The Piper's Son

His hands fell to his side.

“What did I do now?”

“Do you want us to fill you in on something, Tom?” Francesca, Queen of Rhetorical Questions, asked, because she was going to fill him in whether he wanted to be filled in or not. “You know how Siobhan gave Tara a mobile phone for her birthday? Well, we set it up for her so that every time one of us rings, a particular tune comes on. Have you heard of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Tom? Because when you ring her, the tune to ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’ comes on.”

Now he was really pissed off. “Back,” he had said, looking at Justine. “Off,” he said to Francesca.

“I’m texting Siobhan.”

He looked at them both with disbelief. “As if I’m scared of Siobhan.”

Francesca got out her phone, and in desperation he had grabbed it from her.

“Please, Frankie. I’m begging. Don’t text Siobhan.”

Tara walked back into the hall and Francesca managed to pry her phone out of his fingers by giving him one of those pinches where she got a grip on the hair on his arm and twisted.

He grabbed his guitar and jumped off the stage, then picked up Tara’s satchel and steered her toward the door.

“I haven’t said good-bye to them,” she said, trying to get her satchel from him. He slung it over his neck.

“Tara says bye,” he had called over his shoulder.

And that began the week when advice came flying from Joe across the seas on how not to stuff things up.

Tom needs the guru to provide him with the words to make things right now. But he knows he’ll never hear them again and he stumbles to the toilet, spewing out the ache of loneliness churning itself inside of him.

They go to Lucia and Abe’s for a barbecue celebrating Abe’s forty-second birthday. A small gathering in the Charbel household means at least forty people were about to converge on them. Georgie is designated the task of straightening her goddaughter’s hair and allows Bella to straighten hers haphazardly in return.

When the guys walk into the kitchen to get the meat for the barbecue and Bernadette arrives with the cake, Georgie knows this is her last chance before she loses her nerve.

“I’d like to make an a

“What’s with the hair?” Jonesy asks.

“Jonesy,” Lucia says, shushing him.

For a second, Georgie’s eyes meet Sam’s and there’s a flicker around his mouth and a softness in his eyes.

“I’m having a baby,” she says firmly.

There’s a moment’s silence.

“Oh. My. God!” Lucia says, feigning surprise. “Who would have guessed.”

Abe laughs and he reaches over to hug Georgie.

“I’m twenty-two weeks and it’s due in November,” she says, holding on to Abe because she wants desperately to hold on to someone and Abe’s the closest thing she has to her brother.

She looks at Sam. “Close your ears if you don’t want to know what I suspect to be the sex of your child,” she says, and he blocks his ears.

“It’s Sam’s?” Jonesy asks, surprised, just as he gets a message.

“Where have you been, Jonesy?” Bernadette says. “In La-La Land?”

“Contrary to popular belief, I think it has no penis,” Georgie whispers to them while Lucia covers Sam’s ears.

Jonesy looks up from his text messaging, shocked. “Poor little guy.”

After everyone’s eaten and the men are outside playing cards in the tiny courtyard, Abe’s mother dangles a necklace over Georgie’s belly to see if it’s a boy or a girl. As she sits surrounded by the women and her goddaughters, who watch with the widest of eyes, she is suddenly overcome with emotion. Leila sees it on her face and takes it gently between her hands. “She misses her mama, don’t you, Georgietta?” the older woman says.

“What’s it going to be, Tata?” Bella asks. “The baby?”

There is a certainty on the older woman’s face. “A boy. It’s all at the front and there’s no change in the face.”

Later, Lucia piles Georgie up with leftovers while Sam lights up a cigarette, waiting in the dark on the front lawn.

“I hope you’re not smoking in front of her,” Lucia says to him.

“Yeah, I lie in bed and puff in her face, Lucia,” he says, irritated.

“I hope he’s joking.”

“He’s joking,” Georgie says with a yawn, kissing her and then Abe.

When they’ve pulled away from the curb and waved to everyone, Sam puts on the heater to warm up the car for the short drive home.

“Can you feel that?” he asks.

They place their hands in front of the heat at the same time and both pull back.

“Bella came out and said it was a boy,” Sam says.

Georgie laughs for a moment. “The odds are fifty to one. I reckon it’s a girl.”

Silence again.

“My mother wants to visit,” he says.

“Tell her to visit,” she says quietly, leaning her head against the window frame and closing her eyes. Sometimes in the past when they’d come home from Dominic and Jacinta’s or Lucia and Abe’s, they’d make love with a lack of inhibition born of too much alcohol and too few issues in their lives. These days their lovemaking is instigated in silence. No words. No teasing. He had once been verbal during sex. Had to articulate. Swore. Cursed. Prayed. All words entwined in every thrust. “Shhh,” she’d laugh, in case they’d wake up Joe, who lived in the attic during those days. But he couldn’t keep it contained, so she’d cover his mouth with her hand and she’d see it all there in his eyes. All of it.

She wants to cover his mouth now. Cover the silence and watch his eyes for a sign. But they’ve become strangers, guarded with each other.

The next day, Lucia and her sister come over and Georgie has to stop them from wanting to talk babies. Her a

“Is that my wifebeater?” he asks.

“I don’t like the derogatory term, thank you. It’s a undershirt.”

“Yeah. My undershirt, Georgie,” he says. “With a spencer underneath it. Looks ridiculous.”

“Shucks, Tom, because I’m really going for the fashionable look these days.”

“Buy yourself maternity stuff, Georgie,” he mutters.

She feels him peer over their shoulder to see what has glued them to the screen of the laptop.

“Internet dating?”

“People are meeting the loves of their lives this way,” Bernadette explains.

“BabyI’myourman69?” he asks, reading the name on the screen. “I hope you girls don’t think that sixty-nine represents the year he was born.”

Lucia laughs. “If the munchkin, whose face I used to wash, tries to explain to us what a sixty-niner is, I’m going to report myself to child protection.”

Georgie’s not listening. She’s too busy following what’s on the screen in front of her with her finger. “But look at what this one wrote: ‘If you’re in your late thirties, I suppose your biological clock is ticking and midnight is just around the corner. So hey, baby, baby.’ He’s ready. He wants kids.”

“His own, Georgie,” Bernadette points out. “And we’re looking for me, not you.”

“And you’re not in your late thirties,” Tom points out while he fiddles through the cabinets, looking for food.

“Okay, what about this one? Itsnowornever.”

She finds it difficult pronouncing the name.

“It’s now or never,” Tom explains, back over their shoulders.

Georgie reads it carefully. “This guy chose the ‘Don’t want any of my own, but yours are okay’ option for kids.” She feels optimistic.

“What a surprise that there isn’t the option, ‘Don’t want any of my own, but it’s okay for you to be fat with someone else’s child,’” Tom says.