“Isn’t it too soon? I mean, doesn’t she have six days left?” Kim had told me that there was something to worry about when a baby came too early…something about lung development…

   “She’s fine. Her water broke anyway, so we don’t really have a choice.”

   “Oh. Okay. Well, I can be there in about half an hour.”

   There was a long pause. Too long, and it made me nervous. Finally he said, “Tess, Jason’s here. He’s in the waiting room with Mom and Dad.”

   I sat down. Fell, really, onto a kitchen chair. It let out a small screech as it scooted a few inches across the floor. I knew just how it felt.

   God damn it.

   I’d just spent five months with them and their stupid fetus. I’d helped Kim decorate their nursery, painted it for her because Dave didn’t want her inhaling the fumes. Practiced breathing exercises with them until I thought I’d hyperventilate. Folded clothes and washed bottles and helped organize all of their baby shower gifts. And what had Jason done? Why did he deserve to be there? He couldn’t be bothered to come to court, but he had no problem with making himself at home with my family while they all waited for my nephew to be born.

   And why not? Dave had been his friend forever. Why shouldn’t he be there?

   “What…Dave, what should I do? Should I come up, too or just wait here?”

   There was no answer, and he was right. He wasn’t going to play the bad guy. Wasn’t going to play Solomon with his unborn son. He had a wife to worry about, to breathe with; had to watch her suffer and scream for hours and hours. Had to worry about ten fingers and ten toes and…

   God damn Jason. God damn that fucking bastard.

   I took a breath, a deep one, just like hundreds that Dave and Kim would take over the next few hours. And then I tried for Laid Back Tess. Nonchalant.

   I managed a yawn that sounded convincing and said, “Dave, I really am tired. In fact, I’ll be honest, I’m fucking exhausted. Moving and unpacking took more out of me than I thought it would. I’ve been working, too, so…I’m really wiped.”

   That was the story he could tell our mother. She’d believe it, even if she didn’t like it.

   “And I wish I could be there for you guys right now, I really do. I’d love to be there the second Matthew is born. But I don’t think I can handle being in a waiting room with her for hours on end. I really don’t.”

   That was the story he could tell everyone else. And they’d believe it. Kim and Dad and even Jason. Because it was true. Even if they knew it wasn’t the real reason.

   “I’m really sorry, Tess. I was with him at lunch when Kim called and—”

   “Dave, it’s okay. Just get back to Kim. Go do the whole Lamaze thing. Did you remember to bring that stupid stuffed elephant?” It was her focal point, her favorite toy when she was a kid.

   “Yes.”

   “Well, then go. I’ll head up in the morning.”

   I hung up before he could say anything else, because he needed to go take care of his wife. And because I needed to not talk to him about it anymore. But what I really needed was to not think about it anymore. To not think about anything.

   I jogged to the fridge, grabbed the remaining six bottles of beer, then settled down on the couch in front of the television. Tried to drink myself into oblivion. It didn’t work. I could still see Jason’s face, pleading with me. I could still hear his words.

   But, Tess…this is what you want to do when you love someone.

   I still didn’t know what it was he’d meant. At all. Because he had talked about starting a family just once before we got married. Threw it out there, wrapped up in a Someday. And I’d let him know, very clearly, that it wasn’t going to happen. Not with me.

   Just the thought of being a mother makes me sick to my stomach.

   And he never mentioned it again after that, not even a hint; never even hid it inside a Someday. Not until the day after he turned thirty-five. And then he never stopped talking about it. He tried everything. Calm explanations, just like I was one of his students, one of his slow students, who needed him to spell it all out for me. Logical reasoning, as though he was Spock and I was McCoy, and the problem could be settled in a battle of wits. And, finally, Positive Reassurance.

   I hated that most of all, because it made me feel weak. Damaged. As though I needed reassurance. But I didn’t tell him that. I just said the same thing I’d said to all his other tactics.

   “No.”

   And what I told myself was: It’s just a mid life crisis. And it’s better than having him out screwing some young blonde or buying a bright red sports car. Then finally, in the spring, I started to see signs of the old Jason, like he was waking up right along with the trees. And by the time summer vacation started he was back for real. Jason. My Jason, the one I’d fallen in love with.

   Then came the middle of July. We spend a hot, humid afternoon in Dave’s backyard. Barbecue and croquet and beer. And an announcement from Kim.

   Pitter patter.

   I smiled with the rest of them, tried to be happy for them. But I knew. The other Jason was back. I could see the change already. I could actually see him doing the math.

