Love Is Always Write Volume 4

it.
    "Yeah. While you were gone over a whole year, I had a baby. I didn't want to tell you or you'd just get on a plane and give me shit."
    "You're damned right I would. But I'd have helped, and--"
    "You always moaned about Mom having too many babies too young. I got pregnant by accident, but I'm telling you, I get what she meant. I like feeling that life inside me too. I love it."
    He groaned and covered his face with both hands, and she slapped his hand.
    "I'm not dumb enough to keep a baby. I like my life just fine. And really, the family I gave her to is just wonderful. You'll love them."
    He should have known the way she'd emphasized love that she had something in mind. "You'll come with me and meet her."
    "Who?"
    "The baby, of course. She's so precious."
    Then how could you give her away , he wanted to ask again but didn't, because giving that child away was the one sane thing Mellady had done in the last year or so. He chewed on his lip and examined his happy, eighteen-year-old sister. She was fine. But the weight of worry for her lay inside him the way it always had.
    "What did Jeff say?"
    "Why would he have anything to say?"
    "Wasn't he the father?"
    But of course he wasn't. She hadn't told him about that breakup either. The father was a guy she'd picked up in a goddamn bar.
    "I didn't mean to get pregnant, but it was wonderful. I could feel one with the earth." He tuned out the rest of her babbling and tried to remove that rock in his chest, the one composed of guilt and sorrow. He had a niece he'd never meet, hadn't even known about. He tuned back in when she talked about how it had been hard to say goodbye to the squalling baby. "But I'm fine now. I promise."
    His sister had gone through the whole thing without him.
    Mellady said, "But seriously, now that you're back in the US, you can come to her celebration party."
    "Her what?" Hippies, he thought. She'd given the baby to New Age hippies.
    "They're dedicating her, and I'm invited."
    "You are?"
    "Sure. I'm telling you, you'll love the family. Come with me. You know you want to."
    He did.
    Greg knew some people had rotten childhoods. He and his siblings were never truly unhappy, but it hadn't been easy, not with China as a mom. He'd spent way too much time tending the younger kids.
    He didn't do the whiny poor-me thing, and anyway, he had plenty of compensations, like the fact that his siblings turned out okay and he had a lot to do with it. He felt pride when he signed onto the Internet and read about their happy lives, although some of that had been a lie. The Mellady-shaped guilt slipped back for a few seconds, but he dismissed it.
    He didn't get to see the sibs in person much, and had made up the difference by sending back a lot of money, but that was okay. He had a good retirement plan and no one to share it with. Yup, he had a good life. And he'd already made plans to change it for the better.
    He should be glad that Mellady had managed on her own. She'd even managed to stay in school through most of the last year. It was stupid that after the fact, he felt bereft, like he'd been deprived. He should have been glad to miss the drama, as long as she'd done okay. And she had, he reminded himself as he glanced at her slim form. Though maybe she should eat more.
    As he drove through the winding streets of the suburb, he said, "So tell me about the baby's mom and dad."
    She fiddled with the laces of her Doc Martens. Whenever she got nervous she fiddled with something. That's why her dark-painted nails were so short. "Ah, it's the baby's papa and dad."
    "What the fuck?"
    "Two guys adopted her. You will love them."
    Oh, so that was it. She wanted him to see happy gay guys. No wonder she had that crafty look in her eye and insisted he come to this event.
    "Listen. To. Me. I'm happy with my life," he told her for the umpteenth time.
    "You hide."
    "I don't hide, I just don't share. I don't think it's anyone's business, including yours, dammit."
    "Take that scowl off your face. It makes you look like Perry Mason when Hamilton Burger made a stupid remark in the courtroom. Although I guess you're not as fat as Raymond Burr." Her elfin face wrinkled in thought.
    She'd been watching ancient television shows for some college class. At least she didn't compare him to that guy in Father Knows Best or Gilligan's Island .
    "You're trying to change the subject."
    "Yup. And now we're here. Try not to be an asshole."
    Right.
    The baby's new family's house was a big