Chapter 22
The tip of her fingers brushed back and forth over her lips with apprehension. In her other hand was her phone, and on the screen was an open email from Peter.
She stole another shy glance at Troy sitting on the couch with tired Lulu falling asleep in his lap. Eliza wasn't taken aback this time by her moments of happiness being interrupted so soon. Eventually, she was going to have to face her brother again.
"Liza, you look worried," Troy grumbled, staring at the device in her hand.
She closed her eyes and forced the truth from her mouth, "It's my brother. He wants me to visit with Lulu."
"That's good, right?" Troy asked with lifted brows.
Eliza sighed and shook her head, "Not really. It's been awhile since he had surprise visited me and found out I had a baby. His choice of words didn't create fond memories."
Troy squinted with caution, "Maybe he wants to apologize?"
"He couldn't call?"
"Would you have answered?"
"I always pick up the phone for my brother. I'm always there when he needs me. The only exception being the time I was pregnant..." she faded out.
Troy nodded with a smile, understanding before she could.
Eliza gripped her phone tighter and confessed with glassy eyes, "You've seen and held Lulu more than my brother has."
Sternly, Troy demanded, "Don't do it, Liza."
"But it's true," she whispered.
"Because you've allowed me to," he reminded her.
"He's got a point," Emmy quietly added after appearing from the nursery.
Eliza was confused, "So, is this... my fault?"
"Absolutely not. But he is your baby brother, Eliza," Emmy hinted with raised brows.
Eliza surveyed the ground, while Emmy took Lulu to her nursery for a peaceful nap. Troy stood up and slung a soft lamb-patterned blanket over his shoulder. He stepped into her view and Eliza looked up to find a glint in his eye.
"I hate that you two can figure it out before I can. I'm still not sure I understand," she sighed.
"You will, if you go to him, darlin'," Troy crooned.
She couldn't help but twist her face in blushing delight.
"Do you like that nickname?" He asked closer to her ear?
Eliza shyly nodded, and he stroked her cheek with his thumb. Wrapping her arms tight around him, she didn't have to say that she was scared. She needed to savor his comfort, and Troy had been the only man since Lulu's birth that she had let give her any.
She couldn't believe that she was afraid of seeing her baby brother that she had taken care of since they were small. This was another type of fear she didn't expect to ever know.
And it had to be faced head-on as Eliza and Lulu's cab drove up to the upper middle class home. The familiar picket fence was freshly painted, and the smell of light green grass was in the air as soon as the cab door opened.
"Okay... here we go," Eliza nervously sighed to her baby girl that was more than ready to escape her carrier.
Before she touched the doorbell, Eliza grew even more nervous at the sounds of children shrilling and stampeding around from the inside.
"Eliza?" Loretta gasped through the glass doors.
Her sister in law unlocked the door and looked at Eliza and Lulu in complete shock. A tired dark-skinned beauty in a messy bun and a loose t-shirt and jeans was merely frozen, before she insisted, "Come in!"
Eliza's nervous smile wouldn't fade, especially not after seeing the weary look on Loretta's face.
The doors were closed, and Eliza turned back to see Loretta's large brown eyes looking at her and the curious Lulu.
"I had a baby," Eliza shyly muttered.
"So this is why Peter was so frustrated after his visit with you?" Loretta gasped.
Eliza nodded and swallowed a large knot.
"Oh my God," Loretta whispered in frustration.
Eliza didn't know what to say. She had prepared and explanation, but on her drive over, there was nothing to disclose. Lulu was here and that was all.
"Peter!" Loretta shouted over the ambiance of energetic children back in the kitchen.
Peter appeared out from the top of the steps with obvious annoyance before spotting his sister. He took in a deep breath and took his time coming down the stairs.
"Eliza," he groaned.
She couldn't say anything, not even a greeting. She wasn't sure if she was upset or angry at his tone.
His face was set in a scowl, and he knew what he was going to say but couldn't get a word out once Loretta cut in, "Your sister had a baby, and you didn't even tell me?!"
Confused he and Eliza turned to his wife.
"Yes, she had a baby and didn't even tell me until I went over unannounced," he corrected.
"What?" she glared at him.
"What are you confused about? Maybe if my sister explains it will make more or less sense," he snapped.
"Don't... judge me anymore," Eliza commanded.
Peter rolled his eyes to her, but she repeated herself," Don't ask me to come to your home so you can feel bigger than me. I was with a man, got pregnant, had a baby, and now I want to be a mother without the father in the picture."
His defenses were ready, "Why do you want to-"
Eliza tearfully shouted, "I want to be a single mother! I want to be there for my baby because I can! I want to be a parent! I could have risked giving her the childhood that we had but I know I don't have to because I know I can be a mother! I raised you! I can be a mother!"
Loretta swiftly put her arm around Eliza's shoulders and ushered her away into the kitchen. A few minutes passed by and Eliza had finally settled down at the kitchen table.
"Eliza, are you okay?" Loretta insisted, staring anxiously at Lulu's carrier on the floor beside her mother who rocked her back and forth.
"I'm okay," she angrily sniffed.
"Do you want me to talk to him?" She asked.
"It's alright. I'll find him."
"I'm right here," he grunted from the open doorway.
Eliza kept her eyes on her fidgeting daughter.
"I just can't believe it," he admitted watching his sister.
"Believe it. She's a real person that came from my surprisingly fertile womb," Eliza snipped.
Peter returned the attitude, "How else do you expect me to react?"
Eliza's eyes were wide, "With support?"
"How, when you're better than this?" he shouted.
Her head slowly turned to him and she cocked her jaw.
"Well?" he prodded.
