Kimber

Warm drool is running out of the corner of my mouth onto the blanket I’ve been using as a pillow. I open my eyes and see a perfect angel staring back at me. Grayson is awake and for once he isn’t screaming for me to feed him. If I hadn’t woken up this exact way, I might have cried when I remembered where we are and why.

I look at the clock on the dash in the front seat. It’s almost noon and it’s hot inside the car. I feel Grayson’s face, he’s sweaty but not lethargic, thank God. I unbuckle his five-point belts and take him into the front seat with me to turn on the air conditioning and feed him.

I can’t believe I slept for so long. What’s more amazing is that Grayson didn’t wake me up an hour ago.

I slide the seat all the way back and sigh when the cool air finally starts to blow through the vents. I need to figure out what the hell I’m doing. I can’t sit around napping and feeding my infant in the park all day.

I’m going to have to suck it up and go to my mom for help. There’s nowhere else to go.

When Grayson is finished and I’ve changed his diaper on the backseat, I strap him in and start out toward my mom’s house. I tell my Bluetooth to call India and wait for her to answer. It hardly rings once.

“Kimber, honey, are you alright? Is Grayson okay? Dammit, I’ve been trying to call you for hours, are you trying to give me a coronary? Julián called earlier and said you two had a disagreement but I could tell from his voice that it was more than that. What’s going on?”

My mom always did have a flair for the dramatic.

“I’m fine, Mom, Grayson’s fine, too, but I need a favor.”

“What is it? I mean of course, anything, but you need to be more specific.” She’s really flustered and I feel guilty. I should have called her earlier.

“Can we stay with you for a little while?” I ask in a quiet voice. I hate this. Failing wasn’t something I was used to dealing with until my divorce from Caleb.

“Oh Lord, what did he do? He knows what I’ll do to him if he cheated on you, I told him.”

“Mother, no, he isn’t cheating. And what did you tell him you’d do to him?”

“Cut his balls off. Or I alluded to it, rather. He cut me off when I said I had a big sharp knife. He knew what I meant.”

“Oh my God. He probably thinks you’re psycho, Mom. It’s nothing like that anyway.”

“Well, what is it then? Oh never mind, come here and we can talk about it. You know you’re always welcome here, for as long as you need.”

“Thank you, Mom. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, honey.”

“And thank you for not rubbing it in about my bad choice in men.”

“Why would I do that? Julián is a good man no matter what he’s done, unless it’s cheating, then he’s a pig.” I smile and almost laugh for the first time today. “And that Caleb, I always got a bad feeling from him. But I knew you loved him so I played nice.”

“I thank you for that, too, but Mom?”

“Yes.”

“If you ever get a bad feeling again will you please tell me?”

“There isn’t going to be an again but yes, I’ll be honest about my hunches from now on. I’m always right anyway.”

Of course she is, she’s my mother. I hope Grayson will think the same of me someday when he’s older.

“We are on our way, be there in about an hour.”

“Drive carefully, don’t think about anything, turn on your music and sing. And no love songs, definitely no country, listen to rap.”

This time I do laugh. “Okay, Mom, rap, gotcha.”

We hang up but I don’t turn on the radio. I don’t feel like listening to music. I don’t feel like anything, I’m numb.

Thirty minutes into my drive, I notice a white SUV has been following me for a while. I switch lanes, they switch lanes. I speed up, they speed up – it’s making me nervous. I slow down so much that the vehicle has to pass me and I glance over to see the driver.

I have to look a second time to be sure but I’m right. It’s Caleb, what the hell? He sees me and waves for me to pull over. I’m so surprised that I take the next exit to see what he wants.

It’s a rest stop, so I pull into a parking spot and he takes the one on my left next to me. We both get out at the same time and he rounds what I now recognize to be a brand new Audi Q7 Quattro. What the hell? That’s a fifty-five-thousand-dollar vehicle, how can he afford that?

