Phillip

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TRIGGER WARNING: THIS BOOK IS LABLED MATURE NOT ONLY FOR THE SEX CONTENT, BUT FOR SOME DIFFICULT TOPICS.

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THIS CHAPTER TOUCHES ON THE TOPIC OF DEATH OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN AND CAN BE TRIGGERING TO SOME. NOTHING IS GRAPHICALLY DESCRIBED BUT IS HEAVILY ALLUDED TO.

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Nata sets one hand on the button of her slacks. "Potential future family," she says, her eyes on the sky behind the window that's clearing into a creamcicle shade of almost morning.

I put my hand on top of hers. "Did you tell your parents that we're trying?"

"No." She chews on her lip.

I pull her into me until her back rests against my chest. Greeting the sunrise with someone you care for sounds like a romantic notion. When I think of the scenario, I imagine a beach in Maui or a morning hike to the top of the mountain. But standing in my kitchen with Nata in my arms, the sunrise is even more meaningful. This is another Polaroid of memories that I'd keep in my head forever. Full of hope. Planning to have a family. Parents. I touch her temple with my chin. "What are they like?"

"Who?" She tilts her head up to meet my gaze.

"Your parents. Are they like you?"

Her eyelashes flutter. "Dad is. He's a scientist. Mom is now a photographer. She makes coffee books based on her travels." Nata brings the coffee to her mouth but doesn't drink. "They can be poster children for a love-hate relationship." The sentence comes out on an exhale, like a confession she didn't intend to make.

"Your parents hate each other?" I encircle Nata's waist and bring her flush with me.

"Yes and no. It's hard to tell from the outside. I think they got through phases in life when hate was the dominant emotion. Then they were madly in love." She takes the sip and licks a spot of foam off her upper lip. "They've been married and divorced three times."

That's a lot for any child. I hug her tighter to me. "Getting used to stepparents must've been hard for you."

She chuckles, as if I said something funny. She removes my hand from around her and steps aside. She looks straight into my eyes. "Married and divorced three times to each other."

To each other? The gears in my head are not as oiled at this time of the morning as they are during regular daylight hours. My eyebrows crawl up my forehead. "How does that work exactly?"

She rubs the middle of her forehead and looks away. "It's a long story."

I hold her by her elbow and lower my brow to meet her gaze. "I would rather be here listening to your story than anywhere else." If she cracks the door open even an inch and I can learn more about her, I'm here for it.

"Don't tell me I didn't warn you." Nata frees her arm from my grasp, wraps both hands around her coffee cup, and leaves through the sliding glass door to my deck. "First, Mom got pregnant with me at twenty-one." I silently follow, as my heart swells in my chest. My mom was about the same age when she had me.

Nata takes a sip of her coffee and walks down the steps to the grassy patch that separates the pool and the deck. "Dad was ten years older. They got married because it's what you were supposed to do."

Not unlike my parents. But I know they loved each other. Deeply. They didn't get married just because of me. Knowing she was the only reason for the marriage must be a hard burden for her to carry. I want to hug her again, but I put my hands in the pockets of my pajama pants, clench my jaw, and pour my energy into listening to her.

Nata continues to the pool. "Dad's second generation Polish-American, born and raised in Chicago. Before Mom, he was single and loved traveling, so he took the job where he had to go to different countries to help set up the new pharmaceutical lines. His main goal was process automation from smaller to larger scales. That's why he was in Tokyo at the concert where he met Mom." Nata touches the surface of the pool with one toe, her voice a quiet monotone. "When I was three, he was reassigned to Spain. Mom hated it there. She had a degree in journalism she couldn't use, was stuck with a toddler in a country she didn't speak the language of: no friends but for a three-year-old me." Nata sets the coffee on the edge of the pool and rolls up her slacks. "I don't remember any of it, but less than a year later Mom and I went back to Japan."

My breath falters. I want to sooth the pain I see on her face, to kiss away the vertical line between her eyebrows, tell her I'm here for her. I fist my hands into balls instead, wishing the rest of her story gets easier, while deep inside I know I won't get my wish.

"By the time I was five, they gave up on the long-distance marriage and got a divorce." She sits on the side and puts her feet into the water. The sun is making its way up on to the rooftops of the neighbor's houses, and the small waves she makes reflect the light. "I went to an American school. I remember Mom teaching me Kanji, because I didn't learn it at school like other kids." She picks up her cup and holds it in her hands as her feet move in slow circles under the water.

