What Came First (4 page)

“Don’t forget to practice piano before your lesson this afternoon.”

“Mm.”

Ian doesn’t like it when I nag. Neither do I.

We go back to watching the chickens.

“I wish I had a different name,” he says, eyes still on the chickens.

“Why? What’s wrong with Ian?”

He shrugs. “I just wish I were called something else.”

“Like what?”

“Jake,” he says without hesitation.

“You wish I’d named you
Jake
?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But why?”

“I just do.”

We go back to watching the chickens.

“This is nice,” he says.

“It sure is.”

Unfortunately, since I lack Ian’s gift for living in the moment, “nice” quickly shifts to “boring.” When I can’t take it anymore, I nip back into the house for my work laptop, along with a couple of throw blankets. Outside, I drape one blanket across Ian’s lap and the other across my own, and then I boot up my laptop. I check my e-mail, delete some forwarded jokes from my stepfather, and answer a couple of work queries. On Yahoo, I read the day’s top news and check the weather forecast for Orange County: sunny with a high of seventy-two. What a surprise.

Finally, I shift the screen out of Ian’s view and log on to the Donor Sibling Network. “DSN featured on Good Morning America!!” it says on the home page. In Dallas, seven blond children and their parents, along with a
Good Morning America
crew, met for a New Year’s Eve potluck. Photos show two children from one single mother, three from another, and two from a lesbian couple. It’s eerie how much the children look alike: all those wide pug noses, that straight pale hair. If you superimposed all of the children’s photos over one another, you’d probably get a pretty good idea of what their sperm donor looked like as a child.

Maybe it’s odd, but until a couple of years ago, I didn’t think much about Donor 613, the man who supplied half of Ian’s chromosomes. At the time of his deposit, he was twenty-three years old and in his first year of medical school, a five-foot-eight Caucasian with light brown hair and blue eyes. The donor’s height, hair, and eye color seemed irrelevant. It wasn’t until after I’d conceived that I realized they were exactly the same as mine (though I’ve been highlighting my mousy hair since I was in my twenties).

It was his enrollment in medical school that sold me. Getting in takes extreme intelligence and getting through takes self-discipline and drive. Most likely, the desire for a medical career indicates a compassionate nature. Do drive and compassion flow through the genes? Maybe not, but you never know. Ian has always been an exceptionally gentle and generous boy.

I bought three vials of 613’s sperm from the Southern California Cryobank, conceived with the first, disposed of the rest. It never occurred to me that I might want more children, that I’d fall so in love with my son that I’d long to give him a playmate just like him.

I could use another donor, of course. But Ian has asked questions about 613 since he was old enough to understand the concept. Do I think his donor likes spaghetti as much as Ian does? Do I think he’s the reason Ian’s so good at piano? Any identity issues are apt to amplify as time goes on; bringing a new set of genes into the mix could only make things worse. It would be so much better to give Ian a full sibling with whom he could compare proclivities and talents.

Two years ago, I turned forty. Faced with my declining (and possibly expired) fertility, I called the bank only to learn they had no more vials from Donor 613. They suggested I check the Donor Sibling Network, an online registry that was set up to allow families with shared donors to contact one another. The first time I logged on, I posted a message on the bulletin board:
Anyone else conceive from Southern California Cryobank Donor 613?

Since then, I’ve checked the Web site every day, hoping to discover my son’s blood ties. I’d love to meet that child or those children, to see Ian form an instant bond with a complete stranger, a more-than-friend that he can have for life and who can perhaps give him a more complete sense of who he is and where he came from.

But more than that, I’d like to meet other women who purchased the sperm. To ask if maybe, just maybe, there might be a vial left in a freezer somewhere, waiting for me.

The Rhode Island Red’s squawking grows louder, more frantic. Her head moves around, even as she stays planted on the laying spot.

“She’s doing it, Mom! She’s laying!”

On the other side of the yard, the other chickens go about their business, walking, pecking, clucking. The Rhodie screams like a seagull and suddenly grows quiet.

I log off the Web site and follow Ian to the coop, where he reaches under the chicken, searching for his treasure.

The bird stands up.

There is nothing there.

From the bedroom, I can hear Eric cleaning up the kitchen and putting everything away. He’s good about little things like that, even if he’s bad about big things like marriage. Every time he crosses the living room, I think he’s going to come see me in the bedroom. No way am I making the first move.

Unfortunately, my stomach didn’t get the memo about playing hard to get. Finally I can’t stand the hunger pains anymore, and I open the bedroom door. Eric sits on the couch, reading a library book and listening to music. He looks up and turns off the iPod. When he doesn’t say anything, I hurry through the room and open the refrigerator. But now I don’t know what to eat.

I burst into tears. “Is this it? Is it over?”

He puts down his book and comes to me. I sob in his arms. The fridge stays open, like our own personal cold front.

He says, “Shh, shh, shh.” In a comforting way, not like “Shut up.”

He heats a messy slice of eggplant Parmesan in the microwave. I sit on the couch, balance the plate in my lap, cry and eat at the same time, which turns out to be kind of dangerous when I almost choke on a piece of really hot cheese. Eric keeps his arm around me, just getting up once to bring me a box of tissues. The tissue box is purple. It is hard to find purple tissue boxes. Eric bought it just for me.

“Do you want to break up?” I ask when I can speak without gasping.

“No.” He dabs my tears.

“But you don’t want to marry me.”

He’s quiet for a while. “If I was going to marry anyone, I’d marry you. It’s just . . . I know you want . . . I don’t know if . . .” He’s quiet again.

