Baby Blues

Words: 3,768




“London is alright, I guess. Things are cheap; you wouldn’t believe how cheap books are here. The weather is lousy; it rains all the time. I wish you were here. It’s always warm and sunny where you are.”

Sean threw a paper napkin at me. “Stunning! Ah, that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard! I’m telling you, Nicolene, you’re so lucky!”

I lowered the letter and smiled. It was Saturday night, our regular letter-reading night, and I was missing Ryan. After almost eighteen months in London and more than six months since the last time he could visit, I was ready to swim to England myself, given the slightest opportunity of seeing his blue eyes.

“Don’t think I don’t know it,” I said, watching Sean sink back and making himself comfortable in my favourite chair.

“You know,” he said, taking a sip of his wine. “I am so jealous. I mean, look at the riff-raff I always end up with!”

I laughed. Sean was such a drama queen, which made him highly entertaining. He had a new ‘prospect’ for his eternal and undying love every time I saw him, and every time I saw him he was certain that this was the one.

“What about that hunk you can’t talk about enough?” I teased. “He’s not riff-raff, is he? What’s his name again? James... John...”

“Jake,” Sean said, pouting. “And I don’t even know if he’s available yet.”
I lifted my glass.

“To Jake, who will be available and who will drool all over the chance to be with someone like you.”

Sean laughed.

“No more Celine Dion for you, my girl. Go on, read some more.”

“Well, he just goes on saying he’ll be back in two months and he has a surprise for me. Listen: ‘I count the days until we meet again, and wish...’”

The shrill of the doorbell cut me short. I looked at Sean. It was late, almost ten, and Johannesburg was not the safest of cities at the best of times. Besides, I didn’t get much visitors, other than Sean.

“What now?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know. I’m not expecting anyone.”

With a sigh, I placed Ryan’s letter on the coffee table and went to the door. It was always a pleasant surprise getting a letter or postcard from Ryan. The 18 months he had been gone, working in London at an IT company, were starting to feel like 18 eternities. The fact that he couldn’t visit regularly only made it so much worse.

I met Ryan while we were both students. We happened to have a class together, though how that happened I still don’t know. He was two years older than me, and studying computer engineering, where I was studying journalism. Not much in common there, but after we ran into each other a few times he asked me out and we were together for three years before he received that job offer in England.

Sean I met at the library shortly after I ended up moving to Johannesburg. I was doing preliminary research for the novel I have yet to write. I didn’t have a lot of friends and I was doing freelance work for a paper, so he took me under his wing. Soon, he became the only friend I had in this forsaken city, and Saturday nights became our designated visiting time, where I would read him the letter or postcard Ryan sent every week, and he would bewail his misdemeanours in love.

I opened the door to admit a whirlwind of Poison with blonde hair embracing me.

“Darling! How are you?”

I hugged Ellen back, my mind reeling. What on earth was she doing here? Ellen was my twin, but only by default. While we were growing up, I was convinced that one of us had been swapped at the hospital or something. She was light where I was dark, and outgoing where I was shy; in short, everything that I was not.

“Ellen,” I said, pointing at the bundle of blankets in her arms. “What is that?”

She looked at me as though I was daft.

“Nicolene, it’s baby, for goodness sake. Honestly, you should know. You’re the one who’s always fussing about them.”

Closing the door, I tried to dust the cobwebs off my standard seven maths. From the brief glimpse I had gathered as my sister swooped past me, the baby was very young, a month old at most. The last time I’d seen Ellen was at our birthday party five months ago... and I could have sworn she had not been pregnant then. Then again, Ellen had always been very slender, and wasn't she wearing something loose and flowy that day?

“Wow,” I said, desperately looking for something else to say. “She’s beautiful.”

Ellen smiled. “Isn’t she a doll? She looks just like Gunther, don’t you sweetie? And so sweet. Didn't even cry once,” she cooed at the baby.

“Gunther? What the hell...” I said, still trying to think the situation through. Ellen wasn’t married. She was never even in a relationship long enough to raise a mosquito. And yet... Gunther and Lisa had only been married for a year, and we all went to university together. We were all friends. Could she have...? At four months, you don’t start showing yet, do you? And now that I thought about it, she was definitely wearing a loose dress that day, which isn't her style at all.

“Ellen, why didn’t you tell me?".

“Tell you what, dear? Oh, hi Sean!”

I stormed my sister.

“What do you mean what? My God, Ellen! What on earth were you thinking? What are you going to tell mom and dad? And Lisa? Do they even know?”

