As one month and then another passed, I stopped worrying so much about anyone discovering what really happened to Gary. Everyone in the precinct seemed to have moved on to other things, assuming he was in hiding somewhere, laying low. Sergeant Hale never mentioned it, and I assumed it had something to do with his insistence that Gary had been innocent. Now everyone knew he had been trying to cover up for a dirty cop, and he was ashamed.
At first, when Zico and I began seeing each other more seriously, I’d insisted we keep our work and private lives separate.
“It’s the only way it will work,” I told him one night while we were lying in bed.
“Hey, I’ve never asked you to compromise your morals for me,” he replied.
That was true, and I appreciated it more than I could say. However, that all changed the day I got word that several officers had informants inside the Brancati compound. The officers were using the information to plan a Brancati bust. It would have crippled Joey and Zico’s business.
So, while we were eating dinner—a fancy pasta dish Zico made that I could never remember the name of—I slid a piece of paper across the table towards him.
“What is this?” he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders and kept eating, not looking up at him.
“You’re kidding?” he said, looking up at me and then back at the paper. “How do you know this? Are you serious?”
I used my thumb and forefinger to draw a zipper across my mouth, and Zico seemed to take the hint.
He reached across the table and grabbed my hand. I looked up at him, his vibrant green eyes staring back at me. “Thank you,” he said.
I smiled at him and then continued eating.
I didn’t ask Zico what he did about the guys who were ratting on them, but the officers in my precinct were very disappointed when they could no longer get in touch with them. The bust fell apart, and the Brancati crime ring remained intact.
It wasn’t long after that before I was struck with a very powerful stomach flu. I woke up at four in the morning feeling as if I’d been rocking back and forth on a boat all night. I ran through the house and into the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before I blew.
Zico knocked on the other side of the door. “Anna, are you okay?”
“Fine,” I said. “Well, not fine, but I’m alive.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. Maybe food poisoning?”
“Are you trying to say I’m not a good cook?”
“No, I just… I don’t know what else it could be.”
I really wasn’t trying to say anything bad about his cooking. Zico did most of the cooking, as it had never been an especially strong skill of mine—I mostly made eggs and spaghetti.
“Maybe the flu?” he suggested.
I heaved into the toilet again, but nothing came up. Zico tried to open the door, but I used my foot to kick it shut. “You cannot come in here,” I said.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“Trust me. I’m fine.”
By the morning I felt surprisingly better, and I was about ready to call the entire experience a fluke when the smell of my lunch, the same lunch I’d eaten every day for several months—a salad with some fruit and a granola bar—made me feel nauseous again. I threw up the measly contents of my stomach into the trashcan in my office and was incredibly grateful they hadn’t yet assigned me a new partner. The last thing I needed was a witness.
When I got home, I told Zico about it, and he shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. What kind of stomach flu comes and goes like that?”
“I know. And the same for food poisoning. When you have food poisoning, you are down and out for a few days straight. It doesn’t come in waves.”
“Bizarre. How do you feel now?”
“I feel perfectly fine. I mean, I guess I’m a little tired, but that could be because I was up in the middle of the night throwing up.”
“Well, hopefully, it has passed.”
“Hopefully.”
No sooner had I gotten the word out, Zico opened a package of raw chicken. The sight of it immediately made my stomach churn, and I sprinted for the bathroom, dry heaving into the toilet.
“What is wrong with me?” I said, nearly in tears on the couch while Zico rubbed my back. “And why am I crying?”
“You’re tired and stressed out, and you don’t feel well. That’s enough to make anyone cry,” he said.
“Yeah, but I don’t cry. I never cry. I come from a family of silent sufferers.”
Suddenly, a thought came over me, and I sat bolt upright on the couch.
“What?” Zico asked. “What is it?”
I stared at him for one second, two seconds, three. I was counting back the days in my head, trying to do mental math.
“Would you say something?” he said. “What is this, some sort of weird seizure?”
I shushed him and counted again. Then, not trusting myself, I ran to the calendar in the kitchen and flipped to the previous month and then back to the current, going back and forth like a very unfun flip book. Finally, when I was certain my dates were right, I turned to him.
“I might be pregnant.”
Zico’s mouth fell open. I’d never actually seen someone go into such an instant and extreme form of shock. He stared at me, his eyes blank and unseeing, for several minutes. I took a few steps towards him and rubbed my hand up his arm.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
He said nothing.
“Is this some kind of weird seizure?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
He shook his head. “Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not sure of anything. The only thing I’m sure of is that I am ten days late, nauseous, throwing up, tired, and emotional.”
“But you have those same symptoms while you’re on your period,” Zico said, pointing at me as if he’d solved everything.
“Right, but they usually accompany bleeding. I am not bleeding. Therefore, I am not on my period.”
“Oh, right,” he said, his face falling. Then, he seemed to come back to reality all at once, rushing around the house. He put the dinner ingredients back in the fridge, slipped on his jacket, and grabbed his shoes. “Are you coming?”
I stared at him, eyes narrowed. “Coming where?”
