“Want me to do it? You can hold him and I’ll—”
He shakes his head, clicks on the line, reads out loud: “E-Z Gene, the finest and least expensive OTC paternity kit offers you blah, blah, blah . . . the analysis seeks matches of the allele number values between the alleged father and child . . . you can be included as father with as few as one allele match . . . exclusion involves . . . Jesus Christ, where’s the link?”
He clicks, shuts his eyes, opens them.
I close my own.
Silence.
“Did you look?”
Silence.
“Tim?”
Chapter Forty-six
TIM
It’s not babysitting if it’s your own child.
“I guess—” Swallow once. Again. “I was babysitting. After all.”
I’m reaching for Cal, and Alice’s eyes are all shiny with tears. Beautiful colors in those eyes. I’m wiping at them with the edge of Cal’s blanket. He’s grabbing at the other edge and trying to stick it in his mouth.
“Raaah?” Now he’s reaching for my nose.
That little wrinkle between his eyebrows, those worried lines, just like mine.
But obviously not mine.
I put my thumb against them anyway, smooth them out.
“Shhh, Cal. You’re good. I’m here.”
More tears running down Alice’s face, but at least she’s not sobbing out loud. I keep mopping at them with the corner of this navy blanket, one of the few things I bought for him, along with the dead duck toy, to replace Hester’s many modes of sock monkeys.
If Hester keeps Cal—which she has a right to do and I . . . I . . . don’t—I won’t be able to protect him from the stupid monkeys anymore. I won’t be able to protect him from anything.
Alice hands me the baby, turns away for a minute, wiping her eyes. Cal wiggles closer and I hold him, maybe too firmly, judging by the angry squeak.
Then somehow I’m on the bed with Alice facing me, the kid in between, and her arms around both of us and it would be good to throw up or cry or do something now, but nothing’s coming.
Grateful for Alice’s silence. Glad she isn’t saying she’s sorry. That her arms around me are enough. Almost everyone I know would say something. I can hear all the voices.
Nan: Oh, Timmy. I knew there was something not right about this. But you don’t have to tell anyone . . .
Jake: You find your family in unexpected places.
Ma: This little one can’t help how he got here.
Pop: You’re well out of that disaster. You couldn’t have handled it anyway.
Jase, Samantha, Mr. and Mrs. Garrett: We’re here.
Dominic: C’mon over. I’ll teach you how to take apart the engine of a Harley and put it back together again. That you can control.
Waldo: Blowing in the wind through the long strange trip it’s been.
Hester: I had no choice. Now we can both move on.
“So,” I say.
Alice takes a deep breath, but stays quiet, tightening her arms around us.
“I can cross both ‘Most likely to never graduate from high school’ and ‘Most likely to be a teen father’ off the list. Efficient, right?”
“Leave room to write in ‘Most likely to get it right in the end,’” Alice says.
So that’s when the goddamn tears kick in.
Chapter Forty-seven
TIM
Time, which was dragging its ass like hell when I waited for E-Z-Gene to come through, is now on fast-forward.
So, no, Hester’s not going to keep the baby. Cal. Who I guess is Calvin from now on. Or whatever name his new parents come up with. Waldo, and this adoption lady Pop found, and Pop—who is no longer technically in a position of authority here but who never lets that slow him down—big picture—are meeting in Waldo’s living room, and Hester and I are ordered to get snacks or make tea or just stay out from underfoot. After all the “be a man” stuff, we’re supposed to be good kids and do as we’re told.
Old Alex Robinson has to sign off on the “Affidavit of Paternity” now that he’s done his own E-Z test and found out all his alleles are where they should be in order to claim Cal as his kid. Which he has to do so he can go through more legal stuff to “Renounce Paternity” once the adoption is under way. Is it me or is this effed up? Like marrying someone so you can divorce them.
But Alex has no problem with all this, except that he has some exams coming up and needs to get his wisdom teeth removed, so he’s doing it all long-distance, since that works out better for his schedule.
Better for his health too, really.
Dick.
