Word Count: 5078

When Paris had consented to having his mother back in town, he hadn’t truly taken into account the fact that her return would necessitate them spending more time together. He should have realized that she would want to, and he should have known his sadness and neediness would encourage him to agree, yet he had not given much thought to what having her back in town would entail—proximity. Now she would be only blocks or a short bus trip away, and their once stilted phone conversations would turn into casual lunches and trips to the mall.

Almost like it’d been when he’d been younger, but not quite. The store was closing, the house was up for sale…

And there was another man.

A Mr. Calvin A. Callahan.

With a name like that, Paris had expected affluence—a handsome man in business suits with starched white collars and shoes polished to a shine, champagne and yachts and visits to the country club for a round of golf with a group of white-collar cronies, veiled pomposity and a smug sort of swag, like he was king of the world and all the rest were mere ants beneath his feet.

His assumptions were only half correct. Calvin was handsome—six feet even and in good shape for a man in his early forties, with neatly cut strawberry-blond hair and the prettiest blue eyes Paris had ever seen. It also turned out that he had a propensity for suits and ties. He played golf on the weekends with his aging father. He enjoyed champagne but preferred a good ol’ rum and Coke, and there was a boat somewhere—but only one—and the parties it hosted usually acted as fundraisers for charitable causes. He was a successful sports agent with clients scattered throughout the NBA, but Calvin’s world-view, as it turned out, was akin to Paris’s mother’s. They talked politics over lunch while Paris sat picking at his BLT, eyeing them suspiciously.

They gave off no indication that they were a couple. His mother had merely introduced Calvin as her friend, a man she’d met in New York during her law school days, and who she now intended to share a house with in her move back to Destiny City. Friends and housemates. Two career-minded individuals with no interest in intimacy with one another. Any touching that occurred between the two of them was strictly casual and platonic, nothing more than Paris would expect to do with his own friends. They laughed like two people who enjoyed the other’s company, but there were no gushing looks, no sweet nicknames—Marissa merely called him “Cal,” which seemed to Paris the obvious choice with a name like his—and none of the sexual tension Paris had expected.

But something wasn’t quite right. There was something odd about his mother’s behavior. Not discomfort, but a sort of… wariness. She shifted in her seat, absently plucked at her loose shirt with something Paris could only describe as nervousness, escaped to the bathroom twice, like she wanted to see if Paris could actually tolerate Cal’s presence without her there, and looked between the two of them over lunch as if waiting for something to go wrong with the entire encounter.

Paris didn’t understand it, but as he had no desire to have that conversation with Cal around, he didn’t bother to ask.

He was soon to find out.

They met with a real estate agent a little while after lunch to tour a few townhouses for sale a brief walk from downtown. Paris showed only vague interest. He’d come along because his mother had asked him to, but since he wasn’t going to be living with her in the first place, he didn’t care much what her house ended up looking like so long as it was comfortable.

The third property they visited had three stories and an unfinished basement. They’d just scaled the stairs to the second floor, which contained two rooms and a full-sized bathroom, when Cal let the bomb drop.

“This room would make a nice nursery.”

He was talking about the front bedroom. It overlooked the street and the blooming flowerbeds in front of the house, and had a large bay window to let in plenty of natural light. He said it quietly, muttering the comment to Paris’s mother when Paris was busy keeping his distance and examining the view.

Unfortunately, the comment did not go unheard.

“Excuse me?”

Marissa, Cal, and the real estate agent all turned to look at Paris. The real estate agent looked as if she were about to say something, probably to agree with Cal and expound upon the many benefits of the property and the area in which it was located, but she shut her mouth when it was obvious that certain bits of information had not been shared with the youngest member of the visiting party. Cal shot a guilty look toward Marissa, who shrugged her shoulders and seemed to be at a loss, looking from Cal to Paris with an apologetic expression.

“Nursery?” Paris repeated. “What nursery? What’s going on?”

He didn’t need the question to be answered. He looked between Cal and his mother and thought about Marissa’s odd behavior over the course of the day, and came up with the answer all on his own.

“You’re…”

“Paris…” Marissa tried. It was almost odd hearing her call him by name when he was so used to hearing her call him “Baby” instead.

He thought he knew why she chose not to use it. It was something of a white elephant in the room.

“No,” he said. He shook his head, frowned, glared and announced, “I’m leaving.”

Paris turned and stalked out of the room. He wanted to break something. He wanted to scream and shout and pitch a fit the likes of which his mother had not seen since he’d been a little kid. He wanted to hurl curses at her and push her out of his life again, run away and go back to the Gallos’, or better yet to Chris’s apartment, somewhere where he could pretend like this wasn’t happening, because it was stupid and not fair and no one had even asked him.

