Filed to story: The Best Thing by Mariana Zapata
“It’s me. Again. Lenny. If you wanted to run away, fine. But at least send a smoke signal to let the rest of us know that you’re alive. You’re pissing me off now. Call me back. Bye.”
I left Grandpa Gus and Mo at the house when I headed back to work, but my gut had known instinctively that neither one of them was going to stay there for long.
And that knowledge didn’t help the damn stomachache that had nothing to do with the burrito I had wolfed down even with all the dirty looks I’d been getting slipped from the man who had wiped my ass a thousand times growing up.
I mean Grandpa’s reaction wasn’t a surprise. I would have been surprised if he’d taken it well. Plus, the way he’d been wasn’t exactly overreacting if you really knew him, but it was close enough. It was exactly what any of his friends would expect.
The calm gestures he’d made and the smile he shot at baby Mo when I had come back downstairs with a hungry eight-month-old were all a lie. But to give him credit, he tried to be in a good mood every time she was close… which was all the time since he was her babysitter. That was why he’d settled for subtle sneers behind her back.
But that didn’t mean that I couldn’t picture him buckling Mo into her car seat soon and saying in a baby voice, “Grandpa Gus is gonna go kill somebody. You wanna come with me? You wanna help bury your daddy?”
So I tried to tell myself that him eventually showing up at Maio House wouldn’t be the end of the world. It might actually be a good thing for Jonah Collins to see Mo if he came by—not that I knew if he would actually come back, especially after I’d run him off with my perfectly timed scammer call earlier.
If he hadn’t left, was he going to be a father to Mo in some way?
Or was he going to see her, realize that this wasn’t some part-time job, and decide to go back to whatever hole he had crawled out of and never come back again?
From the moment I had last emailed Jonah, three days after Mo had been born, and explained that I would never keep him apart from his daughter if he was going to genuinely try to be a part of her life, I had promised myself that I could put my pride aside and let him be there. I could stand there, imagining myself ripping off his balls and spitting them out with blood all over my face, but that was all I would do.
Live in my dreams. Where I could murder people without repercussions.
Anyway, the point was, from time to time, when I had been growing up, I had imagined my mom coming to see me. In my head, I had thought I could forgive her. You know, for giving me up, for not being around. I had thought that maybe we could have some kind of relationship.
But the older I got, and now that I had my own girl, I realized that that shit was never going to happen. There were some circumstances that would make sense, but it had been thirty years now, and she hadn’t come back. That opening had closed a while ago.
I figured if she had wanted to find me, she could have. Any excuse she could have used to justify to herself leaving me with my grandfather immediately after my birth didn’t hold any value anymore. It had been her choice to walk away, and back then, it would have been my choice to let her back in.
So I could give Mo that opportunity. Grandpa would have offered the same for me if she had tried to come back; I just knew it. So, yeah, if Jonah Collins wanted to be around… he could.
And if that made my head pound, nobody had told me to have some deadbeat, immature asshole’s baby, did they?
I’d been so wrong about him; it made my throat ache with bitterness for a moment.
My best friend, Luna, had told me that when something was really bothering her and she knew there was no point in raging over it, or even thinking about it any longer than she needed to, that she would imagine balling it like a piece of paper and throwing it away. That was what I did right then: I threw it away.
Mo was here, and even though I had never, ever seen myself as a mom… and I had no idea what the hell I was doing seven-eighths of the time and was terrified because I didn’t, she was mine. And I wasn’t going to fuck up. I’d had the best example of a parent figure growing up, and I wasn’t about to let her down.
Walking through the main gym first, I looked around at all the equipment to make sure things were up to standard. It was the middle of the week, and things were slow, but that was normal for the time of day. There were two personal trainers with their clients, and more random people spread around the floor doing various forms of exercise.
I took my sweet time using the covered path that led from one building to the other and wasn’t at all surprised when I opened that door to the scene going on: a handful of guys training. Peter was there in the middle of it, along with two other assistant coaches.
Peter looked right over at me, and I didn’t waste any time raising my hand and giving him a thumbs-down.
From the grimace he made, he knew what the hell that was for.
We’d talk about it later.
Or we wouldn’t if Grandpa Gus came barging in like I expected him to.
He had never let me down, and he wasn’t about to start now.
Twenty minutes later, while I was responding to an email from a small production company that wanted to film some scenes at Maio House, I heard the commotion outside that only happened when the old man dropped by. And five minutes later, when the “silver fox,” like I’d overheard some blind women call my grandpa, headed straight into the office like he owned it—which he did—with Mo strapped to his chest, one of her diaper backpacks thrown over his shoulder, I wasn’t even a little shocked.
“Is he here?” Grandpa Gus demanded as his hands went to Madeline—or as we all called her, Mo—to take her out of the carrier.
“Hey, Grandpa. I missed you too. Thanks.” I got up and headed right over to put out the playpen I had stashed in a corner. “No. Did you see anyone out there that you don’t know? And didn’t I just tell you to leave it alone?”
The look he shot me literally said and since when do I leave anything alone?
Never, that was when, and we both knew it.
