Inside Out (16 page)

“Too late, sir.” Rett shook his head with a rueful smile. “You don't have anything to worry about. Tracey has already done that for me.”

“That's not my sense. My sense is that even though you're angry now, you're already getting over it. And what I'm telling you is to walk away from it. For good.”

“Your ‘sense' is telling you wrong. I'll
never
get over what happened between me and Tracey. Never.”

“Good,” McAlpine returned with ice in his voice.

Then something occurred to Rett. “So Tracey doesn't know you're here.”

“She doesn't.”

“I'm surprised you didn't offer me a bribe.”

“For what?” Travis McAlpine scoffed. “I don't need to offer you money to ensure that you do exactly as I say. Is that what you wanted? Money? You want to pay off that eighty thousand you've got left in student loans?” His voice dripped with disgust.

Rett felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and his cheeks and throat grew hot. He didn't know what to say. There would be no reasoning with this man.

“Why are you here? What do you want?”

“I want you to walk away from it. Live a nice happy life with a nice All-American girl, preferably white, and don't look back as far as my daughter's concerned.” Then he just got up and left… or started to.

“What if I don't?”

Travis McAlpine turned faster than a man of his age and size should have been able to. Rett had no idea why he'd said what he said, but he had the feeling he'd pulled the tail of a bobcat.

“You will.”

Then he just walked out of the office and started shaking hands and laughing as if everything were fine. He was out there just as arrogant as all get-out. His overconfidence said he had accomplished what he had wanted to come there and accomplish.

Now all Rett wanted to do was find Tracey and tell her she had no right to take his child from him.

* * *

Two weeks after his run-in with Travis McAlpine, on a hot Saturday morning in June, Rett was driving back to school to gather the last of his things from Angie's house. He planned to put everything in storage temporarily until he moved into his own place closer to work. The cosmic joke wasn't lost on him that his new job was only a twenty-minute drive from Tracey's parents' place. If she stayed there, there was the possibility they would run into each other. The very idea scared him to death. He didn't know what he would do, how he would feel, if he ever saw her again. He just didn't know.

And he was thinking about her again.

Rett didn't plan to drive over there. But he couldn't seem to turn around.

He slowed as he approached the house where he had all but lived with Tracey for a couple of turbulent months. He craned his neck to see past the trees. In the drive he saw a sleek, silver luxury SUV with boxes in back. In the passenger side, he could barely make out Tracey. He couldn't really see any features or defining characteristics, but he knew it was her.

His heart started to bang so hard in his chest he thought it was trying to get out. His hands gripping the steering wheel as he made a loop around the block and approached again.

Approaching the driver's side was a willowy woman with long, straight, jet black hair. Seeing her in profile, he caught the high cheekbones and the straight nose. That was Tracey's mom. Had to be. Even in the pictures she had been a beautiful lady, and now, in the flesh, she was even more so.

She swept her hair back and slid into the driver's seat.

Just walk away from it, young man
. Rett thought about those words every day. Every day it had him wondering just what the hell he was doing. What the hell did he want? He wanted to be a lawyer. He knew that much. He wanted to be successful, he knew that much. He wanted that family McAlpine had talked about. He wanted to go to church with that family and to do all the things normal families did. He wanted something easy, manageable.

He doubled back around the block in time to see their direction, and he followed them a couple of cars back, watching as best he could their interaction with each other. He watched the older woman lean over and stroke Tracey's hair. It made him think of a time when Tracey told him that because her mother had seemed to stop aging at forty she continued to treat Tracey as though she were twelve.

About five minutes later, they pulled into the west parking lot of the Galleria. Rett thought two seconds about the insanity of actually following her in there. Then he thought about finding somewhere else to park so that when she ran into him in the mall, she would think it was coincidence. He went around to the main entrance and found a parking spot. He jumped out of the car and checked his shorts and shirt to see if they were hanging right. He leaned down to arrange his socks. He put his shades on and dropped his wallet and cell phone in his pocket. He headed inside. Once inside it occurred to him that it might be stupid-looking to wear shades inside the mall so he took them off and hooked them on his shirt. Then, realizing that looked stupid, he put them in his other pocket. He ran a hand over his face, trying to figure out why the hell she had him acting like this even when it was all over. Maybe he was trying to remind her of what she was missing. Damn, he was always reminded of what
he
was missing.

He walked through the food court slowly, allowing them time to get into the place. He tried to be smooth, to look nonchalant. He tried to—there she was. He saw her walking away from her mother. She walked slowly into a dream that hurt so much now that he knew it existed. He wanted her. With everything in him, he wanted her. He didn't care about what she had done. He had been just as bad. He wanted her in his heart, in his bed, in his life. No matter how hard he tried, he could not stop loving her.

