Shivering Mind

Chapter 37

“Yeah, but—”

“Our baby. Our decision. Do you understand, Grand?” Again, she’s looking at him, not me. “It has to be between Max and me.”

He nods, weaves his fingers behind his neck, tilts it to one side, then the other, cracking it. “Which is why I thought you should bring him in in the first place.”

“And here he is,” Derek tells him.

SomeMaxes I really think I broke my brain, messing with it the way I did. I’m hearing what they’re saying, but it’s like I can’t make sense of it. What are they saying? I may be here, but am I really? Because I feel like the sperm donor. Which, I guess, is pretty close to the truth.

“We’ll figure it out. Together. Right, Max?”

“Sure,” I say, staring at the clock. There’s a quiet wail getting louder and louder.

Thanks, Cal. I half rise from my chair. Derek heaves a heavy sigh. “No . . . I’ve got this. My turn, after all.” She straightens her back like she’s facing enemy gunfire and not a seven-week-old baby. Takes a slug of watermelon drink. Squares her shoulders.

For God’s sake. “Lemme see what’s going on,” I say, moving in front of her toward the stairs. Not hard, since she’s walking like her feet are encased in lead boots. “I’ll take him again tonight,” I tell her. “No big deal. What’s another night?” Of no sleep. And probably no late-night visit from Matilda. Man—my own place, no parents, no house-parents, no hall monitors, but now I have a baby monitor.

Cal’s soggy and has leaked onto his long-underwear-type thing.

“I have a fresh sleeper he can wear,” Derek says from behind me. I nearly jump out of my skin. She has this ultra-silent way of moving—like her feet make no impression on the ground. She’d be an awesome assassin.

“Thanks,” I say, swabbing at him. I’m fumbling the diaper back on, clumsier than usual because Derek’s watching, then he pees. In my eye.

Blech. He’s my kid and by now I actually think he’s, you know, semi-cute and all that, but he frickin’ peed in my eye.

Derek starts laughing.

“Not funny,” I snap, swabbing my face with a baby wipe. Which makes my eye sting and water. She’s giggling more, laughing outright now, practically holding her stomach.

“Sorry. Sorry. I’ll be serious.” She makes an elaborate attempt to keep a straight face and hands me this fuzzy thing that looks like a pillowcase with arms.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a sleeper. You just zip him into it.”

I zip up Cal, who has stopped bawling and is looking at me nervously. Then I put him against my shoulder and pick up the diaper bag. Just a few weeks ago, I never needed to carry anything, just shove my license and my ATM card in my back pocket. Now I’m a pack mule.

After a s**t-ton of that dinner was awesome and thank you so much, I stick one hand out to Waldo, ready to say good-bye. He clasps it between both of his hairy hands and kind of wags our hands back and forth while staring me in the eye like he’s reading my aura or seeing through to my soul or making sure my pupils aren’t dilated.

My voice, which has been going on and on with the this was great’s, falters and grinds to a halt.

“You’re connected to Calvin,” he says, not like it’s a question.

“Uh,” I say. “Not really.” Cal wriggles, and I boost him back up, hand on his butt. He smells like diaper rash cream and laundry detergent. “I don’t know what that means,” I add. “Sir.”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Waldo says, lowering his chin and looking at me over his granny glasses, bushy gray brows drawn together. He finally gives me back my hand and says, “Anon, then, Maxothy.”

“Right on,” I say, fisting and unfisting my hand. He’d held on to it kind of tight.

Right on? Jesus.

Just as I’m about to shift into drive, Derek taps on the window. When I open it, she rests her elbows on the sill. “Have you done that with anyone else?” she whispers.

“Uh, you mean s*x?” How bad was I?

“No—the forgetting. All of it.”

“What do you want me to say, Derek?”

Yep, you’re the only one I totally forgot. Nope, you’re one of many. The truth is the first, as far as I know. Then the thought sinks in. The gear knob slips through my fingers as I imagine a tangle of girls I’ve left behind in guest bedrooms, backseats, empty classrooms, hair rumpled, shirts askew, faces accusing, all trooping my way with redheaded babies in their extended arms.

Takes me three more tries to get my shaky hands to shift from park.

“Never mind,” she says.

Waldo’s watching me, a thick-set statue in the doorframe, when I surge forward out of his driveway.

“See,” I say, crashing on my back on the couch with Cal on my chest, “this is why you never hook up with some random person for some random reason at some random place. Sure, she could have an STD, she could get pregnant. No picnic. But really, you find yourself in the life of someone you don’t know and don’t get and they’re in yours too and there’s no f*****g way out.”

Cal bobs his head against my collarbone.

My phone vibrates with a text. Derek again. If she asks me what color the nail polish on her toes was, I am going to lose my mind.

Again, don’t know how to thank you.

Thank me by getting the adoption ball rolling ASAP, I am dead serious, I text back, holding the phone up over Cal’s back. Vaguely guilty typing this, with his fluffy hair brushing my chin. But he has to be a blip in the rearview mirror before Dad does my year-end performance review.