I groaned as Grandpa Gus handed the wide-awake baby over to me, brushing a kiss over the back of her head like he was rubbing it in that she was getting one and I wasn’t.
There was a reason why I’d never wondered where I got my pettiness from.
I’m doing this for you, I thought as I took her weight and decided not to put her in the playpen yet. Bringing Mo up against my chest, I settled her there, backing up so I could sit in my chair and keep talking to Count Dracula while keeping an eye on him at the same time. It didn’t look like he was carrying around pepper spray in his pockets, and a peek at his knuckles told me he hadn’t busted out brass knuckles. I wouldn’t put it past him, even though that wasn’t really his style.
I should have been looking for a baseball bat, if anything. There was that one time he’d—
I stopped thinking about it. I wasn’t even supposed to know about that.
I pinned him with a look when he just kept standing there looking way too passive-aggressive. I shook my head. “Seriously, Gramps, cut it out. Whatever you’re planning on saying or doing, don’t.”
I held up Mo right off my lap. “Please. Do it for her. Look at those big brown eyes. I kept it a secret because I didn’t want anyone here to know who her deadbeat dad is,” I tried to plead with him, pressing my lips against the top of her full head of hair since she was already right there. She smelled just like the almond soap we used, even though it had been two days since the last bath I’d given her.
He didn’t say anything but still just stood there looking way too broody in his olive-green khaki pants and button-down, long-sleeved shirt with a sweater pulled on over it as he finally peeled the carrier off. He called it his uniform for taking care of an eight-month-old baby, because it was important work. And you dressed for the job you wanted, he claimed.
Seriously, there was a reason we put up with his shit.
But if he wanted to be a pain in the ass, and he did, well, I could play dirty too.
“I didn’t say anything because it’s easier when the person who didn’t want you doesn’t feel like they actually exist.”
He hesitated for a moment before folding the carrier and setting it on top of the chair where he’d set the baby bag. I could see his eyes narrowing again. His mouth moving.
But he settled for a sighed. “Are you trying to guilt trip me?”
I smirked as I rested my cheek on Mo’s head as I set her back down on my lap. “Yeah.” Who did he think he was talking to?
I was positive pride flashed across his eyes even as he made another face. And his answer confirmed it.
“Continue,” he muttered.
I fucking laughed, brushing my mouth across the back of her soft head full of hair and soaking up her scent like a crackhead. I missed her so much while I was at work. If I didn’t know without a doubt that she was in the best hands capable—better hands than my own—leaving for Maio House on a daily basis would have been the hardest thing in the world. “You know, I really wish I could go back in time to meet your mom and ask her if you came out special or if someone hurt you and made you like this.”
His smart-ass expression didn’t move, but I could see the hint of a smirk curl up the corner of his mouth. “Wonderful? Amazing?” He crossed his arms over a chest that hadn’t lost too much of his muscle over the years. “A one of a kind?”
He was joking back with me. That was good.
“A one-of-a-kind something.”
He sniffed, but I could tell he was thinking when he didn’t give me any back talk.
Realistically, I knew he could and would stay mad. He was going to bring this up for the rest of my life, and I didn’t expect any less. But I knew without a doubt that mad at me or not for keeping a secret, for telling him that he couldn’t act a fool when the need ran so strongly in him, he was still going to do the right thing. Because that was what he’d taught me.
To do the right thing.
Most of the time at least.
So when he sighed in the middle of me sniffing Mo’s neck while she giggled, I figured he’d come to some sort of decision. “We’ll do this your way, Elena.” He rolled his eyes just in case the sighing hadn’t been enough.
I raised my eyebrows at him calling me my first name. Was he that mad? The side look he slid me said yup.
“Let me talk to Peter, and then The General and I will get out of here. I told her we’d go for a walk at the park today while you stay and work,” he countered, rubbing it in that I was stuck here while they got to spend time together.
But I deserved it, and I’d take it.
I nodded. “All right.”
He barely glanced at me as he headed back out onto the floor, really confirming just how mad he was. Oh well. It should have been a miracle he wasn’t rallying his gang of Grandpas on Scooters to find out where Jonah was to go run his ass over.
Shit. He might be waiting to do that, knowing him. I needed to tell him not to do that either.
Figuring that could wait a few minutes, I sighed in my chair and set Mo to sit on my thigh. I smiled at her. She grinned at me right back, sitting there calmly and happily, bringing this sense of peace—even though I shouldn’t feel peaceful at all with her dad somewhere around not telling me why he was here—that nothing and no one else was capable of doing for me. “Ma! Ma, ma, ma!”
She’d started calling me that a couple weeks ago, and it hadn’t gotten old, and I hoped it never would. Ma. Me! I leaned forward and touched the tip of my nose to hers.
And Mo… Mo decided it was the right time to headbutt the fuck out of my face, but I reared out of the way at the last second.
I laughed. “Jesus Christ, short stuff, you trying to break my nose?”
She did a little squeal that I had a feeling meant maybe. She was mine after all. What else did I expect?
I laughed again. “Oh my God, I need to eat your face. Let me get a little bite,” I whispered as she babbled back.
