Baby Business: Baby Steps

And so it went, their conversation. Careful. Circumspect. He talked about work, she intermittently grilled him about his food preferences. He’d have had to be blind to not notice that she didn’t look his way unless she absolutely had to, that her smiles were fleeting, rationed. Strike what he’d thought before about her not having any walls, because there was definitely one up between them now, transparent and flimsy though it may have been. Not that she was a whiner. In fact, it was the way she seemed to curl around her obvious bad mood, swallowing her true feelings, that annoyed him so much. He didn’t like this Dana, he wanted the other Dana back, the one who’d tease and flash that dimpled smile for him.

Periodically piercing the annoyance, however, was the swell of pride whenever someone stopped to admire Ethan. Which happened approximately every twenty feet. And Ethan took to his role as the charmer with equanimity, bequeathing wrinkle-nosed, two-toothed grins on everyone who spoke to him. After one gushing elderly couple continued on their way, C.J. looked at the baby and said, “How could anyone walk away from such a perfect kid?”

That was enough to earn him a sideways glance, at least. And a smirk. “Says the man who’s lived with the child for one night. Believe me, he has his moments—”

“Ohmigosh, aren’t you just the cutest little thing?” yet another admirer said, cooing at the baby as though she’d never seen one. “Oh, would you look at those two little teeth! How old?” she asked Dana.

“Six and a half months.”

“Aw, that’s such a wonderful age. Enjoy it, honey—it goes so fast. I had four, they’re all parents of teenagers themselves now, but it still seems like yesterday. And look at you, expecting again already, bless your heart! Well, bye-bye, sweetie,” she said to Ethan with a fluttery wave, then trotted off.

The whooshing in C.J.’s ears nearly obliterated the piped-in seventies oldie bouncing off the freezer cases. At last he turned to Dana, his heart cracking at the stoic expression on her face.

“You want me to go beat her up?”

“That’s very sweet,” she said with a fleeting smile, “but I think I’ll pass. And anyway, better she think I’m pregnant than I’m nothing but a lazy slob without the willpower to starve myself down to a size eight.”

“One isn’t better than the other, Dana.”

“Maybe not. But I’m used to it. Come on,” she said quietly, nudging the cart toward the checkout. “It’s getting close to Ethan’s bedtime.”

If she’d been subdued before, she was downright uncommunicative on the ride back to the house, his every attempt to draw her out meeting with little more than a monosyllabic reply.

Oh, man, not since he was a kid had he felt this … this extraneous. Not that he hadn’t been well aware of his inability to connect with another human being except on the most basic of levels, but if this didn’t drive it home, boy, he didn’t know what did. Because, whether he understood it or not, whether he liked it or not, he did genuinely care about this woman, about what she was feeling. He hated seeing her hurt. But even more, he hated not knowing what to do to make it better.

When they got back to the house, he offered to get Ethan ready for bed while Dana started their dinner. He wondered, as he carted his sleepy son down the hall, how he thought some biological connection was going to make him any more able to fix the inevitable hurts for his child than for Dana. With that, the resentment demons roared back out onto the field from where he’d tried desperately to keep them benched, fangs and claws glinting in the harsh light of C.J.’s own fear.

Ethan lay quietly on the changing table during the diaper-changing process, gnawing like mad on his fist, watching C.J. with those damn trusting eyes, and hot tears bit at the backs of C.J.’s. He hadn’t wanted this, he thought bitterly, stuffing plump little legs into a pair of lightweight pajama bottoms. Hadn’t asked for it—

The baby clung to him like a little koala when he picked him up, and C. J. clung right back, his hand cradling his son’s head, his cheek pressed against one tiny shell of a little ear.

How the hell was he supposed to be something he didn’t know how to be?

He lowered Ethan into his crib, unable to resist the tug to his emotions when the kid grabbed his blanket, his eyelids drooping almost immediately. “‘Night, Scooter,” he whispered, slightly startled when the nickname popped out of its own accord. Then he stepped into Dana’s room to grab the baby monitor off her nightstand, his emotions assailing him a second time at the basic here-ness of her—a pair of shoes, carelessly kicked underneath the chair, her lingering scent. The laptop, firmly closed, like an old woman with secrets.

