A series of progressive but isolated scenes (Sorry for the accidental editing error in earlier postings of this chapter)
In the newly purchased 1957 Pittsburgh home Jordan and Katherine are working on renovating, amidst sanding, staining, rewiring, and installing of new windows, further complicated by insurance inquires in the form of paperwork, phone calls, and emails, Jordan's cell rings. Having been waiting for this call his answer comes off more expectant than it would normally. "Hel'o?"
"Hi," is the informal response smiled on the other end of the line.
As it was not who he'd been prepared for, he starts over from scratch. "Hello?"
"Hello?" Now she's not sure he's heard her.
"Yeah?"
"Jordan?"
"Yeah." This conversation's going nowhere quickly. Or, slowly.
She tries again, "It's Angela. Chase."
"I know who you are."
"You had me wondering." Definitely more rattled than she had been just a minute earlier, she pushes on. "You okay?" Jordan wasn't the world's best phone conversationalist, but this had reached undeniable awkwardness, and in spite of herself she begins to second guess herself — Are they friends in name alone now? Is she meant not really to call? _ Is this because of the new girl? She didn't think Jordan'd date someone like that, but she's never met Katherine—
"Yeah. Sorry; it's crazy here."
She wishes, not for the first time, that he were more verbose. "What's going on?"
"Don't worry about it," he shrugs it off. "What's happening?"
"Nothing. Just, called to catch up." Even over the phone it's clear Jordan's still distracted. "You sure everything's okay?"
"Yeah. Just waitin' on a call."
"Oh." Umbral traces of insecurity keep her from wanting to seem intrusive. "I'll let you go."
"It's cool." He clarifies, "Call waiting." Angela's eyes roll; God forbid Jordan ever let a person think he's giving them more than he is. She isn't his priority right now, and conscious of it or not, Jordan's going to let her know. "So," he clears his throat, "I should prob'ly tell you what's going on."
"Okay…"
"Katie's pregnant." Something in her stops.
Never really had she seriously thought it would be her he'd ever say this about, but still, somewhere inside of herself, Angela's younger self snagged on this news and's left her stuck; she cannot move on. "Wow. _ Heh, wow. Um," she can't think of what to say, "how far along?"
Though Angela's thrown Jordan's casual as ever. "Seven months." If he'd noticed anything in her response, he was decent enough to overlook it. Per usual, whether due to generosity or inattentiveness, Jordan could be depended upon to let a person's worser showings slide. For that Angela is grateful, but still she hates that there was something to detect. Even more she hates that he may have detected it.
"Wow." She's still coming across stunned. The way he'd brought it up she'd have expected it to be new. Seven months is not new. It's birth-plan-in-place not-new. She repeats herself again. "Congratulations. Wow."
"You said that."
"Yeah." Angela readjusts the phone against her ear. "Well, — wow — uh, 'congratulations'." She rolls her eyes; she's got to let herself say something else.
"Thanks"; Jordan mildly laughs at her before he moves on to offhandedly elucidating the current ongoings; "Just uh, trying to get the medical insurance thing worked out for the midwife."
Angela blinks; one thing after another is just smacking her in the face. Midwife? She catches her breath; this is real. _ She hadn't realized it was like that, between them... This is silly. He hadn't been hers in years. And sillier still since it'd been less than a year since they'd reentered each other's lives. Still though, down, inside, in that unvoiced shadowy part of her inner self, she'd maybe seen something in it that neither she nor he had had children. A glimmer of a possibility yet.
There was also a part of her that had never expected it'd be him, Jordan Catalano, to have a family before she did. Not this way, not whole and happy, and smug. Okay, he wasn't smug. It wouldn't occur to him to be smug. Because it wouldn't occur to him that she'd be smug in his place. Life wasn't a competition to him and though she didn't want it to be for her either, sometimes out of nowhere a scoreboard, in the form of a mortgage, a ring, or, a new baby, would appear and knock her off her footing. Her chest feels heavy and for the split second all this flashes through her head, breath is hard to come by.
Even if he were not distracted Jordan wouldn't have noticed. His general hazy nonchalance toward — everything — is graciously allowing that way. And while partly it hurts to know that he hasn't considered this news would mean anything more to her than it would to any other well-wishing buddy in his world, it has saved her the shame of being suspected of jealousy. In truth, it is not jealousy. She does not want to resent this girl or this new baby, she wants nothing more, well... than to be happy for Jordan. And so, from years of (in spite of herself) studying at Patty Chase's feet, despite the difficulty of the circumstances, Angela's face lifts into a smile. As she speaks her emotions are contained, but her words are not empty; she is indeed happy for him. For them. "This is big news." Suddenly she feels as though she's aged five years in the last fifty-five seconds. Isn't that what it is to be adult? To selflessly, as best one can, wish the best for another?
