Chapter Seventeen
Dean
“Say what now? You want me to do what?”
I must have misheard them.
Solange lifts a device the size of an iPhone in the air as she unlocks her car. “This is an electric stimulator. It’s actually for physical therapy, but you can use it to simulate the pain of contractions so a person can experience parts of the birthing process as their partner does.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “Did you time travel and become a medical doctor when I wasn’t looking?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Natalia’s the expert. She just filled me in.”
With Natalia’s overnight bag hanging from my shoulder, I rush to help the expectant mother into the passenger seat.
“It’s no big deal, Dean,” Natalia says. “You just attach these electrodes to your stomach, and I press a few buttons to mimic what I’m feeling. Bingo, bango, that’s it.”
“Why can’t you do it?” I ask Solange, whose full-toothed grin isn’t fooling me.
She rattles her car keys. “Can you drive a stick shift?”
“No.”
She looks . . . relieved. “Well, there’s your answer.”
We climb into the car—me in the back and Natalia in the front because she needs the extra legroom—and Solange starts the engine.
Natalia settles into the seat, fastens her seat belt, then groans before turning her head to face me. “About the stimulator: It’ll help me get through this, okay? But if you don’t want to do it, no problem. I understand it may be daunting for some.” She closes her eyes and breathes out. “That’s another one. We should start timing them again.”
I’m not a man who can be easily egged into a situation by the suggestion that I’m wimpy. So if that’s Natalia’s angle, it’s a wasted effort.
She drops her head and whimpers. “God, I wish Paulo were here. This isn’t how I thought this day would go.”
Now that’s the kind of sentiment I can’t ignore. “Give me the device.”
Natalia turns around again, her expression noticeably brighter. “You’ll do it?”
“Yeah, I’ll do it.”
A few minutes later, I’m wearing four electrodes on my abdomen and two electrodes on my back; six wires tether me to the device in Natalia’s lap, leaving me at her mercy. I’ve never met the man, but Paulo owes me big-time for this.
“Okay,” Natalia says. “So the next time I have a contraction, I’ll hit the dial. Let me know if you need me to stop. And, Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“This is already distracting me, so I’d say it’s working.”
“Glad I could help, Natalia,” I say, sitting back.
“We’ll be there soon, you two,” Solange notes. “You’re doing great.”
“Here’s the next contraction,” Natalia says. “Dean, take a deep breath in as it starts, then slowly release and focus on a mental image of your body suspended in water.”
The electrodes on my abdomen pulse against my skin and several currents zing through my body. I let out a few garbled sounds as I push through the discomfort. “This isn’t pleasant. Forgive me, but if it goes any higher than this, I’m going to need to curse.”
“Who gives a fuck,” Natalia says. “After this, you’re in the family.”
“What do you need me to do?” Solange asks. “Anything?”
“Keep your eyes on the road,” Natalia says. “Encouraging words are good. Shut up when I ask you to shut up. No music.”
Solange nods. “Fair enough.” She and I exchange a look through the rearview. You okay? she mouths. I give her a thumbs-up in response.
The next contraction is worse, though. Natalia shouts from the pain, and I jam my feet against the floorboards when she turns up the dial. “Goddamn . . . Almighty . . . fuck . . . That’s it, Natalia, breathe.”
“Look at you two,” Solange says up front. “You’re both amazing. Doing great.”
Is it bad that I want to stuff a sock in her mouth? Yeah, I suppose that’s bad. Why the hell did I insist on coming with her to Natalia’s? I could be at home getting ready for bed. But noooo, I just had to spend a little more time with Solange. Well, who’s the sucker now?
“Dean,” Natalia says a few minutes later. “Just a warning: Another’s coming, and they’re getting more intense.”
I wipe my brow with the back of my hand. “Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll be right there with you.”
“Four minutes apart,” Solange adds.
