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The hospital was a busy place that she never wanted to come back to ever again. It was one of those places she tried to avoid at all costs and she knew that there was nothing impressive or alluring about it. She knew that there were a lot of people who thought hospitals were fascinating in a morbid sense, but dead bodies freaked out Shantal.
She wasn’t the kind of woman who liked to be trapped inside of the hospital and as the nurse rolled her through the hallways, all she could think about was freedom, like a prisoner waiting for parole.
Everything stank of sanitation, masking the illness that was lurking around every corner, and she knew that underneath all the illness and sanitation products, death was lurking in this place. She didn’t like being in the same place where people were dying or dead. It was the same reason why she didn’t like hanging out in graveyards.
By the time they reached the curb, the nurse was still talking to her about everything that she needed to know, but Shantal was well aware of what she needed. She had taken the last nine months to read about what she was going to require in the coming weeks, months, and years. It was something that she had prepared for with an eagerness that others in her life didn’t share with her.
The past twenty four hours had been something that had tormented her and made her feel like she was going to die, like the walls were coming in. She had clutched the precious new center of her life and she knew that she wasn’t going to let go or ever give up this little bundle that was now in her hands.
“You all set, sugar?” the nurse asked her and Shantal smiled at her with a soft grin.
“I’m good,” Shantal said, pointing to the blue van that was pulling up to the front of the hospital. “That’s my ride.”
“Well I wish you all the best,” the nurse said with a sweet and comforting smile that Shantal was grateful for, but she never wanted to see it again. She was not interested in the kindness of this woman. What she was interested in was getting out of there at the speed of sound. Inside of her mind, all she could think of was that she didn’t want to be here any longer.
In her arms, Blake was fast asleep, the happiest and healthiest little baby Shantal could ever ask for. She looked at his soft, creamy skin and his dark head of hair, like he was an angel sculpted out of marble. She ran her fingers over his soft cheeks and she knew that this was the baby she was going to dote upon for the rest of her days.
The birth had been flawless and there had been no complications whatsoever. She was grateful for all of that and she had cried for hours in happiness, joy, and gratitude when she was finally alone.
It was the most overwhelming feeling; being a mother and having that little life in her hands was something that she hadn’t been expecting. It was everything that she never knew that she had wanted. Honestly, it had taken her seconds after finding out that she was pregnant to know that this was her destiny. Being a mother was written in her blood and she knew that now.
Her sister, Amanda, didn’t think so. In fact, most of her family was ruinously disappointed in their relation’s willingness to keep the child of a one-night-stand and they were even more ashamed that she was the kind of person who had one-night-stands. Amanda opened the door of the blue van and let Shantal put in the car seat all by herself and put her son into the seat with the loving gentleness of a woman who actually cared about the child that was in her protective custody.
“Are you done yet?” Amanda asked, sickened by the thought that she was the one who was here to help her sleazy sister. Shantal had gotten used to ignoring her family up to this point and she wasn’t going to let them get to her now. They were less than trash and she wasn’t going to stoop to their level.
“Just about,” Shantal said, buckling into the seat next to Blake, watching him as he slept.
“You’re not going to sit up here with me?” Amanda asked, like it was a cold slap in the face. Shantal just shook her head, unwilling to take her eyes off of the little red face of her son. He had opened his little eyes last night and stared at her while she sang to him for hours and hours. She didn’t care about her sister’s insecurities or attitude right then. All she cared about was her sleeping angel.
“Fine,” Amanda grumbled. “Whatever.”
This was the kind of cold reception that Shantal had expected and anticipated. This was her life now. This was everything that she knew was waiting for her in life and she wasn’t going to be offended or hurt by it.
In fact, she was going to be the kind of person who stood up for herself and refused to take this kind of behavior sitting down. She was going to be the kind of strong woman who didn’t care about cold receptions.
In the nine months that she was alone and pregnant with Vincenzo’s son, Shantal had learned that she was a lot stronger than she’d originally thought she was. She felt like she was such a frail and fragile thing, but she felt like she could do anything. She felt like she was capable of everything that she set her mind to.
The past nine months were something of a trial period, if she was being honest with herself. Everything in her life felt like it was just training for the real events in life that pregnancy had finally revealed to her. It was like it was time for her to spread her wings and fly away.
