Part 15 (1/2)
”Wyatt is my son,” Susan said, and she lifted the baby from his snug car seat.
Evie was stunned. She had to be hallucinating.
”Aunt Susan,” Evie said, speaking cautiously as she focused her eyes on the baby nuzzling her aunt's neck. ”Wyatt is black.”
”Well of course he's black, Evie. I adopted him. From Ethiopia. I know. It's very Angelina Jolie of me. But I swear I had the idea first.”
”I don't think adopting a kid from Africa can be patented,” Evie said, still unable to take her eyes off the tiny child curled up against Susan's body as though it was the most natural thing in the world. ”Wow, Susan. Just wow.”
”I know,” Susan gushed. ”And don't you just love the name? It had to be Wyatt.”
”As in Wyatt Earp?” Evie asked, naming the only famous Wyatt she knew.
”As in Sheryl Crow. She named her adopted son Wyatt. I've always felt that she and I are kindred spirits. His full name is Wyatt Ocean Rosen. It's perfect, isn't it?”
Why not? The kid was already destined for therapy.
”Perfect.”
”And what a gift for my mom. I'm making her a grandma! That's got to improve her spirits,” Susan said.
Evie was aghast. ”She's already a grandma. I'm her granddaughter, remember?”
”Oh right, I'm so silly. It's just you're already so old, I forgot you're someone's granddaughter. Well, now Bette has a boy and a girl.” Susan laughed giddily. ”Evie, I can't wait to catch up. Your mom agreed to put me up in Connecticut, but the truth is that I wish I were staying with you. I miss life in the big city.” Before heading west, Susan had lived in the East Village and sold pottery on the corner of Avenue B and Twelfth Street. She'd probably be horrified to discover how gentrified the once-beatnik enclave had become, with doormen-attended high-rises and, gasp, a 7-Eleven.
”Yeah, that's too bad. But you wouldn't want to disappoint my mom by changing plans, right?” Evie said, adding in a silent prayer.
”No, no. Of course not. Plus Wyatt will have his own room at Fran's. She said your place is tiny.” So Fran knew about Wyatt. Interesting.
”It is. Minuscule, really.” For what may have been the first time, Evie delighted in her apartment's limited square footage. If not being able to afford the larger apartment meant not putting up Susan and her imported child, then perhaps not making partner had a bright side after all.
After they got the rest of Susan's things and piled into the parked car with Wyatt strapped up tight in his infant carrier in the backseat, Evie turned to her aunt.
”So Grandma has no idea about Wyatt?”
Susan fiddled with her handbag, a crocheted monstrosity overflowing with baby paraphernalia.
”You know my mom and I aren't close. I could never give her what she wanted. She wanted me to marry a nice Jewish doctor, have kids, a white picket fence, the whole nine yards. Your dad, on the other hand, gave her exactly what she wanted. Which was easy for him, mind you, because it was exactly what he wanted too. Anyway, the point is, I felt like I was always disappointing her. The whole East Coast pace just wasn't for me. I needed someplace where I could be freer, so I moved out west. You know all this.”
”And?” Evie asked, because she felt there were things that Susan wasn't saying.
”And I think that was the right thing to do,” Susan said, still playing with the seams of her bag where the strings had started to fray. ”But, in some ways she was right. About having a family. Which is why I adopted Wyatt. I did really start to feel like something was missing. I suppose telling Bette about Wyatt would sort of be like telling her she was right all along, and I wasn't ready to make that phone call yet. Make sense?”
Evie nodded but kept her eyes on the traffic. Susan was actually making sense.
”So, I guess she'll be in for a big surprise tomorrow when I show up at the hospital with Wyatt.”
”Aunt Susan, don't take this the wrong way, but tomorrow is a nerve-racking day for Grandma. I think maybe Wyatt should stay home and just you come to the hospital. We don't want to shock her or anything.”
”But I have no one to watch him.”
Evie pictured Caroline's fleet of nannies and housekeepers.
”Don't worry, I've got just the place you can leave him for a few hours. He'll be perfectly safe and well looked after.”
”Okay, you're probably right,” Susan said.
Evie put on the radio and they listened for a while to the oldies station in silence. In the rear-view mirror, Evie could see the baby had fallen asleep sometime after ”Crocodile Rock.”
”So how old is Wyatt?”
”Seven months. He's an Aquarius. You know I'm a Virgo, which normally would clash, but in our case I think it's why we have such a good yin-yang dynamic going.”
Evie looked at the road signs. Only eight more exits and she could deposit Susan in Greenwich.
Susan started twiddling with the tuner just as Evie's cell phone rang from inside her purse.
”Would you mind getting that, Aunt Susan?”
Susan picked up the phone.
”Hey Fran, I think we're almost there.” Then she was quiet for a whole minute. ”Okay, then, I'll see you first thing tomorrow instead.”
Evie's intestines formed a pretzel.
”Evie, honey, your mom said Winston thinks he hit a gas valve while he was doing some renovations. They're all staying over at a friend's house tonight. Looks like Wyatt and I need to camp out with you instead,” Susan said, smiling broadly.
If that gas leak turned out to be a false alarm, Evie vowed to never speak to her mother again.
”I like your place, Evie,” Susan said, when they finally arrived after circling back to New York and dropping the car in Tracy's garage in h.e.l.l's Kitchen. ”Good taste runs in the family. My place in Santa Fe looks kind of similar.”
”Thanks,” Evie said, relieved she'd already decided to redecorate.
”So, where do you want us to bunk?” Susan asked, lifting Wyatt into the air.
Greenwich.
”You can take my bed. I'll sleep on the couch.”
”Thanks, I was hoping you'd say that. Wyatt is a real screamer if he's not comfortable. If it's all right, I'll start unpacking and give Wyatt a bath.”
Once Evie heard the bathwater running, she called Caroline to ask if Wyatt could stay at her apartment tomorrow while Bette was in surgery.
”Fine,” Caroline said. ”But you owe me for this. I have no help tomorrow, so I'll have to watch Grace, Pippa, and your aunt's baby by myself.”
”You have no help?”
Caroline grunted. ”Hey, don't forget who's asking who for a favor.”