maybe, he’ll pay child support. But I doubt he’s going to want to share custody or even have visitation. It’s his loss,” she said, looking sad and angry for a moment, “but even more so, it’s my son’s. My dad hasn’t really been in my life for the past so many years, and that’s been rough for me and I’m a girl. But I think boys really need men in their lives. Role models.” She sighed and cuddled the baby to her face for a moment, kissing his tiny forehead. “I’m not asking you for anything. But I wanted to name him after a strong male role model. You were the closest thing I had.”
I looked back at that little boy she was holding in her arms, less than twenty-four hours old. Hard to believe someday he’d be walking and talking and going to school and dating girls. That’s probably what made me say what I said next. “Someday, when he’s old enough to want to do boy things that you don’t like to do—camping and fishing or building go-karts or whatever it may be—you call me and I’ll come. Anytime.”
Tiff smiled, although I think she knew the chances of that happening were small. “What if he’s got questions that a mom just can’t answer?”
“Have him call me. I’m not saying I have all—or any—of the answers, but I’ll try.”
The baby—Adam—shifted slightly and yawned. “Do you want to hold him?” Tiffany asked.
I grimaced. “I’d probably drop him on his head,” I said.
She grinned. “You’re chicken.”
I wasn’t about to take that. “Okay, hand him over,” I ordered.
Tiff shifted toward me and then stopped. “Oh, wait. First, go wash your hands. No offense, but newborns have very little immunity. I know he needs to build it up sometime, but we’ll wait a couple weeks.” I obliged and came back to the bed with freshly dried hands. “Okay, put one hand under his neck. That’s good. And then cradle him in the other arm. Good! It’s not so hard, see?”
I shifted him into the crook of my elbow, like Tiff had been holding him. I wasn’t as good at it as she was, but he relaxed into me like he belonged there. “Hello, Adam,” I said as his eyelids fluttered and he moved his mouth a little. “I’m a friend of your mommy’s. If you ever need anything, you let me know.” Looking at his little face—he didn’t seem so unattractive anymore; in fact, he was kind of cute—I knew that if he or Tiff ever called and needed me, I wouldn’t turn them down.
I was still holding Adam, sitting next to Tiff on her bed, when Maria and Margo came back. “Guess what, Adam,” Margo said gleefully. “We got to watch one of the babies get a sponge bath. It was a boy, and they’d just circumcised him.” I winced on the baby’s behalf, because I’d read about how that was done. Margo barreled on. “Everything was really red and it really looked like it hurt.”
“On that lovely thought,” I said, for I could see Tiff making a face, “we really should be going.”
“Wait, Adam,” Margo said, now looking annoyed. “You didn’t give Tiffany the gift yet.”
“You didn’t have to bring me something!” Tiff cried. I looked over at Margo and smiled; she’d won me all kinds of brownie points. Margo brought the gift over and Tiff opened it. “Oh, look, Maria!” she said, holding up the Red Sox outfit. “How cute is that! And it’s a three month size! Thanks, you two. Everyone else bought newborn clothes, and they grow out of those so quick. Now my little Adam can grow up to be a Red Sox fan, too.” She set the gift aside and I leaned over toward her. She reached out and took Adam back from me. I ran one finger down his arm and looked at his tiny little fingers and Tiff smiled. “Thank you both so much for coming to visit. It means a whole lot.” I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Take care, Tiff.”
“You, too. Expect a lot more emails from me now.”
“I look forward to that.” I got back up from the bed. Margo was waiting for me in the doorway, but Maria was hovering in the vicinity of the bassinet. “See ya later, Maria,” I called. She smiled at me as I walked by.
I paused just after I closed the hospital room door behind us. Tiff had said she’d named Adam after me because I was the closest thing to a male role model he had. I shook my head. Heaven help the poor boy if I was going to be the best man in his life.
Margo and I walked silently for a while. We were nearly out of the hospital before she made the comment I’d been waiting for. “She named her baby after you?” she asked, cocking her head to one side.
“Yup. Apparently, I’m the best guy she knows.”
Margo shook her head. “That’s pretty pathetic. She needs to go out and meet some more men.”
“Seriously. In fact, she should get on that tonight.” Margo’s face crinkled into a beautiful smile. I’d forgotten how nice it was when she was smiling. We headed into the parking lot and found the Civic. I unlocked the driver’s door (manually, of course) and then stopped before reaching over to unlock Margo’s door. “Thank you, by the way,” I said, looking at her over the car.
“For what?” Margo demanded, looking confused.
I took a deep breath. “For not asking if that was my kid, that’s what.”