Suddenly Natalia leans forward and howls. Seriously. As though she’s lost the rest of her pack and calling out to them is the only way to guarantee a reunion. “Oh God, oh God, oh God. Jesus Cristo! Shiiiiiiiiiiit.”
The bad news is that she’s in pain.
The good news is that she forgot to hit the dial on the device.
“Natalia,” Solange says, her voice cutting through the panting and grunting in the car. “Sweetie, you forgot to hit the dial.”
Where’s a fucking spare sock when you need one?
“Oh!” Natalia says, looking as if activating the device has given her a new lease on life. “Here you go, Dean.”
“Jesus. Fucking. Christ. What. The. Fuck?” This time the pain is so intense I unfasten my seatbelt and go horizontal, aligning the length of my body with the backseat and pressing the soles of my shoes against the window. My back spasms. “Make. It. Stop. Make. It. Stop.” Literal tears stream down my face. I grab on to my hair and yank on it, hoping to transfer some of the discomfort elsewhere, but all that I manage to do is make myself feel like I’m on fire from head to toe. I curl up into a ball and mewl. Any minute now, I’m going to tap out.
The car jerks to a stop just as Natalia’s cell phone rings.
“Paulo!” she exclaims as Solange runs around to open the door for her. “Where are you?” She and Paulo talk while I yank the electrodes off my body. Natalia, suddenly spry as hell, hoists herself out of the car, the phone at her ear. In the meantime, I’m still struggling to sit up.
The back door flies open, and Solange reaches for my arm. “C’mon, strapping young man. You were phenomenal, but I think your work here is done.”
“Don’t talk to me,” I say, dodging her hands. “And don’t snort either.”
“Okay, okay,” she says, backing away with a huge grin on her face, her hands up in the air in surrender. “I’m going to park the car.”
An orderly with a wheelchair greets us in the circular driveway of the hospital’s emergency entrance. I’m hunched over, a hand at my back and the birthing bag at my side as I try to support Natalia’s slow climb up the cement incline.
“Who’s the patient?” the jokester asks.
“Funny. She’s the mom-to-be,” I say.
The orderly helps Natalia into the wheelchair. Good thing, too, because I’m still catching my breath. With Natalia safely tucked away and ready for transport, her hands gripping the wheelchair’s armrests and her bag hanging from the handles, the orderly rolls her inside.
I scan the hospital grounds for any sign of Solange and easily spot her hair bouncing in the air as she trots across the visitors’ parking lot.
She’s panting when she reaches me, her cheeks slightly flushed. “You, my friend, have gone above and beyond. You can definitely call it a night.”
And miss this rare event? No way. I didn’t grow up in a big family. My mother has no siblings, and she burned her bridges with her own parents even before I was born. For obvious reasons, I’ve never even met my grandparents on my father’s side. Hell, I’m not even sure they know I exist. So this—mothers and aunts and cousins gathering around to celebrate the birth of their newest relative—is new to me. I’d like to experience this moment, even if it’s secondhand. Besides, I don’t want the night to be over just yet. I like Solange. As a person. And I can push aside my attraction if it means I get to spend more time with her. “Forget it, Pereira,” I say as I massage my belly. “I’m in it for the long haul. Waiting-room pacing and everything.”
She smiles, and it’s as though the joy of hearing my statement is illuminating her from the inside and spreading a burst of brightness in every direction. All that damn pain was worth it to get to see her like this.
“Okay, well, let’s go pace together,” she says.
I like the sound of that. Us. Together. Maybe more than I have the right to. But I can be her friend and embrace wherever that takes me—even if it begins at a surprise sex party and ends with a simulated birth.
What’s even wilder than my already wild night? I wouldn’t change a damn thing about it, and if given the chance, I’d do it all over again.
* * *
After scoping out the hospital’s private waiting areas—each with its own television, refrigerator, dinette set, and couch—Solange and I claim an empty one. We wipe most of the surfaces clean (my idea), then stand just outside the door so Lina and Max will easily find us when they get here.
