Funeral with a View (27 page)

I sat in my office in a total
fog the rest of the afternoon. If anybody called, I didn’t answer. If people
stopped by, I hadn’t noticed.

I must have driven home
from work on instinct and muscle memory alone. Everything between point A and
point B was a canvass of nothingness. Couldn’t even hazard a guess at the
details, as my thoughts were dominated by what I’d discovered. Only by the
grace of whatever higher power may exist did I get home in one piece.

My fist throbbed in the
darkened kitchen. I saw it, the bruising and the swelling, but it seemed as if
the hand I clenched in front of my face was seen through someone else’s viewpoint.

The clock ticked past
eight o’clock. It was my scheduled guys’ night out and I shouldn’t have been
home for at least another few hours.

On a normal Friday night.

But this wasn’t a normal
Friday night.

I heard the sound of
running water coming from the second floor when I’d gotten home. On guys’ nights,
after Celeste was in bed, Catherine would settle in for a long bubble bath.

She wasn’t expecting me so
soon.

I never informed her
otherwise.

Sometime later—it could
have been minutes, it could have been hours—the kitchen light flipped on.

“Jeez, baby, you scared
me.” Bare feet slapped the kitchen tile behind me. Damp and smelling of
shampoo, Catherine wrapped her arms around my neck and laid her head on my
shoulder. “This is a pleasant surprise. I thought you’d still be out. Party
break up early?”

I didn’t respond, didn’t
move a muscle.

“Ricky?” She came into my
peripheral vision. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“No. I’m not.” My tone
was cold, hard; her concern meant nothing to me.

“Rick, you’re scaring me.
Jesus, what happened to your hand? Did you get into a fight?”

I answered her with stony
silence.

“
Ricky.
Talk to
me. What happened?”

“Is there something you
want to tell me?” I asked.

“Tell you? About what?”

“It’s a simple question,
Catherine.”

“I don’t know what you’re
… What’s all this?”

A mass of crumpled papers
was spread out on the kitchen table, along with an open manila file folder.

“Printouts from the Red
Cross website. And Celeste’s file.”

She pulled out a chair
and sat. Her face told me she had no clue what I was talking about.

“Rick, I don’t know—”

“She’s B positive.”

“What? Who is?”

“Celeste’s blood type.
It’s B positive.” I pushed the open folder across the table. Catherine picked
it up, glanced at it, put it down. “I’m type A positive.” Calmly, keeping my
building anger in check, I placed my donor card down in front of her. “Very
common for a white boy, as it turns out. Yours is O positive. Almost like the
band, remember?”

“Of course I—”

“Also very common for a
white woman.” Interrupting Catherine was something I’d never do under normal
circumstances, but I wasn’t in a very considerate mood.

“Is there a point to all
this?” she said impatiently.

“Do you know how rare type
B blood is, Cat? I do. I read up on it. I spent hours on that site when I set
up the blood drive. That’s not the point though.” I stood and paced the kitchen
slowly. “It’s rare, but not improbable. What
is
improbable, so
improbable it’s goddamn
impossible
, is an O mother giving birth to a B
daughter when the father has A blood.” I stopped and turned on her. “Did you
know that?”

She was visibly shaken.
Her hands lay flat on the table, and a slight tremor ran through them. I
noticed the lack of her charm bracelet. Fitting. Her eyes focused on anything
but me.

“No, I didn’t know that,”
she said quietly.

“All the backup
information is right there in those printouts if you don’t believe me. Go
ahead. Take a look.” She didn’t respond. “No? Oh well. It’s not a big deal. You
can assume that I know what I’m talking about, which I do. Now,” my voice rose,
“blood typing isn’t really the best method for testing paternity. It’s
outdated. Obsolete. DNA is the way to go these days. It’s more accurate and
reliable. But blood isn’t totally useless, and while it can’t exactly prove who
is
a potential father, it’s pretty goddamn good at ruling one out.”

I planted my fists on the
cold table and hovered over her. Fingers of electric pain crawled up my arm. I
embraced it.

“So. I ask you again,
Catherine. Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Rick …” A tear broke
free as Catherine closed her eyes. I had her. She knew it. The moment of truth
was knocking on the door of our lives. “I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.”