Margo dismissed that with the wave of a hand and a sound effect. “Pfft. There’s no way you could keep a secret like that in this family. Someone would have found out, and then Claire would have found out, and then the whole world would have found out.”
I felt myself relax. “That is…completely true,” I observed. I finally unlocked Margo’s door and she got in.
***
We stopped for hot fudge milkshakes on the way home. Margo didn’t mention it, but I hadn’t forgotten. She took hers gratefully, even saying thank you, and we sipped quietly in the parking lot for a while before I drove off. It was really kind of odd to be in the parking lot, heat blasting, wearing gloves while drinking milkshakes with my sister, but I didn’t comment on it. Instead I asked her, “What’s been bothering you the past few weeks?”
Margo scowled. “Like you haven’t heard by now.”
“I heard something, but I don’t think it’s the whole story, or even the right story. So why don’t you tell it to me?”
She watched me for a moment and then, realizing I was completely earnest, began relaying the story. Byron’s version, repeated to me by Jordan, turned out to be pretty accurate after all. “So now,” she concluded after a drawn-out sigh, “I have no boyfriend and no best friend and I don’t know what to do next.”
“I just have one question,” I told her. Margo nodded, her face otherwise a blank slate. “I understand why Chris is mad at you, and I hope you understand why he is too.” I didn’t wait for her to answer that. “But why is Karen upset? Did this all happen on her bed or something?”
Margo made a face and I could tell that I’d found the real problem. “I don’t know,” she said, looking irritated. I put my milkshake down and crossed my arms in front of me, Dad-style. “Oh, okay,” she finally said quietly. “Karen and I both liked Chris. We decided to kinda group-flirt with him and see if he liked either one of us. He picked me, so she was kinda jealous, but she pretended that it was okay and she didn’t mind.” She took a big sip from her drink. “But I really liked David Michael last year. We’d go to Karen’s house more when she was at her dad’s than when she was at her mom’s. Karen decided…” Margo faded out for a moment, but then decided to go through with her statement despite any misgivings. “Karen decided that I never really liked Chris and I was just using him to make David Michael jealous, or something like that. She felt like I ‘took’ Chris from her for a selfish reason.”
I thought that over. I’ve never claimed to be an expert in the female brain, but I’d actually followed Karen’s logic. It made sense…from a certain warped point of view. “Okay,” I said.
Margo took that to be my equivalent of Byron’s ‘I see.’ “I don’t know what to do next,” she said, turning whiny. “I asked Byron for help, but he basically just told me to stop being a bitch.”
I raised my eyebrows; that wasn’t something I could actually picture Byron saying. “The problem with going to Byron for help,” I noted, “is that there are certain areas where he’s very useful, and others in which he’s a total dud.” Margo leaned in over her cup and took a deep drink, watching me over the top. “There are some things Byron has no experience in, and I don’t just mean straight-people stuff.”
“What do you mean, then?”
“Guess how many times Byron’s had a drink in his whole life.” Margo shrugged, indicating she had no intention of ever actually guessing. “Twice. And one of those times, he had so little that I’m surprised he could even taste it. He’s never been drunk and I don’t think he ever will be.” I picked my drink back up and sucked some back. “You want an expert in stupid drunken behavior in this family, you have to come to me.”
“Well, what should I do now?” she asked. I could see she was taking what I said seriously.
“That depends,” I said as I put the car back into gear. “What is your ultimate goal here? Be realistic.”
Margo looked out the window for a moment. “I want Karen back,” she said finally, “and I want all the kids at school to stop looking at me like I’m a slut.”
I sighed. “If you want an expert in sluttiness in this family,” I muttered under my breath, “you’ll need to talk to Jordan.”
“What?” Margo asked. I shook my head, not sure if she wanted me to repeat what I’d said or explain it. Not for the first time, I wondered why when a guy is sleeping with multiple girls, he’s considered a stud and revered for it, but when a girl is sleeping with multiple guys, she’s a slut and reviled.
I stopped at a stop sign before I spoke again. “I think you just need to prove to Karen that she’s wrong. Show her she’s important to you and that no boy could ever come between you again.” Margo nodded like I’d said something meaningful, even though I’d been extremely vague. “As for the rest of the world thinking you’re a slut? Fuck ‘em. If you pretend that you don’t give a shit what they think, they’ll stop thinking about you entirely.”
“I don’t want that either, though,” Margo complained with a sigh.
“Like I said, Margo, you have to be realistic. You’re not going to magically go from being the class slut to be the class sweetheart overnight. Once they stop talking about this and find some other sap to make fun of, you can go about winning them all back.”
