34
Clara
The next day leading up to the meeting was the most nerve-wracking day of my life.
I went through my tasks taking care of Anthony, but my mind was full of questions without answers. What if she wanted to take Anthony back? That would solve some of our problems. We could pretend that she never actually surrendered the baby, which would absolve us—and her—of any legal ramifications. The only problem was that Billy still had the birth certificate, but we could figure out a way to explain that later.
Derek didn’t like the idea of giving Anthony back, not to someone who had surrendered him in the first place. But if that’s what the mother wanted, what could we do about it?
There was a worse scenario than that, though: what if the mother was mad we didn’t properly hand over Baby Anthony to Social Services? We could explainwhywe didn’t—since we had an honest, legitimate reason—but what if she didn’t care? What if she was furious about the whole thing? I wasn’t sure if we could be sued for that, but people sued other people for all sorts of reasons. If the roles were reversed, I might feel the same way as her.
The guys received two calls: a kitchen fire in the morning, and a faulty smoke detector in the early afternoon. That helped distract them. But it left me home alone with the baby, which only seemed to heighten my own emotional response.
During the second call, after changing Anthony’s diaper, I clutched him to my chest and started to cry. An ache had formed in the pit of my stomach and wouldn’t go away, and once I started crying, I couldn’t stop. It was beginning to feel like the meeting with Melanie might be the end of everything. That I would never see Baby Anthony again.
“I’m not ready to say goodbye,” I whispered to the baby between sobs. “I’ve only just started to get to know you.”
In retrospect, I should have expected this. It was naive of me to agree to help watch the baby and expect tonotgrow attached to him. But I didn’t realize it would be this hard. It was like being told that my arm was going to be cut off tonight.
“I love you so much,” I told him. “I know I’m not your mom, and I’ve only been taking care of you a few weeks. But I still love you. I want you to know that.”
I wished I knew more about the woman. If I knew her full name, I could stalk her social media and see what kind of person she was like. That would help me mentally prepare for the meeting tonight.
But only Derek knew her full name, and Billy had the birth certificate. So there was no way for me to know.
Since the guys were technically on-call, we loaded up the fire engine and drove it to my family restaurant. That way, if a call came in during the meeting, they could quickly leave. They parked the engine on the street behind Tony’s Pizza. Derek got out.
“You two stay in the truck with the baby,” Derek told the others. “I don’t want to bring him inside unless Melanie asks. I’ll call if we need you.” He nodded at me. “You ready?”
I gave a start. “You wantmeto go inside with you?”
“She mentioned your restaurant specifically, so that means you’re involved. Besides, it might put her at ease to know a woman has been helping take care of the baby.”
Numbly, I followed Derek off the fire engine and around to the front of my restaurant. We couldn’t have been more different: him in his baggy fire trousers and tight white shirt, and me in a summer dress and sandals. It accentuated the feeling that I shouldn’t be here.
We walked into the restaurant. We were half an hour early, because Derek insisted on seeing the woman approach: he wanted to know what kind of car she drove, or if she was arriving with other people. At this time of day, there was only one booth occupied by a grey-haired couple splitting a small pizza.
Mom was standing behind the counter, counting bills in the register. Doing the evening count before the dinner rush, a job which had been mine when I was working here. She glanced up, looked back down at the register, then realized what she had seen.
“Clara!” she came around the counter and hugged me tightly. “Why do you come and not bring the baby?”
I glanced over my shoulder at the elder couple eating in the booth. “Mom, shh. We’re here to meet with the baby’s mother. I need you tonotget involved. Okay? Just stay behind the counter and pretend like everything is fine.”
“The woman who abandoned the baby?” She sniffed, then glanced at Derek. “She tells me not to get involved. Her own mother. I remember when she wasthis big, and I was the one giving orders.”
Derek chuckled. “I bet she was a handful.”
“I have photos!” Mom put her hand lightly on his arm. “I show you! Wait here!”
“Mom,” I insisted. “We just need some privacy until the meeting is over. Then you can show him all the photos you want. Okay?”
She rolled her eyes and went back behind the counter, muttering to herself in Italian.
“Please do not let my mom show photos of me as a child,” I said.
Derek smirked over at me. “Why? Would that be embarrassing for you? Maybe you should have thought about that before making fun of my typewriter collection.”
We chose the window booth in the corner, both of us sitting on the same side so we could see the restaurant and parking lot. Derek glanced at his watch. “We still have twenty minutes.”