What Came First (17 page)

“Do you think they miss her?” Ian asks.

“Not really. Chickens aren’t like—”

“I think they do.”

“You’re probably right. Do you want to . . . say something? About what Sam meant to you?”

“You first,” he says, tears dripping down his soft cheeks.

I say, “Sam was a good bird. She was curious and loved to peck around the yard. She gave us beautiful green eggs and we will miss her.”

Eyes squeezed shut, Ian clasps his hands in front of him.

“You ready?” I ask.

He nods and sniffles and finally begins to speak. “Whenever I feel lonely, I come out here to talk to Sam. All the chickens are part of our family, but Sam was special. She listened. And now, and now . . .” He starts crying full force, which makes me cry to see him so distressed. “She was my sister,” he says. “I lost my sister.”

I’m not crying over the chicken anymore or even over Ian’s sadness over losing the chicken. I’m crying because he just called a flea-ridden, pea-brained creature his sister.

The hole could have been bigger. After I’ve placed the trash bag at the bottom and covered it with dirt, a corner of black plastic peaks out. Using the shovel, I scrape some more soil on top until it forms a kind of mound.

Ian crowns the grave with a large rock. He kneels on the dirt and says, “Good-bye, Sam.” His shoulders shake.

All of a sudden I get a vision of Ian years from now, gray-haired, standing all alone at my fresh gravesite, sobbing, with no one to share his grief. My imagination is being melodramatic, I realize. In all likelihood, Ian will share his life with a wife and children.

Then again, plenty of people stay single or divorce; look at me.

Ian stands up and brushes dirt from his knees.

“Let’s go eat.” I hold out my hand.

He takes it.

The house smells of roast chicken cooked about thirty minutes too long. I consider turning off the oven and taking Ian out to Del Taco, but I don’t want to make a big deal out of our dinner. Ever since we got the chickens, I’ve been afraid he’d refuse to eat poultry, but he either hasn’t made the connection or doesn’t care.

I set the chicken on a platter on the counter and begin slicing. Ian comes up next to me.

“What is that?”

“Dinner.”

A slice of perfect white meat falls on the plate. I insert the knife back into the bird.

“But what is dinner?”

“It’s a . . . roast.”

“Oh. Okay.”

For what feels like the first time all day, I exhale.

With all the excitement, I almost forget about Eric Fergus. Ian doesn’t. After we snuggle up on his bed for half an hour, reading, I turn off the light and tuck him in.

“Do you think Sam is in heaven?” he asks.

“I’m sure she is.”

“Regular heaven or chicken heaven?”

“I think there’s only one heaven. And she’s up there, laying green eggs for the angels.”

He nods. I kiss his forehead and start to leave.

“Mom?”

I stop at the door. “Yes?”

“Will I meet my donor when I go to heaven?”

“I . . . I . . .”Il

“Or do you only see people you know?”

“Your donor isn’t dead, honey.”

“I know. But someday he will be. And someday I will be.”

“You have a long life ahead of you, buddy. A long, long life.”

Eric answers in the middle of the first ring. “Hello?”

“You have to meet my son,” I blurt, completely forgetting the things I’d planned to say. “I know it’s uncomfortable and you wish we’d just go away. And maybe you wish you’d never donated in the first place. But the fact is, you did donate, and now there’s this child, this boy, this amazing person. And he needs to see you. He needs to know that you’re real. I can’t let him—you can’t let him—walk around for the rest of his life with all these unanswered questions about who he is, where he came from. You have to meet him.”

There is a long pause.

“Which one of you is this?” he asks.

“Laura. Ian’s mother.”

“The lawyer.”

“Yes.”

“The other one has twins.”

“Wendy. Yes.”

He clears his throat. “I need to think about it.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“I’m still thinking.”

I say, “I got the results. The paternity test. He’s yours. Well, not yours, no, that isn’t what I mean, but he’s got half your DNA.”

He doesn’t respond.

“Look,” I say. “My son just lost his pet chicken, and I just—he can’t take another disappointment right now.”

“You have chickens?”

“Five. Yes. Well—four now. So please. If you could just—”

“What happened?”

