For the last year though, she has stayed put in our childhood home. I’m not holding my breath that it will last. The children loved her though. She’s a better grandma than she was a mother.
“I know,” I say. “I hope the business takes off and I can afford a nanny for Ivy.” I feel bad that my sister does so much for me. She wouldn’t hear of Ivy going to a daycare center and to be honest, I feel safer knowing that she is in my sister’s house.
“Nonsense! I would happily babysit ten of your children,” Lexi says. “Ace feels the same. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know how I would have survived my pregnancy and that first year and a half with Luna as a single mon.”
“Any sister would have done the same,” I tell her.
“In that case, any sister would do the same as I’m doing. So, no more talk about affording to get a nanny for Ivy. The kids enjoy each other’s company and Luna gets to boss around a brother and a cousin.”
Lexi and Ace hooked up once in a night of passion after which they parted ways and Ace was deployed to Afghanistan. Except, it didn’t end there. Lexi got pregnant and she was all alone. We raised Luna together and at one point, she called both of us Mommy, which was hilarious.
“Oh, before I forget, I have some exciting news. Or I hope it will turn out to be exciting,” Lexi says. “We may have found a place for you to stay.”
“Oh cool, where?” I’ve been looking for a place ever since I turned in my resignation at the hospital. I’m currently staying at the staff apartments near the hospital but now that I won’t be working there any longer, I need a place, pronto. I’d had one lined up but it fell through when the owner decided they wanted to make it an Airbnb instead.
“It’s an in-law apartment owned by a friend of Ace’s. He’s a firefighter at the station and he lives alone. Best of all?” Lexi said, “it’s on the next street from this one. You can walk there.”
“Really?” I don’t want to get prematurely excited but finding a house not too far from Lexi’s would be perfect. But the chances of being able to afford a place in their affluent neighborhood are pretty slim.
“Yes,” she says. “In fact, Ace already organized with Logan for you to go and look at it today. Logan is home.”
A smile pulls at my lips. Maybe things are finally turning around for me. For the last year, I’ve felt as if life has punched me repeatedly in the belly. First, it was discovering that the man I was sure I would spend the rest of my life with was married. In the months we had dated, he’d never disclosed that important detail.
Luckily, he transferred to another hospital. Thinking that I would put that sorry business behind me, I discovered that I was pregnant. The first thing I did was look for Gabriel Webb, because married or not, he deserved to know that he was going to be a daddy.
The surprise had been on me. My best friend, Maggie, who was a nurse as well and worked in the same hospital as Gabriel, gave me his home address. When I knocked on the door, a blond bombshell with obviously fake boobs opened the door clad in a tiny dressing gown. Not his wife.
“Honey, who is it?” Dr. Webb appeared by the woman’s side clad in a matching dressing gown.
If I hadn’t been so hurt and heartbroken, I’d have laughed at his reaction when he saw me.
“Vanessa, what are you doing here?” he said when his ability to speak had returned.
“You know her?” the blond bombshell said.
“Yes. Give me a sec, will you,” he said and gave her a gentle push back into the apartment.
What in God’s name had attracted me to him? He was lean with slim legs that seemed too small to support his frame. He did have nice facial features but that was all.
“What do you want, Vanessa?”
I stared at him.
“Nothing,” I said, fighting down feelings of hurt and betrayal. I couldn’t believe he already had a new girlfriend. I remembered his wet eyes when I found out that he was married. He had begged me not to leave him. He said that he and his wife were separated and would soon begin divorce proceedings.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his features contorted with confusion.
“Very sure,” I said and walked away from his life, sure that I would never see him again. I was big on fairness and justice but he did not deserve to know that he had fathered a baby.
After that awful day, I’d run into him a few times at the hospital when he had come to see a patient or a colleague. In the medical community, doctors routinely visited hospitals apart from their own unless they were in private practice. That went for midwives as well. It was awkward.