Ethan looks at me. I can tell he understands where I’m coming from but doesn’t necessarily get where I’m heading. “OK . . .” he says. “So what do we do?”
“I’m going to keep her,” I say. “That’s what I’m going to do.”
She’s not his problem. She’s my problem. I’m choosing to take care of her.
The parallels do not escape me. And maybe that’s part of the reason I am doing this. Maybe it’s a physical manifestation of what I’m going through emotionally right now.
I have a baby that’s not his. I’m taking on a dog he didn’t ask for. I’m not going to make these things his problem.
“OK,” he says. “Well, she can stay at my place for tonight, and then tomorrow we can figure out a long-term plan.”
He says “we.” We can figure out a long-term plan.
“That’s all right,” I tell him, moving toward my car. “I should sleep at Gabby’s tonight.”
“You’re not going to stay with me?”
I shake my head. “I should really sleep there. She won’t mind Charlemagne for the night.” Yes, she will. Mark is allergic to dogs. Taking Charlemagne back to their apartment is kind of a crappy thing to do. But I need space away from Ethan. I need to be on my own.
“She can be at my place,” he says. “For tonight. Really.”
I shake my head again, moving away from him. I open my car door. I put Charlemagne on the passenger’s seat and shut her in.
“No,” I tell him. “It’s fine. This is the better plan.”
“OK,” he says. He is clearly dejected. “If that’s what you want.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I tell him.
All he says is “Cool.” He says it looking at my feet instead of my face. He’s upset, but he doesn’t want to show it. So he nods and gets into his car. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, then,” he says out his window. Then he turns on his lights and drives off.
I get into my car. I look at Charlemagne. Suddenly, the tears that have been waiting under the surface all night spring forth.
“I screwed it all up, Charlemagne,” I tell her. “I ruined it all.”
She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t look at me.
“It was all going to be perfect. And I ruined it.”
Charlemagne licks her paw, as if I’m not even talking.
“What do I do?” I ask her. If you were watching us from the outside, you might think I expect her to answer. That’s how sincere my voice is, how desperate it sounds. And maybe, on some level, it’s true. Maybe if, all of a sudden, she started talking and told me what I need to do to fix this, I would be more relieved than shocked.
Alas, she remains a normal dog instead of a magical one. I put my head on the steering wheel of my brand-new used car, and I cry. And I cry. And I cry. And I cry.
And I wonder when I have to tell Michael.
And I wonder when I have to tell Ethan.
And I wonder how I’m going to afford a baby.
And I wonder how I could be so goddamn stupid.
And I wonder if maybe the world hates me, if maybe I am fated to always be screwing up my life and never getting ahead.
I wonder if I’ll be a single mom forever. If Ethan will ever talk to me again. If my parents will come meet my kid or if I’ll have to fly internationally with a baby on holidays.
And then I wonder what Gabby will say. I imagine her telling me it will all be OK. I imagine her telling me this baby was meant to be. I imagine her telling me that I’m going to be a great mother.
And then I wonder if that’s true. If I will be.
And then . . . finally . . . I wonder about my baby.
And the realization hits me.
I’m going to have a baby.
I find myself smiling just the tiniest bit through my heavy, fearful tears.
“I’m going to have a baby,” I say to Charlemagne. “I’m going to be a mom.”
This time, she hears me. And while she doesn’t start magically talking, she does stand up, walk over the center console, and sit in my lap.
“It’s you and me,” I say. “And a baby. We can do that, right?”
She curls into my lap and goes to sleep. But I think it speaks volumes that I believe if she could talk, she’d say yes.
It’s early in the morning when I hear a knock on my door. I’m alone in my room. I’ve been up for only a few minutes. My bun is half undone around my shoulders.
Ethan peeks his head in. “Hey,” he says, so quiet it’s almost a whisper. “Can I come in?”
“Of course,” I say. It’s nice seeing him. I may have gotten a bit infatuated with the idea that he and I have something romantic left between us, but I can see now that we don’t. I will probably always love him on some level, always hold a spot for him in my heart. But dating again, being together, that would be moving backward, wouldn’t it? I moved to Los Angeles to put the past behind me, to move into the future. I moved to Los Angeles to change. And that’s what I’m going to do.
But that doesn’t mean that we can’t still mean something to each other, that we can’t be friends.
I pat the side of the bed, inviting him to sit right here next to me.
He does. “How are you feeling?” he asks. He has a bakery box in his hand. I’m hoping I know what it is.
“Is that a cinnamon roll?” I ask him, smiling.
He smiles back and hands it over.
“You remembered,” I say.
“How could I forget?”
“Wow!” I say as I open the box. “This is a huge one.”
“I know,” he says. “I saw them a few years ago at this bakery on the Westside, and I thought of you. I knew you’d love them.”
“This is so exciting! I mean, I’ll have to eat this with a knife and fork.” It’s way too big for me to eat on my own. I resolve to wait and share it with Henry tonight. I hand it back to Ethan. “Can you put it on the table?”
“You don’t want it now?”
I do sort of want it now, but I’d rather wait for Henry. I shake my head.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he says. “About how you are feeling.”
I wave him off. “I’m OK. I’m feeling good. There are some ups and downs, but you’ve caught me at an up moment. Word on the street is I get to try out my wheelchair today.” I watch as the look on Ethan’s face changes. I get a glimpse, just for a moment, of how sad it must be to hear me excited about a wheelchair. But I refuse to be brought down about this. This is where I’m at in life. I need a wheelchair. That’s OK. Onward and upward.
Ethan looks off to the side and then down at the floor. He’s looking everywhere but at me.
“What’s up?” I ask. “What’s bothering you?”
“It just all seems so senseless,” he says, looking up at me. “The idea of you being hit by a car. Almost losing you. When I heard what happened to you, I immediately thought . . . you know, she should have been with me instead. If I had been able to persuade you to stay out with me, you wouldn’t have been standing in the middle of the road when . . . I mean, what if this all could have been prevented if I’d . . . done something different?”
It’s sort of absurd, isn’t it? How we grab on to facts and consequences looking to blame or exonerate ourselves? This has nothing to do with him. I chose to go home with Gabby and Mark because that’s the choice I made. Nine billion choices I’ve made over the course of my life could have changed where I am right now and where I’m headed. There’s no sense focusing on just one. Unless you want to punish yourself.
“I’ve looked at this problem up, down, and sideways,” I tell him. “I’ve lain in this bed for days wondering if we were all supposed to do something different.”
“And?”
“And . . . it doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?”
“I’m saying things happen for a reason. I’m saying there’s a point to this. I didn’t stick around with you that night because I wasn’t supposed to. That wasn’t what I was meant to do.”