Part 21 (2/2)
Raucous applause followed, and Justin motioned for me to come to him. Bea was still screaming.
”Give her to me...the carrier, too,” he said away from the mic.
Justin placed the Baby Bjorn across his chest and slipped Bea inside before securing her. My baby girl was exactly where she wanted to be and finally calmed down. Of course, she did.
He repositioned his guitar to accommodate her and started to sing a song that at first sounded like a lullaby. Then I recognized it as Dream a Little Dream. I couldn't contain the smile on my face as I watched Bea up there with him.
The women in the crowd were gus.h.i.+ng. If they thought they loved him before, now their ovaries were absolutely combusting. The applause from the crowd was the loudest on record after he finished.
When Justin took Bea out of the carrier, her b.u.t.t was facing the microphone. Magnified by the mic, a sound that mimicked an explosion rang out through the restaurant. It quickly occurred to me that all of these people were just witness to my daughter's explosive diarrhea.
Justin completely lost it. As he handed her back to me, he was laughing along with everyone else. He whispered, ”Bea just busted serious a.s.s.”
”I'd better go change her.”
As I was walking away, he stopped me. ”Amelia.”
”Yes?”
”You look beautiful.”
I shrugged my shoulders. ”I tried.” Even though I brushed his compliment off, I hadn't felt beautiful until that moment. Now my heart was beating a mile a minute.
The next morning, when we woke up, Justin was gone. There was a note on the kitchen counter.
It was the first night you both slept. I didn't have the heart to wake you before I left. Take care of Bea. I'll see you soon.
An entire week went by with no word from him.
I tried not to overreact. After all, we weren't his responsibility. The loneliness just seemed so much worse now that I knew what it felt like to have someone around. Bea's insomnia was worse than before, too. I honestly think she missed him. So did I.
In an act of desperation, I called my mother and asked if she would be willing to stay with me for a week or so. She'd only been at the beach house for three days, and I was already wanting to shoot myself in the head. She spent more time on the phone with her boyfriend or on the upper deck smoking her Benson and Hedges cigarettes than she did with Bea and me. It was stupid of me to hope that her becoming a grandmother would change her selfish ways.
While she did manage to watch Bea so that I could get a few hours of sleep each night, inviting her to stay with us turned out to be a mistake. On the last night of her stay, rather than spend quality time with Bea, she chose instead to badger me about taking legal action against Adam.
”When are you going to force that guy to pay up, Amelia?”
Right after Justin left, I'd taken Bea to have her blood drawn. Adam also went to a lab in Boston, and it was confirmed yesterday that he was definitely her biological father.
”I don't want to put Bea through dealing with him right now. He has to make the first move as far as I'm concerned. He's been so mean that I don't even want him in her life.”
”Well, you're not going to be able to support yourself much longer. You need to get a man even if it's not him.”
”I'm not going to bring a man into Bea's life just to use him for financial support. I'll find a way to take care of myself.”
I'm not you.
”Good luck doing that on a teacher's salary.”
”At least I have a respectable career to fall back on. I'm sure you think it's better for me to just not work, mooching off strange men like you did. Thank goodness my father was one of the good ones. But I can a.s.sure you, I will never put Bea through the kind of childhood I had, with men coming and going.”
”You act like you were abused. Your childhood wasn't that bad.”
”You wouldn't know. You were absent for most of it.”
”Did you really invite me here to fight, Amelia?”
”I need to sleep. You're leaving tomorrow. Let's stop fighting. Do you mind staying up with Bea so I can get a few hours in?”
”Sure. Go ahead.”
I figured I might as well take advantage of her last night here. She probably wouldn't come back after this tumultuous experience.
A few hours later, something disrupted my sleep. It was well past midnight. The faint sound of people talking downstairs seemed to register. My mother was supposed to be watching Bea, so who the h.e.l.l was in my house?
Panic struck, and I crept down the stairs, stopping midway when I realized the other voice was Justin's.
He'd come back?
The conversation that ensued between him and my mother completely blew me away as I hid in the stairwell listening to them.
”What are you doing here?”
”This is my house,” Justin said.
”Which is a joke, by the way. This house should have been left to me.”
”Did you come here on your own, or did your daughter invite you?”
”Amelia asked me to come.” She paused then said, ”G.o.d, you turned out to be f.u.c.king hot,” my mother said.
”Excuse me?”
”You're like a better looking version of your father. I wish I were fifteen years younger. Unless you like older women...”
”Are you f.u.c.king serious right now, Patricia? Haven't you done enough damage to our lives? Amelia invited you here to help with the baby, and I find Bea by herself in the living room while you're smoking on the f.u.c.king deck. Now, you're trying to pick me up?”
”Calm down. I was just kidding.”
”I really wish I believed you were. Do you have any idea what Amelia's been through these past few months? She's doing the best she can. She doesn't deserve this s.h.i.+t. You should have been offering to help from day one, but honestly, she's better off without it.”
I'd had enough. I made my way down the stairs and said, ”Mom, I think it's best if you leave tonight.”
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