An elevator down the hall dings, and when it opens, a group of people rush out, none of them Lina or Max. A tall, striking middle-aged Black woman with streaks of gray at her temples leads the charge as though she’s poised for battle.
“That’s Tia Viviane,” Solange explains. “Natalia’s mom and the eldest of the three sisters.” As her aunt approaches, Solange shakes her head. “Nice lipstick. I’m sure the baby will love it.”
Tia Viviane waves her hand as if she’s flicking away an insect with the audacity to buzz around her, but there’s a lift to her lips, suggesting she secretly appreciates Solange’s perfectly timed wisecrack. “Onda ela está? Para onde eu vou?”
Solange points to the nurses’ station. “Lá.”
Clutching her purse, Tia Viviane strides to the nurses’ station, then disappears behind the set of double doors leading to the delivery rooms.
Everyone else barrels inside our designated waiting area.
Solange’s family doesn’t just shift the energy in the room. No, they are the energy in the room—amped up to ten—and there are only five of us here. It’s a tight space, yet everyone manages to pivot and sidestep in a perfectly boisterous and choreographed effort to make room for one another. Two middle-aged women stride to the counter by the fridge and pull out foil-wrapped containers from paper shopping bags while a burly dude with arms and thighs that put mine to shame sets two-liter soda bottles on the dinette table.
“That’s my mother, Izabel,” Solange says, leaning into me. “The other woman is Tia Mariana, Lina’s and Rey’s mom.”
I can’t help taking in a deep breath and savoring Solange’s vanilla scent again. I’m a fiend for sugar cookies, so her fragrance makes me want to press my mouth against her neck and nibble on it. Don’t think about the party. Don’t think about the party. Struggling to focus, I somehow manage to string together a decent question. “Rey’s the big guy, I take it?”
“Correct,” she says, nodding as she watches them unpack. “I’ll introduce you in a minute.”
“Should we offer to help?”
She shakes her head. “This is a military operation. Unless you’ve been through boot camp, it’s best to stay out of the fray when they’re in setup mode.”
“I wouldn’t dream of interfering, then.”
Solange gestures at the bags and containers. “What’s all this anyway?”
“Food, obviously,” her mother says. “We’re going to need something to eat while we wait.”
“Nothing too heavy,” Lina’s mom says. “Sandwiches. A little salad. Some fruit.”
Solange groans. “This isn’t a cookout, for God’s sake.”
“Shhh,” I tell her, gently smacking the top of her hand. “If they want to share their gifts with us, who are you to complain?”
Her mouth falls open, but her eyes are sparkling with amusement. “Did you just hit me?”
“It was a love tap, that’s all.” I cringe on the inside when the L word slips out. “I meant a friend tap, of course.”
“Thanks for the clarification,” she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she gives me an eye roll in excruciatingly slow motion.
“Who’s this?” Mariana says pleasantly, her gaze landing on me.
“This is Dean,” Solange says. “He’s Max’s best friend.”
The descriptor bugs me. Is that all I am to her? A guy she’s doing a favor for because he’s Max’s best friend.
Maybe she sees something in the set of my expression because she hastily adds, “And my friend too, of course. I’m helping him with a project at work, so he was around when Natalia called.”
Mariana tilts her chin up. “Dean? Why does that . . .” Her eyes widen in recognition, then she crosses the floor and takes my hand. “How are you doing, filho?”
Rey, who’s already helping himself to food, shakes his head. “Subtlety is not your strong suit, Ma.”
There’s sympathy in Mariana’s expression, and suddenly I’m rethinking my decision to be here. It’s obvious she knows about the canceled wedding, though she didn’t say so outright. It never occurred to me that anyone in Solange’s family would know or care, but Lina helped plan the wedding, so it must have come up, even in passing.
“I’m fine,” is all I can muster. I mean, what else is there to say?
