Two Steps Back (11 page)

“We’re in no rush, mom. Well…” Jaylah hesitated, “
Well, I’m not, at least. He wants to get married, you know, do the honorable thing? But I’m just not sure.”

Jaylah was su
rprised she was being so candid with her mom. She’d spent her entire life editing down her thoughts to the answers she felt her mother would find most acceptable. But the jig was up. If Jaylah couldn’t woman up and be frank with her mother at damn near 30, and while carrying her own child, maybe she wasn’t ready for this whole ordeal in the first place.

“If it were up to him, we’d be married, I’d be at home with my feet up, and he
’d be taking care of everything,” Jaylah said, rolling her eyes.

Her
mother chuckled. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Everything. Absolutely everything
,” Jaylah said. “I love Johnny, and this whole having a baby thing caught me completely flatfooted, but I’m dealing with it. I just won’t let this baby slow me down, mom. I have things I want to accomplish, you know?”

“Like your book?”

“That’s one of them. I just…” Jaylah threw her hands up like she was hoping the right words would fall into her palms. “I just don’t want to look back and think, ‘I fucked up my life.” Mrs. Baldwin raised her eyebrow, but didn’t correct her daughter’s language. “Sorry, but you know what I mean.”

“I do, which is why I’m concerned. You could move home and we can…”

“I can’t!” Jaylah cut in, her tone more biting than she wanted it to be. “Mom, I love you and daddy, but I can’t move home. I’ve gotta make my own way, you know? That’s one reason I love London so much. It’s the first time I made a choice on my own…because I wanted to. Not because it was the right thing to do, and not because it was what you and daddy wanted. It was
MY
choice.”

Jaylah
eyed her mother and waited to be reprimanded, but Mrs. Baldwin remained silent and let her daughter speak.

“I know you guys want the best for me, but it’s time you just let me
make my own decisions. If I mess up, I mess up. But you and daddy can’t protect me from living. I have to do that on my own. Don’t worry, you raised me right,” Jaylah said, staring down into her mother’s flawless face. She cracked a wry smile. “Well…except I did get knocked up. But I hear that’s sort of a family tradition.”

Mrs. Baldwin’s eyes fluttered wide, then she broke out in a
big grin. “I’m going to kill your father!” she said, laughing. “I didn’t want you to struggle like we did, Jay Jay. I wasn’t ready to be a mother when you came along. I just wanted you have an easier life than I did.”

“But you made it,
mom.”

“
We did, but we struggled for a long while. Your father worked two jobs after we graduated, sometimes three, just so I could stay home with you. And even then, times were tough.”

“
Yet you guys pulled through. You raised an amazing daughter,” Jaylah chuckled, “And you ended up having a great life, right?”

“Yes, yes we did,” Mrs. Baldwin admitted. “Heck, we still do!”

“Exactly. Let me have that mom. Let me live the way I see fit without you and daddy swooping in to protect me like I’m back in elementary school and skinned my knee.”

Jaylah’s e
yes brimmed with tears, but this time they were happy ones. She couldn’t remember a time when she and her mother spoke as equals, just two women sharing their hopes, dreams, and stories. She hugged her mother and began to regret the attitude she’d served up since she’d been home. Sure, Jaylah was going through some things, but her mother only wanted her to be happy and protected. Why was it so difficult for Jaylah to see that before?

“It won’t be easy,” Mrs. Baldwin said, wiping a tear from her daughter’s cheek. “And I
’m not going to hold my tongue. But I know you can make your own decisions, Jay Jay. You’re stronger than you think, sweetie. And we support you no matter what.”

“Thank you, mommy,” Jaylah said, reverting back to her younger self, just for a moment. “Thank you…for everything.”

“It’s what mother’s do. You’ll learn,” she said, patting her daughter’s stomach.

The women
hugged again and Jaylah luxuriated in her mother’s comforting embrace. It had been so long since she felt totally accepted by her mother, but maybe she had been wrong about her the whole time. Maybe Jaylah already had her mother’s approval and didn’t even realize it.

Had she been fighting against a force that hadn’t even been there
all along?

“Mom, I’m...”

Mrs. Baldwin held up her hand and halted her daughter mid-sentence. “No apologies necessary, Jay Jay. None of us have ever been here before and we’re all doing the best we can,” she said, rubbing her daughter’s back. “Just keep your eyes open and listen to your gut, hear me?”

Jaylah nodded.

“I can tell Johnny cares for you, and it’s easy to get caught up in how beautiful he is. I mean, that suit alone is pretty distracting, isn’t it?” Mrs. Baldwin grinned.