Standing barefoot at the island, tossing a salad, Dana glanced up when C.J. entered the kitchen. Her forehead creased in concern. “Everything okay?”

“What? Oh … sure. I just …” He smiled, shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he said, setting the monitor on the counter. “Work stuff.”

Her expression said she didn’t believe him for a minute, but all she said was, “I fake-baked a potato in the microwave for you, but I thought we could do the steaks out on the grill?”

C.J. grabbed a beer from the fridge, then allowed a rueful smile. “Guess this is as good a time as any to tell you I’ve never used the damn thing.”

“Get out! What kind of red-blooded American male are you?”

“One who eats out a lot.”

Dana huffed a little sigh that eased his mind somewhat—at least his ineptitude as a backyard chef was giving her something to focus on besides herself. Undeterred, she picked up the salad bowl and the monitor, commanding him to bring the steaks, adding it was high time he learned this basic suburban survival skill. When they got outside, she shook her head in amazement at the built-in grill tucked into a low wall on one side of the patio.

“Heck, compared with my daddy’s little old barbecue, this is like going from a motorboat to a yacht. So maybe you should go sit way over there, so you won’t see me make a fool out of myself, trying to figure this thing out.”

But for all her concern, the steaks turned out fine. And as the sun set, the temperature dropped and a light breeze picked up, there they were, just two people enjoying dinner out by the pool.

Yeah, right.

“So if you can’t cook,” she said, dangling a tiny piece of steak for Steve, whose purr C.J. could hear from five feet away, “what can you do?”

“Well, I make a great deal of money. Does that count?”

“Maybe,” she said, her eyes sparkling for the first time that evening. “Of course, it depends on what you do with all that money.”

“Meaning, do I horde it like Scrooge? No. Although I do have quite a bit socked away in various retirement funds. The thought of ending my life living in a cardboard box does not appeal.”

“No,” she said softly. “It doesn’t.”

“But then, the thought of anybody else living in a cardboard box doesn’t appeal, either. So I support a lot of local charities. For the homeless, the food bank, things like that. In fact …” He took a pull of his beer, thought What the hell. “I’ve got a fund-raiser to go to a week from Saturday, and—”

“Oh, I can stay with Ethan, no problem.”

“—and I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.”

She stared at him for a second or two, then jumped up and began clearing their dishes.

“Dana? What the—? It wasn’t a trick question!”

Plates balanced in both hands, she turned. “Wasn’t it? I mean, why ask me now? Tonight?”

He stood, as well, taking the plates from her. “Look, if you don’t want to go, just say so.”

“It has nothing to do with whether or not I’d like to go.”

“Then what is it?” When she didn’t answer, he sighed. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with that woman in the store, would it?”

She snatched up their water glasses and headed inside. “You tell me.”

“You think I’m inviting you because … what? I feel sorry for you? Dana, for God’s sake.” He followed, setting the plates by the dishwasher. “It was a simple invitation, no ulterior motives behind it.”

“C.J., get real. Nothing’s simple between us.”

“Point taken. But I swear, I only asked you because I hate going to these things alone, and I thought you might enjoy getting out … and I’m just digging myself in deeper, aren’t I?”

She emitted a desiccated little sound that might have been a laugh, then looked at him. “You’re not exactly winning any major points,” she said, but without a lot of steam behind it. “What happened to the charmer who’s supposed to know exactly the right thing to say?”

“Is that what you think I am? A charmer?” When she shrugged, he reached out, taking her hand. “Fine, so maybe playing the game is what’s gotten me through so far. You say what people want to hear, they generally do what you want them to do.”

“And you’re proud of this?”

“I’ve never deliberately misled anyone, Dana. Or used anyone for my own purposes. There are ways of working it without hurting people. Still, to answer your question … no. I don’t suppose I am particularly proud of how I’ve lived my life. But what I’m trying to say is … the baby …” He stopped, shutting his eyes for a moment, trying to make the words line up, make sense. When he opened them again, it was to meet that cautious, careful gaze. “I look at Ethan, and I realize a large part of who I was won’t cut it anymore. I don’t really know yet what that means, what I’m supposed to do, or who I’m supposed to be. But I do know you’re somehow part of that revelation.”