Maybe It's Fate, page 29
I nodded.
“I’d really like for you not to have sex, but I can’t stop you. However, tomorrow, we’re having the talk and we’re going to discuss everything because . . .” She looked at the house and shook her head.
“I know.”
“If you don’t want to talk to me, you can talk to Weston. Knowledge is power here, Cutter. This isn’t something you do on a whim or because your hormones are driving you to it.”
“I love her.”
Toni nodded and pulled me into a hug. “You’re going to be the death of me,” she said to me. “Please be careful.”
“I will.”
We went back into the house. Weston stood in the kitchen, watching for us.
“Everything good?”
I nodded. “Yep.” I didn’t bother going upstairs to take another condom out of the box. Tonight wouldn’t be the night, no matter how eager I was.
Once the corsages and boutonnieres were on, we stood for what felt like an eternity taking photos. When the limo finally arrived, we cheered. Toni had set it up so that it would drive us around town while we sipped on sparkling cider, and then drop us off at the dance. It wouldn’t be a long ride, but it was a bright spot in my life since my mom passed away.
Chapter 36
Antonia
Summer blew by in the blink of an eye. I don’t know whose eye, since I could barely remember it. If we weren’t at baseball, we were in an overcrowded convention center for basketball with multiple games going on at the same time, with coaches yelling, parents cheering, and referees blowing whistles.
And when we weren’t watching basketball, we were in the ballpark, under the lights, until all hours of the night. I told Weston that next year we were traveling with a pop-up camper because seeing Cutter sleep under the metal bleachers or under a tree—wherever he could find shade—didn’t sit well with me. Not to mention, I hated that he ate poorly while we were on the road. The fast and processed foods drove me bananas. Cutter was a growing boy and needed proper nutrition.
Weston said there may not be a next year because Cutter could get an offer to play for a school, and then he wouldn’t have to travel for exposure. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Before, when Miri would tell me stories, I felt bad for her having to be away from home all the time. But now that I’d done it and was that mom in the front row, I sort of enjoyed it.
Maybe Weston would have to start coaching Nova in softball or something. I didn’t even know if she wanted to play, but I was going to miss this.
Nova couldn’t care less and had spent most of her time with my parents. She preferred to be pampered by Grandma and Grandpa than to follow her brother across the country for tournaments. Couldn’t say I blamed her. My parents doted on her, and she had a good thing going with a horse trainer near my parents. Every weekend, my dad took Nova to the stables, where she learned to muck the stalls, ride, and care for the horses.
The Girl Scout horse camp had given Nova a sense of belonging. Her therapist said she’d seen a positive change in Nova, and she was smiling more. The research I’d done showed that horses had an innate ability to comfort their riders. Nova needed that. She still had nightmares, but they were less frequent, mostly thanks to Scout.
Ever since we moved into Weston’s while the house was being remodeled, Scout had slept with Nova. She curled up with the dog like she had with her teddy bear. He didn’t seem to care that she needed to hold on to him every night. Scout stayed and never left her side. He even went to my parents’ with her.
Moving into Weston’s when we did was the right thing to do. The day after we’d moved most of our clothing and necessities to his house, two pipes burst. One in the upstairs bathroom, which flooded the flooring and ceiling, and a sewer pipe in the basement. Both were a shitty experience. No pun intended.
I had already planned to replace the flooring but hadn’t thought about the ceiling. By the time the house was scheduled to be done, it would be mostly brand new. The clapboard siding would come down in the fall, replaced with vinyl siding. A privacy fence was going up out back because I wasn’t comfortable with Nova being out there by herself. After I’d gotten through the dead brush and shrubs, I found a dirt road leading into the woods not far from the house. That was enough of a nope for me. Miri had always wanted a white fence, and that was what it was going to be.
The kids and I had gone through Miri’s stuff over the past few months. We weren’t ready to get rid of anything yet. Her belongings would go into totes and into a protected storage unit until the kids were ready. I knew I’d never be ready to part with her stuff. After the remodel, her room would become mine, and the guest room would go back to being an office and where my parents stayed when they visited.
I was still unsure about sleeping in there because it was Miri’s space, but the kids were insistent, especially with Weston moving in. They wanted this to be a home where we were all happy and feeling welcomed.
In our search, we’d found hand-sketched drawings of how she’d wanted the house to look. The kids asked if we could do what their mom had planned, and I immediately said yes. This was their house, and that was something I held on steadfastly to. Regardless of the impending adoption, when they were ready to sell or do whatever, it was theirs.
What hurt was when Cutter said he didn’t want the baseball diamond on his wall anymore. I didn’t fight him about it, but told the contractors to preserve the wall as best they could and put it in the garage. I didn’t know what I’d do with it, but it would be there if Cutter ever wanted to see his mom’s work.
Nova followed Cutter’s decision as well, but she left her room purple because it was her mom’s favorite color. The hand-painted solar system would go in a frame, on Nova’s wall.