Jaylah shrugged her shoulders. “He wanted to make a good impression.”

“Well, it’ll take a lot more than an expensive suit,” Mrs. Baldwin chuckled before turning serious. “Everything beautiful ain’t good for you, sweetie, look at oleanders. It’s okay to admire how great they look, but get too close and they can wreak havoc on your system.”

“Is this some sort of down home
, Bayou country wisdom? Did Grand’Mere give you this same speech?” Jaylah tried to dampen the impact of her mother’s words with a joke.

“Laugh if you want to, but y
ou need to figure out which one Johnny is for you, sweetie. Is he an oleander or Echinacea? One can literally kill you, while the other gives you life,” Mrs. Baldwin said, her tone hinting that she was ready to see what her daughter’s lover was all about. She grabbed a crystal platter and motioned for her daughter to follow her lead. “C’mon, Jay Jay. I know I’m ready to find out.”

Fifteen

Finally.
Jaylah exhaled as she gazed out of the airplane window somewhere over the Atlantic. She was on her way home after what felt like an eternity in Los Angeles. Although she dreaded the trip to California, Jaylah had to admit things went better than expected. After her parents got over the initial shock of her pregnancy, she was able to settle her affairs and escape with her sanity in tact. A serious coup. 

To
Jaylah’s surprise, dinner with her parents had gone off without a hitch, and the conversation with her mother reminded her that she was a grown woman who was smart enough to make up her own mind based on her own needs, not anyone else’s.

Looking back,
Jaylah was shocked she had been the one to broach the subject of marriage, not her parents. Instead, Sarah and Joe appeared content to fill Johnny in on her life before they met, sticking in stories that made him howl with laughter, like the one about her brief bout of vegetarianism at nine.

After watching a baby calf being born during a field trip to a local farm, Jaylah
informed her parents she would no longer eat meat and would live on chocolate chip cookies for the rest of her life.

“It lasted an hour,” Mr. Baldwin sa
id, shaking his head. “When Sarah fixed dinner and Jay Jay realized all she could eat was okra, it was over. She was back on animals before the plates cleared!”

Johnny seemed to love hearing about
Jaylah’s life. He sat next to her gazing at her parents with what could only be described as reverence. She wondered if he was really enamored with her family or if he was missing his own. They were having such a good time she didn’t want to mess it up with a misplaced question, so Jaylah let it go. Still, it dogged her.

“Feeling homesick already?” Johnny asked, sitting next to her
on the plane.

“For L.A.? Not at all.” She chuckled.
“I’m ready to get back to my life. Just thinking, that’s all.”

“About?”

“Things,” she said, in no rush to fill in the blanks. Johnny didn’t press her for an answer and she let the silence multiple between them.

“
Dinner went better than I expected,” she admitted when she was ready to talk. Jaylah kept her gazed trained on the dark ocean outside her window. “I mean, my parents didn’t even press us about getting married. I guess I was totally off base with that one.”

“Your father and I had a talk,” Johnny said so casually
she almost missed it.

“Wait. What?
What kind of talk? When?”

“When you a
nd your mum were in the kitchen dishing up the food.”

Jaylah scoured her memory to see if she missed anything about that night. She and her mother had their own heart-to-heart, but it didn’t seem to last long enough for her father to
grill Johnny about their future. Besides, Mr. Baldwin had seemed like his usual jovial self that evening, calling Johnny “son” and discussing sports. When had they had this talk? And what had been said?

“We were only gone a few minutes, what could you have possibly talked about?”

“Things,” Johnny said, mimicking her tone with a smile.

“C’mon Johnny, what did he say?
”

“Well, he didn’t mince any words. He wanted to know if I loved you…”

“And what did you say?” Jaylah asked, butting in.

Johnny scrunched up his face and looked at her like she’d gone mad. “
What do you think I said? No?”

“Whatever. What else? Did you tell him about your divorce?”

“No, that didn’t come up. We just talked,” Johnny said, shrugging. “You know how men are. Your father informed me he’d kick my ass if I ‘messed you over. He also wanted to know what I did for a living and if I was prepared to support you and the baby.”

Jaylah relaxed; if anything had gone wrong she would have heard about it before she left.
He mother would certainly tell her if her father disapproved of Johnny or had concerns about their conversation.

After that night, Jaylah spen
t the next two days waiting to hear something, anything, negative about Johnny from her parents, but they never uttered a word. As a matter of fact, her father had called him a “fine young man” and they’d even gone to play golf the following day. In retrospect, Jaylah was stunned things had run as smoothly as they had. 

