Pieces of Him (2 page)

Her eyes fill with tears, and she tries desperately to blink them away. I can see her fighting to gain control of her emotions.

“I didn’t do it on purpose, Max.”

“Far as I knew, you were on the pill, and you were only fucking me, babe. That’s what you told me, and the only reason I stopped using condoms with you.”

“I was.”

“Then why are you sitting here telling me that you’re pregnant?”

“It was an accident.”

“Some fucking accident,” I respond, with a shitload of disgust. She feels it, I know she does, but she carries on, trying to defend herself when there is no defense for this.

“I missed a few pills when I went to Miami with the girls last month, okay? I doubled up, though, and I thought it’d be okay.”

“Christ. You think you could have mentioned that shit to me sooner? I could’ve taken steps to prevent this scenario. I would’ve gloved up.” I glower at her and I swear to god. I. Swear. To. God. Never in my life have I had the urge to hit a woman, but right now, she’s trying my patience. I take a breath in a feeble attempt to calm down. “So what now?”

“I can’t do this alone, Max,” she says softly, but I can see the fear emanating from her. I can hear the vulnerability; she doesn’t want to be here telling me this as much as I don’t want her to be.

“You want to take care of this? I’ll give you the money. Drive you there myself, Keri, and make sure you’re okay. Neither one of us is ready to have a family. We’re fucked up, both of us are. We can’t give a kid anything that it needs. We can’t give it anything we never got ourselves.”

“That’s not true.” She shakes her head in a show of disagreement. “You have a lot to give a kid, and so do I. I can be a good mom, Max, I just need your help. We can do it together.”

This chick cannot be believed. It’s as if she hasn’t been here the last two years and I have to wonder when in that time I ever gave her the impression that we could ever be more than what we were and when it was that she got her pretty little head stuck in the clouds.

“You have some fairy tale, fantasy bullshit running through your head and you need to stop it. Let it go. We’re never gonna be about white picket fences, you and me. That’s not how this is going to end.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” I cock my head to the side in disbelief; she’s actually thinking we’re good options for parents and I’m looking at her as if she has a screw loose. And right about now, I’m not sure that she doesn’t. “For starters because I don’t fucking love you,” I hiss, watching her as she visibly flinches. “Second, I make a good living … NOW. I finally got my shit together enough that I got myself into a decent apartment. That shit doesn’t mean I can support two extra mouths.”

“I’ll get a better job.”

“Yeah? You know many companies fired up to hire a pregnant chick? You have two roommates because you can’t afford to live on your own, but you want to bring a baby into the world?”

“We can make it work.”

“No, we can’t. I’m not going to be that for you. I can’t give you the family that you never had. I’m not made like that. You keep this baby, Keri, and you have my word—I’ll do what I can, give you as much as I have to give, and I’ll take the time to get to know the kid. I’ll be as much of a dad as I can. That’s all I have to offer. It’s all I can honestly give you.”

“Right.”

“I admit it, babe, I’m pissed, but I am not trying to hurt you. I’m just telling you how it is. I didn’t have a mother, and I had a shit dad—that’s all I know. I’ll try to be better than he was for this kid, but I can’t make you any promises.”

“What about you and me?”

“There is no you and me.”

“Just like that?”

“No. Not just like that. There was never a you and me. We had an arrangement, and now, that arrangement is over.”

“God, you really are heartless.”

“If I were heartless, you wouldn’t still be sitting here.”

“I’m not still sitting here,” she says, pushing off the couch and grabbing her purse. She stomps to the front door and throws it open.

“Keri,” I call to her, not knowing why. Not knowing why I don’t just let her walk out the door and pray to God that I never see her face again.

“What.”

“Let me know when you go to the doctor. I’ll try to make the appointment with you.”

She stills and stares at me, probably stunned I’ve made this offer, though not as stunned as I am. I’m still not giving her a white picket fence, but the least I can do is sit with her through a few doctor’s appointments and make sure the kid’s all right.
Fuck, I’m stupid.
I want to be a dick but even I can’t be that big of a dick. She glares at me and slams the door on the way out, but I know she’ll be back. I know she’ll take me up on my offer because she’d rather have the little bit that I have to give her than go through this all by herself.

Max~

Eight Months Later~

“Mr. Castillo?” I shoot up out of my chair, my body tight and sore from sitting there for so long.

“Yes?” I answer, taking a step toward the doctor. The same doctor who kicked me out of the delivery room when Keri went nuts and started to scream because she couldn’t handle the pain. I could see the veins on her neck begin to bulge, her face turning a scary blue, and then I was asked to leave. It scared the shit out of me seeing her look like that, in that much pain and at that level of distress. That was hours ago. So long, in fact, that both her roommates, Jessica and Dana, left. Both having to get to work and needing to get home because, just like me, they spent the majority of the night here.

His eyes land on me, and he shifts uncomfortably and I prepare myself. Prepare to hear him tell me that something went wrong, that the baby is gone. As I prepare myself to hear those words, I remind myself that if the worst has happened, I’m going to have to help Keri through it. She wanted this baby so much, and if he didn’t make it, I’m not sure she’ll be able to cope.

“You have a son. He’s doing very well, and we’ve transferred him to the nursery. You can see him anytime.”

I let out a sigh of relief, and it shocks me by how it makes me feel to hear that he’s okay. It’s true I didn’t want a kid but even I’m not that much of a jerk that I’d have wanted something to happen to him.

“How’s Keri?” I ask, giving him back my attention.

He hesitates briefly before he speaks. “There was a complication, as you know. She began to feel dizzy and was nauseous. Her heart rate and blood pressure dropped, and she went into cardiac arrest. We did everything that we could, Mr. Castillo. We had the whole team working on her, but we couldn’t bring her back. Keri died.”

