“No. No, you cannot. And I don’t have anything to say to you.”
He didn’t want to force things with her. He’d let her cut him off time and again in the studio, intentionally giving her the upper hand so that she could see that he wasn’t there to threaten her. But this time, he wasn’t going to back down. This time, he wasn’t going to be sent away.
“Look, Reggie. You and whoever you’re with will not keep me from my child. Or children. You don’t have the right to do that.”
“What?”
“I want to see my children. I know I haven’t been there for them so far, but that will not be the case from here on out.”
She sighed, and he saw some of the fight go out of her—not the rage or the anger that he saw in her eyes, but some of the fight. Her shoulders slumped, and she turned into the apartment, walking away from him.
He gathered up the packages from the stairwell and followed her inside. She had her back to him and seemed to be staring at the wall or at nothing, so he shut the door behind them.
He had been gone a long time. He knew that. Perhaps she had to decide if he was safe or if she was willing to share their children. Or perhaps she just needed to get her mind accustomed to the idea.
He was standing in what turned out to be the dining area, with a kitchen off to the side. There was no partition separating it from the living room, where she now stood.
The first thing he saw was the art. It filled her rooms with color, and she’d even painted the chairs and cabinets and bookshelves to make them pop. All of her touches filled the room—the African masks and dolls on the walls, the embroidered cushions on the sofa, the framed paintings and mosaics covering the walls. So much claimed his eyes that he almost missed how worn down the permanent structure underneath was.
The kitchen and dining nook seemed to have come straight out of the ’60s—battered wooden cabinets, ancient countertops, worn linoleum flooring—and the rest of the place didn’t fare much better. Downstairs, everything that they’d added stood out as new against the old.
Her voice tore him away from his perusal.
“How did you find out?”
He put his bundles down.
“I found out from someone who’s not supposed to know.”
“Please tell me.”
The resignation in her voice pulled at his heartstrings.
“I ran into your roommate’s ex-boyfriend a few months ago. But it shouldn’t have taken finding that out to make me come look for you. I just wanted to make something of myself before I did. But when I found out that you were pregnant when...when you called things off between us...Reggie, why didn’t you tell me? Why did you send me away without me knowing?”
He took a step toward her, but she took a step back.
“What would you have done? You were too busy hanging with your friends and blowing off school. You might have stayed, but it would have been for the wrong reasons. And I didn’t need you to make a life for...”
She shook her head, trailing off.
“But I should have known. I had a right to know. And if—”
“Let it go.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her jaw was set in a rigid line that told him she would not be offering any answer to that question.
“Where are they, Reggie? I want to see them. And I plan to be there for them from now on. It doesn’t matter if you’re with someone else. I’m still their father.”
He pulled the check out of his suit pocket.
“If you don’t want it, that’s fine. But they deserve it. And so do you. Where are they?”
She looked at him as he put the check down on the dining table, and what he saw in her wet eyes was a combination of sadness and hate.
She turned away from him again and buried her face in her hands. When she spoke, it was through tears, but it was with rage.
“There is no they.”
He didn’t understand. “What?”
“Don’t you get it? There is no they. There was no child.”
He wondered for a split second if she had...let go of it...after they had broken apart. But then he looked at her shaking shoulders. He knew her better than to think that.
“No child?”
It started to sink in. He wasn’t a father. The little boy he had seen wasn’t his. Nor the little girl. His child had not made it. His heart fell. He crossed over to her but stopped just behind her without touching her, not knowing how to comfort her, not knowing if she would receive his comfort.
“There was no child,” she said again, stammering. She whirled toward him, ready to strike, but didn’t. She just stopped and stared at his face, her own face crumpling.
He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and drew her to him, but she wrangled against him.
“There was no child,” she repeated, lashing at his chest with her fists. It was like a dam had broken, as though she couldn’t stop herself once she’d started letting it out. She kept pummeling his chest with her fists as if it was his fault, or maybe because he’d been the one to make her say it, relive it. “And you weren’t there.”
She drew back after she said it—the truth of it all. She had tears spilling down her face, and her fists were still balled, ready to strike. Her eyes were red and wet, filled with rage and hate. And now he knew why.
Regina kept hammering at him, as if she wanted to pound him until all the hurt she had carried over the years was finally over. But when she stood back and looked up at his face, what she saw there stopped her. Nigel wondered if she could see that the disappointment in his eyes was as bottomless as her own heartbreak must have been. Nigel knew the moment that the resistance went out of her and stepped toward her, folding her in his arms again.
“When I saw the kids downstairs—”
He wanted to go on, but he couldn’t control his voice.
For a while she didn’t say anything but simply sobbed against his chest.
When she found her voice, it was shaky. “I was babysitting. Kyle belongs to Jason, and Tenisha to another friend. They’re not related, and they’re not even the same age. Kyle is five and a half, and Tenisha is seven.”
After she got the words out, she convulsed in tears again.
He just held her while she wept.
When he thought she was back in control, he ventured, “What happened...to ours?”
For a few moments, she cried harder. Then she took in a deep breath.