By the time we got back to the house, both Mom and Dad’s cars were in the driveway. “Have you figured out what you’re going to do with Karen?” I asked.
She grimaced and then shook her head. “But maybe I can talk to Rosie and Betsy and we can figure something out.” She opened the car door but didn’t move, despite the cold breeze whipping in. It was getting ready to snow again. “At least they’re still my friends.” I opened my door as well, hoping to get into the nice, warm house, but Margo stopped me with a hand to my arm. “Adam, thanks.”
“Thank you for coming with me this evening.” Margo gave me a shy smile and hurried ahead of me into the house.
***
Other than Byron and Jordan, everyone was home for dinner that night. Mom had made a giant pot of spaghetti, the one food generally everyone will eat. But most of the family didn’t seem to want to eat. Vanessa, home from the library, was in bed with a pillow on her head and a heating pad on her middle. “I’m not getting out of bed,” she called when Mom told her it was time to eat. “I have the worst cramps.”
Claire was likewise not in the mood to join us at the dinner table. “I had three Twinkies about an hour ago,” she said. “I’m not hungry, and watching you eat might make me barf.”
Mom was starting to look downcast. “I’m sure you’ve got some plans tonight, don’t you?” she asked me.
I shook my head. “I’m free for dinner, and I’m sure Margo is too. And isn’t Nick home somewhere? I bet he’s hungry.”
Dinner was actually not that bad. Byron came home just as we were cleaning up, and even though he had just eaten with his friends, he grabbed a big old bowl of spaghetti and sat down at the kitchen table. “How do you stay so skinny when you eat so much?” Margo asked him.
He eyed her cautiously for a moment, trying to decide whether she was teasing or being cruel. “Good metabolism and a lot of luck,” he said, his mouth full. Byron finished chewing and swallowed. “Actually, I put on ten of the freshman fifteen so far this year.”
“Yeah, so I did I,” I said as Nick and Margo loaded the dishwasher, “but mine is a beer belly. You look like you put on some muscle.”
He shrugged and looked back down at his pasta. After a minute our siblings left and he turned to me. “Did you make it out to the hospital?” he asked in a low voice, mindful that nothing said in our house was ever really private. I nodded but didn’t say a word. Byron knew not to push, so he tried to find something innocuous to ask. “So what did she name him?”
Even though I’d already had a milkshake and dinner, I picked up a piece of garlic bread and sat down with him. I took a big bite and chewed for a while before I answered. “She named him Adam.”
Byron smiled. “Good choice,” he said quietly.
***
Byron and I were sitting in the living room just before eleven when we heard voices on the front stoop. Vanessa was still in bed with cramps, while Nick and Margo were upstairs doing homework, and Claire was working on something for art club. “I think Jordan’s home,” Byron said unnecessarily.
I walked over to the front window and peeked out. It had started snowing, but Jordan and Haley were standing on the walkway. He had one arm up over her head and was twirling her around and around. “Looks like Haley enjoyed her dance lesson,” I observed.
“I knew she would.” The door opened then and Jordan held it as Haley walked through. “Hay!” Byron exclaimed. “Didn’t think I’d see you tonight. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks!” she replied. Her cheeks were rosy, but not just from the cold. She accepted a hug from Byron, who slid a small package into her coat pocket. “I wasn’t going to be by tonight, but I had a few minutes before curfew—my parents raised it a little for school nights—and I wanted to walk Jordan home.”
Jordan looked over to her from where he was still standing in the doorway, just inside the closed door. While Haley was smiling and perky, he was much more serious. “Only problem is, you still need to get home,” he noted.
“Yes, but now you can walk me home,” she said, tugging on his jacket. He opened the door again. “See you two later,” she called to Byron and me. I gave a little half wave and Byron sat back on the arm of the couch.
After the door closed behind them, Byron turned back to me. “She seems a lot less upset about him leaving than she was last time,” he said.
I shook my head, not nearly as interested in this topic as he was. “Maybe reality hasn’t hit her yet.”
“I think it’s more than that,” Byron said. “I don’t know what happened, but she doesn’t seem to be worried that he’s going to find someone else anymore.”
“Hmm,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t pick up steam. He noticed my lack of enthusiasm and changed directions, asking for school anecdotes. A few minutes passed as I explained how Archer had started campaigning on my behalf with the Trip-Ep girls. I told him I didn’t want his castoffs and would pass up on any girl he’d slept with or rejected for any reason. He’d basically told me that didn’t leave any girls on campus.
Byron was shaking his head in disbelief when the front door opened again. Jordan entered again, slumped and slouched the way Byron usually was. Byron, being Mr. Sensitive, looked concerned. “Everything okay?”
