“Help me,” Joan said, a little distractedly as she pointed to the diaper bag and to a red faced, Hunter.
“Come here,” Lissa cooed as she lifted Hunter onto the makeshift changing table and got to work.
The other two babies were already in their carriers.
“Did you already feed them?” Lissa asked.
“Fed and burped and changed.”
“What about Hunter?”
“Still needs a feeding. Let me get the bottle.”
While, Joan went to the kitchen to make the last bottle, Lissa carried Hunter on her hip and bounced him up and down lightly as she walked around the room. “We’re going to go on a big airplane in a little while, remember the last time?”
Her son just looked at her, like he knew she was putting a spin on things. Like he knew she was taking him away from his papa.
She swallowed her guilt as Joan came in with the bottle.
The doorbell rang.
“That will be the taxi.”
Lissa put Hunter into his car seat and gave him the bottle. He was old enough now to hold it himself and he forgot about accusing her of anything as he focused on breakfast.
Senora Torres came downstairs wrapped in a worn floral bathrobe. Her hair was a wild mess and her eyes were filled with alarm.
“What’s this?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Torres, I – there’s a family emergency. I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you last night, but we’re going back to America.”
“An emergency, I’m so sorry, what is it? Is there anything I can do?”
“I’m afraid there isn’t, just tell Julio, I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.”
“You mean he doesn’t know?”
“Not, yet.” Lissa said. “Everything happened so fast, there wasn’t time.”
“I see,” she said.
Aunt Sophia joined her sister-in-law and they all helped Joan and Lissa, as the two women and three babies were loaded into the cabbie’s passenger van, then wouldn’t close the door and let them leave until each baby was given a last kiss.
“An emergency at home? Is that the best you could come up with?” Joan asked as the cab finally drove away.
“Yeah, that was the best I could come up with.”
The babies were silent and sleeping, until the cab arrived at the airport and they had to switch from car seats to the double stroller and the single stroller. They checked the car seats and the rest of the bags and an airport attendant was called to help shuttle them to their gate.
The flight wasn’t going to leave for another two hours, but Lissa had known that if she waited around at the Torres house, she might not have the nerve to get away – plus someone would surely alert Julio. She thought about Julio, who she was certain had been alerted the moment they drove away. She wondered how he would react to the news that his baby mama had skipped town with his babies. She wondered if he was secretly relieved.
She wondered how long it would be before he paid his boys a visit.
After they made it through security and settled in for the long wait at their gate, Joan got up to buy them each coffees. Lissa did her best to keep the boys from crying. They were starting to get fussy. She didn’t blame them, they’d been stuck first in a car seat and now in a stroller. These babies were starting to crawl and they needed to move their little muscles.
But, the floor was too dirty and people were moving around so fast, talking on cell phones, paying no heed to where they were going. Someone could drop a suitcase on one of her boys, or smash one of the precious fingers or toes as they wheeled over a curious finger. No, they would just have to deal with being trapped in their stroller. Safety first.
“Ms. Edwards?”
Lissa looked up, from the diaper bag she’d been rummaging through and turned around to see an official looking man staring at her as she held Hunter’s pacifier in one hand, and Marco’s drool rag in the other.
“Yes?”
“Are these your children, ma’am?”
Lissa couldn’t understand why this person was asking. Sure, Hunter had started to cry in the last few minutes, which was the reason she’d dug out his pacifier. But that was not reason to send security.
“Yes, of course, these are my children, is there some kind of problem?”
“I’m afraid there is, ma’am, I need you to bring your children and come with me.”
Lissa blinked. Notwithstanding the logistics of pushing two full baby strollers, carrying the world’s most over-stuffed diaper bag and her purse, she was missing her sister.
“I don’t understand.”
“Ma’am,” he said. A stern looking woman dressed in the similar uniform appeared and picked up the diaper bag. Then she got behind the stroller, holding two of her sons and started to wheel them away.
“Wait a minute, what are you doing?”
“Ma’am you need to come with us,” the man said again.
Marco and Ryland who were in the double stroller, sensed their mother’s alarm. They started to ball, loud and enthusiastically. Lissa hurriedly grabbed her purse and the other stroller with Hunter in it and pushed it quickly to catch up to her other babies. As she ran, she swung her head around widely, screaming out, “Joan, Joan!”
Joan appeared, her hand filled with two cups of coffee, which she dropped at the sight of her sister’s family being whisked away. “Hey, where are you taking them?” She yelled.
“Are you traveling with this woman?” asked the man.
“I’m her sister, what the hell is going on?”
“You can come with us as well then,” he said. And without another word, he led the caravan of screaming babies and the two Edwards women to an unmarked door.
Inside the door, there was a small ten by ten-foot room. It had a window to the tarmac, and metal benches along the wall. There was nothing else.
“Stay here,” said the man.
Then he got out and before Joan or Lissa could say a thing, or get an explanation, they heard the door lock.
“What the actual fuck?” Joan asked, as the two women tried desperately to comfort the screaming babies.
“I don’t know.”
After ten minutes, Joan needed to pee. She went to the door and tried it for the umpteenth time. It was still locked.
“Hey, someone out there, I need to use a bathroom,” she yelled as she pounded on the wall.
It made the babies start to cry again, but Lissa didn’t care, because she also needed release. Besides, she had a plane to catch and they were being held without explanation, this couldn’t be legal.
When the door latch moved, Joan shouted out in relief.
“It’s about fucking time!”
They stood back, expecting some rent-a-cop to open the door, but to Lissa’s shock, Julio came in, his face red with anger.
“
Julio, what are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? What the hell are you doing here, taking my family away without even telling me?”
“You have no right to talk to me like that. You haven’t told me anything about what’s going on? With work? With our project. It’s like I don’t even work for you anymore.”
“I don’t care about the job. Don’t you understand? How can you leave me like this?”
The babies were screaming again, joining their parents.
“Uh, guys,” Joan said, as she stood in the doorway. “I don’t care what you have to talk about, but I’ve got to pee.”
“Huh,” they both said noticing her as if for the first time.
The door was opened, and Lissa and Julio became aware of their children and the people in the lounge staring at them with irritated glances. One screaming baby was annoying enough, but three, that was too much in anyone’s book.
Setting their argument aside for the moment, Julio and Lissa began to soothe the boys. Pulling them out of their strollers, Lissa handed Julio first, Marco, and then Ryland, and let them bounce them on his knee. The boys soon stopped crying, while Lissa took Hunter out of his stroller and carried him around the room.
“I’m sorry baby, mommy and daddy didn’t mean to fight,”
“Lissa,” Julio said as she plopped into the seat next to him, when Hunter finally settled down.
“What?” she snapped, still furious at him for whatever strings he needed to pull to treat her and her sister like common criminals.
“You can’t go,” he said, trying to sound reasonable.
“I can and I will,” she fired back.
“But, why, I thought… I thought… I thought things were going well between us.”
“Well, I’m glad you were enjoying your little booty call, but I have a life to get back to and a family to raise.”
“Lissa.”
“What?”
“You’re not some booty call. You, you’re more than that.”
“Yeah, I get it, I’m the booty call that happens to be the mother to your three sons.”
Julio raked his hand though his hair, and managed not to drop Marco who was trying to squirm out of his grasp. Ryland, who had been doing his best to put drool on his shirt, was now reaching up, trying to grab at his chin. Lissa saw that his stubble on the usually immaculate face, and realized that Julio must have been in a hurry, because it was clear that he hadn’t shaved. That thought softened her anger, for a moment, but she didn’t let on. Instead, she asked with suspicion.