Let Him Cry Pt. 04

• • •

Monday, we were sitting in the enclosed sun porch of the worksite with our feet up on the rail, watching the light flakes come down. "So, you're going to be Bela Brennan?" Ruth asked. "Or still Bela Navarro? Or, God help us, some hyphenated monstrosity no one will use?"

"Well, sort of both, I guess."

Ruth looked puzzled.

"Well, my mom's mom who, I must warn you, is a total snob" -- Bela giggled -- "would say that my name will be Isabel María del Pilar Navarro e Abendaño de Brennan, but I'm planning on signing my name Bela Brennan."

Ruth snorted. "Good thinking! I swear to God I wasn't even eligible for a senior citizen discount when you started reciting that. Now, look at me."

"Isabel is such a pretty name," one of the women chipped in. "Especially the way you say it. So soft. Prettier than the Isabella you hear about in Ferdinand and Isabella."

"Isabella is anglicized," Bela said gently. "She's Isabel in Spain." I smiled. The name was beautifully soft the way she said it.

She continued, "I always had sort of a love/hate thing with the name. I mean, I actually like it, but I hated the constant, 'One day you'll be a big girl named Isabel just like your mamá and your abuela.' I wanted my own name. It's why I still go by Bela, to be separate. My grandmother is Isabel. My mom is too with her friends, and Chavelita to my dad, and Isa to close family."

"Except prospective sons-in-law," I added sotto voce. "To them, she's Señora Abendaño and don't you forget it!"

I winced from the dig in the ribs as my fiancée corrected me, "I said close family, not some Yankee who defiled her daughter."

Things hadn't gotten off to the greatest start in that regard. We'd sworn Ana to secrecy when she spotted the ring and told her we'd be at the Thursday dinner to tell her folks. "Act surprised, sis."

We showed up a little before six. Bela had removed her ring and dropped it in a pocket to avoid giving it away as we waited for Ana to get home from work. I dealt with the daunting task of making small talk with her mother. It was made twice as bad by that a.m. phone call. That woman turned polite disapproval into an art form.

It was during dessert. Bela's hands went under the table and when they came out, she was wearing the ring. "Matt has asked me to marry him and I said yes," she said.

Ana immediately gushed, "It's beautiful!"

Her father looked startled and then beamed.

"¿Estás embarazada?"

Ana's shocked "Mother!" came at the same time as my disbelieving "Is she pregnant?" Calm be damned. My tone was no longer prospective-son-in-law polite. It was cold. "I'm sure that was supposed to zip right over my head, but did you seriously just ask that?"

The grim expression turned from Bela to me.

Bela threw me a look that said, plain as day, "Back away. This is my fight." She held my eyes for the brief second it took until I tipped my head in acceptance. That earned me a flicker of approval. Turning to her mother, her voice was firm. "No, I'm not pregnant. And while we're at it: you need to get over what happened with Rafael. Enough is enough. If you can't accept that, we're done here and will not be joining the family dinners in the future."

When her mother opened her mouth to respond, there was an immediate ripple of Spanish from her father: far faster than I was used to, and the soft "th" pronunciation of Spain was disconcerting to ears that learned from a South American-born teacher.

Whatever the words were, the tone was absolute iron. It matched the look on Bela's face that clearly signaled there would be no discussion on the matter. Her mother closed her mouth without a word, contenting herself with a frown. Her father switched to English. "And now, there will be only English at this table because we have a guest." He turned to me. "Unless you speak Spanish, Matt?"

"Not really. A few years of it in high school. That's it." He nodded.

As I was leaving, he said quietly to me, "The instant... I mean the very instant... the priest says, 'man and wife,' she will change her tune and deny she ever felt anything but affection for you. She thinks you're a good person and has said so to me, and she sees how much Bela loves you and vice-versa.

"She's just petrified about another escándalo" -- he pronounced the word with an over-the-top roll of his eyes, a shiver, and a tone of mock horror -- "and doesn't realize that it isn't a scandal these days."

As we walked over to the garage, Bela added her own two cents. "That's why I wanted to name my son after dad. Even with Rafael he was in my corner, and he didn't like him nearly as much as he likes you. But mom will come around."

Her face was the picture of innocence as she opened the door up to her apartment. After a quick check to make sure Rafi was still asleep, "Hey, wanna fool around and think about how nervous it would make her if she knew?"

I gestured toward the boy on my shoulder.

She gave a playful shrug. "He's out, and I've changed my mind about locked bathroom doors."

"You're bad," I laughed.