Then he saw it all. She had turned to the side some and he saw it all. His mouth went dry, he couldn't swallow and he could barely breathe. Screw nonchalant. His body took him to her of its own accord. He felt his eyes burning and, as unfamiliar as that was, he knew what was happening. He got to her and grabbed her and glared at her, not trusting himself to speak as his whole body shook with warring emotions. There she was, standing there with his baby still inside her, growing inside her. His baby. His baby. His baby. Trapped between miracle and travesty, he started to shake.

When she saw him her step faltered, and her mother rushed toward her. She fell into his arms saying something about dying and that she was sorry.

“Thank you, thank you,” her mother breathed. “Oh, my God.”

A crowd began to gather. Rett didn't know what to do. A lady dropped beside him saying that she was a nurse and prompted him to call an ambulance.

“Sir, you need to let her go now.”

Rett did not immediately comply. He couldn't let her or his baby go. Not again.

Carolyn was trying to get into the back of the ambulance. Problem was, so was this white boy whom she'd heard her daughter call Garrett. Carolyn wanted to hit him. She really did, because he was holding up progress.

The paramedic turned around and leaned out the back. “Hey, I'm sorry, but only one of you can come in the ambulance.”

“Well, I'm going!” they both yelped. Carolyn glared at Rett, who was glaring at the paramedic.

“I'm going.” Carolyn pointed at the intruder. “I don't know who you are, but I'm going. That's my baby in there.”

“No, ma'am, I'm sorry,” Garrett replied with a ludicrously respectful tone. “I'm going, because that's
my
baby in there!”

Carolyn's eyes widened and for a moment she didn't think about the ambulance or the paramedic. “That's impossible!”

“No, ma'am, it's not.”

“But you… you're—”

“Lily White at your service.” Garrett dipped his head in greeting.

“But—”

“Tracey is pregnant with
my
baby.”

The paramedic raised his eyebrows.

Carolyn hesitated, then her eyes widened. “Oh, I see now. Now I understand everything. Sure as the world turns you're not going anywhere near my baby, especially not in this ambulance. I can't believe this!”

“Look, people, I have to get this girl to the hospital now. So, goodbye.” The paramedic started to close the door. Before he did, he added, “I suggest you get it together, find your respective cars, and follow us to the hospital.” With that, he closed the door and the ambulance started away.

Carolyn glared venomously at Rett. With a fixed frown, he looked back at her. Then without a word, they started away and found their cars.

* * *

“I'm sorry. The doctor is with her right now. When she's done we'll let you go back.”

Carolyn threw her hands up in frustration. Her baby was in there and there wasn't anything she could do. She couldn't even so much as go back and see her. She placed a hand over her eyes. Then she reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. She dialed her husband. He didn't answer. She left a message for him to call her back. She paced back and forth, back and forth. She barely saw the people who sat in the sterile waiting room. She was not a woman accustomed to waiting. Carolyn hadn't smoked in twelve years, but, Lord have mercy, she wanted a cigarette right then! She took her phone out again and called her sister Colleen. Colleen wasn't home either. Carolyn then called on God. She prayed her daughter was all right. She prayed her granddaughter was all right. She prayed that the son of a bitch that had left Tracey was suffering somewhere—

Then she saw Rett.

“You know what?” She pointed her finger as she turned on him. “I didn't believe for one minute that my daughter could fall in love with someone who could get her pregnant and just leave her. But after seeing you, wooh, I can see exactly how it went! You know, I've been waiting for so long, praying to God up in Heaven that I would meet you one day and—”

“And what?” Rett, who had been sitting in a chair with his hands clasped before him, jumped out of his seat. “Apologize for Tracey?”

“Apolo—are you crazy? Why in God's name would I apologize for her after what
you
did?”

“After what I did? After what
she
did!”

“White people!”

“White people? What is that supposed to mean?”

“It's supposed to mean that after five hundred years, y'all still think you got property in the black community. Well, my daughter is not property. And it's so obvious what's happened here that a blind man could paint a picture of it! She wasn't good enough for you because she was black!”

By this time, Carolyn realized she was screeching. She turned from him and took a breath as she pressed fingers to her throbbing temples. She scanned the room, and sure enough, they had an audience. She turned back to him. He still stood there as if he himself were trying to get a grip. Carolyn went on in a more controlled and quiet voice. “Let me tell you that after seeing you I already know the answer to this, but I want to hear it from you. I want to ask you, young man… Well, it's like this: I wondered for a long time what kind of man would tell the girl he got pregnant that he didn't want anything to do with the baby. What kind of man would feel that my daughter was good enough for sex but not good enough to have his child? What kind of man would treat her like a dirty little secret? Tell me? How could you do it?”

“What…are…you…talking about?” Rett questioned slowly. His voice was thick and shaking.