Jordan shook his head and walked by us, taking his coat to the mudroom. When he returned, he was wiping one hand at his eyes, which were red. I looked over at Byron and cocked my head. He looked back at me, frowning. Here Jordan went again—getting all teary-eyed over a girl. Despite how easily Byron cried over everything, he seemed to be a lot less maudlin over his relationship with Jeff than Jordan was in his relationship. “She didn’t dump you again, did she?” I asked. That was the last thing I wanted to deal with.
“Adam!” Byron chided. I rolled my eyes at him.
Jordan looked up after one last rub at his eye. “No, jackass,” he said, irritation clear in his expression. “This may be hard for you to understand, Adam, since you have the emotional depth of an earwig, but I love her. Leaving her sucks, every time.”
“An earwig?” Byron asked, looking for an explanation. Jordan just shrugged, so Byron moved on from that thought and clapped him on the back. “Just think—it’s only four more months. Then you two have the whole summer together.”
“Three months,” Jordan corrected. Byron and I both looked at him. “Haley’s spending her spring break with me.”
I raised an eyebrow; a girl as prudish as Haley was actually going to go stay in Jordan’s dorm for a week? “Well, good,” I said, only a little sarcastically. “Maybe you can actually manage to coax her shirt off of her finally.” Jordan actually smiled a goofy, lopsided grin. I had the feeling after seeing that that the shirt was no longer a problem. Byron and I looked at each other and he smiled too, although his smile was more subtle, and that confirmed it for me. “You know what you need?” I said after a moment. “A nice drink. I have that bottle of Scotch I bought for Jeff that he obviously no longer has a need for. You and I can polish that off.”
Jordan looked at me seriously. “Yeah, alright,” he said after a moment.
“Byron? You want to join us?”
He cocked his head to one side for a moment. “Fifty-fifty,” he said. “I’ll hang out with you guys, but I don’t want to drink.”
“Fair enough,” I said. There was a time, not that long ago, that I never even would have mentioned in front of Byron that I had alcohol in my bedroom. He used to be the king of the narcs.
Jordan grabbed some disposable plastic cups from the kitchen and I pulled the bottle of Scotch out from behind some stuff at the back of our closet. Byron sat on Jordan’s bed and watched us for a moment. “Oh, okay,” he said out of nowhere. “Pour me a little bit of that, too.” Jordan and I gaped at him. “I’m not saying I’ll drink it,” he said, “but at least I’ll feel more like part of the group.”
“You’re always part of the group anyway,” Jordan told him, “even when you’re being your usual self.”
When we all three had our drinks, I held my cup up. “Cheers!” My brothers and I crashed our cups together, and then Jordan and I downed our drinks like shots. Byron took a sip of his, blanched, and then just held the cup. We didn’t refill our cups right away, just put them aside, and Byron did the same, carefully setting his down on my desk. “Let’s talk about the kind of stuff that we wouldn’t want Mom and Dad to hear,” I said. “Like sex and drugs and…well, mostly sex.” Byron chuckled. “I want to hear more about this development in Jordan’s sex life.”
“What’s to tell?” Jordan said. “If you’re looking for salacious details, you’re not going to get anything good here. It’s not like Haley and I made a porno or anything. She just finally figured out she can trust me and that I won’t take a removed shirt as an invitation to rip off her other clothes.”
I thought about that for a moment. I tend to forget about Haley’s history with guys, because why do I want to dwell on that? “Well,” I said, realizing that was as much detail as I was going to get. “If it makes you happy, then that’s good.”
“I have one more question,” Byron said. We both turned to him, surprised. “Did she take her shirt off, or did you?”
Jordan looked at Byron for a moment. Byron shrugged, unassuming. Jordan knitted his eyebrows together. “She was wearing two layers,” he said. “She took off the first one and she let me take off the second. She’s the one who undid her bra.” Byron nodded. “Why? Last time we talked about this topic, you acted like you were going to throw up at the thought.”
I laughed, although the two of them were deadly serious. “I’ve had a change of opinion on a lot of stuff this year,” Byron said. “One of those things is how I live on the fringe of everything. I don’t want to be so different anymore.” Jordan and I were both staring at him. “There are some things that I can’t change, so I’m working on the ones that I can. Like the stick that’s been jammed up my ass for the past so many years.”
“Yeah,” I replied, almost seriously. “You have to get that stick out of your ass if you ever want to put anything else in there.”
Instead of getting mad, like I expected, Byron laughed. “You know,” he said. “Jeff said about the same thing when I told him that.”
I thought about that for a second. “Okay, now it’s my turn to want to throw up,” I commented.