   Sure enough. He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close, kissed me so tenderly that his beard barely touched my cheek, because he knew how much I loved that. Then he whispered, “Just wait till Dave’s baby gets here, Tess. You’ll see. You’ll understand then.”

   It was the middle of July; hot and humid. I shivered anyway. I’d just gotten him back, back from That Place. I didn’t want to lose him again. I couldn’t. So on the drive home I said it.

   It.

   “Thank God Dave’s finally giving my mother a grandchild. Now she can quit bugging me about it.”

   It was bullshit and we both knew it. My mother had never--not once--bugged me about grandchildren. She wouldn’t care if I never had kids, or if she never had grandchildren at all. I knew it. And Jason knew it.

   He knew it. Got the message loud and clear. Finally.

   The next morning was still hot and humid. Ceiling fans whirring in every room. Cereal and fruit and coffee.

   Silent breakfast.

   He brushed his teeth and got dressed. Headed for the living room. Hand on the door knob.

   Errands.

   We didn’t have any plans to do anything together, nothing specific, but it was Summer. Our time. No school, no students, no tests to correct.

   Our time.

   Swimming, movies, bike rides. Whatever we felt like doing when we woke up in the morning was what we did during the day. But he took off, couldn’t wait to bolt out the door, to be as far away from me as he could get.

   He didn’t say it back. He didn’t say it again.

   Good night, Tess.

   Barely got a kiss on the cheek again. Didn’t have sex again for almost two more weeks, and then it was quick, so quick I thought he must have been half asleep. He woke up in the middle of the night with a hard on, rolled over and I was there, so sure, why not?

   And then...nothing.

   No baby, so no sex. Punishment.

   I shivered through August.

   The first week of school he signed up to teach night classes; first time he’d ever done that. The week after that he took up playing basketball with his buddies on weekends. And I knew what fall and winter would bring. More basketball. Because he was the coach now.

   Jason Dyer, Patron Saint of Basketball.

   First time I didn’t bother to say it. Didn’t say it again. Even though I did still love him. He probably didn’t notice the omission. He didn’t notice when I said it, didn’t notice when I didn’t say it. So what was the point?

   He didn’t want me anymore so it didn’t matter. He couldn’t even look me in the eye. He didn’t love me, didn’t want me, and someone else did. So I fucked the someone else. His name was Chris.

   And I spent my fall and winter at Dave’s house. Then came divorce court. Because that’s where you go when the love runs out…

   What was Jason thinking about, right now, while he was sitting there in that waiting room with my parents, and Kim’s parents, too? Probably he was thinking I was a coward, and he was right. I was. An even bigger coward than he had been when he hadn’t show up at court. And what about Kim? Right now, right this very second, she was in pain. Lots of it; worse than anything she’d ever gone through. Grunting and breathing and focusing on a relic from the past to forget the agony of the present. All so she could give birth to her Future. And here I was, thirty-something miles away from it all. Drinking myself into oblivion. Focusing on nothing. Doing nothing.

   Nothing…

   I fell asleep and didn’t know it. My cell phone woke me up at just after six a.m. I sat up and blinked rapidly, surprised that I wasn’t hungover, and gave Dave enough time to go to voice mail. Then I trudged into the kitchen to listen to his message. My nephew, Matthew David Bellows, had arrived at last.

   I took a shower, threw on my coat, and clomped down the stairs. The driveway was wet and soupy with thick, brown mud and I had to take slow, deliberate steps so my boots didn’t get sucked off my feet. When I finally made it to the car I tapped them lightly against my tire well, but it didn’t do any good. They were still dirty, and now the car was, too. Dirty and tired and grey, just like me. I kicked the driver’s side door, hard. Kicked it again and left behind a small, muddy dent. I kicked it two more times, for good measure, before I heard Brian’s voice, directly behind me:

   “Tess?”

   I shrieked so loudly that it bounced off the house and shed and trees, like a thousand startled little girls screeching at us from every corner of the yard. Once they fell silent I turned to face him, armed with profanity, but the words never made it to my lips. I had expected to find smug amusement on his face. I saw honest concern instead, and my nerves were so raw that it almost made me cry.

   He noticed and took a half-step back. Then he thought better of it, reached out and touched my shoulder, gripped it gently. Not a strained, awkward gesture; it was genuine, natural. Just like he was supposed to be touching me. “Tess, what’s wrong?”

   “Nothing’s wrong.”

   “Look, why don’t you come on inside. I can--”

   I shook off his hand, opened up my battered door and got into the car without another word. I checked my rearview mirror as I pulled onto the road. He was still right there, watching me drive away.