"Yeah." And already Angela can't quite recall what this is in response to.
A baby. Jordan Catalano's going to have a child. In two months he'll be a father. A parent... She can still remember when he could barely be in a room with hers. Now he would be one — a parent. It's hard to conceive of. She wasn't exactly looking to have a baby; at not-quite twenty-six having a child was still only an abstract and distant thought to her. But now it struck her: If Jordan Catalano was ready for a kid, how could she not be? In theory anyway. The elusive, unquantifiable criteria of maturity seemed ever to be changing the mark. "It's the car key thing all over again, isn't it?"
Jordan smiles vaguely in response, "How do you mean?" He does not remember the reference.
"Just, you were always older, more ready for things. With your car keys and black coffee and cigarettes—"
"Gave that up," he interjects.
Angela smiles obligingly then continues, "You were always just on this side of adulthood."
Jordan only smiles. Angela would still look at things as 'grown-up' or 'not'. "Suspect there's something more to it than coffee and cigarettes," he blithely remarks. And less this invite her to unearth memories of the things she's heard about his years in his father's house, he adds, with a slight smirk, "Anyways, I am older."
"And you've got the kid to prove it."
At this he laughs. "Not yet."
"Well," Angela says more earnestly, "you're gonna be great."
He's still ill at ease with sincerity: "That's what they say." Angela can hear him smirking halfway across the country.
She smiles, but finds herself now utterly without anything more to say. Nothing she'd called to say feels as though it measures up. What's more, he just seems inexorably further away from her now. Forever no longer hers. "Well, uh, I'll let you go; I don't want you to, uh, miss your call." She means it when she says again, "Congratulations. Really. Keep me posted."
"You okay there?" Jordan smiles.
"Me?" she covers, "I'm good." To prove it she brightens her tone; "So, uh, say 'Hi' to Kathy for me." Awkwardly she amends this with, "I know I haven't actually met her or anything, so, if that's weird, then…"
Coolly he interrupts her qualifiers before she prolongs the equivocating — "I'll relay the 'hi', and 'congratulations'." Unable to resist, he adds, "Like, thirteen times." Jordan's mocking her. These days he's always mocking her; that distant form of familiarity that cuts. But she smiles.
"It's big news. It deserves thirteen congratulations. _ Right?"
"Absolutely."
"Okay. Well, here's number fourteen: Congratulations Jordan. It's wonderful." Her tenor deepens with sincerity, "It—" but once more he cuts in.
"Hey, listen, that's the other—"
She nods. "Okay."
"It's just that—"
"No, it's fine," she assures him. It's possible she's working too hard not to be an obstruction in this life of his. "We'll talk soon."
"Sure." Jordan switches over to his other call.
Angela exhales. And hangs up the phone. What just happened?
Posted 12/26/12
Back in Three Rivers, Jordan's pulls up outside his father's house. Since moving out Jordan's spent next to no time here. His room's there still, in the back of the house, but he'll never spend another night under this roof. Though his younger self, who spent way too many nights there, wouldn't have believed it, he does, infrequently, keep up communication with his old man, and on occasion he even returns to this old house. As he is doing now. It goes in phases, his tenuous relationship with his father; it was about a year before he made contact after he first moved out, and about another year of silence went by when he was down in the gulf of Mexico. But Jordan never shut his father out completely, and so they do call the other now and then and they shoot the shit and take in the odd ball game, and they keep things on the surface. On the surface they can be friends. Or friendly. They've been playing that game for years.
Lisa still never speaks to him — their father. Ben'd bumped into him a couple of times early on, but she hasn't laid eyes on him since she left. The only Catalano Lisa considers family is her half brother. She cut them all out, the few members of the Catalano clan. Jordan however, and she almost even likes him the more for it, keeps up with their dad's brother Nick, and his family. Jordan's not close with his cousin Ryan, he's younger than he and Lis and never really hung out with them, but now they maybe see each other once or twice in the course of a year. Lisa though walked away from them all. Nick's a decent enough guy who enjoys his big brother's kids (the red Plymouth had been his before it had been Jordan's, and Jordan still wears the motorcycle jacket that had been handed down to him), but Lisa only sees an adult who didn't step in when an adult really needed to, and so she wrote him off and never looked back. Ben's family was hers. His mother and his sisters. And when Ben's father died when she and Ben were newly seventeen, she'd felt that loss more than she'd felt anything to do with severing the ties with her own father's family.