It was as though her life hadn’t really started until Vincenzo walked in and ruined everything she had built up to that point. She didn’t hold it against him. It had been her fault, not to have him wear a condom, hoping that she wouldn’t get pregnant.
It had been hard, especially when she had to tell her parents. She hadn’t done anything that was even close to that before. In fact, it was the hardest thing that she’d ever had to do, period. Every time she had to tell people that she was pregnant, she got the look and the expression that said so much to her. After she told her parents, she had cried the entire night, drowning her sorrows in orange chicken that she’d been craving. It was hell.
But the moment she came out of that darkness, she realized something and that was the fact that she wasn’t scared of them and she wasn’t going to be a victim. She wasn’t going to be a child anymore and she was ready to be an adult. She was ready to be a person who could take care of herself and she was going to show everyone that she knew. She was going to show all of them that she was the person that she knew that she could be. It was time for her to be the woman warrior that had been waiting inside of her.
So, she moved on from her old life. She had bought a larger apartment and sold her other one. She had moved everything in piece by piece over one weekend and she had called friends rather than family. When her mother and father were furious that she wouldn’t give them the address, she used it as a weapon to get boundaries and respect from them.
Surprisingly, it had worked for her. Her siblings still hated her and her parents resented her, but she had freedom and respect and that was what was most important to her right now.
Stroking Blake’s little cheeks, she looked up at her sister who had been bitterly envious of her freedom from her demanding parents and the millstone of judgment they had strangled their children with. Shantal had gotten away from all of that and it was something that her sister was desperately trying to figure out and decipher over the past few months. She wanted to be free of them too, but she didn’t know how to do it.
Ironically, if she had just been willing to ask Shantal, she would have told her everything she needed to know about getting free from the tyranny of their parents.
Blake had been her ticket to freedom and he had been the one thing that had shown her the liberty she never knew was possible.
Without this adorable little guy, she would still be miserably under their thumb, enduring guilt inducing lectures to come over for Sunday brunch. All of that was behind her now. Grandchildren were powerful weapons and though her parents despised her, they were in love with Blake already.
“Do you have anything to eat at your apartment?” Amanda asked, glaring at Shantal in the rearview mirror.
“Nope,” Shantal answered distantly. She wasn’t accommodating her patronizing sister in any way. “You don’t have to stay though,” Shantal assured her. “I just needed a ride home, that’s it. I’ll pay you for the gas.”
Shantal decided early on that she was going to pay off any debts that she owed and she was going to be even with anyone who gave her a handout. She had reformed and refined her life in the past nine months and she supposed that she owed Vincenzo that. Whether he knew it or not, he had radically changed her life and if she ever saw him again, after slapping him hard across the face, she would tell him that. Then, maybe she’d spit in his eye.
She tried not to be bitter about all of this, but it was something that she couldn’t avoid when she thought about Vincenzo. He had left her and there was nothing for her to follow to find him. She never even questioned if Vincenzo was his real name. She supposed that it wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. It had been one silly mistake and now her life was changed forever. But as she looked at Blake, she knew it was for the better.
“Sweet, street parking out front,” Amanda declared with a sarcastic drawl that seemed so fake and superficial that it was hard for Shantal to take her seriously. She didn’t know if Amanda really meant it or not. It was too hard for her to tell what she was saying. “I guess I’ll help you up,” Amanda said as she killed the engine to her van.
Shantal didn’t need her help, but Amanda was clinging bitterly to Shantal like she was some possible prophet that she could learn from. Shantal was tough on her sister, but she would oblige her whenever she wanted to. There was nothing wrong with that.
“Fine, whatever you want to do,” Shantal said, getting Blake out of the car seat and undoing it skillfully with one arm and with all the balance in the world. Her body was a mess right now, but she was still the most productive person that she knew. Amanda just stood by uselessly as Shantal slung her bag over her shoulder and pointed at the car seat for Amanda. “Can you get that?”
“Sure, whatever,” Amanda grumbled, picking up the car seat and carrying it for her sister.
