What Came First (14 page)

“Stupid family tree,” he mutters.

This is not going as well as I’d hoped.
Reassure
.

“Please rest assured that I do not see you as my son’s father, nor do I expect any kind of emotional bond or financial contribution.”

“
God
. I’d hope not.”

Shaken, I consult my talking points. “Over the years, I’m sure you’ve wondered whether any of your donations resulted in live births. You’ve undoubtedly tried to picture the children that exist as a result of your selfless act and wondered what their daily lives must be like.”

“Actually—no.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true.”

“Well, would you . . . like to hear about my son? And our lives together?”

“Um, yeah. I guess.” He guesses?

I take a deep breath. “Ian is eight years old, in third grade. He’s in a gifted program.”

“Ian? That’s his name?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“You sound like you don’t like it.”

“No. It’s, you know. Fine.”

I squeeze my eyes shut for just a moment, trying to regain my composure, trying to capture the essence of my little boy in a few sentences. Then I take a deep breath and start talking.

“Ian has a great sense of humor, and he loves animals. Just started playing the piano. He’s involved in Cub Scouts, soccer, and basketball.” I’m starting to sound like a Christmas-card newsletter or perhaps a private school application.

“He’s a delight,” I say. “Just really fun to be around. Everyone likes him. I really don’t . . . I can’t imagine my life without him.” I stop and swallow hard. If only Eric Fergus could meet Ian, he’d see how amazing he is, how great we are together. He helped us once. Surely he’d do it again.

“I’ve been practicing law for almost fourteen years now,” I say. “While I am a single parent, I am on very solid footing, financially. Further, I’ve employed the same full-time nanny since Ian was born, which has provided consistency and security.”

“I really gotta go,” he says.

“Wait—”

“This is just a lot to process. I need time to . . . process.”

“Just a few more minutes of your time. You have my word.” I still have three more points to cover. “Dr. Fergus—”

“I’m not a doctor.”

“But . . . on your donor information card . . .” Oh my God. Was he the wrong guy, after all?

“I started medical school. But I left to pursue . . . other options.”

“Oh. Okay. I mean—there are plenty of ways to skin a cat. Or. You know.” From the windowsill, Alfredo turns his head and blinks at me. There’s no time to pursue this line of inquiry.

I ask, “By any chance, did you ever donate to any other banks?”

“Any other . . . Oh. God. No. I didn’t . . . do it . . . for long. Just a few times. I’d kind of forgotten about it, to be honest. Well, lately I’ve been sort of reminded. But it was so long ago. And I never . . .”

Ask for a paternity test.
“I’ve located a DNA testing company that has flexible hours and a location very convenient for you. Before we go any further, it probably makes sense to do a paternity test. All it takes is a cheek swab. We’d have results in less than a week.”

“A paternity . . . oh. Right. I mean, no! Not . . . not yet. I don’t know.”

There is no way he is going to agree to another donation on the basis of this conversation. No way. I have to find a way to continue the dialogue, to show him that he has nothing to worry about. I have to talk to him face-to-face.

“I know this has been a shock. Perhaps it’s best if we talk about all of this face-to-face,” I suggest. “You’re in Redondo Beach, correct ? I live in Fullerton, in north Orange County, so it’s not that far.”

“You want me to—? Holy shit. This is just—so out of nowhere.”

“I’d meet you anytime. Anyplace. Entirely at your convenience. Again, I am not looking for any kind of ongoing involvement. But it would be healthy, I think. For both of us. To answer questions, tie up loose ends. Afterward, you’ll never hear from me again.”

As long as he leaves a sample with my doctor, I’m good to go.

“This is just . . . I’m having trouble getting my head around it.”

“I know. I understand. And again, let me say, I don’t want to interrupt your life in any way.”

“Okay,” he says.

“You’ll meet me?”

“No! I just meant, okay, I understand. I don’t think I can—”

“Right. Of course. Let me give you my contact information.” I rattle off my home, cell, and work numbers, even as I’m pretty sure he’s not copying them down.

I say, “If I don’t hear from you, I’ll give you another call.”

“Oh.”

After I hang up, I remain standing in the kitchen, by the phone, staring into space, trying to picture Eric Fergus’s face.

Something moves at the edge of the doorway. I think it is the cat, but no; Alfredo has been in the room with me all along, sitting on the windowsill.

Ian, wearing blue pajamas patterned with rockets, steps out of the shadows.

“Was that my donor?”

I stare at him. How much did he hear? Finally, I nod.

“I want to meet him.”

“Buddy, I don’t think that—”

“I want to meet him!” His eyes shine with unspilled tears. Now that he knows I’ve tracked down his donor, he will always wonder about him. He would have wondered about him, anyway.

I cross the room and put my arms around my son’s warm, bony body. I would die for this child a hundred times over.

“He’s not sure. He’s nervous. But if he agrees, you can meet him. You will.”

The instant I slam the door, I think,
That was stupid
. Now I can’t hear what Eric says to Paige. ’Cuz I know that was her on the phone, sounding all superior.
I’m trying to reach Eric Fergus.
Instead of treating me like I’m the housekeeper, like when I answered the door all those years ago, now she’s acting like I’m a secretary or maybe just a random housemate. Bitch.

It’s all I can do not to cry. How dare she? Eric and I have been together for five years now (if you include the year he traveled to Asia), which is a lot longer than she had him. How can she have so little respect for Eric and me that she thinks she can come barging into our lives like that?
And how can he let her?

I try to watch the TV show, but now I don’t give a crap about reality-show Vanessa versus ON-dree-uh. All I care about is reallife Vanessa versus
Paige
. And her damned kid. Who’s got to be pretty big by now. Not that it’s the kid’s fault, but . . .
Shit!
Now I’m crying!

