FIRST COMES LOVE BABY
Chapter One
Aaliyah Carmichael
I’ve gone back and forth about this decision for months, and I’ve finally made up my mind. My life plan is on track, I’m about to pay off my final credit card, and I’m ready. Sure, I had to modify the plan slightly, but that’s okay because I’ve reviewed the numbers and I have a great list of pros and cons. I even took time to listen to all the people who tried to talk me out of it. I took their words under advisement and I still haven’t changed my mind. I can do this on my own. I take a deep breath and push through the doors of the clinic. I’ve arrived twenty minutes early for my appointment just so I can get rid of any last minute jitters before the doctor calls me back.
I check in at the reception desk and take a seat towards the back of the waiting room, choosing the magazine with the quiz about what women want in a man. None of the questions include an option to pick a man that withdraws his marriage proposal to go find himself in the Himalayas, a month before the wedding. That was a year ago, and I’m over that dark spot in my life, but I haven’t been able to find anyone who checks off all the blocks on my list.
Which is why I’m here today. Baby by twenty-six was always the plan, even if I did imagine a husband to go with it. I’m six months beyond that date and single, but I feel good about taking the extra time to make sure this was the best option for me.
Today is the day. My lab work came back with the all clear, I’ve picked my sample and now all I have to do is let the doctor do her job, go home put my feet up, and wait to see if the miracle of life takes hold in my belly.
The nurse calls my name and escorts me to the exam room. After taking my vitals, she reviews the information on my questionnaire to make sure nothing’s changed, and confirms my selection. She calls out the specimen number I’ve memorized by heart. I scoured hundreds of profiles until I found the right one. It’s very important that my child be fully representative of my African American heritage.
I close my eyes, picturing the description on the sample. Six foot three, dark brown complexion, wide brown eyes, full mouth; donor 45X23987. He has an IQ of 125 and no family history of illness or genetic anomalies. I think our features will mix perfectly.
I’ve been told my skin is a rich warm brown. I have brown eyes that pop with the right color shadow, and my hair is vibrant, healthy and curly (unless I blow it straight). I’m five and a half feet and a size six this week. My narrow waist makes the curves on my backside and non-existent boobs more pronounced. I glance down at my breasts wondering how much bigger they’ll get during pregnancy.
I change into the hospital gown provided and sit on the bed letting my feet dangle over the side waiting for the doctor. This is it. My last moments as a young, single woman. The next pronoun I’ll be addressed by is mom. A nervous thrills goes through me. I can’t wait.
The doctor comes in and asks me to lie down and scoot all the way to the edge of the bed. I put my legs in the stirrups like I have every year since I was eighteen and remember to breath through my mouth to stay relaxed through the exam. She warns me I’ll feel pressure as she gives me one last exam and then tells me she’s about to start the procedure.
One last verification of the specimen number and confirmation that I agree and understand the medical procedure has a 20% chance in resulting in pregnancy.
“Yes, I can only hope.”
“Okay. We’re all set. We’ll follow up in two weeks and discuss next steps then.”
I crane my neck to look at her. “That’s it? You’re done?”
“I’m done.”
“So should I put my feet up over my head or something?”
“No. There’s no need to do that. But, you can stay here and relax for about ten minutes.”
She sets the timer and I lie back and wait thinking happy positive thoughts waiting for the end of the ten minutes that may change the rest of my life.
DELETED SCENES: FIRST COMES BABY
Shane had a lot more page time in the book, but unfortunately his is one of the scenes I had to cut. I loved writing this one because it showed how family can fight and argue with each other, but the minute an outsider comes in with some mess, they all band together to whip some ass, (metaphorically speaking).
“Okay, this is the last dish that needs to go out. You can call them in for dinner.” My mother’s voice breaks through my trip down, do not even think about going there, lane. I count the number of people coming to the table. Looks like we’ve got an extra mouth to feed.
Shane’s here. He’s just finished explaining the ins-and-outs of zoning and certification for running a fitness company. I tune out when he gets to his plans for marketing.
“I was telling my mom that these things take time, but I’ll be out of the house soon. I mean, she doesn’t understand why I made a career change, but eventually she’ll come around. It made her feel a little better knowing that I have a good support system and someone who’s standing beside me.”
“Right, right.” George mumbles, staring at his phone.
“Besides, I was only renting that place before I left, because I knew it was temporary. Long term I’m going to live in a house that I own with my wife.”
“Sounds about right.” Uncle Blue agrees.
“I told her, I still have the same plans that I always had, and grandchildren are still in her future, we just needed a second to work on ourselves and come back together. Sometimes the twists and turns are necessary to make a relationship stronger, and I’ll be out of her hair before she knows it, then she’ll miss having me around.”