They walked into the apartment building and Shantal immediately knew that this had been the right decision. There was a doorman and a friendly atmosphere about this apartment building. It was everything they needed to feel safer and more at home in a palace like this. She had known that safety was going to be her number one concern and she knew this neighborhood was going to do wonders for her son and for their future.
It cost three hundred bucks more a month, but she had aggressively negotiated for a raise and she was in a solid position to be comfortable with her lifestyle as a mother. Her maternity leave was fantastic and the job that was waiting for her was the same exact thing, with a better paycheck. So far, Shantal thought that her life was pretty good. Things were looking up for her.
As she called the elevator, she eagerly waited to rise to the fourth floor and show her darling son his new home. Amanda clamored into the elevator and Blake opened his dark, little eyes and looked around with an innocent curiosity that it was painful to look at. He was so wonderful and precious that the world didn’t seem like it was good enough for his little perfection. She smiled and started talking to him softly while Amanda rolled her eyes.
Her new apartment was brighter and larger than her old one. She had two bedrooms and it was still as cramped and tight as any New York City apartment, but it was large enough for her and her son. That was all that mattered to her and everything was in better condition than her last apartment.
She walked into the apartment and began to show Blake around. He would turn his gaze on a few objects and open his mouth, yawning large and with a kind of exhaustion that made her want to yawn as well. She loved his little face and she smiled at the sight of him blinking with heavy eyelids. It was hard staying up for five minutes at a time.
The whole apartment had been eagerly awaiting his arrival and everything was set up. She walked over to his bouncer and placed him in it tenderly and turned on the soft melody of the baby chair’s music so that he would feel the welcoming sway and the comforting atmosphere.
“Is he okay to be in that thing?” Amanda asked as if it were something far more complex than just putting a baby to sleep.
Shantal nodded to her sister and quietly reminded herself that she was stern, not evil to her sister. She wanted to tell her to get lost and let her enjoy the rest of her day with her son, but she held her wrath and let her sister hang around for a little while longer.
It wouldn’t be long until one of her friends texted her and she ended up needing to split to go to a concert or something. Shantal wouldn’t keep her waiting and there would be nothing that she needed to say to her sister other than goodbye. Until then, it was just a matter of exercising her tolerance toward the naiveté of her sister’s youth.
Shantal set her bag down on her dining room table and started to unpack everything that she had taken to the hospital when she started feeling the contractions coming and triage was waiting for her. She’d gotten herself there just fine without help and the nurses were genuinely impressed.
Shantal told them that it was nothing and she was completely fine. She gave birth without anyone there and she’d sent out a mass text of Blake’s face to her family to let them all know that she was done giving birth and that she would let them come over if they wanted to. Her parents showed up once and that had been it. It made Shantal feel really special.
She unpacked all of her clothes as Amanda dropped down on the couch and stared at Blake with an expression that made Shantal wonder if her sister had ever seen a baby before now. She looked at him like she was looking at some kind of alien life form. Shantal wanted to smack her upside the head and tell her to stop bringing her bad vibes over for her newborn son to feel. She wanted this to be a happy place and she was cramping that style.
Setting everything aside, she listened as she heard the toilet in her bathroom flush and she suddenly realized that they weren’t alone. She felt the terror leap into her throat until the door began to open and she watched her older brother emerge from the bathroom, his phone in his hand as he continued reading whatever article or Tweet had captured his precious attention for the moment.
Ryan had never really grown up and he was still living a life where he was a treacherous parasite living off of the benevolence of their manipulative and overbearing parents. Essentially, he’d become a brilliant actor who could favor them and make them feel like he truly loved them and lived by their strict code of conduct and ethics, but did the exact opposite when they weren’t looking.
He was the golden boy who could never do any wrong, even though he’d been to jail twice without them actually knowing about it, and once he’d gotten in a bar fight. He’d convinced them that the bag of pot they found in his room was a botany project of his for college, which he’d dropped out of a year and a half prior to the discovery. Ryan owed her more than he could ever pay back and right now, she was about to kill him. He turned and looked at her and grinned, offering her a nod of hello.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Shantal hissed at him. “I nearly killed you.”
