What Came First (37 page)

He chuckles. “I wasn’t asking you out. I was just curious.”

“Oh! Right. Of course. My apologies.” My face burns. How could I have possibly have thought . . .? “No. I don’t. Date, that is.”

“Why not? I mean, you’re . . . you know.”

“What?”

“Attractive. And I’m sure that if you wanted to go out with someone, you could find an age-appropriate man who hadn’t fathered your children.”

“You didn’t father my child. Exactly.”

“Semantics,” he says.

“Right.” I sip my wine. Look at the chickens.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he says.

“That’s correct.” I hold his gaze.

“I’m just curious,” he said. “You say you wish you had those things for Ian, a father, siblings . . .”

“I didn’t say a father, specifically.”

“Actually, you did.”

“Really?”

“Are you gay?” he asks.

“No!”

He raises his eyebrows.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say. “From what I’ve seen on the donor sites, lesbians—the sperm donation route generally works out really well for them. They’ve got it all, the partner, the kids. They even get to choose which of them carries the baby. What I meant was, a woman can be straight and still feel she’s better off without a man. That she’s better off alone.”

“But why?” He is relentless.

“You missed your calling,” I say. “You should have been a lawyer.”

“I’ve never heard the law referred to as a calling.” He takes a bite of his salad, swallows, and grabs his napkin. “Is that bacon?”

I shrug. “I tried not to give you any . . .”

He jabs at his salad and flicks away the bacon bits like bugs.

“Why did you drop out of medical school?” I ask.

He looks up, shocked.

“You’re not the only one who can ask questions,” I say.

He sips some wine and considers. “You answer my question, I’ll answer yours.”

“Fine,” I say. “But you’ve got to understand, you’re not the first person to ask me why I don’t date, though I appreciate your not tacking on some variant of ‘you’re not getting any younger
.
’”

“No one really says that.”

“Sometimes they do. And sometimes they just imply it,” I say. “Anyway. My parents divorced when I was thirteen. My father remarried almost immediately, which makes me think his second wife was the reason for the breakup, though I didn’t really get that till I was much older.”

“Did your mother remarry?”

“Eventually. When I was in college. But during high school, she dated more than I did. Not that that was saying much, but still. I remember how it felt, her getting all dressed up to go out with some guy. Leaving me behind. Like this stranger was more important than I was. More worthy of her time. I’m not going to do that to my kid.”

“But what if you found a guy who really cared about Ian?”

I shake my head. “Question asked and answered. Your turn. Why did you drop out of medical school?”

“Because my father died.”

Once again, I feel a pang for the biological grandfather Ian will never know—even though the biological grandfather he does know has so little interest in him.

“Were you and your father close?” I ask.

“Yeah. I guess. I mean, I’ve got two brothers and a sister, so it wasn’t like the one-on-one thing you have with Ian. But yeah—he was the best. And when I got interested in medicine, that’s when we really bonded.”

“He was a doctor,” I say.

Eric nods. “When I was studying for the MCATs, and then when I started medical school . . . I’d save up stuff in my head. You know, to tell him. Or questions to ask or whatever. Then once he was gone—I just couldn’t focus. So I dropped out and starting playing music. I always thought I’d go back. But six months went by and then a year. And I just—couldn’t face it. Everything about medicine, even thinking about med school, reminded me of him. It was just too painful.”

He stops talking and drinks some wine. His eyes glisten.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

He nods.

“But your music . . .” I say. “Maybe you should give it another try.”

He snorts. “I didn’t quit medical school to pursue a music career. I pursued a music career because drinking too much and playing guitar in bars was all I could handle at that point. And by saying I was all about my music—people respected that. They left me alone.”

He pauses. “That’s not entirely true. Music . . . that was always the thing that made me happy. But then I cut a CD that no one wanted, and I started reading negative stuff that people posted online. And the whole starving artist thing . . .” He shakes his head. “At first I thought, once enough people heard me play, things would really take off. But it didn’t work out that way. And by the time I stopped, music had lost its magic for me. I can’t even remember the last time I picked up my guitar.”

“You cut a CD? Is it on iTunes?”

He snorts. “No. But every once in a while one’ll pop up on eBay for like a dollar.” He takes another bite of his salad and drops his fork. “Bacon! Ugh!”

I smile. “When did you become a vegetarian?”

“Junior high school. This kid next door was in the agriculture program at our local high school, and he had a pig. Daisy. Not the most original name, but whatever. Anyway, I went to the school with him a couple of times to hang with Daisy, who was really pretty cute. And clean. And smart. And then, at the end of the year, my parents bought one-eighth of Daisy and stuck her in the freezer.”

“Ew,” I say. Now I don’t want to eat the bacon.

“And the thing is—Daisy had a good life. She wasn’t dirty and crowded like factory farm animals are, all doped up with antibiotics. But she had a name.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t chop up Red or Rusty and serve them with Marsala sauce?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“So back to your career . . .”

“Uh-uh.” He holds up a finger. “You already snuck in an extra question with the vegetarian thing. My turn.”

“But—”

“Was your ex-husband an asshole?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Of course not?”

“I wouldn’t marry an asshole. Rob was . . . not nice, exactly, but ethical. Reliable. We had the same career goals, the same life goals. We shared a lot of interests. We were extremely compatible.”

“That’s hot,” Eric says. When I don’t react, he adds, “Sorry.”

I shrug. “It was a long time ago. So what about you and Vanessa. Are you compatible?”

“Not really.”

“Share common interests?”

“None.”

“Career goals, life goals . . .”

“I don’t have any goals, remember?”

“Well then,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “Perhaps you share that with her.”

