Belly Up Read online

  Mr. Ianelli grunted at me. “That’s too bad.”

  “Is it?” Mom asked, waltzing back in from the kitchen with a couple of beers in hand. She handed one to Mr. Ianelli and took a swig of her own. “I’d say being third in the class is not a too bad thing at all.”

  Mom had that smile she got when she was feral. It didn’t come out often, usually when we were at a store and the clerks were rude, or when a waiter was really bad at a restaurant. It looked surface friendly, but it hinted at long angry fangs that would delight in rending flesh from bone.

  Mr. Ianelli didn’t seem to notice. “Just meant that she’d have to delay going to school is all.”

  “Sure, but the grades will still be there when transcripts go out. We’re lucky—my mother is retired and has already said she’d be willing to watch the baby so Sara can go to class. We just want to make sure we don’t push her too hard and force her early. She’s a smart girl. She deserves the opportunity to be at her best.”

  Mormor hadn’t said that to me, but I wasn’t surprised to hear it. She’d been my babysitter when Mom was working full time and a single parent. My kid would grow up stuffed full of delicious food and Young and the Restless and too many garden stores. I could handle that.

  “Caroline would help with that, too.” Mr. Ianelli paused. He looked from me over to Leaf, his brows lifting. “If the kid is Jack’s.”

  Jack groaned. “Jesus Christ, Dad.”

  “What? I’m telling it like it is. She has a boyfriend right here. We don’t know.”

  “I know.”

  Mormor’s voice was quiet from the kitchen doorway. Deathly quiet. If Mr. Ianelli didn’t realize that he was in imminent danger, he was a fool. Jack’s mom clued in pretty fast. She brushed by Mormor to come out to the living room. “Peter, please.”

  “I’m being practical, Caroline. I’m not saying it’s not his, either.”

  “You’re being rude is what you’re being,” she said.

  My esteem for Caroline rose significantly.

  Mr. Ianelli sighed and raked his hand over his hair. He swigged from his beer and shook his head. “I’m trying to protect our son.”

  “Maybe don’t embarrass me to death. That’s protecting me, too,” Jack said. “I’m...really sorry, Sara. Like, so sorry. I just...”

  “I’m going to make something very clear now, and then we can have dinner and hopefully talk like civilized people.” Mormor moved to stand beside my mother. Her hands were clasped in front of her stomach, her chin was notched up. The left eyebrow was raised in challenge, the tone of voice so cold, it could have frosted hell itself. “My granddaughter is an honest girl. A good girl. If she says the baby is your son’s, it is your son’s. We will do your testing, mostly so matters of support can be efficiently handled. And there will be support. It takes two to dance a tango. They both tangoed. You can have any opinion you want outside of my home about that fact, but within these walls, you will not insult my granddaughter by suggesting she’s a liar. To do so insults me. I will not stand for it.”

  Mr. Ianelli turned colors. First, it was a red stain in his cheeks. I thought maybe it was embarrassment, but as the color spread, turning to purple up by his temples, I realized it was anger. Hot rage. I took a step back.

  Leaf stepped in front of me.

  Jack and Caroline stepped toward one another.

  “Look, lady, I didn’t come here to listen to some bullsh—” He pointed his finger at Mormor and advanced.

  Mormor...

  Well? She threw a shoe. Lightning fast. It was a motion I’d seen many times before and it was always impressive. Her hand darted down, her leg bent, the shoe went flying, whizzing by Mr. Ianelli’s ear and smashing off the Americana swan on top of the TV cabinet.

  “STOP,” she barked.

  Mr. Ianelli stopped, looking stunned.

  His hand dropped.

  “You threw your goddamned shoe at me!”

  “You are advancing in a threatening way. I’ll throw the other one if you come any closer.”

  Jack’s father spun. “That’s assault. Caroline, this crazy woman just assaulted me, for Christ’s sake!”

  “No, I did not,” Mormor said, her voice even. “I threw a warning shot. If I’d wanted to hit you, I’d have hit you. Trust me, my aim is very good.”