“Was there more than
one?” Elaboration wasn’t necessary. She knew what I meant.

Catherine’s hand flew to
her mouth and her eyes shot open as if I’d slapped her. “No! Just once … only
once.”

“At least that simplifies
things.” My teeth were clenched so hard I thought I would crack a filling. “Who
was it?”

Catherine glanced at the
papers, stalling for time.

“Who was it?” I screamed,
slamming an open palm on the table.

Cat jerked in her seat. “I
can’t.”

“Can’t isn’t a word I
want to hear right now. What I want to hear is a name.”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. It matters to me. I
want to know.”

My wife shook her head
vigorously, trying to ward off the reality of it all, wet hair flying in thick
strands from side to side. “Rick …”

“Wrong answer. We both
know you didn’t cheat on me with me, Cat. Who. Was. It?”

“Keep your voice down,”
she hissed. “Celeste is upstairs sleeping.”

“
WHO WAS IT?”

“Okay, okay. Please, stop
yelling.” Cat paused, took a deep breath. “It was …”

“I’m waiting,” I said,
not yelling, but not whispering either.

She looked down at her
hands. “Bill. It was Bill.”

The air left my lungs
with all the subtlety of explosive decompression. My legs went rubbery, my
whole body tingled.

Bill was Celeste’s
father, not me. I’d been raising my best friend’s kid for five years and was
none the wiser. The revelation was as staggering as it was numbing.

“How could you?” I
whispered.

“It was only the one time,
I swear to God.”

“Like that’s supposed to
make me feel better? It was enough, wasn’t it! I suppose you were too scared to
use the conception calculator again, huh? Or were you hoping I’d never find
out?”

“I wanted to believe she
was yours,” Cat said vacantly. “I had to believe she was yours.”

“When did it happen?”
Another shake of the head. “Don’t make me ask again.”

“When you were on your
business trip.”

“Baltimore?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

The puzzle pieces clicked
together. I could see it all in my head; the unanswered texts, my calls going
directly to voicemail, the landline clicking over to the answering machine. I
must have called while they were fucking. The sex we’d had the night I came
home? The tears? The apologies? They weren’t for me, for how our lives had
nearly fallen apart after the miscarriages. Those were tears of guilt. Guilt
for having fucked someone before my side of the bed had grown cold. My best
friend, no less.

All the signs were there.
They were always there and I never paid them any mind. Cat’s melancholy looks
that showed up less and less as time passed, but never went away. Bill’s
hesitancy when asked to be the godfather. So many insignificant things that
added up to so much more now that old secrets had been revealed. Was it any
wonder Catherine was overly protective of Celeste around Bill after she was
born? Or how vehemently Bill told me to keep my mouth shut about the Sandy
incident? He wasn’t looking out for me. He was covering his own ass. He’d
suspected he was the father. They both did.

Catherine had gotten out
of the chair and sidled close to me as I fought the storm in my head,
approaching like someone would a live wire. Appropriate, because I was a bundle
of raw nerves and fury.

I help up my hand. “Stop.
Don’t come any closer. I don’t want you near me.”

“Ricky, I swear to God I
didn’t know,” she pleaded, stopping in her tracks.

“Swear to God all you
want. I doubt He’s listening.”

“We had that fight before
you left. You remember. Angela had just dumped Bill. We were both in a bad
place. He called, came over. He told me you two had had a fight, too.”

“I bet he told you a lot
of things that night, and vice versa.”

“I’m trying to explain.
Please, calm down.”

“How am I supposed to do
that?”

“It was a mistake, Rick.
Bill and I both knew it. I stopped it before it went any further.”

I laughed in her face. “Before
it went any further? Is that a joke? Tell me you didn’t just say something so
impossibly stupid.”

“I don’t know,” she said,
frustrated. “We opened a bottle of wine. I was upset, he was upset. We got too
close, and …”

“And you fucked him!”

“Do you want to hear me
say it? Would it make you happy to hear the words come out of my mouth? Yes! I
had sex with him. Does that make you feel better?”

