have hated each other if he’d stayed around long enough to see Justin take his first steps. But that doesn’t negate the fact that we were a couple and we were both in the car the night Justin was conceived.”
“He’s only back for a few weeks.” May squeezed her hand.
“I understand that, May, and I know you want this visit to go nicely so he’ll come back again, but you can’t discount the fact that he hasn’t even tried to see Justin since he was born, and that he left me to fend for myself almost from the moment the stick turned blue.”
“I never have.” May tried to pull her hand away, but Claudia wouldn’t let her.
“I’m not saying you have, but it’s a fact. I made out for myself just fine, but it might not be all roses and icing while he’s here. I don’t want it to rip us apart, that’s all I’m saying.”
“It’s not going to rip us apart. How could you think that?”
“We’re already having problems, right now, and we’re barely ten minutes into this occasion. You don’t think that’s a big deal?” May’s attitude baffled Claudia. She had been there in the delivery room. Maybe she hadn’t seen all the tears that had fallen in the dark of her room like Zoe had. And she had missed two years of cranky toddler Justin while she went to design school. But that didn’t mean she didn’t know how hard this was for her.
“We could just avoid the subject while he’s here,” Zoe said, shrugging.
Claudia was ready to say that was an option, just to keep the status quo, when May cut in.
“No, I think it would be better if we brought it out into the open.” She seemed to pluck up her courage and looked first Claudia in the eyes and then Zoe. “Girls’ night at your apartment tonight, and we’ll sort it out. In the meantime, you did a great job out there, and as far as I know, Peter has no intention of doing anything but staying for a few weeks, at the most. I don’t even know if he had plans to see Justin while he was here.” Something about that seemed to strike her wrong, but she shook it off, saying, “We’ll talk about it later, but if you could just hang out in the same room with him without anything going wrong right now, I’d really appreciate it. I know I already pulled the friendship card to get you here. I don’t think I have another one to throw on the table.”
“Babe, you don’t need to throw another card on the table,” Claudia said, hooking an arm over May’s shoulder. “This is awkward and difficult for all of us, for different reasons. But we’ll get through it.” She let go to grab a handful of plastic silverware. “We’ll enjoy lunch and figure it all out later. It’s not a problem and not nearly as tough as I thought it would be. I can handle it. Don’t I always?”
So they went out into the dining room, where everyone had gathered at the buffet on the long oak table Nate had made for May when she and Brad married three years ago. Just the reminder of him and her failed attempts at seducing him made her feel better, for some reason. She was moving on. She was moving forward with something she wanted, and no one, not even the reemergence of an old lover and the father of her child, was going to make her forget that she did have purpose and she did have goals that didn’t include him.
Lunch got underway. Justin was called up from the basement and sat next to her in the living room. Since May had so many people there, with her parents and Claudia’s parents, her, Justin, and Zoe, everyone pretty much just spread out through the main floor of the house. Thankfully, she didn’t see Peter at all. But she was still waiting for Justin to start asking where he was. She’d finally screwed up her courage just this morning to tell her boy that Peter would be there. At first she’d thought he would be full of questions after he’d walked away the first time, but he’d surprised her by coming back to the living room and talking about the batting cages and some homework that still needed to be done tonight. Then her parents had shown up, and that had been the end of