He smiles and winks and I see my grandmother smiling in return. “That’s a very mature outlook to have Shane. Seems like your retreat did you a lot of good.”
She still calls it a retreat, like he was gone for a weekend or two. A year, grandma. He was gone an entire year.
“You’re a mother, you know how worried you get about your kids no matter how old they are.”
Grandmom nods and says, “We want them to be happy.”
“Exactly, and that’s all she wants for me. I told her, ‘mom, I got this’. I’ve got happiness. It’s right in the palm of my hand. I have a new path in life. I’ve finally found a rewarding and fulfilling career. This is my dream and I’m looking forward to this new chapter. Aly and I are still getting married and yeah, this baby thing wasn’t ideal, but I’m all in. It’s good timing too, so people don’t get the wrong idea.”
I’ve been zoned out. I rewind back through the last five minutes of the conversation. “What idea?”
“You know. Since you’re pregnant and all, we don’t want people getting the wrong impression. You know how folks are around here. Always in somebody’s business with their assumptions.”
“Okay, but what are they assuming about my pregnancy? Or rather, a better question would be who’s assuming anything? Because I haven’t told anyone outside of immediate family and friends.”
He gives me a look that says keep up. “I might’ve let it slip to my mom and she told a few people, but it’s all good. The timing works out so they’ll never suspect anything.”
So the status of my cat is out of the bag – so to speak- and I’m supposed to be okay with it, because he’s got a plan for rumor control. A plan he didn’t think to include me in, or mention to me. “You’re getting a bit ahead of yourself, don’t you think?”
He looks around the table before his eyes settle back on me. I hate that he goes to everyone else for validation first. “What do you mean?”
What do I mean? I mean nobody has said we’re back together and picking up where we left off. “Maybe we should table this discussion until after dinner.”
“What for? I know how close you are to your family. You’re going to tell them whatever we talk about anyway so why not just do it now so everybody will have the proper context?”
“Context. Yes, that’s important.” I make the mistake of looking up. My grandfather’s eyes are trained on me like a buzzard spying a fresh carcass. “Well, the thing is Shane, I’m not choosing you.”
“What?”
“If you’re door number one. I didn’t pick it.”
“Okay, you’re mad. You always go left when you’re mad. When you calm down, you’ll see that you were only holding off on announcing the pregnancy because of how it went down with the sperm donor and all. But you don’t have to keep it a secret.” He goes back to eating like I didn’t just shut him down. “And of course you’re getting back with me. Who else is going to want to get tangled up in this mess?”
The scraping on the plates cease. The chewing stops and Nanna’s no longer humming quietly to herself as she crochets at the end of the table. I raise my head to the ceiling, speaking to The Almighty himself, because He’ll be the only one to convince me that I didn’t hear what I know I just heard. “Did this mofo, just call my baby a mess?”
“Come on Aly, that’s not what I meant. I was saying the situation. You’re young and professional but nobody wants to deal with the court battle and the fact that the father is some random white dude you hooked up with and now he’s fighting for custody. It’s gonna be years before you can bounce back from this. Most guys we grew up with don’t want to take care of anyone else’s kid. They’ll say they do so they can tap that. Because you fine and shit and got your own crib, but nobody is tryna wife you up.”
“I’m climbing down off the cross…” My mother mutters into her wine cooler.
“Now hold up playa.” Uncle Blue pushes back from the table and folds his arms across his massive chest. “Did you just call my niece a THOT?”
“Come on Blue, I know you don’t really buy the whole sperm bank excuse. It’s obvious Aly went out and had too much to drink one night. She made up this sperm donor thing to save face. Cause I met the guy. He was at the crib helping her and trust me, he wasn’t a stranger. He was all attentive and shit like they used to have a thing.” He sips his rum and coke, tongue getting looser by the second. “Probably was more than a one-night stand, too. You should’ve seen him prepping dishes and bringing her fancy bread. But ya’ll don’t have to worry about none of that. I shut that shit down, and I’m willing to step up.”
Nobody saw George get up from the table. One second he’s on his phone ignoring everyone one, the next he’s standing behind Shane with his hand clasped on his shoulder. “We appreciate you saying you’re willing to step up.”
“No doubt.”
“But I think uh, what Aly is saying is, it’s time for you to step off.”
Shane shrugs George’s grip loose. “You get just as emotional as Aly, ain’t’ nobody pressed about you.” He looks to Linc. “Drop some knowledge on these two, my man.”
