All of Me (33 page)

Nathan had been
doing okay.  He’d been hanging in there.  Barely, but he’d been getting along. 

Until he’d grabbed
today’s mail and opened a plain envelope with no return address.  He’d pulled
out the note and read it:

Nathan,

I don’t know if
you are interested in this or not,

but I felt
obligated to share it with you. 

Please feel free
to return it if you have no use for it.

                                                                        ~Stella

Paper-clipped to
her note was a small, square piece of smooth paper.  And on that little piece
of paper was a picture. 

Nathan was no
doctor and he’d never seen one of these in person before, but he knew it was an
ultrasound picture. 

Our baby
. 

Stella’s name was
in the upper right hand corner along with yesterday’s date and it was time
stamped 9:53 AM.

The technician had
somehow drawn in a white cartoon speaking bubble coming out of the baby’s mouth
that read: “Hi!  I’m a little girl!  I can’t wait to meet you!
J
”

Nathan was crying
before he even looked at her face.  Had been bawling like a little bitch since
the moment he’d seen Stella’s handwriting. 

Nathan studied
her
tiny profile, marveling at the sweet little nose and slightly parted lips.  She
looked like she was lying on her back with her head resting on a little fuzzy
pillow.  One of her tiny arms was raised in a sort of wave and Nathan could
make out ten little fingers. 

I love this
baby.

Our baby.

Nathan had thought
of nothing else for the past twelve weeks, two days, and six hours. 

And now here she
was.  His little blurry black and white angel.

Nathan set the
envelope and picture on the counter and pulled a yellow legal pad and pen out
of a drawer.  He sat down at his kitchen table, cut open a figurative vein, and
bled out to the best of his stilted ability.

***

“How does he seem
this week?”  Stella asked Danny as he twisted the top off the Heineken she’d
handed him.  She sank into a patio chair and reached for the Slurpee she’d
picked up on her way home from work. 

Stella had been
craving them like crazy for the past three days.  Before that, it had been
jelly doughnuts and before that sticks of pepperoni.  Next she’d probably be
consuming vats of nacho cheese covered Spam.

“He’s a little
worse.  He has these huge dark circles under his eyes.  When I asked him if
he’s sleeping, he grunted.”  Danny flipped the beer cap over each finger over
and over.  “It’s getting so bad the guys at work are noticing.  They’d never
dare say anything to Nathan, but everyone’s been asking me what’s up with him.”

“I’m going to go
see him,” Stella declared.  For the ten millionth time in twelve weeks and
three days. 

Danny shook his
head.  “No.  You can’t.  He’s still not there.”

“I don’t care
anymore.”  Stella pulled the now ever present package of Kleenex out of her
sweater pocket.  She pressed a handful of tissues into her eyes.  “I can’t
stand it, Danny.  It breaks my heart to think about him all alone over there –
doing God knows what to himself.” 

“I don’t think
much of that is going on.  I mean, who knows because he’s such a secretive,
sneaky son of a bitch, but he hasn’t seemed too ripped up.  Is he still calling
your sister?”

“He calls Kat at
least once a week asking how I am.  Every time he asks her not to tell me that
he called.  Kat is
not
happy that I make her lie about, but if he knew
she was telling me, he’d stop calling her.  I know him.”

“Yeah, you’re
probably right.”  Danny eyed the neck of the beer bottle intently.  “Listen,
I’ve gone back and forth about telling you this, but I thought you might want
to know. I-”

“Is he dating
someone?”  Stella clutched at her stomach and pressed her hand to her mouth. 
“Oh, my God, Danny, is he?  Tell me!” 

“God,
no
,
Stella.  Fuck, no.”  When Stella signed the cross and exhaled a very long
breath, Danny shook his head.  “No way.  Nothing like that.  I can say with
100% certainty that that is the farthest thing from his mind right now.  No,
it’s just that when I stopped by there last night, I caught him reading this –
I don’t know –“  Danny gesticulated in the air.  “…this book about babies.  Or
pregnancy.  Or both, who the hell knows.  He was sitting on his back steps when
I got there and I walked around without knocking.  He tried tossing the thing
into the bushes when he saw me, but I could tell what it was.  Had a fucking
big ass pregnant lady on the front, so it wasn’t hard to tell.”  Danny winked
at Stella.  “No offense.”

