Maybe time was what it took.
Garrett and Tracey didn’t talk about the events of that night. Instead, they went back to the way they had been before he made love to her. Sort of. Things did change a bit. Tracey started her job as an employee relations specialist covering the southeastern region of the country, which allowed her to work from home as long as she had her handy laptop and headset. Rett had been doing well at his firm, but started putting in much longer hours. As a result, he still spent the same amount of time with the baby, but usually it was at Tracey’s house, late into the night and he brought work with him. It felt—dangerously so—the way it had when they first met, only now it felt more real. Nathalie was proof every day of how real.
And Tracey could actually feel his anger starting to ebb, as was her fear, even though they didn’t broach any difficult subjects.
Instead, they started taking little tests with each other. One such test was taking the baby out with the both of them. Before, they only did that when she’d had to go for either routine doctor’s visits or when the baby had her series of ear infections that kept them both up for weeks.
This time, Rett made mention of the fact that he needed things for his new place. Tracey hadn’t seen it yet but, but the house was all he talked about and it enhanced her embarrassment at continuing to live in her parents’ pool house. When he recommended that they go shopping together, she was quite appalled. There was no reason for it… Okay, maybe no good reason for it, and her first instinct was to panic.
She didn’t think it showed. In fact, she plastered on a bright smile and said “sure” before going to her bedroom and taking huge gulps of air as her heart pounded like a jackhammer. It was a test. She knew it. And if she wanted him to trust her, she had to pass it. Reminding herself that he was her daughter’s father and they would be tied to each other forever helped a bit.
She pulled herself together because she had made a vow to be brave for her daughter, and for him.
They didn’t show any bravado. They got out of the car and started towards the supercenter without really speaking to each other, with Tracey carrying Nathalie. Instead of holding hands like people who sleep together did, they walked at what could only be termed “a safe distance” apart from each other. On this walk that took an eternity, Rett glanced at her and she at him but without so much as a smile. In the store, an old man working the front pushed a buggy out in front of them with a warm Southern smile. Tracey smiled back but did not look at Garrett as she buckled Nathalie in. She looked everywhere but at Garrett.
They split up inside. Tracey went for the groceries. Garrett went for household goods like a new ironing board and light bulbs. They would meet in center aisles, coordinate their finds, then split up again. Once or twice, when they stood together, Rett was approached by someone—usually white—that he knew. He always introduced his baby first, then introduced Tracey as her mother. Conversations were nice, civil, but ended quickly and caused the skin on Tracey’s face to heat and tighten.
Before long she was exhausted and unhappy, but she was thankful that this still hadn’t been as horrible an experience as she had expected.
After she was done, Garrett ushered her and the baby to the front of the store. When they went to stand in the checkout line, he turned and was greeted by yet another person he knew.
The compact blond fellow with ruddy cheeks grinned at Garrett and exchanged a half-hug with him. He reached out to shake Tracey’s hand as Garrett re-introduced them. She didn’t recognize him, but she had heard of him. Kelly Banks had been one of Garrett’s closest friends in high school.
That’s when Tracey noticed her cute as a button baby with her arms up and hands out, making a grabbing motion and baby-talking with the most adorable little smile. That meant she wanted to be picked up, but she wasn’t reaching for Tracey or her daddy. Instead, she was reaching for this guy that Tracey had never met before.
And he was reaching back with a huge, huge, hummungous grin. He picked her up and smooched her loudly over and over on the cheek until she laughed and squealed. “You are the best girl,” he cooed. “The best girl. You know I’m going to marry you in about eighteen years.”
“Stop saying that!” Rett punched him in the arm, but he was laughing, too.
And her baby was tickled pink.
The confusion must have registered on her face.
“Me and my best girlfriend used to see each other every weekend when I played football at Rett’s.”
Kelly hugged her close again and pressed kisses all over her face. Tracey tried to resist the urge to take the baby from him. Not just anybody should be kissing her baby, but Garrett obviously thought this was okay. “I miss my little girlfriend.”
Garrett loved playing his latest football video game. He talked about it all the time. Tracey didn’t know why she had never connected him playing the game on the weekends with his time with Nathalie. She had never thought Nathalie had been introduced to his friends or that she spent time with anyone other than him. It was stupid, naïve, but it just had never occurred to her.
Tracey was stunned. She was stunned even when they packed the bags and the baby into the car and left with promises that Rett would bring Nathalie by from time to time to see Kelly.
That evening, they chatted about Kelly. They planned a time for Tracey to see the house Rett had settled on. Then, they made love. Slowly, gently.