Uncle Linc looks at me and I brace myself for his scathing commentary. “The only thing we about to be droppin up in here is you. Now I don’t know the ins-and-outs of Aly’s situation, but I do know what you’re not gonna do is sit at this dinner table and disrespect my niece.”
Shane looks at my grandfather. “Mr. Carmichael, I mean no disrespect, but come on. You and I talked about this. We agreed that this was the best thing for Aly, so that we could protect her reputation.”
“Grandpop? Tell me you didn’t.”
“This is a delicate situation and you haven’t dated anyone in a while.”
What am I five and still needing the grownups to set up playdates for me? “Grandpop, I don’t need my reputation protected and I don’t care what any of you do or don’t believe. If I wanna bend over the side of the porch and drop it like it’s hot to the Thong Song, that’s my business and you two in cahoots is not gonna change that.”
I pin each of them with a stare. “And since you obviously wanna go there, let’s go all the way there. I made a list of pros and cons of what type of partner I wanted to help me raise my child. You didn’t want me Shane, so I planned to do it alone. But, now that it’s happening, you need to save face. Not me. You. You don’t want your friends and family talking behind your back, saying the minute you left I changed, or that you fucked up by leaving in the first place. Your momma wants you out of her house because you’re pursuing an expensive dream all day and running up her utilities at night with nothing to contribute to them. So your bright idea is to suck it up and raise somebody else’s baby just so you can come crash with me? Boy, please. Dick comes by like the trolley around here. I just need to walk on set and wink and I can practice my downward facing dog in a janitorial closet.”
“Aaliyah.” My grandmother gasps.
I ignore her and keep on talking. “So while I appreciate that you think you were saving me from having to run around town with a scarlet U, for unwed mother, on my forehead for the rest of my life. Your bullshit act of sacrificial service is declined. My baby has a father, and even if I never get involved with another man and my vajay-jay dries the hell up. Single-hood is preferable to forcing myself to live with a man who only wants me because my granddaddy tried to pimp me out.”
I’ve struck a nerve and Shane’s face contorts with anger. “What happened to you? The girl I knew would never go along with this. You were always the first one to speak out about equality, and now you’re letting this guy diminish you to the role of his baby mamma. To punch his diversity card on this show and your prize is a baby and publicity.”
And there it is, ladies and gentleman. How he really feels. “Is that what you think about me? That I was so desperate for a child I signed up for this? Or is it my fledgling career that you think I sold my womb for? You know what? Don’t answer. I don’t even care what you think Shane, because being known as Rafael’s baby mamma is preferable to being known as your meal ticket.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Yeah, it is. You were gone for a year and you didn’t come back with your eyes open. All the things you saw, all the things you were supposed to experience, and it had no impact on your view of life. Where’s the spiritual awakening you told me you needed to have before you could make a decision about us?”
“I made a decision. I’m here aren’t I? I said I’d help you raise this baby, didn’t I? Most women I know would kill to have a good black man willing to raise someone else’s kid.”
“Yeah. You’re here. You offered. You’re the dream.” I infuse the words with every drop of sarcasm I can muster.
“Then what the hell is the problem?”
“There is no problem. You went to fuck off in the mountains with goats and my dream changed.” I push away from the table. “Enjoy the rest of your dinner.”
That’s two. Two dinners where my pregnancy and my child’s father have been the divisive line between me and my family. I hear the front door open and close and Kendall comes to tell me that Shane left. The argument took a lot out of me and I’m too tired to go back downstairs and pretend to be sorry for the things I said.
Whoever said it’s better to have a piece of man than no man at all, should be drawn and quartered, because that’s some depressingly desperate sounding bullshit. I’m happiest being on my own.
I feel my own smile falter and worry wipes her dimples away. “What’s wrong? You wanna change the name?”
What’s wrong is that there’s someone else to consider. Someone who I’m sure has seen those dimples on display a lot. “Aly, what’s Shane going to think about all this?”
Her shrug like the erotic thoughts I’m having about her are out of place in a conversation we’re having about the guy she’s seeing.
“It’s got nothing to do with him.”
“Doesn’t it? If the two of you are dating, I want to make sure we’re being respectful of that. Like you said, people are going to eventually realize we have a child together. That won’t be easy on him.”
She’s shaking her head a lot, and I can feel the unease rolling off of her, see the tension in the set of her shoulders and recognize the anger in her eyes, and the determination in the set of her chin. “We most certainly are not dating.”
“What I saw him I thought after our talk that you were leaning towards a reconciliation?”
“Nothing. It just wasn’t gonna work for all the reasons that it wasn’t working before. Only this time around I can see them or maybe I could always see them and only just now can I admit them. Either way, it doesn’t matter, because Shane’s working on himself and he’s always looked out for number one.”