"You may have the American dream, Peter. You just may have it. I have a very well-paid job, I live in a very nice apartment, and I even have a nice car. However, we worked hard not to succeed financially but as individuals. Peter, the only reason you have anything is because I didn't allow you to think you or I were worthless. It was easy to think we couldn't be more than another pair of Black, parentless kids but I had a baby brother that belonged to me. You were my reason for trying my best to keep us alive and make it through school. I will always be there for you no matter what you say or think about me because I love you. "
Peter turned away, unexpected emotion coming to him.
Eliza went on, "We didn't have anything but each other and at the end of the day, knowing that you have the things that you always wanted will always... always be better than my job, my apartment, or any other thing my money can buy. So all I ask is that you refrain from disregarding who I am and who I have been to you just because I am no longer 'perfect'. We never have been. I have a baby now. And I hope you understand why I couldn't give her up and why I learned to face adversity and love her too."
"You didn't tell me," Peter lowly confessed, eyes focused on her baby.
"Because I didn't even know what I was going to do. Everything you said to my face that day, I had in my mind since the day I knew I was pregnant. Rejection isn't new, Peter. But it was from you... and then her father didn't want me after I told him I was with child."
Peter's eyes were wide and looking at his sister's hurt face.
"While I was pregnant and after she was born, he treated me like I was no one. So do you see why she's still here with me? Why I chose to do this without him? I'm not worthless, Peter. And neither is she.
"Auntie E!" A seven and five year old interrupted from behind their dad.
Loretta was too late to slow them down, but they trampled to their aunt before they were on their knees admiring they're tiny cousin. Eliza randomly burst into tears. She felt the comfort of her sister in law's hands and quickly tried to recover. However, it was hopeless, and she pleaded to her brother with her eyes, in the hopes that she would be able to find more moments like this so that Lulu could have a family to grow up with.
Eliza stood at the porch watching her niece and nephew hop around with empty jars for the fireflies. In a year or so Lulu could join them in their little lightening expeditions in a large and beautiful backyard to a home that belonged to her.
She told Peter that she wanted to be a single mother, and she did. But when the kids ran back to their father to show him their catches, Eliza thought of Troy. The first "if only" came to mind, and it entailed her only regret: a wish that she had had her little trysts with Troy instead of Andrew- then maybe Lulu could have been his. But then she looked down to a big pair of eyes looking up to the night sky.
"This is the first time you've seen the stars," Eliza muttered to her little girl.
Lulu babbled before chewing on her fist. Her little baby was so beautiful and didn't want to imagine changing a thing about her.
"She looks like you," Peter said. "She's got our jaw."
Eliza laughed,"How can you tell? She's still soft and pudgy."
"I'm not sure, but that's what Lynette looked like and she takes after daddy," he shrugged. "If anything that our parents had to leave with us, it had to be a strong ass jaw."
Eliza reached out to her baby brother and lightly grabbed his chin.
"Eww!" Peter rebuked while removing himself from his sister's playful grasp. "I'm not used to my sister being this kind of affectionate."
"It's been years since we've been on the same page." Eliza reminded him.
"Why?" he suddenly asked, removing the fun from the atmosphere.
"I don't know. You started a family, Peter. I thought it was best for me to step back and leave you be."
"Expanded my family," he corrected. "It's like you said, you'll always be my big sister. So I wasn't used to your distance or even wondering why you had started drifting away. It was already a lot to only see you during some holidays but then we went a year without seeing each other... because you were pregnant?"
"I'm sorry," Eliza muttered.
"I'm sorry for what I said to you when I went to your place, but I can't apologize for the surprise. You're my sister, and you didn't even tell me. That was half of my hurt, Eliza."
She shook her head, "You looked up to me, Peter."
"I still do. You stood up to me when I treated you like a stranger... you are doing one of the hardest things in the world alone by choice. I never wanted you to go through this."
"It's not the first time," she smiled.
He sighed, "Which is why I wanted to know what was happening. For you to let me finally be there for you, if you needed me. I missed everything. From you carrying my niece to being at the hospital when she was was born."
"I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep her at the time. I didn't want anyone outside to change my mind."
Peter fought back the urge to raise his voice, "But you still didn't tell me. I knew nothing. What if you died during delivery? What if you had given her up? Would you have even told me about any of it?"
She looked down to her daughter and bit down on her lip.
"Something told me that day to call you, and when some woman picked up and said she would take a message, I just knew I had to show up. I thought something bad happened to you."
"I'm really sorry, Peter." Eliza whimpered.
"It's okay," he quietly answered, putting a hand on his sister's shoulder.
There were only a few times Eliza ever cried in front of him. High school and college graduation and his wedding day, but all of those times were for him. He couldn't recall a moment Eliza shed tears in front of him over herself.
"I hadn't felt so helpless in such a long time until I knew she was coming."
He wrapped his arm around her and brought her close. "Well if anything, I think my little niece is a reminder that we can do anything we set our minds to. And I will always appreciate you for teaching me what it is know what strength is because without you, I'd surely be dead. You are an extraordinary powerful woman that pulled us from a hell. You gave me life, Eliza, and Lulu will grow up to proudly say the same."
Peter saw the little smile and the mild disbelief on her face. "I mean it, Eliza. Anything you want, you can have. All I can ask from you is to let me be there like you were for me. I want to be a part of your life again- the good and the bad."
Eliza hugged her baby brother. However, this time it was truly Peter that held onto his sister. She thought there were pieces missing, yet the reality was that she just refused to place them where they belonged. If she wanted Lulu to rely on her, then she had to remember what it was to believe in the helping hands of others who want to be there.