“Once I assured him I
was not only excited about being a father, but also more than capable of providing for you and the baby, he seemed satisfied. I didn’t have to show him any financial statements or anything,” Johnny chuckled, “but I think I was able to put his concerns to rest.”

Jaylah leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“Oh, and we talked about this.”

Johnny took
a small teal box out of his pocket and placed it on the tray in front of her. He peered at Jaylah, a smile beaming from his lips. She eyed the box, saw TIFFANY & CO stamped across the cover, and suddenly lost the ability to speak.

Even though she’d run this scenario through her head a million times
Jaylah wasn’t ready for a proposal. Not now. Not when she’d all but told herself that getting engaged to Johnny when everything in their lives seemed so up in the air was the worst idea ever.

Despite knowing
Johnny wanted to get married, and hearing him tell his father they were going to tie the knot as if it was an indisputable fact, Jaylah was still caught off guard by the little aquamarine box.

If Jaylah had been standing she would have fallen down, bowled over
by the gravity of the moment, but she was sitting, and he was looking at her expectantly.

“Wha…what…what is that?” she stuttered, eyeballing the box.

“Why don’t you open it and see.”

“I don’t under...” she stammered. “When did you get this?”

“The day I went out with your father,” he said, still smiling.

“My dad knows about this?
He’s okay with it? How come he didn’t tell me?” she was asking herself and Johnny at once.

“
I wanted it to be a surprise. Open it.”

Jaylah
gaped at Johnny still unable to comprehend the moment. He nodded slightly, encouraging her to open the box. Her fingers crept toward the ribbon, but quickly recoiled when she touched it like she’d been shocked.

Johnny
laughed. “It won’t bite you, babes. I promise.”

“My hands
won’t stop shaking,” she said, as she removed the white bow. Jaylah paused and ran her fingers across the top of the small square box that held the promise of their future.

“Go on,” he said, goading her to open the package that was no bigger than her palm.

Jaylah opened it and her breath hinging in her throat. “Ohmygod,” she croaked, before looking at him, tears already flooding the corner of her eyes.  “This is…this has to be too much.”

The ring
did not look real.

How could it possibly be real?

A large cushion-cut diamond rested atop a gleaming platinum band that was also rimmed in sparkling diamonds. The ring glistened under the jet’s demure cabin lights, and Jaylah thought it looked like something Richard Burton might have given Elizabeth Taylor the first time around. Only smaller, of course, but no less brilliant.

This can’t be for me.

Jaylah was unable to speak, blinded by luminous stones and rendered mute by the drumming of her heart. She blinked rapidly and tried to concentrate on breathing.

“
Jaylah,” Johnny said, snapping her back to the present and taking the ring out of the box. “I love you, babes. Neither one of us ever expected this, but here we are,” he grinned, his own eyes moist. “But I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I know we have some challenges ahead, but as long as you’re by my side, I can deal with anything.”

This
has to be a dream. This isn’t happening.

Jaylah attempted to
focus on Johnny’s words, but nothing about the scene seemed real. Her married boyfriend was proposing on a plane with a ring that looked like it had been ripped off a film star.

Fucking surreal
, was all she could think. Nothing else made sense. 

“
I was going to set up a proper proposal, you know, at a restaurant or someplace really lovely,” Johnny continued, leaning in close to Jaylah. “But I couldn’t wait any longer. I don’t want another day to go by without being certain you’ll be mine. Forever.”

Jaylah held her breath and tried to will hers
elf to calm down, but everything in her body was set alight by his words.

“Jaylah Nicole Baldwin,”
Johnny said, grabbing her hand, “will you marry me? Please?”

Jaylah
tried to speak, but the words jumbled on the tip of her tongue and all that made it past her lips was the sound of her tears.

“I…
ohmygod, ohymygod, Johnny…” she said over and over, as he slipped the ring on her finger and kissed her lips, stopping the babbling, but not her crying.

“You’ve made me the happiest man in the fucking world,
Jaylah,” he said, wiping her face and kissing her again. “I love you so damn much, girl.”

Johnny’s words made her
tingle, feeling every emotion, every teardrop, every beat of her heart at once. Jaylah longed to know how he’d pulled this off, how he could afford such an extravagant ring, and what he planned to do about his parents, but instead she melted into his arms and tried to commit the entire moment to memory.

Even before this Jaylah would
have gladly done just about anything to make Johnny happy as long as it meant he would return her love in kind.

But as his
mouth swept across every part of her exposed skin, there was one thing she just couldn’t bring herself to say.