And of all the times Lisa did not think about contacting her father, it was furthest from her mind when her child was involved. She didn't understand what was making Jordan do this — involve their dad in he himself becoming a father. Granted, Jeff is hardly who Jordan confides in, and the birth is already less than two months away, but still. Jeff and Nick only knew about her own child from Jordan, who'd said only that she'd had him and his name was Adam. If it were up to her, Jordan would do no more for his own child and then shut that door and walk away, but something in him won't let him do it, and she's let it go, like J'd let her go. Jordan had never asked her to stay for him. And because he had known what he'd be getting himself into when he stayed behind, he never complained to her afterwards. He certainly never tried to convince her to mend fences or to forgive or forget. He never brought the old man up at all, and for all that, she could let it go that he was keeping the lines of communication open. She realizes it speaks volumes about Jordan's character, and's one thing more setting him miles above the likes of Jeff Catalano and what he deserved.
The door of Jordan's black truck slams shut behind him as he pauses to look back at the house where he grew up. He's come today to do something he hasn't done since he was seeing Angela Chase; Jordan's bringing home his girl. Despite his reservations, more than seven months into the pregnancy he figures it's time to introduce them.
With something less than enthusiasm Jordan lops up the front steps to his father's house, Katherine following close behind. From behind, a person wouldn't know she was pregnant. She's as fit as ever, dressed in slim jeans and sandals, and her black, slightly sheer, cotton top that billows in the front is slit up the back, revealing glimpses of her waist and back as she moves. Being pregnant hasn't made her precious.
Glancing back at her first, he knocks quickly. From habit Jordan then moves to open the door but pulls his hand away, deciding instead to wait. This isn't his house, and life's better because it isn't — don't move backwards.
Positioned slightly behind him, Kathy watches Jordan's back stiffen imperceptibly as he braces himself. "Okay?"
He nods.
The door opens, and Jeff, older, but still disarmingly virile, stands there smiling ruggedly with a little bit of a conspiratorial swagger, "Hello."
"Hey," Jordan nods, friendly enough but reserved. Jordan's not fully himself when Jeff's around. "How ya doin'."
"Good." He nods inside, "get in here." Jeff holds the door open wider and Jordan passes through, followed by Katherine, smiling at Jeff as she does. He greets them as they pass, "Jordan." He looks at her, "Sweetheart."
"This is Katherine," Jordan needlessly points out.
Kathy holds out her hand, "Hi."
Jeff takes it and shakes, "Jeff Catalano; a pleasure." He pulls her in for a hug. "Good to meet'ya. Sit'down." They do. Jordan looks around. The room is the same. The TV's changed. And there's a new armchair and the sofa's in a different spot, but the place is just the same. From the corner of his eye he spots that old photo on the wall of him and Lisa. This is so strange; he looks away. Jeff nods to Jordan, "Beer?"
Jordan looks him in the eye, delaying his response for a beat longer than what's appropriate, then clears his throat and speaks, "Sure."
Jeff nods and moves past them to the kitchen, "That's my boy."
It isn't the beer to which he's referring, but the unmistakable insolence Jordan's always armed with. He'd long ago dropped it from his day to day arsenal, but it sneaks back in when his dad's around. Not even at his own command, because it makes him feel like a kid, and he's an adult — he doesn't need to be obstinate and difficult to be in control; Jordan bites at his thumb and reminds himself to be amiable. Bringing Kathy into the mix must've put him a little on edge, 'cuz these days they're good for hours without incidence.
Reaching into the fridge for the beers, Jeff looks back towards the kids, speaking with patronizing good humor to Kathy, "Not for you Honey," he pops the tops shrugs, "these days they look down on that kind of thing." Jordan rolls his eyes. From the kitchen Jeff returns with the two beers and an unsolicited coke for Kathy, which she takes from him, but opens only to be polite. He looks her over for the first time; "Look at you," he smiles. "Beautiful, and round." He hands the can over to Jordan, and muses as he crosses to his armchair,"There's something about pregnant women..." He reflects back on something then takes a drink; "His mom looked like a queen."