He looked at me as if I were stupid. “To get a pregnancy test.”
“Right now?”
“When else?” he shouted. “How am I supposed to just go on with my normal day without knowing for sure whether or now I’m about to have a baby?”
“You aren’t about to have a baby,” I said. “Even if I am pregnant, we have many months to prepare.”
He cocked his head to the side. “If you aren’t ready in two minutes, I’m leaving without you.”
I rolled my eyes at him but ran into the bedroom to grab my coat and shoes.
“Don’t run,” he said. “You might slip and fall.”
“Oh my God!” I shouted back at him, annoyed.
There was a convenience store on the corner that we only went to late at night when we were watching movies and wanted candy or slushies or, just the one time, a rotisserie corn dog. A sweet elderly man and his wife ran the shop with their grandchildren, and when we walked in, we saw that their sixteen-year-old grandson was behind the counter.
“Welcome,” he said, never looking up, clearly playing a game on his phone beneath the counter.
Zico walked into the store nervously, his hands in his pockets, his eyes darting around.
“Would you stop looking so nervous,” I said. “They’re going to think we’re trying to rob the place.”
He pulled his hands out of his pockets and shook his arms, trying to loosen up.
“Better,” I said.
The pregnancy tests were in the aisle right next to the door, wedged between the Tylenol and motion sickness pills and the condoms.
“There are like thirty different brands,” Zico said. “Which one am I supposed to get?”
I grabbed the only brand I recognized in a pink box and turned towards the counter.
“Wait,” Zico hissed out. “We have to get something else, too.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s weird to only go up there with a pregnancy test.”
I shook my head at him, unsure whether I found him unbearably annoying or completely adorable. On our way to the register, he grabbed a tall can of tea, a pack of mint gum, and a lighter. We piled everything onto the counter, and the kid sat his phone down and smiled at us.
“Will this be all for you?” he asked.
We nodded.
As he began ringing everything up, he saw the pregnancy test, and then glanced at me, and then quickly back down at the items in front of him. I felt my face redden, but tried hard to ignore it. I wouldn’t allow myself to be embarrassed because of a pimply teenager.
Zico swiped his card, and the kid handed me the bag, refusing to make eye contact with me. As we left, I turned around and waved at him. “Thank you.”
He waved back, but still wouldn’t look at me.
“That kid acted like I had an infectious disease,” I said. “Is that what pregnancy is like? Everyone is awkward and uncomfortable around you. If so, I definitely don’t want to be pregnant.”
“You don’t?” Zico asked, his eyes wide.
“It was just a joke.”
We kept walking, and I sensed tension building in him. “But, I mean, you want kids though?” he asked.
I paused to think about it. Kids had never exactly been on my radar. I was an only child, so I hadn’t even grown up with another kid around, and neither of my parents was exactly parent of the year material. They were selfish and career-focused, and while that was all fine and good, I didn’t exactly have warm, fuzzy feelings about being somebody’s mom.
Still, though, the idea of reproduction, passing my genes onto a future human was kind of appealing. It was like a legacy to leave behind. I couldn’t write as well as Jane Austen or paint as well as Van Gogh or invent things like Benjamin Franklin, so a child was one of the few ways I could guarantee someone would remember me when I was gone and dead.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I do. Maybe. What about you? Do you want kids?”
Zico didn’t hesitate. “Yes, definitely.”
“Seriously?” I asked, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, why?”
“You’ve never struck me as the parenting type.”
“Well, that’s because I’ve never had anyone to parent. I’m sure once I have a kid, the parenting instinct will kick in.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
As we walked back to the apartment in silence, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be pregnant or not. On the one hand, having a kid with Zico had not been the plan. We weren’t even officially dating yet. I mean, he was basically living with me, and we said we loved each other, but we weren’t public with it. And people would certainly ask who the father was when I began to balloon outward.
However, on the other hand, I loved him. I pictured a little baby with Zico’s lightly tanned skin and green eyes, and it already made me melt a little bit. Plus, I liked the idea of pushing a stroller through the mall while I shopped for tiny baby clothes.
When we got inside, Zico took off his coat and began pacing around the house.
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked, almost laughing. I’d never seen Zico panic like this before. It was kind of amusing, though I had to admit there was a small bit of panic growing in my chest as well.
“Yes,” he said, nodding quickly as though he were also trying to convince himself. “I’ll be fine. No matter what, everything will be fine. When are you going to take the test?”
I fished the box out of the bag. “Right now, I guess. Right? Isn’t that why we went and bought it?”
Zico nodded. “Yeah, but now I’m really afraid of what it will say. When I’d suggested going to get the test, I felt pretty certain you weren’t going to be pregnant, but now I’m not so sure.”
I sat down on the couch and patted the cushion next to me. Zico walked over and sat down, his back straight as an arrow.
“What if I am pregnant?” I asked.
He looked at me, confused.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I think this will help. What will happen if I am pregnant?”
Zico took a deep breath. “Well, we will take you to the doctor and buy all of the equipment we need, and we’ll raise the baby. Right?”