“What are you doing? Why are you following me? And where the hell did you get money for a car like that?” He looks at me surprised, “What, this?” he says pointing at his car like he just noticed it. “I got it for the baby. I wanted to have plenty of room in back for him and all his stuff, and it’s safe.”

I don’t believe him but whatever. I’m more interested in knowing why he asked me to pull over on the highway.

“What are you doing out here?”

“You’re not answering your phone.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “So. I don’t want to talk to anybody, what’s it to you?”

“Whoa there,” he says holding up his hands palms out. “You don’t have to get defensive. You didn’t show up at lunch so I went by the house and Garcia was there. He said you were going to see your mother but something felt off and when you didn’t answer your phone I got worried. I was lucky to catch up with you.”

“He told you I was going to my mom’s house?”

“Yeah, that is where you’re going, isn’t it? I mean you’re over halfway there.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, the bright sun is starting to make my head hurt and I still don’t understand why he’s following me.

“Yes, but…” I shade my eyes and find him peering into the window at Grayson.

“Can I hold him?” He turns to me and I see every bit of fatherly love that I’d hoped to see the day I told him I was pregnant. Where was all this ten months ago?

“Sure, yeah, I guess.”

He opens the back door and slides in next to the car seat that’s facing the rear in the center spot.

“How do I get him out of this thing?” He’s looking at the seatbelts like they are a total mystery and I realize just how uneducated on babies he is.

“Just a minute, I’ll show you.” I walk around to the other side of the car and get in. Without looking at him, I start to teach him how to take a baby out of a car seat. “First, you release the clip between his legs like this. There are two parts that come out of it, see?” I say. “Then, you unclasp the clip on his chest and tuck the belts to the side so you can get him out without getting his arms hooked up in them.”

I demonstrate and then re-buckle Grayson into the seat. “Your turn.”

He looks at me and smiles, “What?”

“You’re so good at this stuff.”

“It’s a seatbelt, Caleb, not rocket science. And you kind of have to know how to do it if you want to go anywhere, including home from the hospital.”

“You’re still funny, too.” He’s never told me I was funny before. I don’t recognize this Caleb. It’s like a different man has taken over my ex-husband’s body.

He unbuckles Grayson with no problems and I have him buckle and unbuckle him one more time to make sure he gets the hang of it.

“Now how do I get him out?”

“You really don’t know anything about babies, do you?”

“Nope, but I’m a sponge ready to soak up everything you can teach me.”

Definitely not the Caleb I know.

I slide my hands under his armpits and lift him out supporting his head with the tips of my fingers. “Just like that. The most important part is that you support his head, he can’t hold it up by himself yet.”

“Why? Is there something wrong with him?”

I laugh and shake my head. He looks genuinely worried. “No, all babies are born that way, you were, too. I’ll bring him around so you can hold him.” I carry Grayson around the car to Caleb’s open door and place him in his arms. “Like this,” I say adjusting him in his stiff arms.

I never had to show Julián how to hold a baby. If anything he was more comfortable with him than I was the first couple of days. He’s a natural.

Thinking about him makes my heart ache so I push the thought away and concentrate on Caleb. He looks uncomfortable, like holding a baby hurts. Maybe he needs some reassurance. “You’re doing great, he likes you.”

“He does? How do you know?” he asks never taking his eyes off of Grayson.

“Well, for starters he’s not screaming.”

“Does he do that a lot?”

“Yes, he’s a baby, they scream a lot.”

“That sounds awful.”

“Yes, it does actually. He can scream so loud you’re deaf for a couple minutes.”

“Okay, you can take him back now. I don’t want to…”

“You don’t want to what, Caleb? He won’t break, I mean, not unless you drop him on his head. That might do some permanent damage. Otherwise, babies are pretty durable.”

“You’re better at this stuff than I am.”

“Only because I’ve had a few weeks to get used to it. You’ll do fine once you’ve had some time.”

He looks up at me. “Why are you really going to your mom’s, Kimmie?”