Jordan's officially uncomfortable. Jeff tended not to mention his mother, it was certainly not in the best of lights when he did. He must have loved her at one point, but those were never the stories Jordan heard. And he was okay with that; there was no love lost between him and his mom. The last time he saw her went about the same as the first: she was still selfishly unrepentant and still only interested in the parts of his life he didn't give a damn about. Hearing her mentioned, in any light, does not bother him, but he only signed up to deal with one parent that day, not both. Jordan sits motionless, making an effort not to slip into miserable. He changes the subject, "How's work?"
"Yeah," Jeff scratches the back of his head, "it's fine." He drinks. "The work on the house, how's that going?"
"Yeah," Jordan clears his throat, "it's coming."
"It's lovely," Katherine contributes. "But it's a work in progress. It won't all be finished before the baby comes."
"Ah, don't worry about it," he good-naturedly waves her off. "Kids are really adaptable." He takes another drink. "Things don't have to be perfect."
Jordan has trouble swallowing this. Why is everything so laden with darkened meanings? But, determined to let the past lie, knowing living in it only imparts it with power Jordan long ago resolved he never would, it is his long cultivated dark sense of irony rather than any stirrings of rage or resentment that is triggered when this shared past is thrown in his face in the form of a pithy and seemingly benign maxim. Jordan shakes his head, which goes unnoticed by his father, and Katherine smiles and accepts the home improvement advice.
"So," Jordan clears his throat, "you been following this year's trades? Anyone good coming up?" Carrying on a relationship with a person who was meant to love you but more often than not beat you instead is a tricky business, one Jordan's mastered over years of traversing a nebulous line. It demands a short memory and takes treading lightly, deft grace, a sharpened sense of humor, and in this case, knowledge of baseball. The conversation redirected, Jordan, his father, and his lover manage an amiable and uneventful first visit.
A week after the home birth Tom comes to Pittsburgh for a visit. Paying his taxi, Tom mounts the front steps and knocks on the door. Since she'd followed this Catalano back to Pennsylvania he's seen Katherine just the once she flew out to visit. He hasn't seen Jordan in almost a year, and this will be his first time seeing her new home, and of course her child. Katherine, dressed in black tights and a sky denim baby-doll frock, eagerly opens the door. She wears baby Grace in a wrap, and he grins at her and takes her in, "Hey Mommy." She looks exactly the same to him, though not as well rested.
Kathy reaches out and pulls her to him. Thomas holds his sister and kisses her, then cups his niece's tiny head and kisses her. "Come in." Tom kicks off his shoes, leaving them in the basket with the others, drops his duffel and un-shoulders his messenger bag, and follows her into the house. Looking around he takes in all the work she's been describing in phone calls and emails, "It's nice, this place."
Kathy laughs as she settles into the slate mid-century sofa and extracts her child from the wrap, "That was convincing."
Tom's grin does does not counter her accusation. He takes a seat in a stripped Danish armchair and doesn't break eye contact. "This his place or yours?"
"This again?" she asks dully as she positions the infant to nurse.
"Listen," he deflects, "just gauging the parameters of this game of 'house' you two are playing."
She shakes her head and smiles at him in irony, "Oh, so old fashioned."
It isn't that she isn't married, clearly. And it isn't even that Tom especially dislikes Jordan, but he doesn't know him, not like he feels he should, and even with Riley and Jeremy's approval, it's all happened much faster than he'd been prepared for, and with so little warning. Katherine doesn't take it seriously because it just won't do for the hostility to stand, so by sheer force of her will Jordan and Tommy will become friends and then brothers. Tom sees this is her intention, and once again he surveys their surroundings, "So, this is your life now?"
"Been working pretty hard at it," she remarks. He nods. "Get over here." Tommy looks at her, sets his hands on his knees, then rises and crosses towards her, sitting beside her on the sofa.
Katherine passes the baby to him and he cradles the pink infant in his arms. Tom studies the small one. She's clothed only in a cloth diaper and white long sleeved shirt that wraps and snaps at the side; she cannot keep her eyes open. There are tufts of dark fuzz on her head and her entire face wrinkles as she yawns. "She's pretty." Kathy lays a cloth over his shoulder and watches this first meeting. He gets a brief glimpse of the deep blue eyes before the tiny eyelids flutter shut again. "Where's your guy?"
"Work."
Tom looks away from the baby and back at his sister, "He really deliver this?"
"Pretty much."
"You were there too," he kids.
"I had something to do with it, yeah."