  We didn’t even make it to dinner. Mr. Ianelli dropped his beer on the table and stormed out of the house, cussing and muttering all the while. His mortified wife grabbed her coat and chased after him, throwing apologies as she followed him to the car and promptly started screaming at him in our driveway. Jack looked after them, ashen, swallowing so hard his Adam’s apple bounced.

  “I gotta go,” he said. “I’m really—I want to be in her life, okay? Please don’t write me off because of my dad. I want to be a good dad. I know I can be.”

  “We’re not holding you responsible for him, kiddo. Don’t sweat it,” my mother said, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder. “We’re cool. Right, Sara?”

  “Yeah! Yeah, it’ll be okay. I’ll text you, Jack. If you need help—”

  “Nah. No. It’s not like that. He’s not... He’ll yell but that’s it. I’ll be okay.” Jack muttered a Merry Christmas at us before escaping the house. The four of us remained in the living room watching the Ianelli SUV leave the driveway. No one said a word until Mormor tutted, crossed the room and slipped on her shoe. She put it back on her foot and stomped her way to the kitchen.

  “It’s a Christmas miracle, everyone,” Mom said, motioning for us to follow. “Free cheesecake.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Ham dinner was pretty great. We were short three people, but that just translated to me getting more leftovers when the feed urge struck again. I worried Mormor would be upset that she’d put in so much work only to have our guests storm off, but she took it in stride.

  “My cooking is reserved for those who earn my labor. Mr. Ianelli didn’t earn it,” was the prim reply.

  Then she slapped another helping of potatoes on Leaf’s plate.

  Mormor liked to feed Leaf in much the same way Leaf liked to feed me. They shared that pride about cooking. She started inviting him to Sunday family dinner with us after that, which worked out well because Leaf’s dad worked three weekends out of four each month. Leaf took to bringing dessert, often some kind of layered pastry. Once he even commandeered her kitchen so he could make milk dumplings on the stovetop. They were cinnamon flavored and delicious and I told him I wanted to be buried in a vat of them when I died.

  He kissed my forehead and told me I wasn’t going to die.

  It was sweet, if not overly optimistic.

  For Jack’s part, he kept in touch with me despite the man my mom had taken to calling Nimrod Father. The night of the disastrous first meetup, I was putting away our dinner dishes and he texted me to apologize on behalf of himself and his mother. Both of them were eager to hear updates about the baby. They’d do so independently of Nimrod Father if need be—he said that his father didn’t have to be involved if I didn’t want him to be.

  I promised I’d let him know how things were progressing, and that we’d figure out what needed to be done closer to delivery time.

  I sent him pictures of Cass’s assembled nursery. He responded with, That’s so cool.

  It really was.

  A couple weeks later, Christmas fell upon us with all its nauseating good cheer. My two major gifts were baby-related; Mom got me a stroller, Mormor got me a high chair.

  “You didn’t have to do that, Mormor,” I said, eyeballing the antique wooden seat with the removable tray and stenciled duckies. “You got me the crib already.”

  “But I did have to. This will be in my kitchen. It has to match my decor.” She glanced at my mother. “I didn’t trust her not to get something hideous.”

  “Your confiden
ce overwhelms, Mother,” Mom said, her hands running over her new robe-and-slipper set, her lips quirked in a wry smile. “It fills me with such love.”

  “Oh, stop. I love you but you have bad taste, Astrid. In men and furnishings. We know this,” Mormor insisted.

  Well, okay then. We weren’t getting involved in that discussion because we liked our limbs attached to our body.

  * * *

  Leaf’s sister came up with his niece from Florida during holiday break so I didn’t get to see him as much as I’d hoped. I was, however, invited to come over New Year’s Eve to meet Miri and Elana. Miri had what I’d come to recognize as the Leon sense of humor, with the crinkly lines by her eyes and the bold big-bellied laugh. She wore a scarf over her hair, and when I asked about it, she explained it was to show she was a married woman, in her family’s tradition. Elana was a riot of big dark eyes and black curls, her toddler fingers getting into everything. My future flashed before my eyes as she ran from room to room, playing with not the toy her grandfather had given her, but the empty box it had come in.