“I wish it had been you—if that helps,” Hester says now.
I nod, say thanks, although it actually doesn’t make much difference one way or another what she thinks or wishes or wants.
To the last, “I just don’t get you,” will be Hester’s and my theme song.
Kind of like me and Pop.
As we were walking into Hester’s this morning, he pulled me aside for a second. “Er . . . Tim.”
Then, of course, the requisite cell phone check, looking-off-into-the-distance thing. Finally. “It’s . . . good that you have the ability to admit that this is not your mess to clean up and to walk away. That shows maturity.”
He looked me in the eye then, with this expression I don’t think I’ve ever seen on his face, like he was actually waiting to hear what I had to say.
The weird thing? Got nothin’.
I’ve thought, all this time, that it would mean a lot if he could say he was proud of me. This was as close to that as it’s probably going to get. But—it’s like getting a prize in a contest you didn’t enter. Because actually, Pop, what showed maturity was my not walking away.
“If I’d known what I know now,” Hester says, “I would have had you with me in the delivery room.”
There’s an opportunity missed.
“I’m sorry you ended up getting hurt,” she adds. “I never meant to do that. Even though having you around in this made me feel much less . . . alone, if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have gotten you involved.”
“I wouldn’t want that,” I say.
She’s concentrating on making coffee, measuring out the grounds in this methodical, scientific way, but when I say this, she looks up, studies my face. “You really wouldn’t, would you? If I could go back in time, I couldn’t say the same.”
My automatic Hester-fury, that anger that comes out with her so damn easily, hovers, then recedes. For the first time, I think it’s a damn good thing Cal is going to be adopted. Neither his mother nor his real father wants him. He’ll never have to know that.
“So strange,” she adds. “There were moments in this whole thing when I thought . . . it would make things better if you and I were a couple. That it wouldn’t be this embarrassing ‘teen mom’ story if that happened. But you didn’t fall in love with me. You fell in love with Cal. You really were . . . are . . . his father. In all the ways that mattered.”
Here’s where I should probably—hug her or something. “Yeah, um, thanks. Hester. I know this—all of this—sucked ass for you. I’m—”
Sorry? That sticks in my throat. Fuckin’ Alex Robinson should be the one spitting that out.
She’s looking up at me with those big question-mark eyes, just like Cal’s—she’s his mother—and I lick my lips, swallow, find the words. “I wish things had gone the way you planned. I hope they do from now on.”
For a second, my hands hover at her shoulders—my old problem: what do I do with my hands? A question I didn’t have to ask when they were full of Cal.
I didn’t know what I was doing when I first got him. I didn’t understand how he worked at all. By the time I handed him back, I knew. I knew what cry was hungry, angry, tired, lonely. I knew when he needed something to hold in his hand or to put in his mouth. I knew when to hold him and when to put him down. Maybe it isn’t that Pop didn’t try those things w
ith me—maybe I was just always at some frequency he couldn’t turn his dial to. Not his fault, and not my own. I’m lucky that wasn’t me and Cal. I would have missed a lot. And I’ll take missing him, for a long time or even forever, over having missed that.
“Hester, we need you in here,” that Mrs. Crawley calls, poking her head into the kitchen. “Hello, Timothy. You’re still here? We’re all set—you’re free to go.”
Back to my normally scheduled life.
Epilogue
ALICE
“Yours to command. Where’s this mysterious place you wanted us to go?” Tim asks, rubbing his hands together because, of course, no gloves. The car heat’s on, but the window’s open, and he has to raise his voice to be heard over the swish of the tires.
“Would it be mysterious if I told you? Just go left when I say and right when I say.”
“As you wish.”
I planned this—rehearsed it—the way I used to do with my “It’s been great fun but we’re done” kiss-offs. But still. For most of the drive to McNair Beach, I look down at my gloves, pull them off, push at my cuticles, unzip and rezip my coat, fiddle with the heat. When I start drumming my fingers on my leg, Tim puts his hand over them. “Alice, what’s going on?”
I swallow.