Sleep well, she responds.

Ironically, I have to assume.

A car wheels into the Garretts’ driveway and, after a second, I peer out my window to see Sam and Jase standing by Jase’s Mustang, which I know he’s been giving her driving lessons in. He’s got his hands in her hair and she has her arms around his waist, her head on his chest, and I just want that.

I’m like some weird voyeur, but . . . it’s all quiet, peaceful. No big rush to make the moves, just easy, natural. As much of a creep as I am for watching, for not making any noise, not clearing my throat to let them know I’m there, I’m even worse for this, like, wanting. Like a vise grip on my shoulder, I feel it harder than any craving for booze or that kind of oblivion. It’s something that actually . . . aches . . . instead of nagging like a mosquito I can’t manage to swat. Jase says something, and Samantha laughs, buries her head against him, fits right into him even though she’s almost as short as Matilda and he’s almost as tall as me.

I’m a douche wanting what my best friend has. He loves her, she loves him . . . the rest can wait. There are no crazy complications, no classmate you can’t imagine screwing, no baby you don’t remember making.

I want the best for Jase—and Sam—who deserve all that. But at the same Maxe, I wish my missteps could be canceled out by the Maxes I did the right thing. Which I can probably count on one hand.

Finger?

Less than a week ago I had Matilda here in my bed, and now I’ve got the baby from the pits of hell.

Blue eyes so red, he looks like he needs an exorcism, deep painful breaths, knees yanked hard up to his chest. It’s bum-c***k of morning, Cal’s miserable, and I have no clue how to fix him. He wants nothing to do with my nose, but whenever I put him down to try to get a bottle or something, he screams even louder. My ears hurt so bad and I want so damn much to put him down and go into another room, shut the door. Go outside, onto the lawn, down the street, to the beach. I mean—no one’s ever died from crying, right? Maybe he’ll just wear himself out?

So. I don’t leave. The least I can do. I just keep on holding him while he thrashes around like a hammerhead on a line.

And cries. Endless. And wicked loud.

“Cal. I don’t know what the f— I don’t get what you want. What you need. I wanna help you here, kid. Help me understand.” He pauses for a second, like he’s thinking my words over, then starts screeching yet again, desperate.

I’m asking for direction from someone who has had less Maxe on the planet than I’ve had in recovery. Pick him up and put him on my stomach, hold tight to his tense, flailing body. He collapses, sweaty, all his damp red waves flopped down, instead of sticking straight up as usual. After a long while, as though it’s taken Maxe to collect his strength, he raises his big heavy head back up and looks me straight in the eyes.

Smiles.

This goofy, toothless smile, his head bobbling back and forth like it weighs extra to show emotion. It completely changes his whole face—from worried crinkle dude to jolly Buddha guy. Hi, Cal. Hey, kid. I grin back at him.

Dad. Hi, Dad.

That whatever, that blood bond, that “Luke, I am your father” thing . . . I don’t know, but maybe I get it. A little.

Then, like his smile has taken all his energy, he slumps his head to the side, grabs a handful of my chest hair, snorts loudly, and tumbles off to sleep.

My left hand still covers his whole butt. The other hand is bigger than the side of Cal’s head. I can hardly breathe, but I’m damn sure not gonna move and wake him up. So I just stay there, listening to his snuffly breaths, almost counting them, breathing in that same slow rhythm. He’s partly me. Because of me. I did this.

For the first Maxe, that idea doesn’t make me sick, or guilty, or wrong. For the first Maxe, I really know he’s mine.

Chapter Thirty-one

Max

“Mom always lets me sit in the front,” Harry tells me, wedging his skinny, seven-year-old ass into that very seat as I sweat to install Cal’s car seat in the middle of the Garretts’ van. Cal’s wiggling and trying to whack me with his stuffed duck. George is cracking up over it.

I smell Matilda’s salt-air scent before I see her standing next to me like a mirage. All the craziness around me and in me shuts down. Catch a whiff of peppermint—minty soap, or candy she’s sucked on just now.

“Better?” she asks. “No permanent side effects?”

“

Mom does not ever let you sit in front,” Duff says from the way back. “That’s bull, Harry.”

“Max, tell him he can’t say that. It’s bad,” George says.

“Watch your mouth,” I call over my shoulder. Hypocrites are us. I expect Duff to call me on this, but instead he just kicks his shoes against the back of George’s seat.

“Completely recovered,” I answer Matilda. “All systems go.” I concentrate on polishing off my water bottle. Matilda doesn’t need to know she was in the shower with me this morning.

But she flashes her killer grin and says nothing.

“Do you have class tonight?” I ask as Andy hurtles out of the house.

“Whew, thanks for waiting, Max! Can you speed? I’m late for band and I swore to Alyssa I’d bring her Munchkins before the game—you don’t mind stopping at Dunkin’, do you? Do you have any cash? Is my hair a mess? Did I put on too much mascara?”

“You’re fine,” Matilda says firmly. “Max is not your ATM.” She turns back to me. “No—I had night duty, but that’s done for now. Come by after the game?”