“You told Tracey you didn't want to—”

“Is that what she said?” he interrupted. Something in the way he was talking, the way he was looking, gave Carolyn pause. “Why don't you ask Tracey who was not good enough for whom before you go and get high and mighty about it? I was never the one who tried to hide her. I was never the one who denied that I even knew her in public. I told my friends about her. I told my sister about her. I was prepared to tell my
parents
about her before she decided she didn't want me in her life anymore. You talk to Tracey. You talk to her, and if you get the truth out of her, boy, you'll learn real fast that I'm not the one keeping dirty little secrets.”

Carolyn went quiet, digesting his words. Carolyn knew her daughter. She remembered Christmas vacation when her daughter had cried like a baby in the bathroom. She saw flashes of Tracey on the way to unconsciousness staring up at this young man and looking as guilty as sin. Carolyn knew Tracey. Maybe she didn't know this young man, but his words were the truest ones she'd probably heard in months. In a quiet voice she asked, “Didn't you tell Tracey you didn't want anything to do with the baby?”

“I didn't tell her that. I wanted to have the baby. She didn't. I told her I wanted her to have the baby. She told me that she wouldn't. I told her I wanted a life with the woman I loved and the child I created with her. She said no. I told her I would take care of the baby if she would just have it and she would never even have to see us again. She said no. I begged her, do you hear me,
begged
her. She wouldn't listen. God, she wouldn't listen. Then I went on my hands and knees and prayed about it.”

Carolyn could find no words. She sank down in the seat nearest her. Garrett came to sit beside her. They were silent.

Then he asked, “What's wrong with her?”

“Hypertension. Tracey's never been so tense and wired in her life. It's caused her to have high blood pressure. I didn't know what was doing it to her. I do now.”

“Has that hurt the baby?”

“No.” Carolyn actually smiled. “Little Nathalie's actually very resilient. But if Tracey doesn't—”

“Nathalie?”

“Yes, that's what she's going to name her. N-A-T-H-A-L-I-E. French spelling, Tracey says.”

“Her?”

Carolyn felt a twinge in her stomach at the way he said that. Still, he seemed excited about this baby that he didn't even really know about until an hour before.

“Yes, it's a girl and she's due in two months.”

“And she's named after me.”

“How's that?”

“Garrett Nathaniel Atkins.”

His skin flushed a little. And, for a minute, he was happy. Carolyn could see it. She could also see… “Atkins? You're Angie Atkins' brother?”

“Yes,” Garrett answered, glancing at her. “Do you know her?”

“Actually I do. She's coming to intern in the summer for an architectural firm I use. I've seen her portfolio, and yes, I've met her. But I thought she was just a friend of Tracey's. I didn't know there was more to it…. How did Tracey think no one would find out? How would she hide it from Angie? How would she continue to hide it from you? And for that matter, how would she even possibly be able to hide that the baby was mixed after she was born?”

“Honestly, I don't think she was thinking. She doesn't always. She just kind of panics and goes from there.”

“That's true.” Carolyn sighed. “So what will you do now?”

“You mean about Tracey?”

“Tracey and the baby.”

“I'm going to do what I wanted to do from the beginning: take care of them. Be a part of their lives. At least, I will be a part of the baby's life. You'll understand if I don't have any desire to be near Tracey ever again in my life. I am relieved that she is having this baby. I thank God that she is having this baby, but I can't forget that she almost took her from me.”

“I understand that, but if you want to be a father to Nathalie, you don't have a choice but to come to terms with it.”

“I'll find a way,” he answered. Then they were silent once more.

* * *

Finally, a nurse came out and called Carolyn back. Garrett was quick to ask if he could go back as well, but the nurse looked at him quizzically and said that only immediate family could go back. He answered that he was immediate family. Again, she seemed confused. He then told her that he was the father of the child. The nurse looked him up and down. She obviously didn't like what she was seeing or hearing. She asked if he was married to Tracey. When Garrett said no, she told him he still couldn't go back. And Carolyn, who had somewhat bonded with him, said nothing. She continued back to meet with Tracey's doctor.

Carolyn was surprised to see him when she went back out to move her car out of emergency parking. Garrett Atkins was still there. Three hours later, he was still there. And when he saw her he stood and came over to her.

“How is she?”

“She seems to be out of the woods for right now, but she is physically exhausted. Her pressure is still up, and the baby is restless.”

“What are they going to do?”

“Try and keep her pressure down and keep her here for observation. They're moving her up to a private room on the fifth floor.”

“Is she awake?”

“No, but that's a result of the exhaustion. The doctor says she'll probably go ahead and sleep through the night.”

“What room?”

Carolyn paused for a moment. “I don't know that you will help the situation by seeing her. We all need to handle what's happened here, but not until Tracey's well and that baby is here.”

“I understand that. And I'll go if I add to the trouble. But please, I just need to see her. Please.”

“Room 563.”