I turn off the TV so I can hear when he stops talking.

I take a tissue from a pink box. Eric has stopped buying me purple tissues. I wipe my puffy eyes and blow my snotty nose. Oh, yeah, I am one sexy mama.

After maybe ten minutes, I can’t hear anything through the door, even when I press my ear up against it. I turn the knob slowly and push.

He’s still on the bed, the library book lying next to him. When he looks across the room, it’s like he doesn’t even see me because he’s too busy thinking about
her
.

“What did Paige want?” My voice shakes.

“Huh?” He blinks at me.

“That was Paige, wasn’t it?”

He squints like I’m speaking a different language.

“On the phone?” he asks.

“Yes. On the phone.”

He blinks some more. “No.”

I let out a ton of air. I hadn’t even known I was holding my breath. I feel relieved for like half a second, but then I look at his face and think:
Ohmigod, another girl? Someone from even further back in his past? Or, someone new?

“Who was that, Eric?”

It takes him a while to say anything. Finally, he goes, “A long time ago, back when I was in med school, there was this time when I needed money.”

Okay, now I’m confused. I say, “Uh-huh.” Because I don’t know what else to say.

He goes, “My parents paid for college, but for med school I had to take out all these loans. I thought I could get a part-time job, but between classes and labs and studying, there just weren’t enough hours in the day. I was barely sleeping as it was. I could’ve asked my parents for money, they would’ve given me some, but I felt like I should do this on my own. And this guy Larry, he’s a neurologist in Portland now, I don’t think you ever met him, he said he knew an easy way to get cash.”

He rubs his hands over his face.

This conversation isn’t going at all the way I expected it to. What comes to mind is upsetting, but not surprising. You can’t open
People
magazine or sit through a half hour of E! without hearing about people getting hooked on Vicodin or Percocet. In medical school, Eric would have had access to all kinds of stuff.

“Did you sell drugs, Eric?”

His eyes widen. “No! Of course not.”

I exhale. Even laugh a little. My boyfriend was never a dealer.

“I sold my sperm,” he says.

He did not just say that.

When I can speak, I say, “So you were a . . .”

“Donor.”

This should be funny. If it were happening to someone else it would be hysterical. All those hours I’d spent looking at the sperm donor sites—! Once of those men might have been Eric. If only I’d known his number, maybe I could have had his baby, after all.

This is so not funny. If only he’d made money selling Percocet instead. Or maybe semiautomatic weapons. Anything but this.

“Larry—my friend. We went to donate together, but he got turned down. Too short. I was at the very bottom limit.”

“Who was that woman on the phone?” My gut hurts.

“She was someone who used it. Bought it.”

“She had your child.” I can barely say the words.

“No! He’s not my child. He was conceived with my sperm, but he’s not mine. And anyway, it’s possible there was a screwup, we’d need a DNA test to confirm. But based on the information she gave me, it looks like the boy is . . .” His voice trails off.

“A boy. She had your son.”

“He’s not my—”

Suddenly I am more pissed off than I’ve ever been in my life.

“You let a complete stranger have your child, but you won’t have one with me!
A complete stranger!
What is wrong with me? What is wrong with
you
? Do you have any idea how many kids you might have running around? I cannot fucking believe this!”

If I had anyplace to go, I would have taken off. But this is my home. I sit on the bed and sob.

Eric takes me in my arms and says, “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry
.
” He says, “He’s not my child. It’s just some cells. I’ll take the DNA test. Maybe he’s not even mine.”

He fetches the pink tissue box from the living room. He says, “Shh, Shh,” and finally, “I love you.”

I’ve switched to lactose-free milk and soy cheese (that didn’t go over so well; Harrison said it smelled like dog farts), but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. If anything, the twins are every crankier than usual because ice cream always bought me a good twenty minutes of peace, especially if I doused it in chocolate syrup.

To make things worse, Harrison has a new friend. Or maybe I should say a new “friend.” Dodie is ten years old. He leaves the door open and tracks dirt on the carpet. He tells poop jokes and engages Harrison in battles fought with shoes, blocks, and plastic knives (the stainless ones are kept out of his reach). And, get this, Dodie is
invisible
.

“Harrison has an imaginary friend,” I tell my mother when she calls for our twice-weekly chat.

“Really! That’s so funny, because I was just talking to your sister, and Jade has an imaginary friend too! Tracey says the books say that’s a sure sign of a creative mind!”

I roll my eyes. Sure. In addition to being beautiful, graceful, and highly, highly verbal, my four-year-old niece, Jade, is creative. Since my sister, Tracey, lives in Texas (with her handsome and successful husband), it’s been two years since I saw perfect Jade, who, I must say, was a perfectly awful two-year-old. However, my mother assures me that was just a normal and necessary phase. Nowadays, little Jadey is an absolute delight!

No, really. My mother said that. My dad can be kind of moody and edgy, but my mother is straight out of a Disney movie. Either she’s just got this really, really sweet nature, or she’s been taking mood-altering drugs for the past forty years. Either way, I love her to death—and not just because every time my kids act out during her visits, she believes me when I say that they’re: (a) coming down with something; (b) sensitive to any change in their routine; or (c) feeling sad because they know Gammie and Pop-Pop will be leaving soon.

My mother continues, “Tracey said Jade’s imaginary friend is a princess who lives in a magic kingdom called Sha-sha. Isn’t that precious? And she has two imaginary horses, one called Shimmer and the other Sparkle.”

Upstairs, Something crashes. Harrison growls, “DODIE! LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!”

“What kind of person is Harrison’s imaginary friend?” my mother asks.

I think:
A sociopath.
I say: “Just a kid.”