  She wore it on her head and ran into walls.

  “Is this how kids really are?” I asked, watching Elana pick herself up off the floor, don the box again and go right back to bouncing herself off of stuff.

  “Oh, yes!” Leaf smiled. “Good luck!”

  “Jerk.”

  “I’ll help. I have experience.”

  To demonstrate, the next time Elana ran past, he swooped her up and kissed her on the belly, birthing a thousand baby giggles that made me think maybe the kid thing wouldn’t be such a train wreck after all. Not with people like Leaf and Devi and my mom and grandma around.

  I was super lucky.

  * * *

  The second Friday in January saw subzero temperatures with a wind chill factor around DEAR GOD, WHY DO WE NOT LIVE IN FLORIDA? Even I, queen of the third trimester hot flashes that left me feeling like overcooked broccoli, was bundled up in triple layers. It was a typical enough school day, with a test, a paper due and a quiz, until lunch when Leaf rushed into the cafeteria with a gigantic grin on his face. He slid into the seat beside me and brushed his lips against my ear, fast like a bunny so no one would catch him being egregiously affectionate.

  “Dad got the mail,” he said, pulling out Tupperware from his bag.

  “And?”

  “Not only did I get accepted to Johnson & Wales, I got offered an academic scholarship that covers two-thirds of my tuition. I’m going to be a chef!”

  I was so proud of him I squealed, hugging him and not giving a single crap when the lunch monitor, Mrs. Sullivan, came over to tell me to sit down, to stop being so handsy, that I was breaking school rules by touching my boyfriend so aggressively. I muttered an apology and stared at her, my hands resting on my stomach. I blinked slowly, waiting for her to give me detention.

  Okay, I wasn’t really waiting for detention. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t give it to me. Putting the pregnant kid in detention was a bad look and she knew it.

  I got off with a verbal warning.

  As soon as she walked away, Erin reached across the table to squeeze Leaf’s wrist, offering her own big grin. She wore a pair of fingerless gloves under her hoodie sweatshirt with cat ears because Stonington didn’t believe in properly heating the south wing of the school. One degree colder and they’d have to rename it Siberia. “Awesome, dude. Super proud of you.”

  Leaf winked at her.

  “I got two rejections in the mail!” Morgan offered. “But I also got an acceptance. UMass it is, looks like.”

  “You okay with that?” Leaf asked.

  Morgan shrugged. “It’s not Northeastern, but I can still get a decent computer engineering degree. I’ll deal.” She cracked open a bag and produced a zillion high-protein, low-sugar snacks.

  “I’m still waiting to hear back from Emerson,” Erin said. “But I’ve got a couple acceptances for backup schools. My mom’s freaking out that I want an art degree. She keeps telling me to do something useful with my life, but I’d rather be broke doing what I love than suffering for the next fifty years doing stuff I hate.”

  “You tell ’em, baby. That’s why Mama’s gonna make the big bucks in programming.” Morgan grinned. “In theory, anyway. But I got you.”

  “I know you do.”

  They shared a look that could have melted butter.

  “Oh, hey. No-go on hangouts tonight,” Morgan said, abruptly changing the subject. “Tomorrow instead, maybe? If you two can give up the sacred date night?”

  I tucked into my food, moaning quietly to let Leaf know I appreciated the sarma. It was my favorite of the dishes he brought, and knowing that, Mr. Leon had taken to making it once a week. Sweetness ran in the Leon family.

  “Sure. I’ll let Devi know,” I said.

  “Cool.”

  The rest of lunch was spent with Leaf, Erin and Morgan all comparing college notes and me watching with muted horror as my child moved around in my gut, causing weird angles to appear where there ought not to be weird angles. The college talk didn’t bother me at the time, but when I got home to an empty house, with Mom at work and Mormor nowhere to be found, it started to eat at me, particularly as I knew Devi was going to chime in about her acceptance results, too. I was the only one not going to school and I worried, honestly, that I’d be left behind. I knew I’d go back to school one day, when I had a clearer picture of how life would be as a mom, but what if the friends who were so dear to me moved on without me? College was a big change. It was exciting. It was new.