Stella rested a
hand on her bump.  “None taken.  I’m not too big yet, but it’s coming.”  She
thought about what Danny said as she stirred the straw around her
Coke/cherry/Mt. Dew/Dr. Pepper mix.  “Why would he be reading a baby book? 
It’s not like he’s planning to participate –
obviously
.” 

Yeah, she was
bitter.  Twelve weeks of waiting for the man you love – whose baby you’re
carrying - to realize what was important and come rushing back to do the right
thing took its toll on a person.

“I wondered the
same thing, but I wasn’t gonna ask.  I didn’t know if I should say something
because I wasn’t sure if it would upset you or not.  You know, him sitting over
there reading about shit while you’re over here barfing your brains out all
alone and what not.”

She laughed.  “No,
it doesn’t upset me at all.  It confuses me, but it definitely doesn’t upset
me.  I might even take it as a somewhat positive sign.” 

After a brief
pause, Danny cleared his throat.  “I also saw that ultrasound picture you sent
him.”

Stella reared
back.  “He showed it to you?”

“Not exactly.  He,
uh, had it hanging on his fridge.”

Stella melted. 
Just as she’d melted a million times before over this man and his fucked up
adorableness. 

“My, God, he is
too much to handle, Danny.”  She swiped at her eyes again, head shaking.  “He’s
trying.  I know that.  I’d have to know it or I would have burned down his
house and run him over with my car by now.”

“Wow, remind me
never to cross you!” 

“It’s never a wise
idea to cross an Italian girl.  But a pregnant Italian girl?”  Stella clucked
her tongue.  “You’d be playing with your life.  I remember when Gigi was
pregnant with Giovanni, she chased a UPS delivery guy down the street because
he’d had the audacity to toss a package on her porch instead of setting it down
nicely.”  Stella shuddered.  “She was
evil
.  I think Marco slept with
one eye open for 9 months each time.”

“And here I
thought Gigi was the nicest one,” Danny said, laughing. 

“Never
underestimate hormones.”  Stella narrowed her eyes.  “And I’ll pretend you
didn’t say that because
I’m
the nicest one.  Everyone knows that.”

“Yes, ma’am.” 
Danny polished off the rest of his beer.  “Well, I’d better get going.  Before
our friend sees me here again.”  They stood and walked inside.  “You know, he’s
been on my ass about that constantly?  He never comes right out and says he’s
seen me here – because then he’d have to admit to skulking around in your
bushes.  But he’s always asking what I was doing on a certain night at a
certain time.”

“What do you tell
him?” Stella asked, closing the door wall behind them. 

“I fuck with him. 
I make up the craziest, most outlandish shit and then sit back and enjoy
watching him nearly explode.  One time I told him I’d gone to the zoo.  Another
time I said I was re-shingling my roof.  Last week, I told him I was taking a
cooking class and I thought for sure he was going to punch me in the face.”

“You are
bad
,”
Stella said, laughing.  “Poor guy.”

“He’s got it
coming.  As far as I’m concerned, you’re handling this way better than you
should be.  If I were you, I would have told him it wasn’t his baby anyway.  I
would have told him to ‘fuck off’ and then I would have dated the entire CPD
and rubbed his face in it.  And when the baby was born, I would have named it
after his sworn enemy and paraded it past his house every day wearing a
shit-eating grin and a low cut shirt.”  Danny shot her a sly grin.  “But that’s
just me.”

“Yikes.”  Stella
handed Danny his jacket.  “And you think I’m scary?  I don’t know, Danny.  You
Irishmen and your tempers…you’re almost as bad as we are.”

“There was this
kid – Tommy Bartolli – that lived in the juvenile center when Nathan and I were
there…he was half-Italian, half-Irish - and all bad news.  He screamed and he
swore and he’d hit anything and anyone who looked at him sideways.  ‘Tommy the
Terror’ all the younger boys called him.”  Danny shook his head, remembering. 
“He turned into a pussycat after Nathan beat his ass though.  I’ll never forget
it – Nathan caught Tommy hurting this other kid…a skinny-ass, scared-as-shit
kid named Chase who’d just lost both of his parents in a car accident and had
no other relatives who could have taken him.  Anyway, Tommy was slapping him
around and Nathan got involved.” 