He stomped down the stairs and almost made it to the front door before his mother came trotting after him. Cal and the real estate agent failed to show themselves. They must have decided it was safer to stay upstairs and let Paris and Marissa duke it out without any outside interference.

When his mother’s hand clamped around his upper arm, Paris tried to rip himself away from her. Her grip was too tight. She was not much bigger than he was—only a couple of inches taller when she didn’t have her heels on, but also not as skinny. Paris had been affected by recent fatigue, lack of energy and weight loss. It made his mother a much more formidable opponent than she would have been otherwise.

He couldn’t pull away, but there were other methods. His knees were already shaky and weak. It didn’t take much for them to cave, and when they did he didn’t fight it. He collapsed to the floor in front of the door, crumbling to his knees and hiding his face in his hands.

“Paris!” his mother cried.

Her hand was on his shoulder, in his hair, against his back. She lent close to him, checking him for injuries and illnesses that weren’t there.

“Baby…”

Anger surged through him, and with it came the bitterness he’d thought was almost gone.

“Shut up!” he shouted. “Shut up and go away!”

“Paris,” she tried again, reverting back to his name. “Paris, listen to me!”

“No!” he screamed. He pulled his hands from his face, turned on the floor to glare at her, almost shoved her away before he thought better of it. “I don’t want to hear your excuses!”

She looked hurt. “Excuses? Paris, just give me a chance to explain!”

“Explain what?” he sneered. “Explain how you’re pregnant?!”

For a moment she didn’t say anything, and her grip loosened. She took a step back, put some space between them, and Paris remained where he was on the floor, glowering up at her. Instinct told him to get up, turn around and leave, finish his departure and slam the door in her face, but something else kept him there. Maybe it was a little bit of hope, that most basic need to have his mother again, that kept him sitting there with his legs weak and curled beneath him, his arms holding him up, waiting for her to say her piece.

“Yes,” she finally said. “Yes, I’m pregnant.”

Well, that sure explained the loose clothes, the odd tension, and the trips to the bathroom in an entirely different way than he’d expected.

And then Paris thought about how much of a fool he was for not noticing. He’d been with her so much, sitting with her, walking beside her, looking to her for comfort and company and a shoulder he’d never thought he’d want again, and he hadn’t noticed a damned thing. Either he’d been too lost in the grief brought by the passing of his father, or he’d forced himself to be blind to the changes occurring in her, watching her casually touch her stomach and thinking nothing of it, finding other reasons and explanations to excuse her behavior.

“Since when?” he demanded.

Marissa looked at him guiltily, helplessly, so close to reaching out but too scared to risk it. “Since the end of January.”

January. His birthday was in February. He’d seen her in February, and yet she hadn’t bothered to say anything about it. He’d seen her later, too, for most of April and May, and instead of telling him she’d decided to hide it from him. Like some big scandal she wanted to cover up.

“I thought you said you and Cal were only friends!” Paris accused. He didn’t bother to lower his voice. If Cal and the real estate agent heard them, it wasn’t any concern of his.

“We are,” his mother insisted.

“But it’s his kid!”

He didn’t even think to phrase it as a question. There wasn’t any need. Who else would it have been? What other man had been in his mother’s life at the time? His father?

The idea was almost laughable.

“Yes, but-” she tried again.

“So then you’re sleeping together!”

“No!” Marissa exclaimed. She looked worried and upset, devastated that he should think so poorly of her, that she’d once again been the cause of so much of his despair. “What is it you always ask me, Paris? You think I can’t be friends with a guy without dating him?”

“I didn’t ask if you were dating him!” Paris pointed out. “I asked if you were sleeping with him!”

“No,” she said again, slowly shaking her head. “No, it’s not like that at all.”

“Then what is it like?!”

She frowned at him, but it was more sad than angry. “Cal and I have spent most of the last decade focusing on our careers. We’ve both been divorced once already, and neither of us are interested in giving marriage another try at this point in our lives. There is nothing sexual or romantic between us. We’re good friends. Cal wants a child. He never had one with his ex, and at this point he doesn’t expect he’ll have many other chances. I’ve always wanted another one. It was just a matter of finding the right time.”

“Oh, and now’s the right time?!” Paris wondered, a sarcastic bite in his voice to join the frustrated tears that began to well in his eyes. “When dad’s dead and you don’t have to feel guilty about leaving him anymore?!”

His mother visibly flinched. “This doesn’t have anything to do with me and your father. Implantation was in late January. I was already twelve weeks pregnant when your father went in for surgery.”