Jordan had been watching this whole exchange, amused. “So you’re going to be the, um…receiver?” he said to Byron after a minute.
Byron blushed. “That has not been decided yet,” he mumbled under his breath.
“But it’s been discussed?” I asked.
He looked away from both of us and picked his cup back up, although he had no intention of drinking it. “A little.” Jordan and I continued to stare at him and he continued to look at everything but us. “Okay,” he said after a minute. “Jeff and I decided to…how do I put this? Yeah. We decided to try…” He faded out again.
We weren’t about to let him get away with it. “What?” Jordan asked, gently.
Byron was bright red. “Phone sex,” he whispered.
“What was that?” I asked, egging him on. “I couldn’t hear you.” Jordan elbowed me in the ribs.
“Phone sex,” Byron repeated a moment later, slightly louder. “But I pretty much sucked at it. I wasn’t any good at describing anything, and I’m not really creative about that kind of stuff as yet.” He squeezed his cup, nearly spilling the Scotch, and then put it down. “It worked out okay, though, because we ended up having a talk about a lot of stuff. Like how we don’t need to plan and schedule everything in our lives.”
“Because Jeff is just so into schedules and plans,” I joked.
“Exactly.”
I grabbed the bottle and refilled my cup and Jordan’s. “So what about you?” Byron said, turning back to me.
“What about me?”
“You were out pretty late last night.”
“Yeah!” Jordan piped up. “Who were you with?”
“Scott and I were out on a double date,” I said, vaguely.
“Okay,” Jordan said lightly, “Unless you were whispering sweet nothings into Scott’s ear, that doesn’t really answer the question.” Byron snickered.
I rolled my eyes at them both. “Do you guys remember Kelly Petracki?” I asked.
Byron thought for a second. “Yeah, Kelly. She was always with Lynn DiCarlo, right?”
“That’s her. She and Lynn are roommates at UConn now.”
Jordan stared. “Kelly Petracki?” he repeated.
“Yes, Jordan, Kelly.” I couldn’t understand his disbelieving tone of voice. “Do you need to clean out your ears?”
“No, I heard you just fine,” he answered, not sounding miffed like I’d expected, but still surprised. “I’m just…well…I didn’t expect that she would go for you, that’s all.”
“Why?” I asked. “She another one of those girls that you chased for years and couldn’t get?”
“Nooo,” he said slowly. Both Byron and I were watching him closely. “She’s one of those girls I chased for a little while and then did get. Both her and Lynn.”
Byron chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, right,” he said in recognition. “They’re the Lynn and Kelly.” Jordan made a face.
I had the feeling I was missing something. “What are we talking about here?” I asked, purposely leaving the question vague.
Jordan shifted, a little uncomfortably. “Third base?” he said, phrasing it as a question rather than a statement.
It was my turn to shake my head. “Well, there’s the answer to Annie’s question,” I muttered.
“What?” I think both of them asked at the same time.
I shook my head. “Nothing important.” The real question to me was whether I was going to keep seeing Kelly. I liked her okay—you could have a conversation with her, and we seemed compatible in other ways—but did I really want to boldly go where my brother had already gone before? I shifted the subject. “So you dated both Kelly and Lynn?”
Byron answered on Jordan’s behalf. “At the same time.” Jordan gave him a disgusted face and Byron shrugged. If I couldn’t see it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed that Byron hadn’t actually drunk anything.
“And how do you know that?” I asked Byron.
He grinned. “I’m like Claire. I know all kinds of stuff that no one thinks I know. It’s what I get for being ‘quiet and observant.’”
“Formerly quiet,” Jordan said, half fondly. “And just for the record, it’s called ‘eavesdropping,’ Byron.”
“Not when you have the conversation right in front of me, it isn’t, Jordan,” Byron put heavy emphasis on the nomenclature. “It’s not my fault if you’re willing to have otherwise private conversations in my presence.”
Jordan looked at him quietly for a moment, and, not finding an argument for that, grinned. “I am going to miss you two so bad when I leave tomorrow,” he said.
Byron picked up his cup and actually took a small sip (although he grimaced once again afterward). In response, Jordan and I picked up our mostly-full cups and downed them again. “Not me,” I replied to Jordan’s earlier statement. “When I get back to Ohio, it will be out of sight, out of mind. Fully expect to not hear from me again for a couple months.”
My brothers looked at each other. “My threat about the pitchforks still stands,” Byron commented. Jordan, who hadn’t to my knowledge heard Byron’s offer to come to Ohio and jab me with a pitchfork until I emailed him, laughed anyway.
“I expect nothing less,” I told him.