   The hospital elevator stank and so did the music. Disco, which is the last thing sick people and their relatives should be subjected to. The door opened onto the maternity ward. The hallway was empty except for me, so I waited a few moments to prepare myself; even though Jason was long gone.

   I opened the door of the waiting room a crack, peeked inside and groaned. My parents were still there. I thought I’d waited long enough. They were sitting on opposite ends of a sofa; my mother reading a book, my dad watching CNN on a television that was bolted to the ceiling. I clenched my teeth in what I hoped passed for a smile and strolled in.

   My father and I nodded our greetings. My mother looked at me, snorted, and said, “What on earth made you decide to go blonde?”

   “It’s not blonde. It’s light brown.”

   “You can call it what you want, Theresa, but you look atrocious. Your complexion is much too sallow for that color. Especially since you put on all that weight over the winter.”

   “Thanks.” I gave my father a quick glance. He had turned his attention back to the news and was pretending to be absorbed in it. I hung my coat on a peg next to his jacket and sat down in a chair across from them. “So, where’s the baby?”

   My mother gave me an icy stare. “The baby is with its parents where it belongs.”

   “Well, how do I get in to see them?”

   “David should be back out in just a few minutes. He’s been checking for you all morning.”

   She turned her attention back to her book and I stared at my boots. They were caked with dried mud and it made me wish I’d stopped into the restroom to wash them before I’d exposed myself to my mother. She’d report my appearance and demeanor to anyone who would listen once she got back to Brookfield and it wouldn’t be favorable.

   My dad came to life at the commercial break. He asked about work and my new place. If I was all settled in. Smiling. Excited. Like I was nine years old and on my way to summer camp. But he meant well so I smiled back and told him that everything was just fine. Work and the new place were fine. Met some new people. Everything is fine. Great.

   My mother listened, too, and when I was done she said, “Jason stayed with us here all night. He stayed awake, like your father and I did, like Kim’s parents did, and he didn’t leave until he had the chance to hold the baby.”

   “And now he’s hard at work, filling young minds with knowledge and dreams of a happy and productive future. And all with no sleep. Heroes can do that.”

   My father knew what was coming and had no stomach for it. He stood up, grabbed his coat, and said he was going to get himself a cup of coffee from the cafeteria. He said it even though I knew he was really going outside to have a smoke. Because he liked to pretend that he’d quit years and years ago and I liked to let him pretend. The same way he liked to let me pretend that everything in my life was just fine and great. No problems, Dad. Nope. None at all.

   I took in a deep breath, a silent one, in through my nostrils so she wouldn’t hear it. She sized me up with blue, piercing eyes and I had to look away. It was just like looking into some sort of warped mirror, with an older, more confident version of myself staring back.

   I didn’t have to ask what it was she saw when she looked at me.

   “Theresa, there’s no need to take that tone. Jason--”

   “Look, I think it’s great he was here. He’s a great guy and all that other bullshit. But it would’ve been awkward for both of us to be here. The day was supposed to be about Dave and Kim and their baby. Not about me and Jason, which is what would’ve happened if we’d both been here. He got here first and I bowed out. I’m sure he would’ve done the same thing if I’d gotten here first.”

   It was a lie and we both knew it. He would have come anyway.

   “But it doesn’t matter, really, what I do. I’m always gonna be the bad guy.”

   I flinched, because she had me and she knew it. She even closed her book. And smiled. My mother hardly ever smiled. “That is your own fault, Theresa. You made a mistake. A big one. And now you have to pay for it.”

   I gave her a bitter chuckle. She was the expert at making people pay for their mistakes. But I couldn’t say that. She carried a can opener around with her just waiting for me to bring out that can of worms.

   “Tess!”

   I jumped. So did my mother, and it did my heart good to see it. It was Dave. Smiling. Excited. As though it had been light years since our last meeting. As though I hadn’t chickened out and stayed away from the scene of the birth of his firstborn child.

   “Hi.”

   “Ready?”

   I followed him out the door without bothering to throw back a goodbye. She wasn’t expecting one.

   “Did everything go okay?”

   He nodded. “They’re both doing great.”

   We turned a corner and I shuddered. The corridor walls were a boring off white and the waiting room a soothing sage green, so I wasn’t prepared for the Pepto Bismol Pink that greeted me in the maternity ward. It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen.

   Dave noticed my discomfort. “Christ, Tess. It’s paint. Get over it.”