Danny exhaled a
sharp laugh.  “Well, ‘involved’ might be putting too pretty a spin on it. 
Nathan broke four of his ribs, his nose, and fractured his jaw.  He also
knocked out a few of his front teeth, if I remember correctly.”

“Oh, my God…I
cannot imagine him behaving that way.  Yeah, he’s got a temper and I know he
has an affinity for breaking a few inanimate objects here and there, but to do
that kind of damage?”  Stella shook her head.  “It’s really hard to believe he
ever hurt people like that.”

“Nathan doesn’t do
big people hurting littler people.  Ever.  No matter what.  He saw too much of
it growing up.  And was at the receiving of it all day, every day while his old
man was around,” Danny said.  “He stayed out of plenty of shit involving people
of the same size and situation over the years, but he could never stand by and
watch someone bigger or more powerful beat on someone smaller or more
vulnerable. He’s still like that…you saw it with that shit in the hospital that
one night.  That’s the entire reason he became a cop.”

“And that’s what I
don’t get.  He’s so passionate about defending people who can’t defend
themselves and yet he thinks he’ll terrorize a powerless little child who will
do nothing but love and adore him?  That he’ll hurt me?  He’s twice my size and
about a hundred times stronger.  Nathan would
never
even think about
hurting me like that.  He must have apologized twenty times for hugging me too
tightly once, for Christ’s sake.  But it’s like the image he has of himself is
so distorted – so different from reality.  It makes no sense.”

“That’s called
having a fucked up childhood, Stella.  Seriously.  And I can say that with
absolute confidence because I have the same issues.”  Danny reconsidered. 
“Well, not exactly the same, but still a lot of fucked up crap floating around
in my head.”

“Do you think you
see yourself a lot differently than other people see you?”  Stella asked.

“Hell, yeah.” 

“How do you think
people see you?”

Danny exhaled a
hard laugh.  “Uh-uh.  We’re not going there, Stella.  I’ve heard all about your
marathon mind-probing sessions and it’s not happening.  No way.”  He leaned
down and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.  “But I love ya for trying.”

“I’ll get you one
day,” Stella said with a laugh as she opened the front door.  “It might take a
while, but I’ll get you one day, Danny.”

Danny stepped
outside and froze. 

“What’s wrong?” 
Stella looked around him and then
she
froze.

Because Nathan was
standing at the end of her driveway.  

Stella stepped
around Danny.  “Nathan?”

But he didn’t answer. 
He just stood there, looking as isolated and stricken and heartbreakingly lost
as a person could look. 

It was dark and
Stella’s porch light didn’t cast much light, but from what Stella saw, Nathan
looked awful.  He looked tired and gaunt and…
off
.  There was a strange
scariness about the way he was staring at her.  And at Danny.

“You fucking her?”
he asked Danny.

Stella gasped. 
“Nathan!”

Nathan shook his
head a few times.  “Never mind.  Doesn’t matter.”  He tilted his head toward
her mailbox as he backed up into the street.  “Walked over to leave you
something.” 

“Nathan, wait!” 
Stella made her way down the steps, but Nathan was lost in the shadows by the
time she got to the end of the driveway.  “Nathan!”

Stella pulled an
envelope out of the mailbox and tore it open.  She unfolded the single yellow
sheet of paper and read:

Dear Stella,

I love her too.

I wish I could be different for you both.

I hope you are doing well.

Nathan

Stella turned back
to Danny.  “Go find him and bring him back, Danny. 
Please
.”  She
whipped back around to stare into the darkness, pulling the sweater tighter
around herself.  Stella started crying.  “Nathan!”

Her neighbor’s dog
started barking and Stella kept crying.

Danny walked up
beside her, hands on his hips.  He looked every inch the police officer as he
visually scanned their surroundings.  After a few seconds, he turned to
Stella.  “If I go over there, he will kill me.  With his bare hands or maybe
his Glock, but I won’t make it out of there alive.”  He took another quick look
around.  “But I’m worried about him.  He looked bad.  Worse than yesterday
even.”  Danny exhaled a hard sigh.  “I’m thinking about calling another officer
to go check on him.”