“And did he know?!” Paris bellowed. “Did you tell him?!”

“Yes,” Marissa replied. Her voice was even and patient and quietly soothing. “Yes, I told him, Paris. He knew the whole time. He didn’t want me to tell you until he thought you were ready.”

Paris grew silent. He sat on the floor and scrubbed at his face, wishing he was stronger, wishing this didn’t hurt so bad, because he was tired of hurting, so, so tired, and he just wanted everything to go away and stop being so hard.

Eventually he tried to stand up, planting one of his hands against the wall for support. His legs continued to shake. He felt sick and dizzy. He wanted to leave but knew he wouldn’t be able to manage it. He was too tired and too weak and he still wanted so badly to have his mother that he was willing to stand there and be hurt and try to fix this—somehow, someway, even if it seemed impossible.

He didn’t know what to say to her. He barely even knew what to think. The idea that his parents had actually discussed his mother having a child with another man seemed strange and alien to him when he remembered the tense history between them, all the times they’d fought and argued and disagreed on things less huge, less life-changing than this. What had his father said? What had he thought about it? Had he been angry? Upset? Why hadn’t he said anything? Why hadn’t he wanted Paris to know?

“He and I talked about it last summer,” his mother explained, as if she could somehow hear what he was thinking. It was probably instinctive, or perhaps she merely felt the need to explain herself better. “You were at camp. I didn’t want to do anything without talking to your father about it first. I wanted to talk to you when you came back, to see how you felt about it, but he wanted to wait. He didn’t want to upset you if it wasn’t certain. It’s not such a simple thing, Paris. The first time didn’t take. And you were doing so well. You were getting your life together, you were dating Chris, you were dancing in productions, and then you started to consider going back to school. Your father didn’t want this to set you back. He wanted you to be ready when I told you. He didn’t want this to be another reason for you to act out and get into trouble and ruin everything you’ve been working so hard for.”

‘You fight and you keep dancing,’ his father had said, ‘and don’t you ever end up like me.’

Paris leaned back against the wall and lifted his arms to cross them over his chest, wrapping them around himself, more to hold himself, to protect himself, than to stand there projecting his anger.

All his life he’d questioned how his father had felt about him—until the end, when Henri had muttered his final words, holding tight to his hand and saying more to him in three seconds than he’d ever said in eighteen years. Hearing this now, how protective his father had been, how much concern he’d shown for Paris’s future, made Paris realize the truth and the sincerity behind Henri’s uttered “Je t’aimes, Paris” more than anything he’d seen or heard or remembered before or since.

He struggled to hold back the tears, but no matter what he did—gnashing his teeth together or squeezing his eyes shut or holding his breath—they streaked down his face anyway.

“Was Dad upset?” Paris croaked. The tone of his voice had weakened. He didn’t have the strength to shout anymore, not when his chest hurt and his throat was closing up and he could barely even breathe.

“He was… resigned…” his mother said. Her voice sounded shaky, too. “You were his only concern.”

That was the truth. More than anything else, Paris thought that was the truth.

“And… when were you going to tell me…?”

“Soon,” she said. “I would’ve had to once I couldn’t really hide it anymore, but… I wanted to give you time. I know… with your father… it’s been hard for you. It’s been hard for me, too, Paris. When Cal and I first started this, this isn’t how I imagined it would turn out, but sometimes things just… happen…”

“So… then this is why you’re moving back?” he guessed.

“No,” she denied. “No, I’m moving back because I want to be closer to you. It has nothing to do with the baby. This is my responsibility and Cal’s responsibility, not yours.”

“And you actually think this is going to work out with him?”

Paris didn’t see how it possibly could. There wasn’t anything keeping his mother and Cal together except for the kid, and that was a terrible burden to place on someone. What were they thinking? What made them think it was a good idea?

Marissa showed him another sad look. “Paris, look at the work I do for a living. You don’t think I know what I’m getting myself into? Cal and I have been over it repeatedly. For now, we’re going to live together. We’ve been friends for years. We’ve vacationed together, we’ve lived together for a short while already when he was between places in New York. We’ll both handle the expenses, we’ll have our own rooms, we’ll have equal rights to the baby, and if anything changes at a later date, we’ll deal with it. We’ve talked about the possibility of eventually going our separate ways. We know nothing is definite. The important thing is to give the baby as much stability as possible, and we both intend to do that.”

To Paris it sounded dodgy and unstable. He’d watched his parents’ marriage crumble. What was to stop the same thing from happening with a man she considered a friend? How could they make it sound so easy, when it seemed to be an even more complicated situation than his mother’s relationship with his father? And they were going to bring a kid into that? Into this?