   I did and followed him into Kim’s room. She was lying in bed holding the baby in her arms. He was cocooned in a blue and white striped blanket. I tried to hide my astonishment at her appearance. She looked like she’d been through a boxing match. I remembered a picture on one of her baby shower cards that showed a radiant, glowing new mother lovingly cradling her newborn. She had the loving and cradling part down, but she was far from radiant and glowing. She was pale and tired, and she had circles under her eyes that were so dark that if I hadn’t known better I would have assumed Dave had been using her as a punching bag. But she managed a smile and said:

   “Would you like to hold your nephew?”

   I hadn’t come all this way just to endure my mother’s contempt and stare at a blanket, so I nodded, backed up so that Dave would have to make the relay, took the bundle, gingerly, and looked closely at its face.

   “Dave...he looks just like you.”

   “Don’t sound so surprised. He is my son.”

   “I know, but...” I looked at Matthew again. His eyes were sort of murky, instead of blue, and he had a head full of black hair, like Kim’s, but he definitely looked like my brother. Same nose and lips. Even a little cleft chin. I had expected some sort of generic Gerber baby, not something so...familiar.

   They were waiting for me to continue, so I covered with, “I expected him to take after Kim’s side of the family.” I hadn’t expected any such thing. I hadn’t thought about it at all. But I had heard so many people say it while Kim was pregnant—some bullshit about dominant Italian genes—that it came out sounding natural. It seemed to satisfy them at any rate and I turned my attention back to the baby.

   He was stirring just a bit. His little forehead puckered and so did his lips and he let out a small noise that was almost a squeak. I held him a little more firmly in my arms and kissed his forehead. It was warm and soft and he smelled so good, almost like aloe. It made me smile, because I’d always like the scent.

   And that, of course, was the moment. The one I’d been warned about months earlier.

   You’ll see, Tess. You’ll understand then.

   I did. I felt it. Something inside of me shifted, just like changing gears without the clutch engaged; grinding and noisy and painful. I clenched my jaw and steadied my knees, pulled the baby a little closer; closed my eyes against the slightly spinning room.

   What if I’d come last night? What if I’d held the kid this morning with Jason standing in the same room? Breathing the same air. Smelling the same aloe. It’s why he came, why he stayed. He was waiting for me, waiting to see it. And what if he had? Would it have changed anything? Or would it have only been an opportunity for See, Tess, I told you. I was right after all…

   “Are you ok, Tess?”

   I looked up at Dave. He was blurry. “Oh. Yeah. I’m fine. He’s just—he’s beautiful, Dave. Even if he does look like you.” I gave him back his son. “I’m really happy for you guys.”

   “Thanks.”

   The room was stuffy and much too warm, and without Matthew’s scent to disguise it, the odor of hospital disinfectant seemed even stronger. I felt suddenly confined. Nervous. And I needed to get the hell outta there.

   “You look like you could use some sleep, Kim. No offense.”

   “None taken. I’m really tired.”

   “Well, I’ll get going then. Give me a call when you’re settled back in at home and I’ll come up and visit.”

   She gave a vague nod. Her eyes were closed before I finished the sentence.

   When I made it back to the waiting room my parents were gone. I grabbed my coat and ran into the elevator. More disco. The song told me I should be dancing, and the advice made me laugh so hard that I had to grab my stomach. I didn’t stop laughing even after the door opened on the fourth floor and a sad looking family joined me. The woman next to me, the mother from the looks of her, took a step to the left. Away from the crazy laughing lady.

   “Don’t worry. It’s not contagious.”

   I finally stopped when we hit the ground floor. I let Sad Family out first then followed. I tried counting footsteps to the parking garage, but I kept losing track after thirty-four. When I got to my car I reached into my pocket for my keys…and a small envelope came out with them. My name in my father’s neat handwriting. Inside was a brief note on white lined paper:

   Tess, it’s been a rough few months for you. I know how you feel about accepting help, but please take this and use it. Dad.

   Five one hundred dollar bills. Benjamin Franklin stared up at me. Five times. His lips were pursed, his left eyebrow raised in silent condemnation. And I wondered where his bifocals were…

   I tucked three Bens inside the envelope and put it back into my pocket, stuffed the other two into my clean, empty ashtray, then drove over to the McDonalds drive thru and ordered a coffee. I shoved my change and the extra two Bens into the Ronald McDonald House collection bin and headed for the interstate.

   I switched on the radio and turned it up loud, counted the miles as I drove along. And finally I reached the sign that said Welcome to New Mills. My new town. My Starting-Over town. The sign that meant that everything had changed.

Chapter 5

Chapter 7

Table of Contents

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