“With what?” Ryan laughed, walking across the living room and not even noticing that his nephew was sitting in the bouncer by the record player. They were the most self-centered, oblivious people that she had ever known in her life and she didn’t even want to correct him. “Hey, I’m glad everything went all right. I tried to get down to the hospital to see you, but I couldn’t get a ride and I think someone stole my bicycle.”
Neither of those things felt like lies to Shantal and she gently hugged her brother, trying her hardest to keep out of pain at the moment.
“I’m glad you stopped by,” she said to him. She had given Ryan a key to her apartment because, strangely enough, he was the only one that she truly trusted with access to her apartment. Sure, he might try to steal something to pawn, but he knew that she’d kill him if she caught him, so it was a fair trade. He looked at her and kissed her on the cheek.
“How’s it going, Amanda?” Ryan asked her.
“Whatever,” Amanda answered, looking up from her phone at Shantal. “You really don’t have anything to eat?”
“Not a thing,” Shantal lied. She turned and looked at Ryan who was sitting in the chair across from her. He was looking at her like there was something missing, but he didn’t want to say anything about it. She knew that he was completely confused as to where Blake was, but she was going to wait and see how long until he figured that one out.
She watched as he casually looked around the apartment, trying to see what he had missed. She watched her brother, letting him know exactly what she knew. She was totally aware that he was a complete moron, but she wasn’t going to say anything. She was going to give him his little moment in the sun until he found out where Blake was. She’d let him sweat it out.
When he finally spotted Blake, he stood up slowly and walked over to his little nephew and crouched down next to him, staring at him with awe and utter disbelief. She smiled at his reaction and Amanda stared with utter confusion. Babies were lost on her. Amanda was lost on Shantal.
“He’s perfect,” Ryan gaped with utter delight and approval. “He’s so stinking perfect.”
“Thanks,” Shantal said, feeling tears welling up in her eyes.
“Is there anything you need?” Ryan asked her, not even bothering with turning away from the little boy that had captured his world.
She could see the natural mantle of uncle settling in over him and she knew that Blake was going to have a hard time shaking Uncle Ryan from now on.
That was okay with her. She was totally fine with having Ryan around, trying his hardest to impress his little nephew.
“I mean, you just got out of the hospital. Do you need me to make dinner or something?”
“Do you even know how to make dinner?” she asked him with a smile as he finally looked at her.
His face was struck with the reality that he didn’t know how to make a decent meal outside of pouring cereal into a bowl.
“No,” he agreed with her. “But, I could totally grab you take out or something. I could go and get you something that would do for dinner.”
“No, that’s fine,” she said to him with a smile. “Believe it or not, giving birth takes away your appetite.”
“I’ll bet,” Ryan said with a kind of understanding that made her wonder just how he knew that.
She watched him as he stood up from his nephew and walked back over to the table, pulling a chair around and sitting so that he could stare at the slumbering child. Shantal knew that her older brother was a screw up, but at least he could feel the gravity of a child being born, something that Amanda was trying her hardest to understand.
“Gosh, he’s so perfect,” he said, shaking his head.
Shantal let her brother and sister watch her child as she put away the things she had taken to the hospital with her. Most of the stuff she didn’t use or even touch, which had been a little disappointing in hind sight, but she wasn’t torn up about it.
She had spent twenty four hours in that place and she was so thankful to be out of there. Something about hospitals made her hate it. The dead and the dying creeped her out and being home was so much more comforting.
“Alex just texted me,” Amanda said, standing up and looking at her phone while she was talking. It didn’t bother Shantal in the slightest that Amanda had to leave. Amanda was all legs, boobs, and ass right now and there wasn’t a brain inside of her. All she thought about was making out with her boyfriend and trying her hardest to convince her parents that college wasn’t the right thing for her.
Amanda’s entire goal in life was to hook up with a rich guy and marry him so she didn’t have to do anything other than go to the gym and have sex with him. She was trying her hardest to define what it meant to be a whore.
“Okay,” Shantal said, never wanting to have Amanda come up here in the first place. She knew her sister was trying in her odd little way, but she needed to take another step to try and be close to Shantal. Shantal wasn’t going to play babysitter with her sister and teach her how to be a decent human being. That was on Amanda.
“Are you kidding me?” Ryan snapped at his sister angrily.