“Being married, it seems so . . . final. Not that I want to be with anyone else, because I don’t. But I haven’t figured out what I want to do with my life. And the thing is, I don’t even
want
to figure that out yet. I’m just not ready to limit my options.”

“And marrying me . . . that would be limiting.”

“Not the
you
part. The marriage part. I’m committed to you, and you’re committed to me. We
know
that. What difference does it make whether we stand up in front of a roomful of people and someone hands us a piece of paper? I don’t need that piece of paper.”

“But I do.” I put the plate on the coffee table and take another tissue.

Eric strokes my hair. We are quiet for a little while, and then he goes, “I was just thinking . . . when you were in the bedroom, I was thinking . . . what if we went to Eastern Europe?”

“You mean on vacation?” I know he doesn’t mean on vacation, but a girl can hope. A year after we met, Eric dropped everything, including me and his music career, and went to Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and a couple of Asian countries I’d never heard of. Everyone said I was crazy to wait for him, but when he came back, eleven months later, he asked me to live with him, which I stupidly thought was a natural step on the way to marriage. Three years later, I’m not so sure.

“We can stay as long as we want,” he says. “It’s kind of incredible, when you think of all the places I’ve been, that I’ve never even seen Slovakia or Hungary, or, God,
Bosnia
. Bosnia would be awesome. And if you came . . .” He stops stroking my hair and gazes into the distance like he’s watching a movie of our imaginary lives.

“I have a job,” I remind him. “We have an apartment.”

“You can get another job when you get back. And you hate this apartment.”

“I like my job. And I don’t hate this apartment.” Yes I do, but that’s beside the point.

“We’d get jobs over there. I’ll teach English like I did in Jakarta. And you can wait tables at a café or something.”

“I am not going to wait tables!” Oh, crap—I’m crying again. “And I am not moving to Europe. For God’s sake, Eric, I’m twenty-nine years old! I want children and a house. I want a driveway and a garage and a garbage disposal that works.”

He sits there for a long time, and then he stands up and goes, “You want some tea?”

I shake my head and stay there on the couch, snuffling and gagging on my snot while he goes to boil water.

When he comes back, he sticks his tea on the table and exhales. Then he says it. “I don’t want children. I don’t want that kind of responsibility.”

I swallow. My throat hurts. “You say that, but—”

“I say it because I mean it.”

It isn’t the first time he’s said it. But before he’s always been, like, “I can’t imagine a child in my life right
now
.” This time he sounds so certain. So final.

“Not ever?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry.”

At work the next morning, I’m hanging up my coat when Melva comes in wearing her pink Hello Kitty scrubs. When she sees me, she runs through the waiting room and around the corner to the reception desk, grabs my left hand, looks at my naked ring finger, and—

“Shit.”
She keeps holding on with her soft chubby hands. Her rings on her left hand are gold and swirly, the diamonds small and sparking against her light brown skin.

“Tell me about it.” I try to laugh, but I can’t.

“Asshole.”
She lets go of me and rests her hand on her pregnant belly as if to protect her fetus from its mommy’s mouth.

“He’s not.” Even now, I feel like I need to defend him.

“Did you give him an ultimatum like me and Pammy told you to?”

I shake my head. My nose tickles. My eyes fill with tears, and I probably would have burst out crying if Dr. Sanchez hadn’t walked in.

“Good morning, Melva. Vanessa.”

“Morning, Dr. Sanchez.” I try to smile, but I just can’t.

He pauses at the front desk and glances at my left hand. His mouth tightens, and then he goes to his office and shuts the door. I wonder what his reaction would have been if I’d come in sporting a diamond. Probably not too different.

I started working at Great Grins two years ago. Six months before that, Dr. Sanchez’s wife, Rosie, died from ovarian cancer. That’s why the job was open—because it used to be hers. The old patient files have her pretty, rounded handwriting all over them. She picked out all the paint colors, turquoise for the waiting room, peach for Dr. Sanchez’s office, sunshine yellow for examination rooms. No one dares suggest we change them, even though the walls are looking scuffed and sunshine yellow seems to put people on edge.

Pammy, the other hygienist, was good friends with Rosie, but she doesn’t talk about her much because it makes her too sad. “So full of life,” she’ll say, shaking her head.

Dr. Sanchez was different before Rosie got sick, Pammy says. Not a barrel of laughs, exactly, but just calm and quiet. Content. Now he looks haunted, with dark circles under deep-set brown eyes. His nose is straight and long, his cheekbones sharp. His bald head is shaved, flecks of gray mixing with the black in the stubble.

Maybe he’s not haunted. Maybe he’s just tired. He’s got three kids at home. In any event, Pammy says he’ll never get over Rosie, which makes me sad but also jealous. Which I know is wrong. But I can’t help thinking that no man will ever love me like that.

Which brings me back to Eric, of course.

Melva puts her hands on her hips. “Shit or get off the pot. You tell him that from me.” Even the Hello Kitties on her scrubs look pissed.

My nose stings and I think I’m going to cry. But then I remind myself that Dr. Sanchez never cries in the office. If he can suck it up, I can too. Of course, he never smiles either, but that’s understandable. He might want to call this place something other than Great Grins, though.

I take a deep breath and get to work. When Pammy comes in and checks my hand, I say, “Let’s talk about it at lunch,” and pick up the phone.

I’m not the only one having a cruddy day. The phone rings and rings all morning. Seems everyone has a dental emergency. Toothaches. Broken crowns. Exposed nerves.

Tell me about it.

Dr. Sanchez does two root canals and a filling. Melva and Pammy scrape plaque and polish molars. They’re both so friendly and chatty. They can’t help making small talk with the patients.