“Do I have to dare you? Say it.”
I squint over at him, then back down at our hands, the knob of his wrist bone, his slightly chapped knuckles. Finally: “I deferred Nightingale Nursing again. Take this right, here.”
Tim glances at me, frowning. “But, but—you accepted. You were in, you were set—”
For the first time since I made the call, a stall, hitch of my breath.
But . . .Yes. Because now I have a choice, my own choice, instead of just doing what I have to do. Even if it looks like the same thing.
“Still set. I just told them I’d see them next fall.”
“Are . . . are you doing this . . . Who are you doing this for, Alice?”
“For me. Look, it just makes sense. They can’t promise housing, and that’s a huge deal when it’s New York City—and they can’t positively guarantee my student loan anymore—and this way I’ll have another semester at Middlesex Community to get more experience on the floor, I’ll be around for the new baby, and Dad’s great but, you know, he has a ways to go, and Garrett’s isn’t going to run itself, so it’s simply—”
“Was I a factor in this decision?”
“You were in there.”
“I was in there? Was it good for you too?”
“Gah, Tim.”
They’ve cordoned off the parking lot at McNair Beach, so we park in what’s basically a snowdrift right outside. You can see a sliver of ocean—barely—through the path between two high dunes, snow piled on sand, looming like the Pyramids against the pewter sky. The low-hanging clouds, snowfall over, are lifting, giving way to muted light slanting through.
We sit there. Tim’s hand still around mine. He smoothes his thumb from my knuckle down to my wrist, head ducked, ginger hair flopping onto his forehead, curling a little at the back. His lips are slightly pursed, like he’s about to whistle. But, silence, doubly quiet in the winter-still hush. Just the brush of his thumb. The crinkle of his parka as he shifts a little toward me. I lean back, smile, get an answering grin, dimple deep.
“You know we have to hit the beach,” I say at last.
“We do, huh? You win the race to the breakwater. I’m forfeiting.”
But he climbs out of the car anyway, comes round to open my door, which takes some doing—snowdrifts and all. The snow gets into the top of my boots as we trudge along, it’s higher than my knees in some places, and the wind starts rising again, whipping our hair back. Tim holds up his hand—stop—then struggles through the drifts until he’s standing in front of me, bends down, pats his shoulders with the palms of his—still ungloved, of course—hands. I wrap my arms around his neck—“No choosing this moment to throttle me, Alice”—my legs wrap around his waist, he scooches me up onto his back, and we head toward the bay.
For a few minutes all I hear is the rustle of our parkas, Tim breathing a little hard (I loosen my grip), but then as we get farther up the path, the roar of waves, loud in my ears. High tide. But so different from the sparkling green-blue of the summer sea. We reach the top of the bluff, the angry ocean in front of us, waves beating hard, foam churning, deeper gray than the sky, pounding against the packed sand, then the shhh of water drawing out to sea, dragging stones, surging forward again.
I slip off his back, take a few steps forward, and Tim snags the hood of my parka and turns me around, flush up against his coat, wet with blown snow. I expect a kiss, but instead he puts his freezing cold palms against my face and says, “I haven’t been here since I was here with you. That was a good day.”
“It was.” I search his face. His eyes are set on me, the same intense slate color of the sky today. I smile. “It was also exactly two and a half months ago. Give or take.”
“Riiiiight . . . ?” He drags the word out. Shuts his eyes for a moment. Then says, “Um. Can you cut the mystery now? Historically, girls telling me about timing like this . . . makes me . . . nervous.”
“No! Not that. God, Tim. We didn’t have sex on the beach that day, for God’s sake.”
“Well, no, but—”
“Geez, it’s not that. It’s just, kinda, our anniversary. Sort of.”
He starts to laugh, eyebrows raised. Then his face goes serious. “I think you’re pushing it, date-wise, but I know what a sentimental fool you are. Pussycat.” His face cracks into another smile, lighting the whole damn sky.
“Cut it out. Here.”