Ellen shook her magnificent hair back and glared at me.

“Nicolene, what on earth are you talking about? Tell mom and dad what?”

I was livid. Lisa was one of my friends, and now my sister, my twin, had...

“How can you walk in here as if it’s the most natural thing in earth? You had Gunther’s child and everything is fine? Does Lisa at least know?”

To my utter astonishment, Ellen burst out laughing.

“Oh, that’s what’s up! I should hope she knows about the baby! She was there, giving birth to her. My God, Nicolene, did you think she would stay pregnant forever? Were you not at the baby shower with me?”

I sank into a chair and took a sip of my wine, feeling like a supreme idiot. Of course I knew about Lisa’s pregnancy, and that she had the baby just a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn’t had the time yet to get around to visiting her. It seemed to me that I had time for nothing, these days. I was on a hectic schedule, writing full time for the paper, and everything else just seemed to gray away. I couldn’t even remember the last time I wrote to Ryan.

Sean was laughing aloud. I shot him what I hoped was an acid look. How dare he laugh at me? It was a natural mistake, especially knowing my sister the way I did.

“Still, Ellen, why is the baby with you?” he managed at last, still snorting. I glared at him again, but I was grateful to him for asking. I didn’t think I should ask any more questions that night.

Moving the baby to her other arm and fiddling inside the bag she brought, she said: “Well, Gunther and Lisa went away for the weekend, one of those “rediscover your partner” type things. They left little Marline with me.”

I nodded, wondering what had come over Lisa to do a thing like that. She knew Ellen, almost as well as I knew her. They had been friends for years. Lisa probably surmised that Ellen would come straight to me at the first sight of any possible trouble. She always did.

“Some wine?” Sean offered, always the perfect host, even in someone else’s house.

“Sure, why not. I still have two hours until I have to board.” Ellen favoured him with one of her dazzling smiles.

“Hold it!” I said, the picture finally starting to clear for me. “Board, Ellen? Two hours?”

At least she had the decency to look embarrassed. Well, moderately uncomfortable.

“I got this fabulous shoot in Cape Town. Gary just called me. Thing is, they need the shoot done before Monday, so I have to go tonight and do it tomorrow.”

“No,” I told her.

“Am I missing something?” Sean said. We ignored him.

“It’s just until tomorrow night. One day. Lene, please?”

“No way, Ellen.”

“What else am I going to do? They don’t allow babies on sets, you know.”

I was starting to get angry again.

“You always do this! Always! You make the promise, I have to deliver.”

It was true, too. Ellen had been a model since we were little, and thought it was her right to hand out orders and have them obeyed. She even had me breaking up with her boyfriends since primary school.

“Please, Lene?”

“Ellen, we talked about this. Numerous times. I’m sick and tired of having to keep your promises and clean up your messes. You promised!”

“This is the last time, I promise! Please, Lene, she has no one else.”

She held out the baby to me. Boy, she hit low.

“Look,” she said, “I’m getting really well paid for this one because its Sunday work. If you do this, I’ll get you a ticket to London, I swear.”

Oh, she was good. Holding out a helpless little baby with no one to look after her, offering a ticket to go see Ryan...

What the heck, I thought. It’s only one day and one night, and I really am very good with little ones.

“Alright. But I’ll expect that ticket for next weekend!”

Ellen beamed and came over to hug me.

“Thanks, sis. This is the last time, I promise.”

I snorted, but it was more for show than anything else. I loved my sister, and the weird relationship we have was one of the few things in my life I’d been able to count on. I knew Ellen would help me out if I was the one in trouble. Probably.

“I’d heard that one before.”

“Oh, I love you! I’ll call you when I get back to come pick up little Marline.”

With that, she was already halfway out the door.

* * *

She slammed the door, of course. Ellen never could enter or exit a room without a statement of some sort. Little Marline, startled by the sudden noise, chose that very moment to loudly and eloquently express her dissatisfaction with the way her evening was developing. I could sympathise.

I sniffed through the bag and found a bottle half-filled with formula. That seemed to ease her anger and while she was drinking and falling asleep, I turned to Sean.

“Can you believe this?”

Sean laughed and handed me my wine.

“Well, she is formidable, that sister of yours, I’ll give her that.”

“Hah!” I said, sipping the wine. “Spoiled is the word you were looking for, I believe. Not able to accept the word ‘no’.”

“Well, call it what you like, but she reminds me a little of my mom. Did I ever tell you about the time...”