I nodded. “Right. Okay, so now, what if I’m not pregnant?”
“If you’re not pregnant, then I’ll finish making dinner, and maybe we’ll start watching Lost again.”
“No! Absolutely not,” I said, laughing. “I am not watching Lost again. We’ve seen it three times.”
“It’s my comfort show!” Zico said, making me crack up. Soon, we were both laughing, tears streaming down our faces.
When we quieted down, I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “I’m going to go take the test.”
Zico leaned forward and kissed me. “No matter what, everything will be fine.”
It felt like the longest three minutes in the entire world. I paced the bathroom back and forth, turned sideways and stared at my profile in the mirror, trying to decide if my stomach looked more bloated than normal, and then laughed at myself for being so ridiculous. Of course, I wouldn’t look any different yet. If I was pregnant, it was only like four or five weeks.
When the alarm on my phone finally went off, I took a deep breath, reached for the stick, and flipped it over.
# # #
We found out at our twenty-week anatomy scan that the baby was a boy, and Zico was beyond thrilled. I swear he teared up a little, but he would never admit to it. We painted the guest room a pale blue color and settled on an outer space theme for the nursery, hanging plastic planets from the ceiling and sticking fake glow in the dark stars on the walls.
It was also around that same time that I decided to quit my job. The decision hadn’t come easily. I’d always wanted to be a big city cop. However, the entire situation with Gary and Sergeant Hale had disillusioned me a bit. I realized things weren’t as cut and dry as I’d imagined they would be.
Not all cops were good, and not all mafia members were bad. And, somewhere along the way, the black and white distinctions I’d made in my head had become gray. I no longer felt as passionate about being a cop as I once had, and besides, with the baby coming, I found myself liking the idea of being a stay-at-home mom more and more.
“I cannot picture you as a stay-at-home mom,” Zico said when I told him.
“What is that supposed to mean? Am I not nurturing enough?”
Zico shook his head. “No, you go stir crazy. You can barely stay in the apartment for one entire day before you need to get out and be around other people. You’ll go crazy locked up inside with a baby all day.”
I shrugged. “Maybe, but with my experience, I could also become a private investigator. I could work freelance on the side. I could have both. Plus, there is such a thing as strollers. We could go on walks or to the mall or the park or a coffee shop. Being a stay-at-home mom doesn’t mean I literally stay at home all day.”
Sergeant Hale said very little when I turned in my two weeks’ notice. In fact, he almost seemed relieved. My presence in the precinct had been little more than a nuisance to him, and, more recently, a reminder of the failure he’d made in trying to cover up Gary’s side business.
Detective Johnson, however, seemed very put out by it. “No way, Grasso. You can’t be serious. You’re part of the family. We can’t lose you,” he said when I told him, throwing his arm around my shoulder.
“I want to focus on being a mom,” I said, which was only partially true. I also just couldn’t keep working in the precinct where Gary had worked. Even if I wanted to continue being a cop, I would have requested a transfer.
“I understand, I understand,” he said. “Though, just because you won’t be working here anymore, that does not mean you can forget about me and the wife. We’d love to go to another ball game together next season!”
“Yeah, definitely. I’d love to,” I said, knowing baseball season was still many months away, giving me plenty of time to change my phone number and come up with a thousand different excuses why I was too busy.
On my last day, they made me a cake in the shape of a gun. It was chocolate with black frosting, and it stained everyone’s teeth black. And, for a quick second, I almost regretted my decision to leave. However, that feeling faded very quickly when I finally packed up my office and walked out of the building for the last time.
As I drove away, I had only one thought: good riddance. Even though Zico had his doubts about me being able to stay home without getting cabin fever, he liked the idea of me being home with the baby. He also likes that, finally, he had beaten his brother at something. He was going to have a family before Joey would, and as petty as it seemed, he was thrilled.
To be fair, though, Joey was also thrilled about being an uncle. The race to having a family seemed to only exist in Zico’s mind. Since I was a cop, it had taken Joey a long time to trust me, to finally lower his guard around me. However, as the reality of Zico and I having a baby together had settled in, I’d been welcomed into the family with open arms.
When the baby was born three weeks early, Zico couldn’t believe how small he was.
“He has the tiniest fingers I’ve ever seen,” he said. “And look at his little nose. That has to be record-breaking. The tiniest nose ever to exist.”
Everyone told me how much I’d love the baby when he arrived, how my heart would immediately grow and I’d love him more than I’d ever loved anything before. That was true. However, no one told me how my love for Zico would grow as well. Watching him learn how to change a diaper and swaddle his son… Listening to him sing lullabies to him over the baby monitor while I laid in bed… Every day something would happen that would make me more grateful for having Zico in my life. Something would happen that would make me feel like the luckiest girl in the entire world.
I never imagined that when I first saw Zico, threatening and haughty in the doorway of the cigar shop, he would one day become so central to my existence. That he would become a fixture around which I orbited. But as I laid on the couch and watched him play with our son, I also couldn’t imagine my life turning out any differently.
THE END
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