Baby Names
For weeks, I didn’t see or hear from anyone with the last name Hanson. I hadn’t been surprised that Avery wanted nothing to do with me, since she had said as much the night before her wedding. But Zac… I thought something had happened between us. Something meaningful. I should have known whatever progress we had made when he felt our daughter kick would go up in smoke the second his wife saw us together.
If she’d had any doubt before then that he was, as Tobias kept referring to him, my baby daddy, they vanished just as quickly as Zac had when she came after him, cracking the whip.
Tobias was, strangely enough, more of a comfort and more supportive than practically anyone else in my life. Asher was still around, but I could see him becoming more detached. It was as if he wanted to be with me, but he couldn’t quite fathom the fact that I would really be bringing a baby into the world in just a few months. How he could ignore that fact even when we were in bed together, I didn’t really understand, but he seemed to be trying.
Tobias, though, was freakishly invested in all aspects of the baby thing, from choosing the right crib to picking out a name. Whenever we had the tiniest bit of downtime at work, he would pull up a baby name website and start calling out names he thought I should consider.
“Harper,” Tobias suggested. “No, wait. Harper Hanson sounds ridiculous.”
“The fact that you think I’m giving her Zac’s last name is what sounds ridiculous.”
Tobias jerked his head up from the computer screen to stare at me. I stared back, and he shook his head. “That’s harsh. That’s fucking harsh.”
“I haven’t seen him since the wedding,” I replied. “And even then he didn’t exactly say he was going to be in her life. He was just pissed that I didn’t tell him I was pregnant. But considering I haven’t heard from him, I think it’s pretty obvious he’s chosen his ‘legitimate’ children over her.”
“But did he actually say that?” Tobias asked.
I shrugged. “Actions speak louder than words or whatever. And since he’s not even around for me to see how he’s acting, I think I can make a few assumptions about what he does and doesn’t want.”
“Whatever you say,” Tobias replied, holding his hands up in a sign of defeat, even though his face said he still didn’t agree with me. “What about Caitlin?”
I scrunched up my nose and made a face. “That’s way too close to his wife’s name.”
“Are you going to dismiss every name that’s remotely connected to her—or to him?”
“Probably,” I replied, staring Tobias down as if to dare him to disagree with me.
He didn’t. “What about a family name, then? Your mom’s name?”
“Maria or Gloria?”
Tobias shrugged. “Marion? Glorianna? I don’t know.”
“I don’t think so,” I replied, shaking my head.
“I’m sure there’s some form of her name that you would like. There’s a billion versions of every name on this website that you should be reading instead of me,” he replied, then shrugged. “Anyway, it just seemed like a nice gesture.”
“Yeah, that would probably be a nice thing to do,” I agreed. “And it would make Aunt Sus cry even more happy tears than she already has been since I told her the news. But I don’t know. It just doesn’t… feel right. Not that anything feels right lately.”
Tobias stared at me for a moment, then stood up. Even as he approached me, I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. When he reached me, he wrapped his arms tightly around me, practically lifting me off the ground.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said softly.
I could only hug him back and hope that he was right.
A few hours later, I walked into my apartment, my head swimming with baby names and my stomach growling. Although I was starving, I hadn’t decided what to have for dinner. That could wait until I talked to Asher, who I anticipated would be waiting on the couch. Things between us had still been tense for weeks, but he showed no signs of actually leaving, no matter how much I frustrated him or how fucked up our situation was.
Sure enough, there he was, the disassembled pieces of a baby mobile spread out on the coffee table in front of him.
“What’s that?” I asked, even though it seemed obvious.
“Your aunt sent it,” he replied. “There are several other boxes where this came from. At this rate, I don’t think you’ll need to have a baby shower at all.”
A baby shower. Out of all the things I was worried about where this baby was concerned, throwing some silly little party was the least of all the troubles plaguing me.
“What?” Asher asked as I collapsed next to him on the couch.
“I don’t think I’m having a baby shower,” I replied. When he stared blankly at me, I asked, “Well, why would I?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Who am I going to invite? Avery? Zac’s family? Your family? It’s not like I have many friends. Aunts and cousins, sure, but how sad would that look? I don’t need to draw any more attention to how pathetic I am and how awful this whole situation is.”
“No one’s going to think you’re pathetic and awful,” Asher said softly.