I roll up my pants and sit next to her silently, keeping my hands to myself, unwilling to break the spell that got her talking.

"When I was seven, Dad got assigned to Japan again." Nata sighs. "Or asked to be assigned, I don't know." She bites her lip and furrows her brows as if she's looking into the past in her mind. "He would come over, spend time with us. Even though we lived in separate apartments, it felt like we were a family again. When I was eight, Mom got pregnant again." She laughs but in a sad way. "They got married again."

"Again?" I fail to hold my reaction inside. I know people re-married the same people in theory, but never could quite understand how things like that happen. The story Nata shares with me though is of love, not hate. "Second marriage to each other?"

Nata nods. "Two years later Dad got moved to Brazil. Mom, me, and my sister, Alina, came with." Nata clutches her cup. "This time I remember the fights, the broken glass that days after I'd cut my foot on, the stares we got from our neighbors. I remember Dad bringing Mom expensive gifts she loved. She had so many rings and purses that were the physical manifestations of his apologies. Of his attempts to buy her love. The peace would last for a month or two, then Dad would be out all night again. Or forget their anniversary. Or come home drunk. So Mom would fly to Tokyo for two-three weeks at a time while we had a nanny take us to school, make meals, while dad was at work." Nata looks at the coffee that swirls in the cup and she rotates it in her hands. "When they divorced again, I was twelve. I stayed with Dad and moved when he got new assignments. My sister was three and went with Mom to Japan. Dad and I would fly over and visit them on Christmas."

"You saw your mom and sister only once a year?"

"Sometimes they'd fly for a week or two as well, depending on where Dad I lived." Nata drains the cup and sets it to the side. She pulls her feet out of the water and rises. "Come with me."

I get up and follow her determined stride across the lawn, up the steps of her deck, and into her side of the duplex. "When I was sixteen, my sister got very sick. They diagnosed her with Craniopharyngioma. The prognosis for children with that type of brain tumor is generally good, with an 80 to 90 percent chance of a cure. We were devastated but there was hope." Nata walks through the kitchen and into her living room.

My lungs are tired. Every breath grows shallower. I'm fucking scared to hear what she has to say next, because I've never heard her mention a sister before.

"Dad took a leave of absence, moved me, Mom, and Alina to the States to get her into the best hospital." Nata picks up the vase I remember taking down from one of the cabinets for her at the apartment she lived in with Samson. She runs her fingers over the design etched into the sides of the vase. "Alina had the surgery that made her feel better at first, but still died four months later." Nata rolls her lips between her teeth. "One of the unlucky few, the doctors said." Her voice cracks. "We were all there, around her."

My feet freeze to the spot I'm standing at. I'm familiar with a death of a loved one. I thought my loss was the worst there was. A child losing a parent. Even though comparing whose loss is worse is ridiculous, the notion of a parent losing child cracks open the chest of pain I've dealt with and put away many years ago. The venom of memories floods my veins, and I hurt for the little me, for the young Nata, and for her parents. No parent should go through that in their life. Losing a child is not something I wish on my worst enemy.

Even in her grief she's so beautiful. Nata lifts the vase in her hands up toward me, her eyes full of tears. "I bought this for Alina so she could have a real vase at the hospital, not those cheap-o ones they deliver the flowers in. I brought her fresh flowers every week, and we arranged them in this vase together. She loved this stupid piece of glass so much. Alina was so easy to please. She just wanted pretty flowers in a pretty vase." Nata hugs the vase to her chest, and I can no longer stop myself from hugging her to mine.

I take a step forward, but she sets her hand on my shoulder and pauses my progress.

"There's more." She returns the vase to the mantle. "This time when Dad went back to work to Mexico, Mom came with us. She slept in my bedroom, on a twin bed that Alina used when she visited before." Nata sits on her couch and unrolls her slacks. "Mom didn't work. She didn't leave the house much." Nata speaks in a voice of an AI reading the words on the page. "I took care of her, took her for walks when I got out of school. She was alive but not living." Bile rises in my throat at how unfair life was to her. Nata's cheeks glisten with tears as the sunrise sends the sun through her windows. "My father would sit and talk with her every evening after work. Would take her on drives during the weekends while I stayed home and studied." She swallows some of her tears.