“What?” I question, but I can’t hear my own voice. I’m suspended in time, and all I can focus on is his words.
Keri died … Keri. Died … Died.
I begin to take shallow, rapid breaths because I’m suddenly feeling lightheaded. “What do you mean she died?” I want to grab hold of his white fucking jacket and shake the shit out of him. I’m not sure he can even hear me, not certain I’ve even spoken the words, but he begins to talk as I fight for composure.

“We used several methods to try to bring her back without any success. She developed an embolism, which escaped from the uterus and entered her bloodstream; ultimately, it went to her heart and led to cardiac arrest. We couldn’t have done anything more for her.”

I hear him talking, but the words no longer register. They’re cold and clinical. They have no meaning. They make no sense. The truth is he lost me at died. Died. Keri’s gone; a beautiful thirty-year-old woman, her whole life ahead of her, and she’s gone, dead.
How the fuck did this happen? What the fuck is happening?
I
wonder as the room begins to spin. I turn away from him and grab hold of a chair, dropping down into it, and shake my head, feeling absolutely, fucking powerless.

“Mr. Castillo, are you all right?” the doctor asks, squatting in front of me, and pissing me right the fuck off.

“Leave me alone,” I say, resting my head in the palm of my hands in an effort to keep my hands from wrapping around his neck.

“Of course,” he mutters, righting himself. “Again, I’m so sorry for your loss. A nurse will come and bring you to your son shortly,” he says and then he’s gone, finishing his practiced speech and reminding me of the fact that there’s a kid somewhere in this hospital with a dead fucking mother and a clueless father.

“Holy shit.” I sigh, thinking that history has a fucked up way of repeating itself. Keri and I both had shitty parents, but I had no mother and a father who did not want one thing to do with me. Now, here I am in an eerily similar situation. That dizzy feeling gets worse as the reality of what’s happened tries to settle in the recesses of my mind. I fight against it. I don’t want to know that Keri is gone, that there’s a boy with my blood running through his veins somewhere in this hospital. I want to give it all back and go about my business as if it were just any other day. I fight the urge to run, to get up and get the hell out of here, to drive until I can’t drive anymore, drive as fast as I can, as far away as I can, and let someone else deal with this mess. Not many people know because God only knows, I haven’t let many people in, but I know—
I know
—that I cannot handle all the shit that’s gone down. I don’t have the slightest fucking clue about what to do right now. This is why I make the decision to do exactly what I want to do and get the fuck out of dodge. I’ll get the hell out of here and pretend that none of this shit has happened. The panic has a firm grip on my chest, and I’m afraid it’s going to explode if I don’t get some fresh air. I stand up, focused on finding the exit, but that’s about as far as I get. I hear my name called again breaking me out of my thoughts of fleeing. I turn and there’s a nurse there with a sad smile on her face.

“I’m Marie. I’m here to take you to the nursery.”

No. No! That’s the last fucking place I want to go. I can’t worry about a kid now, not when I’m still trying to deal with the fact that Keri is gone.

“I can’t,” I tell her, not meeting her gaze.

“Why not?”

“Keri, his mother, I have to …” I have no idea what I’m saying or what I’m trying to say, but I know I’m just trying to call up an excuse to get out of here and put as much distance between that baby and me as possible. Some men are meant to be dads, some men want to be, but I’ve never been that kind of man. Not now, at least. I still have shit I want to do; advance at my job, buy a house, date, travel, drink, fuck. None of which goes with me becoming Mr. Mom.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Mr. Castillo, but you can’t do anything for her right now. An administrator will help you make any decisions, and you can certainly see her …”

Her body.
That’s what she’s thinking, but she doesn’t finish the thought. She’s right, though. All that’s left to see of her is just a body. All of the life will be gone. The smile, the pretty green eyes, pink cheeks, and pouty lips. All the best of her, the things that make her, are gone. I don’t really need to see that shit, especially since I didn’t appreciate it when I had it. I didn’t claim it when I should have because I couldn’t be bothered to take care of it.

“Best thing you can do right now is come and see your son.”

I stare at her for a beat before I nod hesitantly because what else can I do? I can’t admit to this woman that she caught me trying to leave the hospital or that the last thing I want to do is see my son. It feels surreal; I can pretend this is a bad dream for now, but the minute I see him, it will all become real. He’s the living, breathing proof that my life has just been royally screwed. I follow her out of the waiting room and down the hall to a set of doors where she uses her ID badge as a key. The doors swing open and she walks through another brightly lit corridor and around a corner. The room enclosed in glass with rows of babies is exactly as you see in the movies. Just looking at them makes me anxious, and I fight the urge to turn and run.

“That’s him,” she says pointing at the last row. But she doesn’t have to tell me. I see him and I instantly know him. Know he’s Keri’s and know he’s mine. He has her little nose and almond-shaped eyes. “Let’s go in. We’ll get you in the rocking chair and you can sit with him for as long as you want. It’s really important that he bonds with you right now.”

I don’t speak; I just follow her into the nursery feeling as if the weight of the world is on my shoulders. I'm also feeling slightly panicked and enormously grief stricken. She instructs me to wash my hands and take a seat in an ugly green rocking chair while she washes her hands and gets the kid. While I wait, I contemplate getting a lawyer who can handle finding him a good home because I just can’t fucking fathom having to raise him. I didn’t want to do it
with
Keri, let alone by myself. I’m confident he’ll be better off somewhere else. Somewhere with people who actually want a kid, with people who actually know how in the hell to take care of him because I’m certain that if left with me, he wouldn’t last a day. I wouldn’t know the first thing about taking care of him. I don’t even have a crib, for fuck’s sake. Keri handled all that shit. I should definitely find a lawyer, or a social worker, or a priest. Someone like that.