Brushing my fingers lightly into her side just enough to make her squeal again, I dipped my face close, blowing a bubble into her tiny almost nonexistent neck, getting a slightly louder squeal out of her. Her whole body shook with delight and something so pure, it was fucking priceless. It was something to think that I had made this. That she was mine and I was hers, and that there wasn’t a single thing I wouldn’t do for her.
“Ma!”
I lifted her chubby arms over her head and said, “Weighing in at eighteen pounds, the reigning champion of the baby weight division, Mo DeMaioooo!”
She shrieked in excitement like she always did and, oh my God, I loved it.
I clapped her fists together. “Yay!”
“Hi, Lenny,” came the soft voice out of nowhere, making my head jerk up to find the figure standing just inside the office. “Oh. Who’s this?”
But it wasn’t just anybody. And I wasn’t going to wonder right then how the fuck he’d gotten into the building again. Not when I was suddenly holding my damn breath.
I lowered Mo’s arms and had to talk myself out of pulling her in even closer to my body as I watched Jonah take another step. And then one more. His eyes—Mo’s eyes—bounced between the baby who had her back to him and… me.
Resentment, I knew it was resentment, made my stomach sour all of a sudden. Just about every ounce of joy I’d felt over Mo’s presence disappeared in that instant as the big man kept coming into my office, one slow step after another after another. His feet didn’t make a sound on the stained concrete, and I wasn’t sure why I noticed that, but I did. Across from us, that tanned face was curious… but not at all guilty looking or nervous or any of the other shit that I might have expected him to experience as he approached his daughter for the first time ever.
What the hell was this fucker up to?
The question stayed in my head when he asked again, “Is she a friend?”
I loved this kid. I loved Mo so much there weren’t words for how much. Which was funny considering how terrified and nervous I’d been before having her. I had worried my ass off that we wouldn’t bond or that I would resent her for kicking my life off track… and, fortunately, all it had taken was hearing her fucking cry, feeling and seeing her in my arms, to make me instantly fall in love. Just seeing her wrinkled pink face had confirmed there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for the helpless little body that had lived inside of me for nine months.
So I didn’t want to say her name. Because this fuckface didn’t know it in the first place. Because he was an asshole who was looking like he hadn’t missed his daughter’s birth and the first eight months of her life and felt no shame over it.
But I said it anyway, because this wasn’t about me. This was about her, and the fact that this shithead was here regardless of whether I wanted him to be or not. Because he was her father and there was no changing that.
“Mo.”
His eyes went back to the small back facing him, and I watched the curiosity grow across his serious face. “It’s a girl?”
If I’d had any more joy to lose, it would have been gone. How did this fucker not even know he had a daughter? Jesus Christ. I had mentioned that in my last email. He hadn’t even had the balls to read it and make sure she’d been born alive and fine? Was this a motherfucking joke?
I was going to kill him and throw his ass in a swamp. That was it. I’d lived a good life. Grandpa Gus and Peter could raise her just fine. They’d come visit me in jail. Luna would be a great mother figure for her.
And then he kept going with the stupid questions.
“Babysitting, eh? I thought you didn’t like wee ones?”
Babysitting?
Oh. Oh. He was going to get it for sure. For fucking sure.
I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop myself. If he wanted to play stupid, okay.
I looked at him, smiled sarcastically and said, “It’s not babysitting if she’s mine.”
His normal expression had been there one second… and the very next it was gone.
Jonah’s face instantly fell. The color in it doing the same, and I knew I didn’t imagine him giving the slowest blink ever. Or that it took him a moment before he literally choked, “Yours?”
The sarcasm was stronger in me than usual today. “You want me to be specific? She’s ours.”
I was an idiot. How could I have been so wrong and stupid to have wasted months of my life getting to know him? How the hell had he been able to fool me so bad? I had honestly thought he was a good guy. A really good guy. A wonderful one. Wonderful, and I didn’t throw that word around lightly.
But here he was—
He stopped breathing, his skin color going damn near almost white. I almost missed his croaked, “Pardon me?”
I blinked at him, ignoring the tone of his voice and the way he was blinking himself from across the table. I leaned forward and planted a kiss on her forehead in an apology for making this dipshit her dad. I’d make it up to her somehow. “She’s ours, dumbass. Who else would she be?”
I remember hearing someone say once that time had, at one point, stopped for them, but it didn’t seem like one of those things that was real. Like… your life flashing before your eyes when you think you’re close to death. Once, when I had been younger, my godfather had snatched me out of the way of a moving car, and I hadn’t thought of anything until I’d been on my back, wondering what the hell had just happened.
But as I sat there, I watched it happen. I watched Jonah suck in a breath through his almost perfect nose. I watched his head jerk…
Witnessed his mouth fall open.
And I saw that tall, solid body wobble in place for a second before his hands shot out to the back of the chair in front of him. Those long, strong fingers wrapped over the top, becoming the only thing holding him up. If I thought his face had been pale thirty seconds ago, whatever color had been left, leeched out too.
And none of it, none of it, made any sense.
What he said next had my head jerking back.
“You’re saying she’s my daughter?”