One of the things I planned to do next spring was buy and raise chickens. I had no idea what possessed me to even consider this, but being as it was something Miri had wanted to do, the idea had grown on me. Weston and I mapped out a space for the chickens and found the perfect coop online. He volunteered to rebuild the one we had already, but by the time the chicks would be ready, he’d be in full baseball season and wouldn’t need the hassle.
Today, we were visiting the University of Richmond. The coach had reached out to Cutter about a visit to campus. Normally, they’d fly prospective members of their team to Virginia, but Weston had told the coach we were traveling and could swing by. This way, both of us were there: me as Cutter’s mom and him as Cutter’s coach.
Cutter was excited, and honestly, so was I, even though I missed Miri terribly and wished she were here to see her boy shine. He’d grown a couple more inches since her passing and had somehow maintained his honor roll status despite losing his mom.
Weston drove through campus, but not before I could snap a photo of the Spider mascot on the gates. I hadn’t paid attention to many colleges until March Madness, when Cutter made me fill out a bracket, but the Richmond logo with the Spider mascot was pretty cool.
“We’ll have to go to the school store,” I said as we looked for a parking spot. “Cutter will want something.”
“Cutter’s right here,” he said, laughing. When Miri died, I thought he was going to turn into an unruly teen, defying me every chance he could. He hadn’t. For a while, when I’d first arrived, things were touch and go with his attitude. I thought that was probably normal for any teenager experiencing a change in hormones.
He added, “Yeah, yeah. I want something from the store. Is that better?”
I glanced over my shoulder and smiled. He was such a bright spot in my life. I couldn’t imagine not having him or Nova filling my days. I was so grateful to Miri for asking me to become their guardian, and then the kids for asking me to adopt them. They had completed my life.
Well, and Weston. He was a pretty amazing addition.
Weston parked near the baseball facility, and we got out. Cutter and Weston walked a pace ahead of me and my short legs. I took the opportunity to look around as I trailed behind. The campus looked beautiful. I’d gone to a city school, and we had very little green space unless we went downtown to the park. Here, there was rolling green, lush land.
“Weston, thanks for coming.”
The voice of a man dressed like he was about to play baseball bro-hugged Weston. “Cutter, I’m Coach Sisto,” he said as they shook hands.
“This is my mom, Toni,” Cutter said, introducing us. He referred to me as Mom because it was easy, but I’d always be Toni at home, and I was more than okay with it. I didn’t need the title because I had his and Nova’s love and affection. They treated me with respect and kindness, and they came to me with any issues.
One of those issues was Eleni. I liked her. A lot, actually. She was very nice to Nova, which was important to me, and extremely respectful and polite. She reminded me a bit of Miri when she was seventeen and in love with the wrong guy. Not that Cutter and Eleni were wrong for each other; there were things like college, sports, and discovering who he was that I wanted to see Cutter excel at.
Ever since prom, Eleni had mentioned a couple of times that she planned to follow Cutter to college so they could be together forever. This worried me. If he earned a scholarship or even a spot on a team to play either basketball or baseball, that was where his focus would need to be. Not on his high school girlfriend.
Coach Sisto held the door open and waited for me as I lagged, lost in my thoughts. I vaguely remembered getting a tour of Boston University all those years ago but couldn’t tell you a dang thing about it. I’d opted to live off campus with Miri and Cutter. They were far more important.
The tour started with Coach Sisto showing us one of the dorm rooms. It was as big as Cutter’s room but made smaller by another bed, dresser, and desk. I watched him for a reaction to see if I could gauge where his mind was. He kept his face stoic, asked questions we had prepared earlier, and listened intently. I was proud of him.
After a quick stop in the cafeteria, we made our way to what Weston and Cutter deemed the important stuff: the athletic facilities. All the state-of-the-art gizmos and gadgets were lost on me. The tour included methods and tools to keep Cutter healthy and safe, the “newest” in technology for this and that, a weight room to rival every other school in the division . . . the list went on and on and didn’t interest me as much as it did my guys.
Two hours later, we were back on the road and heading north. Cutter talked excitedly with Weston about the school and filled me in on the process of applying. He would still play in his high school season next year and would have to make a decision by the first of May, which was national signing day.
All I knew was that if Cutter could land a scholarship to play ball—that would be the best thing for him. It would give him purpose, something to live for, and the ability to chase his dreams.
We stopped in Boston for the night, for no other reason than to check on my penthouse. I hadn’t given it up yet and wasn’t sure I planned to. It was a nice little getaway, albeit a rather expensive one. We made it a point to get here at least one weekend a month. Although with it being this close to the water, the kids now wanted a boat.
“Can I sleep on the balcony?” Cutter asked as he opened the sliding door. He let in the hot, sticky air.
“It’s not safe,” I told him as I stood next to him. My phone pinged in my hand. I looked at the notification and my heart sank. We’d waited, for what felt like an eternity, for the adoption to be final. The judge assigned to the case had suggested I reach out to the kids’ father at his last known address. I’d sent a letter, which had gone unanswered, probably because his last known address was the house he’d lived in when he was seventeen, and his father no longer lived there.