When he was already struggling? When there had already been so much to go wrong?

“I think you’re crazy,” he finally said.

His mother’s mouth quirked into a tiny smile. “Maybe I am,” she allowed

“But you’re not just doing it because Cal wants you to?” he asked. Something ached inside as he did so. “You really want another baby?”

“Yes,” she replied, gently but firmly, so that he could not doubt her response. “I do.”

“But…” Paris trailed off. His face felt hot and wet and he still could not stand on his own. He leaned heavily into the wall, his legs threatening to give out again, his chest rising and falling with every heaving breath.

For a moment he said nothing, wondering if he even wanted to ask the question plaguing his mind. It was stupid and childish and he was eighteen and should be beyond these things, but the ache was still there. He thought it might have settled around his heart, or maybe it had originated there—but his heart had already been through enough abuse lately. Why wasn’t it immune to the pain yet?

In the end, he didn’t see any point in leaving it unsaid.

“What about me?” he asked, and he was weeping, because he was ten years old again and she was walking out the door, and he was calling her back but she turned only long enough to give a tearful goodbye.

Something in his mother broke, too. Rapidly, her eyes filled with tears and overflowed, and her cheeks were suddenly as wet as his were.

“Oh, Paris,” she sighed. There was agony in her voice. This time, instead of turning away, she stepped forward to touch him, taking his face between her palms and holding him steady.

“Paris, I love you,” she replied. She said it with so much depth and so much passion that he could not even think to deny it, because he could hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes and feel it in the warmth of her hands against his face.

“Nothing will ever change that,” she continued. She brushed his bangs from his eyes, wiped the tears from his face, even as her own face grew blotchy and her make-up began to run. “Having another baby doesn’t mean I feel any differently about you.”

Somewhere inside of him he feared that most. A little terrified voice wondered if she might end up replacing him. It was stupid and irrational and he hated himself for even going there, but after everything… he couldn’t help it. What else was he supposed to think?

“Maybe… maybe you can’t understand that as well as I’d like you to,” she observed. She seemed to know him so well—how he thought, the paths his mind took in his distress. “I know things haven’t been easy for you. I know things haven’t been ideal for us. It’s been hard and we’ve both been hurt, and this isn’t going to do anything to fix that. It’s not meant to. But I think… one day, when you’re older… you’ll understand better, once you have a family of your own.”

Paris blinked in shock at the last comment, and felt the strangest sensation of warmth concentrate in his cheeks and spread out along the rest of his face. It had nothing to do with anger. If anything it was more like discomfort, and he realized—with a jolt of surprise—that he was blushing.

He snorted in an attempt to cover the reaction, and he told himself the suffusion of color was only because the very idea was unlikely and absolutely absurd.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he sniffed, breathing through a wet nose.

His mother laughed softly. Then she leaned forward to press a long kiss to his forehead.

Paris let her, and as she did so he closed his eyes and tried to get himself to breathe again.

The pain was still there, buried just beneath the surface, threatening to overtake him and drag him down to the pit where all those dark feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness waited to drown him, but he battled on. He inhaled deeply and let it out slowly, and though his eyes still burned and he still could not stand on his own, he thought he’d be able to manage it in a little while. Once it’d all sunk in. Once he’d had the time to process it.

His mother seemed to know what he needed. They were in the foyer by the front door, but just beyond was the living room and a set of couches. Marissa wrapped an arm around his shoulders, took one of his hands in her own, and let him lean on her as she guided him through.

After he’d sat down, she rummaged through the purse hanging on her shoulder and took out a packet of tissues, which she ripped open to offer to him.

Paris grabbed two and dabbed at his face. He mopped up his eyes, wiped off his cheeks, staved off his leaking nose.

“Then… do you know if…” he started. It was a struggle to continue. “Do you know if… Is it a brother or… or a sister?”

He didn’t want to be curious. He didn’t want to make it any more real than it already was, but it was happening and there was nothing he could do to stop it. If it’d been since January then that was a good four months gone.

He looked at her, tried to see beyond the loose clothing she wore to conceal it, wondered how obvious it already was.

Now all he could do was to prepare himself.

Marissa put the packet of tissues away after she’d taken a few out for herself, reducing as much of the damage done to her make-up as she could. She hadn’t sat down herself, but she stood close to him and reached out once she was done to brush a hand through his hair again.

“A girl,” she said. “We found out last week.”

Paris tried not to frown. He almost managed it. To make up for it, he asked, “And… does she have a name yet?”

