The God Patent (32 page)

The sun’s first rays eased their way over the mountain, sneaked under dark rain clouds, and reflected pastels of pink and peach onto the ceiling. Emmy was asleep in his arms, and he buried his face in her currently jet-black hair. Ryan’s faith in the universe was renewed.

It was his second anniversary in Petaluma, and he celebrated with a deep breath of Emmy, salty, sweet Emmy. She stretched and nuzzled against him. Wake-up sex might have been as good as make-up sex, but oh well.

BAM
!

Emmy lurched against him. “What was that?”

Again, against the door:
BAM
!

Ryan groaned, “It’s my youthful ward.”

“Ryan, wake up! You have to drive me to school.”

He looked at his watch: 7:00. She was already late. “Okay, just stop—”

BAM
!

“Stop pounding—Jesus H.…”

He pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and unlocked the door.

Katarina came in. She looked frustrated. The high school was on the other side of town and started early. Then she noticed Emmy and started to blush.

Emmy said, “Hi, Kat.”

Katarina looked at Ryan, who raised both eyebrows into his dorky-womanizer face.

To Emmy, Katarina said, “I’m late for school.” Then she yelled at Ryan, “Come on!”

That kid he’d met on the porch two years ago was long gone. She didn’t skate very much anymore, and her Converse All Stars had been replaced by an array of suede boots, the kind that Ryan’s sisters used to wear in the eighties. She’d painted them with acrylics—little dragons exhaling breaths of Feynman diagrams
and equations. Her denim jacket was gone too, replaced by a formfitting coat like Emmy wore. At fourteen, the skirts she’d always worn looked different. Somewhere along the way, her legs had gotten long and graceful. Fading scars on her knees were the last evidence of the kid who used to skate down fire escapes. It didn’t take much makeup for her to pass for eighteen.

“You have to stop missing the bus—what if I had to work today?”

“What work?”

He finished tying his shoelaces and followed Katarina down the hall. She carried a small leather purse and had her old backpack slung over a shoulder. Her hair, nearly all the way down her back, bounced in time with her steps.

“Why aren’t you taking the banister?”

She paused at the landing and scowled. “Mind your own business.”

“Um, do you
want
a ride?”

She let him pass and then followed down the stairs and out to his car.

“Katarina, people don’t do favors for people who treat them like shit.”

“Fine! I don’t want to go anyway.” She threw her backpack into the car, got in, and slammed the door.

Ryan started the car. “So how’s school?”

Katarina turned the radio up until it was too loud to talk.

Upstairs in Ryan’s apartment, Emmy got up and showered. She liked it here. She liked the apartment’s unashamed masculinity: the football that Ryan said was his most valuable possession, the beach chair, the foam “bed,” the milk crates that held his clothes,
the fridge with plenty of beer but barely enough milk for his tea. She liked that he drank tea instead of coffee too. In the shower, she noticed that he used pink soap and sighed. Wrapped in Ryan’s towel, Emmy stepped into the kitchen and took the small jar of instant coffee he kept for her down from the cupboard. She hated instant coffee, but he’d been so pleased with himself for thinking of her that she hadn’t told him. She knew that Dodge would have a full pot of high-octane French roast downstairs.

That bastard. After thirty-six years, why did she still have faith in him? Yes, he doted on her. Yes, he had always been there when she needed help with anything. Anything. But he helped by twisting things, not just to his advantage either. It seemed like Dodge twisted things for amusement more than he did for profit—neither reason was acceptable. He had conned her again.

She put the kettle on, scooped a double dose of coffee crystals into a mug, and got dressed. A few minutes later, she sat in the beach chair, Ryan’s towel in her lap, and sipped coffee. The whiteboard was covered in calculations. Kat’s handwriting was precise but with girlish curlicues. Emmy pictured Kat at the whiteboard with Ryan at her side, Kat guiding Ryan through mathematics while he guided her through life. She took a deep breath of the towel and felt as warm as she ever had. Then a thought crossed her mind. The thought wasn’t new, but there was a new element.

Her choice not to have children was calculated from two realizations: first, guiding students through their most creative years ought to fulfill her maternal instincts; and second, she’d always assumed that she didn’t have the maternal warmth necessary to accept the burden of a baby. Right now, though, watching Kat dazzle Ryan in her mind’s eye, she realized that she had been wrong. What was it that had convinced her that she wasn’t a complete woman?

She heard motion downstairs. Dodge. That was why. Growing up in Dodge’s cynical shadow had convinced her that motherhood would be more burden than reward. The realization made her feel weary. A baby?

Her coffee mug empty, Emmy stood and shook off her reverie. She gathered her things and headed for the door. It was time to deal with Monday morning traffic.

As she passed the whiteboard again, she looked at it. A thought invaded her mind: Kat needed a mother.

R
yan drove Katarina down the hill and across the river to Casa Grapevine High. He pulled up to the curb and turned down the stereo. “Have a happy Monday, Katarina. Can I pick you up after school? We should work on those Feynman path integrals…”

She looked at him without moving her head, her eyeballs swiveling up at him, said “whatever,” and got out of the car.