Miri’s parents were still asking for visitation, which I suspected they would get. Cutter, speaking on behalf of his sister as well, had informed the GAL that he wasn’t ready to have a relationship with them. The Vaughns were upset, and rightly so, but they’d had years to fix their relationship with Miri and had chosen not to.
I opened the email from the clerk and read, reread, and reread again.
“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head and looked at him with watery eyes. “The judge approved my petition for adoption. You and Nova are officially mine.”
Cutter pulled me into his strong arms and held me tightly. We both cried, happy tears, and shared our news with Weston when he came onto the balcony.
“So, are you going to be Cutter Bernardi?” Weston asked.
We both shook our heads, and I looked at Cutter to answer. With a small lift of his lip in a shy smile, he said, “Nova and I are going to keep Vaughn to honor our mom. But Toni is now M—”
He couldn’t say the word, and that was okay.
I gave him a slight jab in the ribs. “You can still call me Toni.”
Cutter sighed happily and hugged me again. “Thank you for being our person.”
Being his and Nova’s person was going to be the best damn thing I had ever done in my life.
Epilogue
Weston
One year later
Antonia and I dropped Cutter off at the University of Richmond. The current senior class helped us carry all his things to the third floor. Antonia made Cutter’s bed while he and I unpacked his belongings. She hadn’t said much on the trip, and I figured it was because her heart was breaking. For over a year now, he’d been her rock, and I expected he didn’t even know it.
While she had Nova, who was Miriam’s spitting image, Cutter was Antonia’s first true love, she had once told me. She’d been there from the second Miriam had found out she was pregnant, through her pregnancy, and in the delivery room when Cutter was born.
What I didn’t know until after we’d started touring colleges was that Antonia had never lived in the dorms at Boston University, because of Cutter. She didn’t want Miriam to struggle raising her son, so they had an off-campus apartment together. It wasn’t until Miriam had bought the house in Grove Hill that they all stopped living together.
I had wondered how it was so easy for Antonia to become the guardian of her friends’ kids, but once I heard the entire story, it all made sense. There was no one else more capable of raising Miriam’s children than Antonia.
“Do you want to raise your bed?” she asked Cutter, her voice pulling me from my inner musings.
“Should I?” He looked at both of us for the answer.
“Let’s try it and see.”
Antonia finished putting the bottom sheet on the bed and then stepped back so I could raise the bed. The mechanism was something we had asked for before school started and allowed Cutter to have his bed at three different heights. The tallest would give him a ton of storage space under his bed and allow for a beanbag chair or one of those small dorm room couches.
Once I had the platform spring in place, Cutter and I slipped the mattress back on. He had to heave himself up there, which wasn’t much of a challenge, considering he’d grown another two inches this year. As soon as he was up there, though, I knew this would be a no-go. He was going to smack his head on the ceiling.
“Let’s try the next level, bud. I’m afraid you’re going to knock yourself out.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
The mid-level seemed to be the winner. He still had ample storage underneath and could easily sit on his bed. Antonia went back to making it even though we all knew he’d leave it a mess by the morning. She had focused on a lot of the milestones a teenager needed to hit but rarely worried about those of a mother. This was one of them.
After we’d unpacked and put everything away, we drove Cutter to the nearest box store and stocked him up on snacks. Because he had a full athletic scholarship to pitch, he could go to the cafeteria and eat whatever, but the boy was growing and had all but eaten us out of a home this past year. He was liable to eat a tree on his walk to the café if he didn’t have something to snack on.
Back at campus, we parked and walked him to his dorm, even though he’d been here plenty of times to meet with his coaching staff. We paused at his dorm, and I watched Antonia struggle.
She smoothed his shirt over his shoulders and sniffled. “Remember, top grades. Don’t fall for the peer pressure of drinking and partying. You’re here to represent your school and community. I have a meeting set up for you next week with a national company that does a lot of business here. They want to do some commercials with you.”
“I remember.”
“You don’t take money from anyone unless you run it by me first, got it?” she said as she looked at him. I had to give her credit; when I’d explained the Name, Image, and Likeness situation to her, she’d taken it upon herself to protect Cutter. There was still a policy to follow, and he couldn’t take money from just anyone.
Antonia had put her knowledge to work and represented Malik and Jayden as well. Malik was now the proud father of a little girl and attending the University of Richmond on a full basketball scholarship. He and Janelle were coparenting, and she’d been extremely supportive of him moving to Virginia. He was paying child support and had already started a trust fund for his daughter with the help from Antonia. She refused to take a fee from the boys, stating they needed someone in their corner who cared about them and not their bank accounts.
“Don’t forget, you’re throwing tomorrow,” I reminded him. He had a strict schedule to adhere to, and it was important he do so.
“Coach already texted me. I’m going to go see him after you two stop hovering.” He winked at Antonia. Their relationship could be a lot different from what it was, and at times I’d feared Cutter would lose who he was after his mom died, but he hadn’t.
“Okay, we’ll leave you. We’re heading to the beach, but it’s just a couple hours away. If you need us, call.” Antonia gave him a quick hug and then stepped back.
“I’ll be fine.”