"Really? I thought I was pretty good at it. I guess we need to practice."

Her father nailed it. As Bela's mother took my hand in our dance at the wedding reception, she confided in me. "I am so happy to have you in the family, Matt. I knew you would be a wonderful man for Bela. I hope you will call me Isa or even mamá." I smiled to myself.

I told Bela when we sat back down. She started giggling. Her grandmother, who was sitting by her side, beaming at the entire room, looked a question at her. After hearing the answer, her grandmother rattled off a short sentence. Bela clapped her hands to her ears and said, "Oh my God, abuela! Don't tell me that!" Grandma tapped her nose and nodded, then went back to watching her extended family enjoy themselves with every appearance of utter contentment.

Bela grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. "Let's dance!"

"What did she say?" I asked when we were in each other's arms.

"She said she's pretty sure that one... meaning my mother... didn't exactly go to her wedding night a virgin. God, I'll be in therapy for years picturing it," she laughed and caught the train of her dress up over her arm.

• • •

Just when you get comfortable, life throws a curveball.

Four months later, she was sitting at the kitchen table, a stunned expression on her face. I felt my heart stop: her expression was a mirror of the shock that had been on Liv's face when she got the initial test results.

"What is it?"

Her countenance took on an added element, almost as if she were afraid to talk to me. She didn't respond immediately.

"Bela! What is it?"

"I'm pregnant."

"Oh my God!"

Her face creased in worry. "I know we haven't talked about it. I'm sorry. I don't know how it happened. I didn't plan this, I swear! Maybe those antibiotic--"

"Bela!" I cut her off, belatedly aware that my response had been completely ambiguous. I pulled her up out of the chair into my arms. "That wasn't, 'Oh my God, how could this happen?' That was, 'Oh my God, that's wonderful!'"

She peered up at me to see if I was serious. Some of the tension drained out of her as she saw the smile on my face, but she still looked nervous. "Matt, that's not all of it. A child's only half of it."

"What?"

"It's twins."

I'm sure my expression was just as stunned as hers had been. "Wow! That's... well... that's a gamechanger." She was still anxious as she watched me process it. "Umm," I said seriously after a long moment, "I guess there's something we... well, you... might want to consider. I'm discussing, not telling," I said defensively.

Her expression turned guarded and she pulled back.

"Once they arrive, we're going to be run ragged," I continued. "I think we need to get as much sex in over the next few months as we possibly can."

For a second, she couldn't decide if she was astounded at my flippancy at a time like this or exasperated that my mind was in the gutter. In the end, though, neither of those emotions won: a grin tugged at the corners of her mouth, matching mine. "Well, I won't get any more pregnant."

• • •

She looked down at the two tiny bundles -- they'd arrived suddenly, weeks early but perfectly healthy -- nestled on her lap in the hospital bed. "We haven't settled on names," she said.

"I'll go with whatever you choose, but I have a proposal."

"Oh?"

"I was thinking this one," I reached over to touch a small hand, "should be Thomas Navarro Brennan after your dad."

She beamed at me.

I was nervous as I went on. I loved this woman and had no desire to wound her. "And this one," I touched the other, "I would like to name her Isabel after you and your mom... Isabel Olivia Brennan."

The smile never faltered, not even for an instant, but she shook her head. "No. That's a nice name but no, Matt, no. When my mother and grandmother came over... four of us!" She laughed and shook her head. "¡Ni pensarlo!" Don't even think it!

She looked up at me with those warm, brown eyes. "I think Olivia Isabel Brennan will suit her better." She glanced down again at the twins and then looked to the small boy lying quietly next to her on the bed. "Rafi, meet Tommy and Liv, your new brother and sister."

──── The End ────

This came about because I read a spate of stories ("spate" being three in just a couple of days) that opened with the protagonist somewhere between broken and actually suicidal over a deceased wife. He then meets someone new. No problem with that. I kind of like that formula.

The first one I read I enjoyed tremendously, as have many other readers on this site.

The other two gave me pause. Within an amazingly short span -- and I mean that both in terms of sentences on the page and elapsed story time -- the first wife becomes nothing more than an occasional memory and disappears instantly from the story except for a tag line in the last paragraph.

Now, I certainly don't have a problem with someone finding a second love in their life. Nonetheless, I couldn't stop thinking: all it took was, literally, four brief sentences of conversation to drive her out of his mind?

I decided I wanted to write something where the grieving over old love was just as important an element of the story as the finding of new love.

Thanks to V. for making me think about the characters over and over. And over. *smile*

I hope you thought it worth your time. Thank you.