The color left her face in one long draw, as if someone had pulled a plug!
“That baby in her belly is your grandchild.”
Behind Jake’s mother, the teenager with the phone slowly lowered it. Even he seemed to understand that our situation wasn’t content worthy anymore. It was something else.
“I didn’t know,” Lydia stammered. “I didn’t know it was her. I didn’t…”
“Would it have mattered?” I heard myself say.
My voice shook, but it kept going, which surprised me more than anyone.
It was something else.
“You’ve been calling me a gold digger for eight months, Lydia. You put doubt into people’s minds about the child’s paternity. But you’ve never even seen my face until tonight.”
“Emma, I…”
“Knowing wouldn’t have changed anything,” I said. “You said those things about a stranger. That’s almost worse.”
“You put doubt into people’s minds.”
She looked at Maurice again, and I swear something in her face collapsed. As if she were seeing her 24-year-old self reflected back through his eyes, standing in a church parking lot with a promise she’d broken so quickly she hadn’t noticed.
“I need to go,” Lydia whispered, and stared at me one last time.
“Lydia, your cart,” Maurice said.
She didn’t hear him.
I swear something in her face collapsed.
My baby’s grandmother turned, hand pressed to her mouth, and walked, then ran toward the automatic doors in tears. Someone stepped aside to let her pass.
She left the cart right where it was, breast pump and all, tiny yellow onesies spilling over the edge.
The store stayed quiet for a long moment.
Someone stepped aside to let her pass.
Maurice put a hand on my shoulder, careful, the way you’d touch something breakable.
“Are you okay, kid?”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure.
Then my back pocket buzzed. I pulled out my phone with hands that didn’t feel like mine.
Jake was calling.
Marcy handled my till while I ducked into the break room, pressing the phone to my ear with a trembling hand.
Then my back pocket buzzed.
“Emma, have you knocked off yet?” Jake asked. “I’m running a bit late to pick you…”
I didn’t let him finish. I started spilling everything that had happened.
“Are you okay, my love?” my boyfriend asked, the concern dripping from his voice.
“Jake, she didn’t know it was me.”
“That’s the problem, babe. She shouldn’t have needed to know.”
“I’m running a bit late…”
Twenty minutes later, Jake wrapped me up in the parking lot as if he were afraid I’d float away.
“I’m done making excuses for her,” he whispered into my hair.
A few days later, Lydia, who always knew where Jake and I lived but never wanted to visit, showed up at our apartment. When my boyfriend opened the door, she was standing there, her mascara smudged.
Jake wrapped me up.
“I saw Kevin’s mother, your grandmother, in the mirror today,” she said. “I couldn’t breathe.”
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