"One day, I remember that day so vividly, she smiled." Nata smiles as well. "It was like what I imagine the first smile from my baby would be." She presses her lips together. "Mom smiled, and I could see a future for her, for us as a family again. A death of a child breaks so many families. It glued ours together. We were never a perfect family to begin with, so what we ended up with was a misshapen cluster of scarred people. The opposite of the smiling happy families people try to become, but a family nevertheless."

My heart breaks for her. The feeling that covers me like a wave isn't something I've ever felt before. Nata is no longer a separate being, but a part of me. I lower myself next to her and sling my arm over her shoulders. She sinks into my side, and I don't talk this time. I understand that there is more.

"I left to study in the US when I was eighteen. Mom was thirty-nine. Four years older than I'm right now. Last year I finally understood she was thirty-seven when my sister dies. How young she was. But when my parents called and informed me they got married again, I was mad. I asked them if Mom was pregnant again and that's why they did it. I should've been happy for them, but I didn't want them to repeat the vicious circle again. Couldn't they just let each other be? I was angry. I was sad. I was tired." Nata sniffles. "Mom wasn't pregnant, but she was upset with me and my accusations of her stringing Dad along yet again."

My hand finds Nata's. I interlace out fingers. "Lashing out after trauma is common." I spew my therapist's words at her.

"I later apologized for my outburst, but it changed something. There was a new break in our relationship that never healed." She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. "From the outside everything appears fine. Great even. They're still married. To each other. I still visit them every year for Christmas in whichever country they happen to be. They don't own a home. They move from country to country. Dad retired, and his pension is enough for them to maintain the lifestyle."

I glide my hand up and down over her arm as my heart rate slows. "How frequently do they visit you?" Dad used to fly to see me every couple of months or more when I lived in New York.

"Never. Alina died here. They don't want to ever come back to Chicago."

"Fuck. I'm sorry." I'm now mad at her parents for the not realizing she still needs them even if she's an adult.

"I'm used to it. But that's one of the reasons I have my plan. One of the reasons I decided I wouldn't be like my parents. I would have a career first, a husband second, and only then will I have a child." She draws circles on the plaid of my PJ bottoms, her head resting on my chest, where it belongs. "I wanted to want children, not them be an unfortunate accident like me and my sister. Pebbles in the lives of my parents. Someone who derailed who they dreamed to be as humans." I catch Nata's hand and bring her knuckles to my lips hoping to soothe some of her pain. "I wanted to be ready. To set my life up in a way where I didn't have to regret things. Once I had my plan, I started dating. Deliberately. I had a checklist. A questionnaire. If the guy didn't fit a potential future husband checklist, I politely blocked them."

I'd love to get my hands on that questionnaire.

"Samson was first date number twenty-three. We agreed on most things. He was everything I wanted. For ten years I congratulated myself on being better than my parents. Being the smart one who figured out life. Until the reunion."

Samson. That fucker. He knew what her childhood was like, and he hurt her like that. I was already disgusted by the man. Now I hate the fucker.

"How do I fit into that ideal partner checklist?" I try to make light of the place in her memories we are in.

"You fail." She rolls her head and looks at the ceiling. "A ten years ago me wouldn't have given you even a first date."

"Why do I match your expectations now?"

"I'm no longer in my twenties. I don't want hot short-term sex or a person who can be by my side while I build a career." Nata lifts her head and looks me in the face, her eyes searching for me to understand. "Now I just want a kid, even if I can't bring them into a perfect life, I'll take care of them. I'll love them. No matter what they need, they'll never be a regret."

"I want that as well."

Nata sits up and squares her shoulders "That's why I said yes to you. You're someone who's ready and interested to be a parent." She closes one eye and scrunches her nose. "And someone who I at least don't hate."

I lift my eyebrows and smile, mocking her underhanded compliment. "Good to know you don't hate me." Not exactly the feeling I was aiming for, but that's not the worst one either.

She puts her plan in the middle of my chest. "I more than don't hate you, Phillip."

Her touch gives me chills.

6.17.2023

Author's Notes

This was a hard chapter. Thank you for sticking with me. This is not the last heavy chapter in Nata and Phillip's story, but I will always put warning at the begining of those chapters, to help avoid any triggering situations.

I think you'll love the next chapter though. 

Love,

GR