He looks back at Grace, and sighs. "Okay..." Tom resigns himself to allowing for first impressions not being everything, and decides that its boring and predictable not to like a sister's man, and after all this guy not only fathered but delivered his niece and built this lovely home with and for his sister. He can't look down on that.
Shane's come to see the newest, smallest, sweetest smelling Catalano. Dressed in dark tones of denim and leather, the two men stand with the tiny baby girl, dressed in a plumb sweater and bonnet knit by her mother. Shane inspects the little one. "So this is her."
"Yup," Jordan confirms, the baby balanced on his outstretched tattooed forearm.
"Yeah," Shane nods, "she's okay."
Jordan chuckles, "We're thinkin' 'bout letting 'er hang around."
Always one for understated humor by way of dryly observing the obvious, Shane states: "She's little."
"They come that way, yeah."
"So, they grow?" Shane feigns dumb ignorance.
"I think," Jordan plays. "Least, that's what they tell me."
Shane nods. "I gottcha."
Still holding his daughter extended out in his left arm, Jordan crosses to the fridge and pulls out two beers. With one arm full of Miss Grace Catalano, Jordan wields an opener to single handedly pop the lids one at a time. He hands one bottle to Shane then takes a swig from his own.
Shane raises his bottle slightly, "To Gracie." He drinks and looks about the bright, sunny, uncomplicated life Jordan's built for himself. The room, which he gutted and did over, is warm, cheerful and plain. The baby is sweet and fragile and tender, and Jordan is self-assured, at peace, and very much a man. "Gotta say, doesn't look so bad from here."
Jordan smiles vaguely as he takes a drink, "It's a trip."
Late morning on a bright Sunday, the warm light streams through the high bedroom windows as Jordan and Kathy lie atop their linen bed with Gracie snugged between them. Kathy absently taps her forefinger in their daughter's small palm, gently pulling back each time from her grip, and continues their conversation, "I only know what you've told me, which I know wasn't all of it, and," she kisses his forearm, "every good thing you are might be in spite of him, but you and Lisa are okay." She leans back to look at him, propping her head in her hand. "What I mean is, he's not going to hurt her." It's come up again — will the family relationship with Jordan's father be relegated strictly to Jordan and the old man, or will they play the part of a semi-functional family unit? Do they introduce him to Gracie?
With reservation Jordan lifts his eyes to her and she holds his gaze until he looks away again. "We'll both be right there." Jordan says nothing, just silently listens. She takes his silence as indirect leave to make her real point. "If there's a part of you that wants your father to know your child, then we should go." Jordan rolls onto his back and tugs the small girl onto his chest. She bleats then nestles in. His large steady hand rests on her back and Jordan shuts his eyes and breathes. Watching them, Katherine pushes the hair away from her face. "And going once doesn't mean we'd have to go again."
Jordan looks at her steadily, "I can't—" In frustration he exhales and looks away. In the moments there are things on his mind that he does not care to voice, Jordan wishes he'd never given up his cigarettes. Smoking was the perfect gap filler, a convenient starter for a self-preserving non sequitur, and (excluding a kiss and what often can follow) the most satisfying cover for calculated silence. For lack of a cigarette and his newly forsaken smoking habit he can bite at his thumb or crack a knuckle, but just now he lifts his head to lay upon his palms as he raises them behind him, elbows up. Again he looks at her, through narrowed eyes, for Jordan really does not know if he has the answer: "Is it because I don't want him in her life, or because I don't want her in his?"
Though he wants it, she does not answer him. Instead she sits up and gently lifts the baby from him, positioning her to latch. Jordan watches, missing the slight weight of the sweetly pajamaed bundle on his chest. Katherine kisses the top of the infant's head as she nurses and she looks at Jordan, studying him and considering all he's ever said to her about his father. What she's heard has come in fits and starts and has never neared forming a full narrative; chiefly absent of specifics, there were scars that mutely filled in some of the blanks. She recalls also her one encounter with the man to date, all she's learned about Jordan himself that he's never had to tell her, and too that the question's been raised at all. Katherine assesses the issue with measured response — she needs to be level-headed for him and to account for his concerns; she talks their way through it, "Letting her in his life, it gives him something he doesn't deserve?" Resistant to being analyzed Jordan grudgingly blinks his confirmation. And when she speaks again she looks at him pointedly, "What does having you in his life do?" Jordan doesn't want to see himself like she sees him, or like he sees his daughter — having him in your life shouldn't be looked at as some kind of prize; so in answer Jordan meets her eyes, then rolls his and looks away. But Katherine has no deference for his self-deprecation. "You don't have to worry about her," she says. "She's going to be okay. I won't let her hurt. You won't let her." Feigning disinterest Jordan rolls over to sit upright at the edge of the bed. Speaking to his back Kathy reiterates, "You won't let him hurt her."