I slide my hands up his arms, press the back of his neck, warm over the chill of his coat, until he leans down, exhaling a sigh against my cheek, my lips catching his, his mouth drawing away for an instant, then a sharp tang, tart and sweet; his tongue tastes like lemon drops, his latest sugar fix.
“So . . .” I whisper, catching my breath.
“Yeah. So. You know I’m not patient.” His hands tighten on my back, then slip down, low on my back, lifting me higher so our faces are level and our mouths align perfectly.
“So far, I’ve given you a nicotine patch, some sneakers, and a paternity test. You suggested a tie for our anniversary, but I . . . I figured I owed you something more romantic.”
“Alice . . . I kind of thought the whole deferring thing was, like, all the gifts for all the Christmases forever. That was plenty. But I’ll . . . um . . . cherish this. Whatever it is.”
I pull away from him, step back, my boots crunching on a shell beneath the snow. “I’ve been back here since that day we were here. Once. A few weeks ago. Thinking. I walked all the way.” I point far up the beach, to where the spit of land curves.
“Impressive.”
“Anyway.” I unzip my parka, ignoring his lifted eyebrows, take out the contents of the inside pocket, curl my fingers around it. It’s warm from my body heat. “Anyway. I found this.” I drop it into his hands, a reddish slate stone, ocean-worn, shaped roughly like a heart. “It’s got this little hollow, see, and you can rub it—kind of a calming thing—when you . . . need something to do with your hands. You say you still don’t always know what to do with them. And I know you’re definitely not taking up whittling.”
I finally look at his face. His lips are a little parted—also faintly chapped—his eyes as calm and . . . tender . . . as I’ve ever seen them.
“Thank you,” he says quietly, and puts it into his pocket at the same time he leans forward for another kiss, this one just a touch of lips, potential promised, bargain sealed.
“Although I notice you didn’t wrap it.”
“I’m too cheap to buy wrapping paper. Besides, why hide it and make you work for it? It’s coy ”
TIM
Hard to believe, but true: I actually marked it on my calendar. More what Alice would do than me, but yeah, X marks the spot in December when Pop’s deadline is of
ficially up.
X for expiration date.
Which would be today.
When I made those lines on the calendar, with the only pen I could find—running out of ink, all kinds of symbolic—that’s what it was: The day the ticking stopped and the bomb went off.
Standing here now, towel on, fresh out of the shower, I do this body-check thing—part of Alice’s new skills for staving off panic attacks. No wetness from my eyes, though I’ve been pretty much a wuss lately. No strangling tangle of barbed wire in my throat. No bomb fragments tearing through me, cluster-exploding through tissue and bone. I feel those things, sure, but not like before, not usually—not anything Grape-Nuts and having had Alice in the shower with me wouldn’t help. And except for the X, this space on the calendar looks just like the others.
Just another day.
Well, except it is Christmas Eve, so there’s that.
And my first visit to Cal in his new digs, so there’s also that.
I guess as adoption processes go, this one went fast. Didn’t seem like it to me, or to anyone probably, except Alex Robinson. I knew right away that the choice of prospective parents was right, but Hester was . . . indecisive, Waldo a little inscrutable with his advice, and Pop, who had his fingerprints all over the thing when the ball started rolling, extricated himself when my “job was done.”
The more things change . . . right?
After the day I handed Cal over—which I don’t want to think about, thanks—I tried to give the new family of three time to settle in so they could bond and get comfortable together and be, you know . . . family.
Lasted three spaces on the calendar—or two and a half days if I’m being completely honest. So, I’m still working on the patience thing. But, as Dominic would remind me, aren’t we all?
Visiting Cal someplace that isn’t the garage apartment with people who aren’t me in charge of him?
Yeah.
Well.
I change my shirt three times. Seriously. Like I’m going to a fucking job interview. This is a kid who’s gotten just about every body fluid there is on my shirts—even blood, ’cause as I was suiting him up on Turnover Day, he bashed his nose hard into my collarbone and got this nosebleed and this tiny bruise—so I handed the kid over looking like a prizefighter who’d lost a round.