Selfish. Got it. She keeps talking as if she’s been waiting for a chance to get a few things off her chest.
“I’m not hating on his sense of self-preservation. In fact, I commend anyone for being a go-getter and trying to elevate themselves. Shit, I’m the first person to try to help if I can. But I’m about to be a mother, which means I’m going to have to put my baby first no matter what. Even if it means I have to stop eating dinner or interrupt an orgasm to go check on the fussing baby, right? Because that’s what parents do, and I need someone who can see beyond themselves, and support me while I do that. I need someone who’s got my back. So that if I’m failing and falling, I can…”
I ignore the orgasm analogy and finish the sentence for her. “Lean on them.” I bump her shoulder with mine and offer her an encouraging smile. “I got your back, Aly. You can lean on me.” I look down and see our fingers are locked together. When did that happen? Does it make me a jerk that I’m a little happy she’s still single?
DELETED SCENE # 2
There was a scene where Aly was meeting Rafe’s friends for the first time. It was the day of the photoshoot where she dressed him in a tie. Aly was still processing the disastrous dinner with her family, but the scene didn’t strike the right cord with me, so I pulled it out.
Rafe
“What was your honest assessment of our boy here when you first met him?” Grant’s taking this whole get to know you lunch to heart.
“In the elevator? Let’s see. I thought he was flippant and dismissive and entitled.”
He and Cody guffaw at that. “So you hated him.”
“The elevator was stuck between floors and in his mind cancelling his appointment was more important than, say, opening the escape hatch for us to climb our way to safety. Or I don’t know. Calling 911 for help.”
“How would you know? You were too busy hyperventilating and coming up with all these doomsday scenarios about us plummeting to our death. And if you remember, I called the office and told them what was happening.”
Grant turns to me. “Okay Rafe. What did you think of her?”
“I thought she was cute.”
“Really?” He seems genuinely surprised because I never mentioned that before.
“Yeah, until she opened her mouth and put the idea of me plummeting to my death in my head. Then I started wondering if she was paranoid. Which was quickly replaced with annoyance when she basically said I was an asshole because I was considering cancelling my meeting.”
“Talk about a rocky start to a relationship.” Grant signals the waiter for another drink. “You guys are on better terms now, right? Or is this all an act for our benefit?”
I stretch my hand across the back of the seat. “We’re working through it.”
She shrugs. “We already had an argument for today. So that should carry us til Thursday at least.”
“You have your fights timed out?” Grant’s eyes bounce back and forth between us. “That’s impressive.”
“Please.” I drink my water. “We might be arguing before you finish asking the next question.”
“No we won’t.” She counters.
“See.”
The whole table laughs at the joke and Cody asks the next question. “How are you planning to mesh your families together?” They know a little about what went down at her family dinner. Cody’s a child of divorce and the two sides of his family hate each other. He said he always felt pulled between the two growing up and that’s affected his relationship with them as an adult. He hasn’t spent a holiday or birthday with any of them in almost ten years. He’s basically my parent’s bonus child.
I can’t force Aly to go visit her family, and I won’t ask mine to extend an invitation to hers if they’re not going to be able to find common ground. It’s one thing for me to take the barrage of insults, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to subject my parents to it.
“I don’t know. I’m taking my cues from Aly on this. For now, I have my hands full just pretending like I understand what the doctor’s saying at our prenatal appointments.”
The rest of the conversation shifts to how the guys feel about being on camera, the vision for the company and how many famous people Aly’s met. I’d say all in all the meal was a success. We’re in the underground parking lot standing next to her car and I decide to circle back to the question Cody had about our families. “I meant what I said about taking my cue from you. Ideally I’d want our families to meet but I don’t want to make this harder on you.”
“I appreciate that, but right now. I still need more time. I know you probably think it’s selfish. Trust me, these last few weeks I’ve heard from everyone just how selfish.”
“I don’t know who everyone is, and I don’t care. If you need more time, you take it. You’re the one who’s pregnant and only you know how much you can handle right now. There’s so much change and adjustment happening in your life. You’ve adapted to the baby, to allowing me to be a part of this journey. Aly, it’s okay to do something just for you. You get to be selfish.”
It catches me off guard when she wraps her arms around my waist and I slowly fold mine around her back, settling into her hug. Aly’s just tall enough that my chin rests on her head. She breaks our hold first and shakes her head. Her lips are moving and she’s clearly having some kind of argument with herself. When whichever side wins, she gives me a shaky smile. “Thanks Rafe.”
She wouldn’t be thanking me if she knew I was just imagining her against her car with her legs around me. “Anytime, Aly. Anytime.”
XoXo Aurora Levine 