Ryan started to pull away, but a clot of traffic was passing. He watched Katarina join a group of other kids standing under an awning. Most of them hung out at Skate-n-Shred. A tall thin boy smoking a cigarette took Katarina’s hand without looking at her. He wore a black jacket a size too large and big black boots. He also had a trace of what he probably considered a moustache over his lip. A green bandana hung from his back pocket. Ryan had “escorted” him out of Skate-n-Shred more than once. It was that kid, Alex, the one the kids called “The Ace.” For a scrawny kid, he commanded a lot of respect.

When Katarina leaned into the circle and said something to one of the other girls, they leaned against each other laughing. The other girl was Katarina’s friend Marti. The two of them separated from the crowd and walked up the steps to school. Just before opening the big glass door, Katarina looked back at Ryan and waved.

The rain had stopped, but when Katarina waved, a different storm came over him. Katarina was becoming a woman as beautiful as she was brilliant, and Ryan wasn’t ready. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and forced a smile. This is how it is supposed to be. As incredible as Katarina could someday become, right now she was a snarling, fire-breathing little bitch—exactly what fourteen-year-old girls are supposed to be.

On the drive home, Ryan questioned whether he should let Katarina walk all over him like she had. At a stoplight, he watched the sun pass behind a cloud and decided that, more than anything else, Katarina needed someone she could rely on. That she could treat him like shit but still rely on him showed deep, if twisted, trust and affection.

When he got back to the house, Emmy’s car was gone, and Dodge was sitting on the couch. “McNear, my office right now.”

Ryan followed him in. Every time he sat there, Ryan automatically reached for something to twiddle with, but the only thing on the desk was that damn revolver. He reached for it, realized what he was doing, and jerked his hand away.

“This,” Dodge said, holding a sealed envelope out to Ryan, “is notification that someone is pregnant.”

Was Emmy pregnant? Ryan rejected the thought as soon as it came. Dodge would be the last person Emmy would tell and, even if she were, Emmy was quite clear that she had no intention of bearing children—she already had six graduate students.

Trying to appear nonchalant, Ryan took the envelope. It was addressed to him, care of Wayne (Dodge) Nutter, Attorney at Law. The return address had the cross-and-lightning-bolt logo of Creation Energy, LLC. “You didn’t open it?”

“That would be a federal offense,” Dodge said. “Besides, I know what’s in it.”

Ryan tapped the envelope on the desk. “What?”

“This is how it works. They start the bidding and we finish it. The main thing is that they’ve admitted we’re right.” Dodge cupped his chin in his hands. “Go ahead, open it. Let’s see where the games begin.”

Ryan tore open the envelope. There were three sheets of paper. As Ryan read the cover letter, Dodge reached across and took the other sheets.

Jeb Schonders was “pleased to compensate Ryan for his contribution to the success of Creation Energy under the conditions set forth in the enclosed documents.”

“Ha!” Dodge wiggled in his chair with glee. “They think it’s stillborn.” He waved a page just out of Ryan’s reach. “How much do you owe your wife?”

Ryan folded the envelope into a little triangle. How long had it been since he ran out of money, a little over three years? The monthly child support had been 20 percent of his income back when he was making almost $250,000 a year.

“Come on—you don’t have to calculate to the tenth goddamn decimal place.”

“Over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. What’s the offer?” Ryan tried to grab the page from Dodge.

Dodge waved it like a flag, just out of reach. “One fifty? I’ll get you that.”

Ryan stood and set his hands on the desk, looming over Dodge. “What’s the offer?”

“They’ve admitted they’re pregnant. That’s all you need to know.”

Ryan picked up the revolver and glared at Dodge.

Dodge let loose the annoying rasp. “You
finally
figured out why I leave that out—makes negotiation so much more interesting.”

Ryan set it back on the gavel pad and slumped on the desk. “I just want to see my kid—tell me or I’m getting another lawyer.”

“No, you should shoot me. Really.”

“Dodge…” Ryan whined.

“Your cut would be about twenty grand.”

Ryan felt the blood leave his face.

“We’re winning. Now go away. I’m going to drag this on. The longer it festers the more they’ll pay.”

“Tell me what you’re going to do. You’re representing me, remember?”

Dodge took a labored breath and then said, “I’m going to let it fester until it’s a big scabby pile of pus, and then I’m going to collect the gold at the end of the rainbow. I might even give some of it to you.” He rotated around and pulled a file from the cabinet behind him. He rotated back and took a yellow legal pad from his desk. Licking the tip of a pencil, he looked at Ryan as though he were surprised to see him. “Don’t you have coffee to spill or plants to water? Shouldn’t you be standing on the corner with the other Mexicans?”

“God, you’re an asshole. Those guys are from Guatemala and El Salvador. They’re good men. You could learn something from them.”

“Right. I could learn how to speak Mexican. Run along, now.”