For the second time that evening the doorbell interrupted us.

“It’s Ellen,” I said. “She’s always forgetting something.”

Marline had stirred at the clang of the doorbell, but as I walked to the door, she settled down again. Trying to make as little noise as possible, I opened the door.
At first, I could only stare. A hallucination, I thought. It had to be a hallucination.

Then the hallucination spoke.

“Nicolene?”

“Ryan?” I said, my thoughts whirling. What was he doing here? The question
seemed to boom in my mind.

“Aren’t you still in London?” I immediately wanted to kick myself. Talk about intelligent observations.

“Evidently not. Am I interrupting anything?” he said, looking at the baby.

“What? Oh, no, of course not. This is...”

“Lene, is everything okay? Who’s at the door?” Sean called from inside and I almost groaned. Ryan had always been jealous and prone to jumping to conclusions. I tried to explain before things could get any more messy than they already were.

“Listen, Ryan, it’s not what you think. This isn't my...”

Ryan silenced me with a look. For what seemed like an eternity, he just looked at me and my thoughts just couldn't seem to form. Seeing him there, all those months of longing seemed to crash into my heart, and I drank in every detail I could.

His dark hair was longer than I remember it, his skin less tanned, but his eyes still had the power to turn my knees to fluid and my insides to chocolate. For a moment, I was almost sure he would step inside and I could explain what was going on, but then he said:

“I think I’d rather not. Now I know why it’s been such a long time since I’ve heard from you, I guess. Sorry I bothered you.”

And with that, he turned around and walked away.

No! “Ryan! Wait!” I called, but he didn’t even look back. My voice was still echoing around the hallway when he disappeared from view, but it seemed my vocal acrobatics at least impressed one person. The baby in my arms started stirring and moaning in her sleep.

“Nicolene?” Sean said behind me.

For a moment I was tempted to run after Ryan and make him listen, but the baby stirred and started to cry in her sleep. So, I turned around and locked the door behind me.

Sean rushed up to me and took Marline from my arms.

“Come on dear. Sit down, it'll be all right,” he said, and it took me a while to realise that he was talking to me, not the baby.

Surely, Ryan couldn’t think... But I know he did. He comes back early, and finds me with a strange man and a baby in the middle of the night. What else could he think?

I felt numb. Didn’t Ryan have any trust in me at all? I asked myself. Back and forth. I shuddered as I remembered my own reaction to Ellen waltzing in with the baby in her arms. What else could he think? But damn it, didn’t he have any trust in me at all?

I couldn’t even call him, or chase after him, since I had no idea where he was staying. There were a thousand guesthouses and hotels in Johannesburg, he could be in any one of them, and the number I had for his cell phone in London wouldn’t work here in South Africa. He could just as easily have disappeared from the face of the earth.

At last, Sean gave up on trying to cheer me up.

“Don’t let it bother you too much, sweetie. He’ll come to his senses soon enough,” he said as I closed the door behind him.

I wished I could believe that.

At least Marline was no trouble. She slept like a log all through the night. I envied her.

* * *

Slept like a log, that is, until 5:30 a.m. Then, all the sleep the both of us were going to get was over for the time being. Ellen had packed two more prepared bottles in the baby-bag, so it wasn’t until about eight that I realized that after those two bottles there would be a full-scale crisis as Ellen, with her usual charming foresight, had neglected to pack formula.

Taking baby Marline with me to the store was out of the question as I didn’t have a car seat and the store was too far to walk, so I called up Sean and asked him to get me some formula. I looked forward to a Sunday of lazing around, thinking of not much at all, most especially not of Ryan.

Sean was good about me calling him up at a ridiculous hour like eight in the morning. He’s a social animal if I ever saw one.

“Darling, are you okay?” he greeted. “Where’s the little angel? Look what Uncle Sean brought the baby! Yes, he did…” Sean cooed at Marline. I smiled as I prepared the formula and made us some coffee. Some things are simply too sad to dwell on. Sean would have been a great father for any kid lucky enough to have him for a dad.

He watched me feed Marline when the doorbell rang. I was starting to hate that damn thing. I thought it was probably some neighbour or another, asking to make a call from my phone.

“Sean, would you?” I didn’t want to disturb the baby; she was almost asleep in my arms. Sean nodded and went to the door. For a moment, there was silence, then I heard Sean say:

“Please, man. Don’t go. Let’s sort this out, huh?”