“What?” Amanda fired back at him. “Alex is off work and I said I’d hang out with him.”
“Your nephew was just born and you’re more interested in hanging out with the third Alex that you’ve dated in two years?” Ryan snapped at her again. “Get your head out of your ass, Amanda. The least you can do is stick around and have a conversation and look at a cute little baby.”
“I drove them home from the hospital,” Amanda defended herself, like that was a defense.
“Sit down,” Ryan told her. “Hang out for a while. Shantal, I’m going to order some food. Is there anything you don’t want us ordering?” he asked her, strangely enough, considering the fact that she might have an aversion to something.
“Italian,” she said with a broken heart. She loved pizza, but she couldn’t stand it lately.
Ryan ordered food for him and their sister, but Shantal didn’t want anything. She sat down at the table and realized how good it felt to sit down. She was ready for pregnancy and all of this madness to be over.
She knew she had a couple of months before everything was even remotely close to being physically different, but by then, she was sure that Blake would be trying his hardest to drive her insane with keeping her up at night. That was okay, she was looking forward to all of it. She was eagerly anticipating all of Blake’s moments in her life.
When the food arrived, they sat around the table, silently whispering and eating as they shared Chinese food, something that Ryan picked up on that Shantal had been craving throughout her pregnancy that hadn’t quite gone away yet. She would pick at their Mandarin chicken and she smiled while they talked about life and as always, it drifted back to their insane parents and how they were still trying to give Ryan, who was thirty-two now, a curfew if he was living at home with them.
Shantal was surprised at how excited and happy it made her to have someone around. She had been going it alone for a while now and she had really been used to the silence of her apartment or the music that she was playing. She wasn’t interested in loneliness anymore and as Ryan ate dinner, she knew that this was going to be another chapter in her life. The last chapter had been about such loneliness and isolation that she couldn’t help but think that right now, there were things that were going to be different.
“So, what’s the plan now?” Ryan asked her as he ate some of the fried rice, looking at her as she thought about it, rocking Blake for a while as he ate his tiny bottle.
“Spend some time at home with him and then head back to work as soon as possible. I want to get back into the game before they think they can run that place without me.”
She thought about going back to work and it scared her. She wanted to start building the new world that she was looking forward to, there was something about getting out there and starting up the fight again that was so alluring to her. She wanted every chance that she could take.
“What are your plans with him?” Amanda asked, gesturing to Blake who was starting to fall back asleep. She gently placed him in the bouncer again and looked at Amanda.
“I know a few nannies that I might hire,” she said with a shrug.
“Aren’t you going to contact the father and let him know?” Amanda asked, completely forgetting that there was such a thing as tact and grace in the world.
Ryan looked at Amanda and a cold breeze seemed to sweep through the entire apartment as Amanda froze up and realized that she had just done the unthinkable. She had just done something that no one was allowed to do in Shantal’s life and they especially weren’t allowed to do it in her apartment. It was the unwritten law of Shantal’s life and it was the easiest rule to break in the world.
For Shantal, it had been something that she had established early on when her parents were berating her and shouting at her about what she had done to herself and that she had been sleeping around like some kind of whore. It was all unfair to her and she was done with that kind of treatment in her life. She was only going to have positive influences in her life and that meant she had to set up rules and boundaries.
Chaos was the complete opposite of everything that she wanted and Amanda had brought up the one thing she had most adamantly pointed to never come up in her life again, because it made her angry.
It made her angry because Shantal wasn’t a fool and she knew her family and friends were talking about Vincenzo. She knew that behind her back, the world was still moving and people were still people out there and that meant that they were curious as to what it meant that she had a child with a man that she was not currently with.
It was a topic that she didn’t want to discuss and she didn’t want other people around her discussing it as well. They could take that stupidity and nonsense elsewhere if they wanted to discuss it, but it wouldn’t be around her. She wasn’t some novelty for them to gossip about. This was her life and it meant more to her than anyone else.
“We don’t talk about him here,” she said coldly, looking at Amanda, locking eyes so that her sister understood fully that she was not allowed to bring up the topic of Blake’s father ever again. Amanda looked down at her carton of orange chicken and tried her hardest to be invisible.
Good, Shantal thought.
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