“Sure they are,” I replied. “You still haven’t told your family anything about me other than that I exist, have you? And why not? Because you know that even if you told them the baby was yours, they would still judge you. Judge me. Because a lifetime of being a pretty decent person gets erased the moment you make this one mistake. It’s fucked up, but it’s true. You just don’t see it because you don’t have to, but I have to walk around with my fuck ups front and center, literally, for people to see. And those people don’t even know the half of it.”
Asher touched my shoulder. “Okay. Stop and take a breath, please.”
I didn’t want to, but I did. I took the chance to prop my aching feet up on the coffee table, slipping my shoes off and letting them fall into the floor as I did so. Neither that, nor taking a deep breath, did anything to relieve my emotional problems, but they did make my body feel just a tiny bit better… however briefly.
“Okay,” Asher said. “No, I haven’t told them, but you don’t know my family. You don’t know how, even if I do tell them I’m the father, they’ll take this.”
“I can guess,” I said.
“Fair enough. So what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. Even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know his answer, the next question was out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Do you want to tell them you’re the father? Do you want… people to think you are?”
“By people do you also mean… whatever you’re going to name her?”
I nodded.
Asher heaved a deep sigh. “I don’t… I don’t know. If that’s what you want. Putting my name on the birth certificate, though. Lying about it—I mean, breaking the actual law. That’s serious.”
“So we keep doing what we’ve been doing? Just let people assume and never correct them?” I asked.
“I guess so,” Asher replied, letting his hand trail down my arm until it came to rest on top of my hand. “Do you think that’s a really bad idea?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not sure we have any better options.”
Asher gave me a tiny grin as he laced our fingers together. “Okay. It’s really up to you, you know. I mean, I’m still here. And I’m still going to be here. Whatever else… whatever my role really is, that’s more up to you than it is me.”
I nodded slowly. “Well, you’re in my life, so… you’re in her life, too. That’s unavoidable. I’m not giving her your name and I’m not putting your name on the birth certificate. I know a lie by omission isn’t much better, but it’s the best I can do.”
“I’m not saying I like it,” Asher said. “But it’s your decision. So… alright.”
I snuggled up against him, glad that for once we seemed to have avoided a fight. “It’s still fucked up, isn’t it?”
“Well, yeah, but… it’s going to be fucked up, even if Zac comes back.”
“I don’t want to think about him coming back,” I replied with a groan.
Asher pulled me against him and ran his hands through my hair. “I know, baby. But you have to know it’s a possibility. If he’s got even the tiniest bit of sense, he’s going to realize he wants to be in whatever-you-decide-to-call-her’s life. And if he’s got more sense than that, he’ll realize he wants to be with you.”
“I think his wife might have a problem with that,” I mumbled.
“Well, frankly, I think she already has plenty of problems on her hands, being married to someone like him.”
“You don’t even know him,” I huffed.
Asher pulled back slightly. “Are you defending this guy?”
“No, I just… I mean, that’s a statement of fact. You don’t know him.”
“And until I said something bad about him, you didn’t have a kind word for him, either. So you can hate him but I can’t?”
“I don’t hate him,” I blurted out. I wanted to take it back, but I knew it was the truth. “But I know why he’s a horrible person. You don’t, aside from what I’ve said. I just don’t think it’s fair for you to judge him.”
“Too late,” Asher replied.
“Are we really fighting about whether or not to dislike the guy who cheated on his wife with me, then got pissed at me for not telling him about the baby he obviously has no interest in helping to raise anyway?”
Asher let out a harsh chuckle. “Yeah, I think we are.”
“Can we just agree that he’s an asshole and be done with it?” I asked. “And maybe argue about what to cook for dinner instead?”
With a heavy sigh, Asher replied, “Yeah, yeah. Okay. I was thinking hamburgers?”
“With the crinkle cut fries?” I asked hopefully.
“Of course,” he replied, grinning.
Just like that, the fight was forgotten. Asher pulled me from the couch and we walked to the kitchen together and began cooking our hamburgers and french fries. In spite of the argument, which was a daily circle we went around and around, we fell back into our routine easily. I liked our routine. I liked the simplicity of being with him. My only problem was wondering why he still wanted to be with some other man’s baby mama. As long as he did, though, things were good enough.