When Sean dragged Ryan into the living room, my heart almost stopped. I was also furious. It was a good thing I had a baby in my arms.

“So, why don’t you sit down,” Sean said to Ryan, “and I will get us something to drink.”

He practically ran from the room. Ryan and me were left staring at each other. I tried to ignore the way my heart melted at the sight of the dark rings under his eyes and his unshaven face. I am still angry at him, I told myself. I will not become weak.

“Well, sit down,” I said, perhaps a bit more snappy than was necessary. I raked my mind for something, anything to say just to break the uncomfortable silence.

“Look, I want to tell you…”

“Listen, I just came…”

We looked at each other.

“You first,” I gestured, and he took a deep breath.

“I just came to tell you that if you are happy with him…” He paused. “I just want you to be happy, Nicolene.”

I was shocked.

“What?”

“Look, I’m trying to do the right thing here. I feel you should have told me about him, but in the end, your happiness is what’s important. If he makes you happier than I do…”

”But I’m not happy!” I almost shouted. “How can you think that I can be happy?”

“I would have preferred it if you were happy with me, but I'll settle for you being with him, as long as that is what you want,” Ryan said as Sean entered with our coffee.

“Oh no, wait. You don’t understand…” Sean started, but I silenced him. Hard as it was to admit, I was touched by what Ryan had said. Furious, but touched.

“I still don’t get it,” I said, just to hear him say it again. I wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily.

“I’m just saying that if he makes you happy, and takes good care of you and your baby, I’ll accept it.”

“Ryan, this isn’t Sean’s baby,” I tried to say as Sean said: “Oh no, she’s not mine.”
Ryan looked shocked. Paled right up.

“Who is the father then?”

“Well, you remember Gunther?” I started. Tried to start.

“My God, Nicolene! It’s Gunther’s baby? Does Lisa know?”

“Of course Lisa knows! How can she not know?”

Ryan looked flabbergasted. I started feeling really sorry for him.

“Look,” Ryan said to Sean. “I can see that you care for Nicolene. I don’t blame you. I mean, she’s smart, she’s pretty, caring… How could you not care for someone like her? I just don’t understand…”

“Well of course I care for Nicolene! I love her to pieces!” Sean said. “But frankly, Ryan, I’d be much more interested in a relationship with you than with her.”

This was too much for Ryan. He was stunned, it was written all over his face. I felt my heart crumble.

“He’s gay, Ryan. Sean’s the gay friend I wrote to you about.”

“You’re… gay? So you’re not… You and Nicolene are not…” He groped for words.

Sean, finding tact at last, stood up and said: “Why don’t I take this little munchkin for a walk?”

“Good idea,” I said and handed the baby to him.

When they were gone, Ryan turned to me.

“Nicolene, what’s going on? Whose baby is that?”

“Oh, so now you ask.” I said, and immediately regretted it. But damn it, I was hurt too!

“I told you, it’s Gunther’s baby. And Lisa knows, she was there, giving birth to her.”

Ellen's line, but when something works, it works.

Ryan started at me.

“It’s Gunther and Lisa’s child?”

I nodded.

“Not yours?”

I shook my head.

I told him the whole story, how Ellen had begged, how she offered a ticket to London to go and see him, how I accepted.

At last, Ryan sank back into his chair and said:

“Good grief. I’m so sorry, Nicolene. I was just so scared… all the time I was in London I was sure you’d forget about me and find someone else. Then I come back, and you’re here in the middle of the night with this guy…”

“I’m sorry too. I know how it must have looked. I was just so surprised to see you, I thought I was dreaming or hallucinating or something. I didn’t think…”

He came over and silenced me with a finger on my lips.

“I should have asked for an explanation, at least given you the benefit of the doubt, instead of just jumping to conclusions based on my stupid fears. I’m sorry, honey.”

“Me too.”

We hugged. I couldn’t believe how good it felt to have his arms around me, his smell surrounding me.

At last, he drew away and came to sit next to me.

“Nicolene, ever since I left, I’ve been thinking really hard about us. I love you, and now that I’m with you, I never want to leave again.”

I sighed.

“But you have to, right? You still have three months left in London…”

He shook his head.

“That’s why I’m back so early. I asked for a transfer to a local branch here almost six months ago. I didn’t want to tell you, not until I was sure…”

I was flooded with joy.

“You’ve transferred? You’re staying?”

He nodded.

“Forever?”

“For as long as you’ll have me.”

I smiled as he hugged me again. Forever may be a long time, but I had a feeling we were going to make it just the same.