Solange’s mother places a hand on her hip and inspects my face; she’s holding some kind of hors d’oeuvre. “Você precisa de comida, filho. Está muito magro.”
“I’m sorry?”
She shakes her head as though she’s silently chastising herself. “Food. You need food. You’re too tall to be so slim.” She puts out her free hand. “Come. We’ll get you something to put more meat on your bones.”
I glance at Solange, looking for guidance on how to respond.
“Just go with it, man,” Max says from the door. “It’s a Brazilian elder’s prerogative to help you gain five pounds in a single sitting. The tias won’t rest until you’re as buff as I am.”
“Buff, huh?” I ask, raising an eyebrow as I let Solange’s mother guide me to the mini-feast the sisters have prepared. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
Max’s snide response gets swallowed by the fresh round of excited chatter ushered in by his and Lina’s arrival. I can’t help grinning when Mariana pinches Max’s cheeks, then wraps him in a bear hug that looks comical given her small frame.
“Any updates?” Lina asks.
We shake our heads, and before anyone can say another word, she’s walking out the door—looking for answers, I’m sure.
Izabel hands me something encased in foil. “Here.”
I unwrap her offering, and the mouthwatering smell of garlic and spices enters my nostrils. “What’s this?”
“Sanduíche de fraldinha na manteiga e alho.”
“Which is . . . ?”
Solange joins me at the table, standing close enough that her arm brushes mine. “It’s a flank steak sandwich. Plenty of butter. Plenty of garlic. Squishy, yummy bread.”
I waggle my eyebrows at her. “Say that again. Just once more. Slower this time.”
Grinning, she bumps my shoulder. It’s a small thing, but that show of familiarity seems just as meaningful as a hug. I’m surrounded by Solange and her family, and I truly feel a part of this gathering, as though I belong here. As though I’m taking up space in Solange’s world, and she’s okay with that. One of the upshots of always telling women precisely what they can expect of me is that I’m rarely invited to meet their parents. Until Ella. Who had her own reasons for letting me into her life. So, yeah, this is nice. But it doesn’t escape my notice that none of the husbands are here, and I wonder whether it’s because they’re the kind of men who make promises they can’t keep. Solange certainly believes her dad is one; maybe he’d still be in her life if he had been honest about his limitations.
“You don’t want to try it?” Izabel asks, a dispirited expression on her face.
“He probably wants to wash his hands first,” Solange says.
She’s not entirely wrong, but the travel sanitizer in my front pocket is an adequate substitute; I quickly reassure Solange’s mother as I rub it in. “Oh no, that’s not it at all. Was just thinking about something.” I take a bite of the sandwich, and after chewing a bit, make a chef’s kiss gesture. “This is delicious. Truly, truly excellent.”
Izabel beams at me, and it’s as if I’m back in grade school, when all I ever wanted was to be the teacher’s pet. My brain apparently wants nothing but gold stars from the Pereira women.
“Out the way, new guy,” Rey says. “You’re blocking access to my seconds.”
As Solange and I wander to the couch, Lina returns, her forehead creased with worry. She begins pacing near the door.
“I don’t understand how anyone can even eat at a time like this,” she says, side-eyeing the rest of us.
Max rises from his seat and puts an arm around his girlfriend, effectively halting her progress. “Let’s go get some coffee. That’ll take your mind off this until we hear something.” He gestures at the group. “Anyone else want a cup?”
“Definitely,” Solange says.
“Me too,” I add, settling my paper plate on my lap. “Cream and sugar for me. Black, no sugar, and superhot for Solange.” When I look up, everyone’s staring at me. “What?”
“That’s very specific,” Max says, giving me a shit-eating grin. “So noted.”
As Max and Lina leave, Natalia’s husband, Paulo, appears at the door, panting as if he ran all the way from the Bay Bridge to get here. “Estou aqui!”
Solange’s mom points down the hall. “Vá falar com a enfermeira, filho.”