Jordan glances back at her, remarking dryly, "Pretty confident about a scenario you've never been in." He rises and heads to the kitchen for another cup of coffee.
Tino's flown up from New Orleans where he moved after the hurricane, and stands there with Jordan, holding the tiny thing upright in his impressively chiseled arms. "Hey little girl." Tino lifts the infant closer to his face, his lips hovering above her head as he speaks softly to her while looking straight at her father, "That's your old man; don't worry 'bout it if he doesn't say too much." Jordan watches, listening to what his friend has to say about him. "He's got your back; an' far as that goes, you couldn't have anybody better. And listen," he repositions her, cradling her in his arms, "I'm your Uncle Tino, you need something, you come see me." He lowers her again, adjusting her in his arms a bit and returns to his normal volume as he speaks to Jordan, "This kid's gonna be okay." Grace coos winningly and he glances down at her with a smile. Pacing, he pats Jordan's shoulder as he passes by, "You running on empty?"
Jordan shrugs, "We got her sleeping with us, so, we're all pretty much sleeping through the night."
"So what you're saying is, it's a snap," Tino quips flatly.
Jordan smilies appreciatively as he looks on as Tino paces with her, and he reflects on his new life with his young daughter. "You think, ya know, 'it's an infant — it's me, living my life, with an infant'."
"But?"
"But it's not just you, it's two of you, and you're only fifty percent of the equation. Or," Jordan amends, "twenty."
Tino chuckles, and directs his attention to the baby, "You high maintenance, girl?"
Jordan swings his shoulder a bit to signal his daughter, "Gracie's alright."
"I don't know, man," Tino shakes his head ruefully, "all the Catalano's having kids. Look'a you, lousy with respectability." He grins. "I like it." As an afterthought he adds, "JC, Momma's going nuts till you get her over here to see the blessed child."
Jordan smiles. "Yeah, get 'er over here."
"She's claiming her as a grandchild," he warns. "You know that, right? There's no escaping it."
"Wouldn't try."
Tino gives the baby a little bounce as he looks on her fondly, "Gracie Stanton Catalano. _ Love it."
"Love the girl not the name," Jordan says as he sits, legs stretched out to the coffee table, leaning back and strumming his old acoustic guitar.
Among the many friends and family members who have come to visit are Wilson and his wife Samia, with their eight-year-old son Colin. Since moving back to Pittsburgh Jordan's been hanging with him regularly and the girls became fast friends. The decade age difference and the former nature of their relationship have little bearing on their current friendship. They've always just liked each other.
At his father's prompting Colin knocks and momentarily a very smiling Katherine is there opening the door.
"Darling! Hello!" Samia kisses Kathy on both cheeks. "How are you? You look wonderful!" Overcome, Samia pulls Kathy in to her again kissing her once more.
Katherine laughs warmly, "Hello! Come in! Hello Colin." Colin hands her the bouquet of flowers they brought and she opens the door wider for them to enter through. Wilson kisses her on the cheek as he passes by. "Hi Matt."
"Katie."
Katherine walks them down the hallway, holding Colin's hand in one hand, his flowers in the other. Samia whispers to Katherine, "Is she awake?"
"In and out, but she's fine, you don't need to whisper. We're actually trying to be as loud as possible."
Wilson rubs his son's head, "I know a man who can help you out with that." From the entranceway they enter the living room, which is still a work in progress but is sunlit, minimal, and comfortable in warm neutrals and natural materials. In a moderne armchair by the wall length window looking out on Katherine's kitchen garden, Jordan sits holding the baby tucked into his arm. He looks up as they enter, "Hey there!"
Wilson slaps him on the shoulder and Samia leans down, laying her hand on his back and kisses his cheek. "Hello," she smiles warmly. She inspects the baby and cannot contain her genuine gush, "She's gorgeous! Truly." She looks to the new parents, "Are you getting any sleep?"
Kathy exchanges a look with Jordan and kind of smiles. "Some." Pregnancy brought with it unexpected strange conversations. Never had her weight, or her sleep habits been a topic of conversation, or her stomach part of the public domain. "Can I get you something? Something to drink?"
