I shook my head. I hadn’t even thought about names, not at all, which I couldn’t admit because they would think I was crazy. Every normal parent had a list of names. Guilt trickled through me. How many times had I laughed at my mom for being unprepared and naming me after a baseball stadium when she got to the hospital?
“I have a list on my computer,” César answered. “We can go through it together,” he told me.
His grandma said something that ended clearly in “baby shower.” “That’s right!” Ana said. “We can all fly to Michigan for your shower. Who is giving it for you, Camdyn?”
I shook my head again. No one. “I haven’t thought about that, yet.” And no one, not one of my friends or my sister even knew yet about me being pregnant. “I don’t want a shower. I definitely don’t want all the hoopla.”
“Oh.” Ana looked disappointed. “In our family, we love having parties for each other,” she explained. “Sometimes it is a little over the top.”
“Sometimes?” Valeria repeated. “What about Fabiola’s gender reveal, when they dyed the whole house blue? It was like walking into Smurf Village.” I relaxed a little as everyone laughed. “Holidays are worse, so get ready,” she told me.
“Worse? I don’t know what you mean,” Ana retorted.
“You had a solstice party in December,” Valeria accused her mother. “Just last week, for Valentine’s Day, you had all your neighbors over. That’s not a holiday traditionally celebrated with a buffet and twenty other people.”
“Valentine’s counts as a holiday?” I asked. “I forgot about it until the next day when I saw all the flowers on sale.”
“We watched a documentary on the conquest of Britannia that night,” César reminded me.
“César!” his mother scolded and then laughed. “I’m sorry, Camdyn, that’s my fault. I shouldn’t have brought him to my office in the history department so often. I used to prop his little behind on a pile of books so he could draw pictures at my desk while I worked.”
“Little behind,” Valeria snickered. Her husband laughed out loud. Yeah, it wasn’t little anymore, but it was something. A group of women had stopped and stared at it today on the beach when we had been hitting a volleyball back and forth. I’d thrown the ball in their vicinity and told them to move on when I went to pick it up.
I hadn’t minded the documentary on the Romans because he had rubbed my feet as we watched. But when I had remembered Valentine’s, I had wondered why he hadn’t gone out with anyone, like with Arielle. But I hadn’t wanted to ask about Arielle, like if she was still in the picture. I looked over at him, wondering about her again now, and César caught my eye.
“What?” he mouthed, but I just shrugged.
“More important than any holiday or baby shower is where you’ll live,” his dad Gael announced.
“Live?” I looked at César.
“My dad and I were talking about me buying a house in Michigan,” he mentioned casually, “for the three of us.” He reached again for my stomach and rubbed it gently.
“You’re going to start nesting, I know it,” Ana put in. “You’ll want your own house, not a rental that you can’t change to your own taste.”
I felt my breath quicken. “I’m fine in the rental. There’s no need to buy.” I turned to César. “I don’t have the money for that,” I said quietly.
“Why would you need money if I buy a house for us?” he asked me. “My dad’s right. We can go look at listings when we get home.”
“And then, the wedding,” his father continued.
I stared at Gael. “Wedding?”
“He also thinks that we should get married before the baby comes,” César explained. “Let’s discuss it later.” He told his father something quickly and pointedly in Spanish.
It felt like I wasn’t getting enough air, like my lungs weren’t expanding. “Married?” I asked.
César’s grandma said his name sharply and continued with a series of fast phrases that I didn’t understand, and everyone turned to look at me.
“Camdyn, are you all right?” he asked.
“I need to go outside,” I told him. “I need some air. Could you excuse me for a moment?”
I heard César and Ana argue a little before he followed me, taking my arm. “There’s no reason to do this,” he told me when we were outside. He sounded irritated. “You don’t have to act this way.”
“I’m not doing anything,” I said. “Don’t follow me. Go away.” But I leaned on him even as I said it because I felt dizzy. “I’m walking back to your house now, ok?”
“No, it’s not ok. You can’t run out on a dinner with my family.” His irritation with me had notched up. “They’re doing everything they can to make you feel comfortable with them.”
“Except trying to twist my arm into marriage!” I exploded.
“No one’s doing that.” He looked at me in the moonlight. “You must have considered the possibility.”
I pulled away and stared up at him. “No, I did not. I have never, ever considered marriage. Did you? Seriously? Just because your dad wants you to, you don’t have to. Just laugh it off.”
“It’s not something that’s funny, Camdyn. It’s your life, my life. Her life.” He put his hand on my tummy. “It would be a life that we would build together. Marriage isn’t something to run away from, it’s a goal line to reach for. It’s one of them, like starting a family, or like finding the person you love.”
I looked into his dark eyes. I couldn’t put into words what I thought about him, what I felt for him, all my confused and jumbled emotions and ideas. So I put my hands on his shoulders to steady myself and I reached up to press my mouth to his, searching for his tongue.
César slid his hands under my butt and