He shakes his head. “She has life goals. Marriage, children . . .”

“Maybe you’re just not right for each other,” I suggest.

“Oh. I know we’re not right for each other.” He drains his wine.

“You just don’t want to hurt her.”

“It’s too late for that.” He picks up the bottle and splits the remainder between us. “But enough about me. My turn to ask a question. Yes?”

“Shoot,” I say.

He takes a long drink of wine. I think:
He won’t be able to drive home.

He looks up at the pink-tinted sky and grins. “What about sex?”

“Ian’s what, eight? Add nine months for your pregnancy. Are you saying it’s been nine years since you . . .”

I clear my throat. “Of course not.” I gulp my wine and scan the stupid yard for the stupid chickens.

“Of course not
what
?”

“Of course it hasn’t been that long.”

He leans forward and rests his chin on his knuckles.

“Have you eaten any meat at all since becoming a vegetarian?” I say.

He snorts. “Nice try. Does this mean—what? You have a shadow life, a secret lover? Maybe a married man?”

“No!” My tone is harsher than I intended. He straightens.

I say, “Nothing like that. Over the years I’ve attended a number of legal conferences. And there were a couple of occasions . . . it didn’t mean anything. Neither of the men—there were two, a couple of years apart—neither was married.”

“How many years ago?” Eric asks.

“I don’t remember.”

“Of course you do.”

He’s right. “Five years ago,” I say. “The last time.” I swallow the huge lump in my throat, but it won’t go away.

Around us, the air fills with the sounds of scratching chickens, crickets, and the waterfall of distant traffic.

Eric says, “A week after my father died, I ate a hamburger. In-N-Out. Double Double.”

“Did you like it?”

“Best thing I ever tasted.”

The wine is gone and my head is swimming. We herd the chickens back into the coop and carry our dishes inside. While we’re loading the dishwasher, Eric’s hand brushes my arm, startling me with an almost electric charge. I move my head and the walls sway, just a tiny bit.

I say, “When my husband left me—it was his decision, not mine—he said that he had never loved me. He didn’t say it to be mean, he just thought I should know because it would help me to better understand his actions. That’s why I don’t date. I’m not going to let anyone else make me feel that bad, ever again.”

Eric opens a couple of cabinets until he finds a glass, which he fills with tap water. He takes a long drink and stares at the wall. Finally, he speaks.

“I was so afraid that if I became a doctor I’d screw up and hurt someone. Make a wrong diagnosis or prescribe the wrong medicine. That I’d tell someone everything was fine only to find out when it was too late that they had cancer or something, and were going to die because of me.”

He finishes his water and puts the glass in the dishwasher.

He says, “And the other thing that scares me is the idea that I’ll get stuck in some job that I hate, doing the same thing for thirty years just so I can pay for a car, a house in the suburbs, a week at the beach. My God. Is that all there is?”

I touch his hand. “Not necessarily. Sometimes there are chickens too.”

He laughs. His smile is really beautiful. I drop my hand and cross to the refrigerator, though I can’t remember what for.

“Are you okay to drive?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“Then . . . you should probably go.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“No.” We look at each other from across the kitchen.

“Then I’ll stay,” he says, his voice not much louder than a whisper.

Two weeks after Harrison’s scorpion sting, I pull up in front of Tara’s stucco house for my scrapbooking meeting only to see Sherry Plant’s SUV parked at the curb. I try to work up the old indignation—how dare she hone in on my group?—but shame overwhelms me. Sherry was a lousy friend, but that doesn’t excuse my betrayal. And nothing excuses my betrayal of Darren. I pull away from the curb and head home.

Darren and the kids are at the kitchen table, eating pepperoni Bagel Bites. Harrison turns, and in a flash I see Lane Plant in his eyes. Has Sherry noticed the resemblance? Has she been looking for it all these years?

“You had a call,” Darren tells me. “From a genetics counselor.”

The DNA test. I didn’t think the results would come in this fast.

“The number’s on the counter,” Darren says, refusing to meet my eyes. “She left her cell.”

Outside, the air is hot and heavy, the not-yet-setting sun searing the yard. So maybe we shouldn’t have bought a house with a west-facing backyard.

I sit at the table, the plastic chair scorching my legs, and dial the genetics counselor. She answers on the first ring. Blood rushes through my ears with such force, I’m afraid I won’t be able to hear, but I catch the most important words:
Eric Fergus. Biological father. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent probability. Ian Cahill. Biological half sibling. Ninety-nine-point-nine.

Lane Plant is not my children’s father. I’d been impregnated by a complete stranger. The news comes as such relief, I burst into tears.

When I manage to compose myself, I go back into the house, only to find the kitchen empty. The children are watching television. Upstairs, Darren is on the computer. When I place a hand on his shoulder, he tenses. I fight the instinct to take my hand away.

“It’s not—his,” I say. “It was the donor. A man named Eric Fergus. I have some things I need to tell you . . .”

I’m terrified that Darren will be angry at me for keeping Eric Fergus a secret, but as I tell him about Eric and Laura and Ian, he barely registers any emotion. Somehow, that’s even worse.

“I think we should move,” I say.

When he doesn’t respond, I say, “It’s not working here.
We’re
not working. But maybe we can be happy somewhere else. We could go to Michigan, live near my parents. They’d help with the kids, give us more time for each other.”

His face twitches. I can’t read him. Could I ever? I think so, but it was so long ago.

I say, “If we’ve got any chance of working things out, we’ve got to leave. Don’t you agree?” Cautious, I take my hand off his shoulder, touch his cheek.

“Yes.” He brushes my fingers lightly. And then he reaches for his computer mouse.