"Don't you dare fuss over us," Samia charmingly scolds. "Sit down."
Wilson leans in towards Jordan, "How's it going? Freaking out?"
Jordan glances down at his daughter, "We're cool." Grace yawns and flexes her hands as she sleeps. "It's intense."
Wilson nods, "That it is."
Kathy lays her hand on Colin's head, "Colin, would you like to hold the baby?"
Colin nods. "What's her name?"
"Grace," Kathy answers.
"Col, sit down," Wilson instructs. Colin does, taking a seat in mid-century rocker. "Okay, do you see how Jordan holds her?" Colin nods, watching closely.
Jordan rises, and standing over the boy, asks, "Ready?" Again Colin nods, and Jordan places the infant in the boy's arms.
"Be sure to support her neck — don't let her head fall," warns his mother. Looking on, Samia observes, "She's divine. Delicious."
"Uh, oh," Wilson feigns panic at his wife setting her heart on a baby. "Watch out."
"Shhhh," Samia laughs.
"Do it," Jordan cajoles in a deep voice, then chuckles.
The adults' conversation is lost on Colin; the boy is fascinated with the tiny bit of life in his arms.
"Okay..." Jeff says, looking them over. After eight weeks, Jordan has come with Kathy and the baby. He's ambivalent about it at best, but in the end he figured his dad was either in his life or not. He either needed to at least make the introductions or put a stop to the whole thing. And it seemed to him that the statute of limitations on just walking away was up years ago. To cut ties now seemed arbitrary and childish, and so they came.
Jeff, who never took any particular joy in parenthood, is very pleased with his grandchild. "So, this is the little girl." Jeff crosses his leg, setting his ankle on his knee, and leans back in his chair. He points at Kathy, wagging his finger at her as she sits with the baby by the front window, "Good job having a girl. Boys," he reflects, "they're a lot of trouble." Jeff tilts his head as he scratches his jaw, "I should'a had a girl."
Jordan averts his eyes cooly. "You did."
"Christ," Jeff smiles, "that's right." Attempting a justification, he scratches his head and nods towards the baby in Katherine's arms, "Wait till this one leaves home at fifteen." He shakes his head, "Kids…" Jordan methodically cracks the knuckles on his right hand. Kathy glances at him, knowing they are not off to a great start. Jeff pops some peanuts in his mouth as he thinks something over. Baby Grace coos.
Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Jeff straightens up and changes gears, "So," he looks to Katherine, "when's the wedding?" Katherine smiles benignly and shifts her focus to the baby. Jordan remains reclined in his chair and drinks his iced tea. The nonchalance of his demeanor is studied and practiced. Every move he makes is purposeful, as is his stillness. Being there is enough, he hadn't signed up for questions. His father assesses their reactions; "You're not getting married?"
Gracefully skipping past the question, Kathy looks to him with tilted head, "Want to hold her?" Jordan's head snaps to his father's direction. They hadn't discussed this.
Jeff waves her off, "Nah, she seems okay there." But then Jeff sees his son's eyes shut as Jordan relaxes and looks away. "Well," he shrugs, "why not?"
Kathy nods and slowly rises. She crosses the room and places the infant in his ready arms. Jeff holds the child gingerly, and Jordan, silent and motionless, sits inert as he looks on. "Look'a him," he says to Katherine; "he's nervous." He reminds Jordan, "I have done this. Your sister and you." To prove his point he bounces and cradles his granddaughter. He proceeds setting Jordan straight, all the while never looking in his direction, "You were in my house for eighteen years. Not with your mom." He pauses to wipe some moisture from Grace's chin, using his shirt sleeve to do so. When he speaks again it's to Kathy, "You really should marry him Sweetheart; he's never been much for sticking around."
At this Jordan rises, crosses the room and wordlessly scoops up his daughter. Jeff gets that he's pissed him off, and he checks himself a little; leaning back with arms propped up, he begins again: "She's pretty. Gonna be a looker." Jeff drinks his tea to allow room in the conversation for things to be forgotten, or leastways side-stepped. Having done so he starts in again, playing the benign braggart, "It's in 'er genes. I never had any complaints. This kid," he off-handedly indicates Jordan with his glass, "'s always done well for himself in that department. And you girl," he shakes his head in appreciation, "God."