With his suit jacket hanging on his thumb and his tie in the other hand, he sprints away—in the wrong direction. Seconds later, he whizzes past the room again, a panicked expression on his face.
Rey chuckles. “Paulo looks like he doesn’t know what hit him. I think he just realized his life will never be the same.”
“In a good way, yes,” Izabel says.
Rey twists his mouth to the side. “If you consider never getting a full night’s rest again a good thing, then yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
Mariana and Izabel exchange amused expressions and return to the business of doling out food—mostly to Rey.
“Remember, filho, they’re not doing this alone,” Solange’s mother says. “They’ll have us. And we’re going to spoil the baby like it’s ours.” She glances at her daughter. “And that goes for anyone else in this family who has kids someday. It’s what we do.”
Solange, who’s been happily noshing on her sandwich, freezes midchew but says nothing. Maybe she doesn’t want children. Or maybe she isn’t keen on being pressured to have them. It’s one of the topics we never discussed. And why would we? Still, I’ll confess to being curious about her stance. It’s just another piece of information I’d like to know about her.
“Well, don’t look at me,” Rey grumbles. “I can’t keep a boyfriend past the two-week mark.”
“Don’t look at me either,” Solange says. “It’s kind of hard to take care of babies when you’re traveling all over the country.”
Well, there’s part of the answer, I guess: Kids aren’t in her immediate plans. But apart from that, it finally dawns on me that Solange is leaving at the end of the summer, and the first day of August is literally tomorrow. This is how it was always going to play out, right? So why does that feel like such a big deal? And isn’t it a big fucking deal that it feels like a big deal? Holy fuck, someone bludgeon me, please.
The sound of a person’s hurried footsteps saves me from drowning in my own mental quicksand. Within seconds, Paulo and Viviane appear at the threshold, both wearing hospital gowns and caps. “It’s a boy!” they exclaim in unison.
Everyone gathers around the new dad and grandmother and fires off more questions than they can handle:
“How’s Natalia?”
“Did she curse up a storm in there?”
“What’s the baby’s name?”
“Is the baby okay?”
“When can we see him?”
That last question comes from me. I’m just as excited as everyone else to see the newest member of the family. This has always been a part of my plan: to welcome a child into my life. I want to make new traditions. Provide them with a warm and safe place to rest their head. Nurture their dreams. Do silly shit like make blanket forts or leave cookies out for Santa. I didn’t do much of that growing up. But my kid’s childhood will be different from mine. I’ll make sure of it.
Paulo puts up a hand to quiet everyone. “Natalia’s doing great. She did brilliantly in there. The baby’s name is Sebastian, and he’ll be brought out to the nursery in a little bit.” He scrubs a hand down his face, his expression turning serious. “Even though I couldn’t get to Natalia fast enough, I never doubted she’d be okay because all of you were there for her. So thank you.”
I can’t help envying how Paulo has been embraced by this family. If I were in his place, I’m not sure many people would have risen to the occasion the way Solange and her relatives did tonight. My mother’s a rolling stone, and if her latest adventure is any guide, she isn’t changing course any time soon. Max would be there for me, no question—and I’m certainly grateful for his friendship—but seeing this family coalesce around Sebastian’s birth reminds me that I have very few people in my corner. I look over at Solange, imagining what it would be like to count her among the people who’d have my back if I needed them.
As if she can sense my thoughts, Solange appears at my side, pulling me out of my internal pity party. “Hey there.”
“Hey,” I say, still watching Paulo and Viviane bask in the joy of the new baby.
“Let me know when you’re ready to go, and I’ll walk you out.”
I give her a sidelong glance. “Trying to get rid of me, Pereira?”
“Moi?” she says, wide-eyed, the fingers of both hands fanned out over her chest. “Never.”
“Good. Let’s meet Sebastian before I go.”
Solange and I don’t have much time left together. I intend to make the most of it.