Marissa smiled, slowly seating herself in front of him, on the edge of the coffee table. “Lilah,” she answered. She continued to sound a bit cautious, but she was looking a little less wary now that the worst of it was over. “We haven’t settled on a middle name yet. She’ll take Cal’s last name instead of mine.”

“Lilah…” Paris tried it out and decided it sounded odd.

He was going to have a sister. A bratty kid sister so much younger than him. A sister named Lilah. And he was going to have to… not love her, but at least learn to like her. To tolerate her presence in his life.

He made a face. He still felt entirely unsettled by the idea, and he didn’t think that was going to change any time soon—no matter how much he tried to accept it.

“You pick strange names for your kids, Mom,” he said.

She laughed again, a cautious sort of thing, like she wasn’t sure if it was alright to be amused or not. “Cal wanted to name her after his grandmother, but I’m not too fond of the name ‘Delilah,’ so we compromised and shortened it.”

“Mmm…”

He still didn’t know what to think or how to feel. He didn’t like it, he was still against it, but he didn’t hate it. Not entirely. He was upset, and angry, and confused, and far from thrilled by the idea. It was going to take some getting used to. It would take a lot of reflection, some deep thinking, and the time to appropriately process it before he could truly accept what was happening. With everything else going on… he couldn’t be sure it would happen quickly.

He was conflicted, if anything. Conflicted and scared and hurt by the thought that there’d be some other little brat in his life when he and his mother were still in the middle of sorting things out between them.

It wasn’t fair, he thought, but he couldn’t decide why. Was she being unfair to him? Or was he being unfair to her?

Was it a little of both?

He tried to imagine what his father would have said about it all, what his father would have said to him. Probably something similar to what he’d said that day at the ball field. Don’t give up. Keep fighting. Never stop trying.

Did it make him feel any better?

No. But it gave him strength and hope.

“Are you okay, Baby?” Marissa asked. She sounded hesitant, but the fact that she’d reverted back to the nickname gave her an air of mild confidence, like she felt better about the situation now that she’d explained it, now that Paris was no longer shouting.

Paris thought the question over and decided to answer honestly, “No… not yet…”

She nodded and shifted on the coffee table. It was as if she didn’t know if she should move closer to offer more comfort or step back to give him some space. Paris had a pretty good feeling he knew what she wanted to do, but he also knew that she knew him well enough to give him some time.

“You can leave if you want to,” she offered. “I’ll understand. I know this is a lot to take in.”

He considered it. There really wasn’t any place he’d rather be right now than with Chris, but he and Chris had set different parameters around their relationship. Besides, how was running to him supposed to solve anything? Sure, he could talk it over with him. He could take the time to think it all through and come to a decision later, but then he’d still have to face his mother. He’d have to come back to this moment anyway. What was the use in putting it off?

For once, he didn’t think running away from a problem was going to help.

“No,” he said. “No, it’s okay. I’ll stay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well… no, but…” he answered haltingly. “I… I want to try.”

Marissa smiled again. She could no longer resist. She stood from the coffee table, bent over him, and held out her arms. Paris stared at her for a few seconds before leaning closer, allowing her to wrap her arms around him and guide his head to her shoulder.

“But I’m not changing any diapers,” he made sure to tell her, muttering it into the side of her neck.

His mother laughed. “Of course not,” she agreed.

“And I’m not babysitting,” he said. “Definitely not for free.”

“Don’t be silly,” Marissa said on another laugh. She pulled back enough to press another kiss to his forehead. “Claire’s already offered that.”

Paris made another face. “Chris’s mom knows?”

“She guessed.”

“When?”

“Mother’s Day.”

“Oh…”

Paris considered this information and wondered if it meant he was completely blind to the changes occurring around him, or if women were just that intuitive about it.

“Why don’t you sit down here and rest for a while?” his mother asked, looking at him in concern as she finally pulled back and stood up after giving him another gentle squeeze. “Cal and I will finish looking at the rest of the house and then we can go out to dinner, or I’ll take you back to Claire’s if you want.”

“Right…” he agreed. “Okay…”

“Hey…” she said, and one of her hands was on his face again. “Are you going to be okay?”

He thought about it. It wasn’t the first time someone had asked him that over the last month or so. Chris had gotten into the habit of asking him almost every day before Paris had moved out of the apartment. Paris had taken to lying then, putting on a smile and forcing himself to look confident and hopeful as he’d answered in the affirmative.

He didn’t smile this time, but he didn’t outright lie either.

“Yeah…” he said. He stared into her eyes and wanted his mother to believe it. “Eventually…”

He wanted to believe it, too.