“Nothing you can possibly
say would make me feel better right now.” Men are odd creatures. When faced
with something hurtful, we can’t help delving deeper. We pick at an open wound
until it grows and festers. That idiot male gene was the catalyst for my next
question. “Was it any good? He blow your mind?” I didn’t want to know, but I
had to know.

“No,” she said with
conviction, shaking her head. “It was wrong. Awful.”

“There’s that, at least.”

“When we realized what we
were doing, we stopped. I swear that’s the truth, Rick.”

“Oh, now you’re all about
the truth? Tell me something, since we’ve discovered this newfound honesty. Were
you that desperate to get pregnant that you had to resort to sleeping with my
best friend?”

Her eyes narrowed. “It
wasn’t like that.”

“No? Then what was it
like?”

“We didn’t mean for it to
happen. It just did. Bill was down, I was down. You checked out on me. I had
nobody to talk to—”

“That’s bullshit. You
shut me out way before I even left for that trip.”

“—he came over and we
lost control.” Cat brushed the back of her hand along her cheek, cutting a
tear’s trail in half. “And with all the Sandy stuff going on …”

“What Sandy stuff?”

“What was I supposed to
think, Rick? Working late with Sandy, texting with Sandy, having lunch with
Sandy. It was all her, all the time. I felt like an afterthought.”

“We’re back to this
again? Seriously? Don’t put this on me, Catherine. Don’t you dare put this all
on me.”

“I know you said nothing
happened, but I wasn’t always so sure.”

“God dammit. God dammit!”
Blind with rage, I swept everything from the kitchen table. Printer paper flew.
Celeste’s file came apart, each component drifting to the ground. “How many
times do I have to tell you, Cat? Nothing happened with Sandy.”

But that was a lie,
wasn’t it? My skin crawled. I felt something awful stir. The sensation had long
been dormant, but it was coming to the surface. Anti-Ricky, the dark, selfish
side of me that hadn’t been out to play in over five years wanted out of his
cage.

I unlocked the door.

“Actually, that’s not
true,” I said. “Sandy came on to me at the conference.”

Catherine went still.
“What?”

“Sandy came on to me at
the conference,” I repeated slowly, glad to have it off my chest now more than
ever.

She recoiled at my
confession, and although I’m ashamed to admit it now, her reaction made me feel
good. “You … You screwed her?”

“No. But I could have. I
could have banged her right on the floor of my room, but I turned her down …for
you
. Who’s the asshole now?”

Cat backed away from me,
shaking her head. “I should have known. I knew she wanted you, but I never
thought you’d actually do anything with her.”

“Spare me the righteous
indignation.” My raised voice echoed in the silent house. “You give birth to my
best friend’s kid, keep it a secret for years, then have the balls to get upset
about a kiss?” I could have left it at that. Should have left it at that.
Anti-Ricky had other ideas. He took control of my face, turning it into a
sneer. “And what a kiss it was. Makes me wonder what else she’s good at.”

The smack caught me by
surprise. Cat’s open palm sent fiery needles across my cheek.

“Oh my God,” she said,
more to herself than me. She reached out, but I brushed her hand aside.

“Don’t bother. Save your
concern for someone who actually cares.”

“Ricky, I … I can’t
believe I did that.”

“Oh yeah? I still can’t
believe you slept with my best friend.”

“It’s not like you minded
the first time,” she blurted, and quickly covered her mouth. “Oh, Ricky. I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean it. Jesus, Ricky, I didn’t mean that.”

Her apology fell on deaf
ears. “At least I didn’t end up raising
his
kid for
five
fucking
years the last time.” I pulled at my hair. “Talk about synchronicity. We’ve
come full circle, haven’t we? We’re right back where we started. No, I take
that back. We’re worse off now than we ever were.”

Whatever Catherine was
gearing up to say next, I’ll never know.

“Mommy? Why are you and Daddy
yelling?”

Celeste was in the
kitchen doorway, eyes heavy with sleep. Her pigtails were disheveled, and in
her hands, clutched tightly, was the ever present Pooh Bear.

“Shit.” We were so busy
arguing, I’d forgotten about her.

“Um, hey.” Catherine hurried
over to the frightened girl and scooped her up. “Daddy and I were just having a
little … discussion. Did we wake you up?”