Jordan lets this on top of everything else go and instead occupies himself with studying his child's face: her small nose, pursing lips, and dark fluttering lashes. She is rosy and sweet, and it is the strangest thing in his life to have her, all inconsequential 8.4 pounds of her, in his arms in this house where he never could have seen this for himself. How could this room, this house, those memories, and this little girl exist simultaneously? Because he never does, he doesn't stay on this thought long. To be Jordan Catalano means such thoughts are pragmatically never lingered on, but he catches sight of that windowsill, of the stove range through the kitchen, of the door frame in the hallway, of that gouge in the wood floor, and of that one kitchen chair... and the thoughts do come. One amongst them being: Can he, that messed up kid, be any kind of a parent? He shifts his baby upright and holds her against his chest as he paces with her by the front door.
"Yeah," Jeff's continues, paying no notice to Jordan's self-exclusion, "I had some snapshots of his mom somewhere, but I think Jordan nicked them sometime back." Jeff leans forward slightly, meaning to impress upon Katherine the caliber of woman Jordan's mother was, "Incredible."
Jordan sighs; he doesn't want to hear anything more about it, just as he doesn't want to hear anything else come out his father's mouth in that same reverent tone he just endured. Turning back to the conversation he says flatly, "I don't have 'em."
"You did have them," his father blithely retorts.
Yeah, Jordan had them. Leastways he did when he was a kid. He didn't realize the old man had known about it. Tino has them now. They hadn't been mentioned in eleven years, but no doubt he still has them, stored safely till a day Jordan may decide he wants them. Maybe Gracie will want them, someday. Jordan swings his shoulders a bit to soothe his daughter.
'Daughter.' It still sounds strange to him. Especially here. He had never known his capacity for love. It had taken him by surprise with Angela, and with Katherine it had done him in — hit him and knocked him out. And with Gracie it's just— It is everywhere, it just is. He's absolutely his same self as he ever was, but it's his same self as the father of a daughter. And that did change things. Knowing what it is to be a father to his child has not, perhaps strangely, invoked new rage or resentments regarding the treatment he received from his own father, rather he is all the more glad simply to know it. Glad to have some marker that he is not cold or jaded or shut off, as he sometimes worries that he is. Being a father confirmed like nothing else ever had that Jordan Catalano is not who his father is. Though this does little to quiet his other concern, that there are other things about him that make him unworthy of the vast amount of faith and love entrusted to him by this little, little Gracie girl. Of course she should trust him, because he'd do anything to keep her safe and just who she is, but the responsibility of being a man for her and never being the cause of a moment of disillusionment in her life, he doubts he is up to, or worthy of the charge. And still he holds her close, his calloused forefinger wrapped tightly in her unimaginably tiny hand. That hand, come hell or high water, he will never let go of, carrying her with him, and her mother too, wherever he goes. He may be a better man than his father, and he's probably less than the man these two girls deserve, but he'll strive each day to get it right.
Sick of the drama and sick of himself and all the old shit messing with his head, he decisively kicks back that stupid kitchen chair he'd once had to throw, and brings them back to the Catalano fail-safe topic of the year: the White Sox winning the Series.
...
"So," Jordan breaks the silence as they drive home on the interstate, baby Grace dozing in the seat behind him, "we did that."
"Uh, huh," Katherine confirms. Jordan's quiet; she waits for good timing, then smiles, "My favorite part?" She looks to Jordan and he lifts an eyebrow in anticipation, "His forgetting about Lisa while saying you—"
"You caught that," he says dryly. "Good, right?"
Katherine can't help but emit a wry laugh. "It takes a certain kind of something to so completely deny both your kids in one sentence."
"That's how he rolls." Jordan complacently shifts gears. "He ain't playin' around."
"No kidding. _ Still," Katherine says, "I think it's good we went."
Jordan shrugs, "It is what it is."
Katherine's not going to tell Jordan how to feel about his father and so she smiles blandly, settles back into her seat, props her bare feet against the dash and trails her hand out the lowered passenger window, tracing the wind as they drive. Jordan, weary of being on guard and stoic, and more than ready to relax, kisses his hand and with it reaches over to fondly tousle her hair.
Posted 1/20/13
Thank you everyone for your support and feedback, it is so greatly appreciated! In response to a PM I received: the site does not allow users to leave multiple posts on the same chapter (which can be difficult for this story as the chapter numbers are constantly being re-sequenced and chapters are also revisited and lengthened with new content. If you've run into this problem, you can find another chapter to post to, or post under your username but logged in as a guest. Thank you, and happy reading!