“To visit. I haven’t seen her for a few days.”

“Your mom wouldn’t make you trek clear out here alone with her grandson. She would come to you. Tell me what’s wrong? Maybe I can help.”

I look away and blink back tears. I may as well tell him, he’s going to find out eventually. “I left him, I’m going to stay with my mother for a while.”

“You left him? Why? I thought you guys were crazy about each other. Is it the baby? Did he change his mind about wanting to father another man’s son?”

I scrunch up my nose and frown. “No, it’s nothing like that. He loves Grayson and we still love each other it’s just…”

“Just what? If you still love each other and he loves the baby what’s the problem?”

“His family has a bad reputation.” That’s putting it mildly but I feel like I’m betraying Julián talking to Caleb about this behind his back.

“Like they’re trashy or broke or a bunch of addicts, what? I don’t get why that has anything to do with you two. Why don’t you just stay away from them?”

“It’s not that easy. You know who Manuel Jesus Garcia is, don’t you?”

His mouth falls open and he stares at me. “The drug lord?”

I nod, “Yeah, he’s Julián’s father.”

“Holy shit. They’re like the Mexican Mob or something. I saw something on the news last week about a big DEA bust that went down in Miami. They arrested somebody big, like really big, maybe the old man himself.”

His father was arrested? Why haven’t I heard anything about that? Maybe because I don’t watch television and I rarely spend any time on the internet other than to work on Tiana’s house.

“Are you sure?”

“If it was his father? No, but it was somebody high up. Shit, Kimmie, you almost married into the Mob. You could have been like Adrianna from The Sopranos.”

He thinks this is funny or fictional but I know better. Julián was scared to tell me the truth because he had good reason to be. Those people are ruthless killers.

“That’s the Italian Mob and it isn’t a joke.”

“I’m sorry, I know, it’s just so unbelievable.”

Grayson is squirming so I take him from Caleb. He looks relieved to be free of him and again I’m reminded that I never felt that way about Julián.

He stands up and stretches like he’s been holding his son for hours and then he steps in close to me and places his hand on the outside of my shoulder.

“Kimmie, come home with me.” I open my mouth to tell him no way but he stops me with his finger on my lips like he used to do when we were married. “Don’t say no right away, hear me out. You need a place to stay, right?”

I nod reluctantly.

“And I need time with my son. What better way then to have him living under my roof. I help you out and you help me. You can have your own bedroom, I don’t expect anything in return, just be there with me and teach me how to be a father.”

Teach him how to be a father. That sounds so… so wrong. I can’t teach him how to be a father any more than he can teach me how to be a mother. But I do need a place to stay and my mother’s is a long way from Tiana’s brother’s house and the renovations are scheduled to start next week.

It’s insane after all he’s put me through but I agree to take him up on his offer.

“Okay.”

He drops his hand and steps away with a look of shock on his face. “Okay? You’ll move in with me?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t think you would agree to it. I was going out on a ledge.” His face erupts in a huge smile and he wraps his arms around Grayson and me in a bear hug.

Grayson lets out a yowl and Caleb jumps back. “Shit, sorry, little buddy. I didn’t mean to squish you. You’re coming to live at daddy’s house with mommy, what do you think about that?”

He squirms and grunts until I feel a rumble under my hand. Gas, that’s what he thinks of living with his daddy. I wonder if he has his grandmother’s intuition, maybe I shouldn’t do this after all? I never thought I’d have to speak to Caleb again for the rest of my life when he didn’t answer my call from the hospital. And now, I’m standing in a rest stop agreeing to live with him. I’ve lost my mind.

“No second thoughts, let me help you buckle him in and you can follow me home.” He takes me by the arm and practically pushes Grayson and me into the backseat. His newfound enthusiasm for fatherhood makes my head spin.

I may never get to the bottom of why he has had such a change of heart but I shouldn’t complain. He’s being attentive and interested and that’s all I ever wanted.

Isn’t it?