“With the chicken?”

“Yeah.”

“It got hit by a car.”

“Ouch.”

“Um. Yes. Ouch indeed. So . . . you’ll meet with us?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But will you?”

He pauses. Sighs. “I gotta be honest with you. I really don’t want to.”

My jaw tenses. “Okay, then. I’ll be honest with you. I really don’t care.”

He is very quiet. I wonder if I’ve gone too far.

“It would mean a lot to my son,” I say.

He says nothing.

“We’re not looking to bring you into our lives,” I say. “We just have some questions. And he has a need to see you, to talk to you.”

He is still quiet.

“It would be entirely on your terms,” I say. “When you want. Where you want.”

The line crackles slightly. Finally, he speaks. “What kind of chicken was it?”

“What kind of . . . oh. An Americana.”

“Are those the ones that lay green eggs? My neighbor had one of those when I was a kid.”

“Yes. That’s it.”

He reverts back to his silence, until, finally: “I could Skype your son.”

“You mean—over the computer? Videoconferencing?”

“Yeah.”

It would be hard to get a sperm sample that way, but it might be a good way for Ian to meet his donor without it being too close, too real.

I say, “How about tomorrow?”

Pammy is so shocked she can’t even eat. “Eric. Your Eric.”

Melva can always eat, but she finishes chewing her bite of grilled stuffed chicken burrito (we’re at Taco Bell) before she blurts, “Why would anyone want Eric’s sperm when they can have the guy from
Twilight
?”

“You can’t really get the guy from
Twilight,
” I say, jabbing my Diet Coke with a straw.

“Close enough.”

“The werewolf or the vampire?” Pammy asks. “I forget which one you liked.”

“Did she get some kind of a discount?” Melva asks. “The mother?”

That night, Eric squeezes blue, bubblegum-flavored paste on his toothbrush. “I’ll be home late tomorrow. Like, sevenish.”

He puts the brush in his mouth and begins to scrub, his eyes straight ahead.

I try to hold his eyes in the mirror, but it is impossible. My stomach hurts.

I say, “Where are you going? Or . . . don’t I want to know?”

He scrubs some more. Spits. “Probably not.”

He turns on the sink and leans forward to get a mouthful of water from the faucet. He swishes the water around his mouth and spits again.

“I’ll wait till you get home to eat dinner,” I tell him.

I never thought things would turn out like this. The night I met Eric, I was at a bar in L.A. with my friend Tanya and her boyfriend Creepy Cris. Originally Tanya and I were going out in Santa Monica to talk, for the five-thousandth time, about what a jerk Cris was. She would make excuses for his jerkiness. I would tell her that she was too good for him. Blah, blah, blah.

This was getting old. In the year since they’d started going out, Creepy Cris had broken up with Tanya once, cheated on her twice, and been busted for a DUI. Still, if I had to choose between spending a night hearing about Cris or spending a night
with
Cris, I’d pick hearing.

At the last minute, Tanya had called to say she and Cris had had this really long, really amazing talk. He said he felt threatened by her girlfriends, which Tanya totally bought. So she goes, “I know it was just going to be me and you tonight, but is it okay if Cris comes with?”

That was so obviously my cue to say, “Don’t worry about me! You guys need time alone! I’ll eat donuts and watch reality TV.” No way. It was Saturday night. We were going to Santa Monica. Cris was
not
going to mess things up for me.

He messed things up, anyway. Tanya said there was a really awesome bar with live music near Cris’s apartment in Culver City, and we should just go there instead of dealing with Santa Monica traffic. Translation: Cris couldn’t drive anywhere because his license got suspended with the DUI, and this was the only place within walking distance.

Tanya and I worked together at Sears—she was in men’s and boys’, and I was in housewares. Tanya met Cris when he returned a dress shirt that had obviously been worn. I mean, come on—there was ketchup on the sleeve. Later he admitted that he’d worn it to his cousin’s wedding, but that day Tanya had given him the benefit of the doubt. After that, she continued to give him the benefit of the doubt—and to cry to me about how she and Cris were meant to be together “if he could only see that.”