  ...I’d be at home with my kid. Not changing. Not being exciting.

  It weighed on me.

  It weighed on me right up until Leaf showed up on my doorstep unannounced, holding a mixed bouquet of flowers.

  He didn’t have his own car and his father would still be sleeping for work, so I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there. I opened the door and looked past him. Morgan’s car idled in the driveway, an old cotton-candy-blue Volkswagen that had seen better days. Erin and Morgan were in the front seat, waving at me, both bundled up in winter coats and gloves. Leaf donned a woolen peacoat with a red-knitted scarf doubled around his neck.

  I tipped my head back for a kiss. He complied, pressing the bundle of ribbon-wrapped stems into my hand.

  “Come out with us,” he said in greeting.

  “I have to text my mom and ask.” I paused to sniff the flowers, smiling at the sweet smell. “And put these in water. Come in. I thought Morgan and Erin had plans tonight?”

  “They lied.” He grinned.

  “Oh.”

  Leaf followed me inside, kicking the slush off his boots. We hadn’t had much accumulation of the white stuff yet, but there’d been a few flurries over the week that meant our shoes were always wet and the world was painted gray. Gray skies. Gray crusty buildups of snow along the sides of the road. Gray water.

  Deep winter in New England could be pretty depressing.

  I found a vase in the kitchen cabinet and set the flowers by the sink before grabbing my phone.

  “Where are we going?” I asked. “Mom’s going to want to know.”

  “To see your mom.”

  “...oh.”

  That made no sense.

  He plucked the phone from my fingers.

  “Trust me. Get your coat. I’ll help you with your shoes,” he said.

  Month eight of pregnancy meant I was doing a whole lot of cramming my tootsies into slip-on shoes unless someone was there to help. Leaf was happy to be that guy, and I balanced a hand on his shoulder as he slid Keds on me one at a time, him a big tall Romani Prince Charming to my very pregnant, kind of sweaty Hispanic Cinderella.

  “Gracias,” I said.

  “De nada.”

  A coat, some gloves and my pocketbook and I was climbing into Morgan’s car. Erin had vacated the
front seat for me, standing by the open door like a chauffeur. When I protested, insisting I could fit in the back seat (and let’s be real, I couldn’t, but she should be allowed to sit shotgun in her girlfriend’s car) she told me not to be silly and helped buckle my seat belt for me. It almost didn’t fit, but we managed it with a little prayer and a lot of grunting.

  Erin and Leaf climbed in the back. Morgan pulled the car onto the main strip, some girl-band punk rock playing on her stereo.

  “I like your hair,” I said to her.

  She’d styled it in a Mohawk. She wasn’t allowed to in school, some crap dress-code rule, but once she’d gotten out and gone home, she’d applied gallons of product. It was back to her natural Irish Orange, as she called it, but the highest spikes were so tall, they brushed the roof of the car.

  “Touch it,” she said, leaning her head my way.

  I did.

  The spikes were practically rock.

  “Awesome,” I said.

  Listening to my friends chatter on about a zillion different things, all the while refusing to answer any of my questions about where we were going, helped with the bummed-out thoughts about college. Distraction was often the best medicine. Sure, I’d sweat it again at some point, but not right then. Right then, I was in my happy place. Arriving at an Italian restaurant and being led to a small function room where Mom, Mormor and Devi awaited me—along with Jack and Mrs. Ianelli—was also my happy place.

  I figured out two steps in they’d thrown me a baby shower.

  It was awesome.

  Above the doorway, a banner with my name and Cass’s name was decorated with gold-foil stars. The favors, the confetti, the napkins—everything was navy blue, not a whiff of pink anywhere to be found. There was a long table with place settings for dinner, a second table for gifts and a third, smaller table topped by a beautiful cake decorated with a pacifier on top.

  “I... How? How did...” I motioned at the room, then at Jack and his mom.

  Mom came over to kiss my cheek, her arm sliding over my shoulders and anchoring me in case I was a flight risk.