What Came First (13 page)

It is still so odd to think he has
a name
. Odder still to think that he has a telephone number and address, now in my possession thanks to Dexter Savage.

I’ll never be able to sleep tonight.

My e-mail chimes. Wendy Winder received my message, after all.

I stare at the screen. Once I’ve decided she must be joking (though I don’t get the humor), I pick up the phone and dial her number.

“It’s Laura.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

There is an odd, weighted silence. I don’t know where to begin.

“How did you find him?” she asks finally.

“DNA.” It all spills out: the kit, the lab, the Y-line results, the database. I hadn’t realized how much I wanted to talk about it. Needed to talk about it. Kim Rueben wasn’t even curious. Neither was Dexter Savage.

I say, “Presumably, he wants confidentiality, and I respect that. He’s probably married, maybe has children of his own. And it’s entirely possible that he never told his wife about the sperm donations.”

“Did you Google him?” Wendy asks.

“Oh, yeah. Plenty of hits, but I don’t know which are him.”

“But you’re sure this is the guy?”

“No. I won’t be sure until I call him. But I think so. The investigator sounded pretty confident.”

“If you could ask about dairy . . .”

“Um . . .”

“It’s just a thought I had.” Her voice rises to a higher pitch.

“That maybe my children’s behavior is somehow related to lactose intolerance. What about Ian? Has he ever had trouble with milk?”

“Milk? No.”

“Oh. That’s too bad. I mean—ugh. That came out wrong. You know what I mean. I hope. I’m just trying to figure out . . . Anyway. Will you send me an e-mail? After you talk to him? . . . And maybe ask about the lactose?”

“Uh—sure.”

“When are you going to call him?”

“Tomorrow morning. From work.”

“But he won’t be at his home number then, will he?”

Oh my God. She is right. It is like my brain had been completely jumbled ever since I talked to the detective. I don’t have his work number. Even if I did, he’d be a doctor by now, and doctors are notoriously difficult to reach. I can’t leave a message on his answering machine or, even worse, with his wife, if he has one. But now that I know who he is, I can’t bear to go another whole day without making contact.

I look at the clock. “Do you think nine-forty is too late to call someone?”

“Not if that someone is responsible for half of your son’s DNA.”

I make lard-free frozen bean burritos for dinner. I mean, they’re not still frozen, I heated them in the microwave, but—you know. We had the same thing for dinner yesterday. And the day before. Eric keeps getting them for practically free at work. I’m all for free food, but they take up so much freezer space that I can’t even buy ice cream.

It’s late. Eric went to Venice to hear some band at some farmers’ market or street fair thing or whatever. He asked me to go with, but I wasn’t in the mood. When he comes home, it’s after eight. I’ve got everything ready to go, the burritos plus a bag of salad because I’m trying to eat healthy. And also because bean burritos don’t really fill me up since there’s no meat. But if I try to make up for the nomeat thing by eating more than one bean burrito, well—you know.

When Eric sees the empty plates on the counter, he goes, “You didn’t eat yet?” He should have said, “Thanks for waiting.”

I go, “No, I didn’t eat yet. I was waiting for you.”

And he’s like, “You didn’t have to.”

So I’m all, “I wanted to. I like spending time with you and like talking and stuff.” Which sounds lame and stupid, but whatever. It’s true.

He says, “Oh. That’s nice. I mean, thanks.”

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, Eric and I used to talk. I mean, really
talk
. About our dads, and our favorite movies, and how when we were little we dreamed about jet packs and hover cars and flying to other planets. So I know we can feel close to each other. I just don’t know how to get there.

We fill our plates in the kitchen and then take them to the couch. No discussion. The little glass table is reserved for birthdays and special occasions, like the day after a bad fight. Other nights, it’s you, me, and the TV. Which is mostly okay. We’re both beat after work, and it’s good to just be together. Right?

Eric snags the remote first. Damn. My bad for not getting there first. He channel-surfs, channel-surfs, channel-surfs . . .

“Pick something,” I say.

He lands on a car-chase scene, something old, from like before we were even born. Or, before I was born, anyway.

“No,” I say.

A little more surfing and he gets to a black-and-white war documentary that would be boring even if it were in color.

“Nuh-uh.”

He passes a home-decorating show, a dance show, and a sitcom, only to stop at a soap opera. In Spanish.

“You’re just trying to piss me off,” I say.

“I’m not!” He laughs. “I’m just working on my Spanish comprehension!”

Eric thinks it’s terrible that my father didn’t speak Spanish to me. I’ve tried to explain that he wanted me and my sister to be American, free of the prejudices he suffered, but Eric doesn’t get it. My dad came to America from Mexico when he was seven, but he always kept a little accent. At least, I think he did. As much as I try to hear his voice in my head, the memory is gone.

Eric hands me the remote. “You choose.”

I click around a little bit, but there’s nothing I like that he won’t hate. With a firm move of the thumb, I turn the set off.

“Bold,” he says.

All of a sudden the apartment seems really, really quiet. Well, except for the street sounds and the low thrum of a stereo from an apartment down the hall. And the plumbing noises. Every time someone upstairs flushes the toilet, the water rushes and clicks through pipes in our ceiling. It would be really nice to have a house.

“Dr. Sanchez brought his kids to work today,” I say. See? I can still make conversation. “They’re on spring break. But their nanny had to do something. So they hung out in his office and by my desk. The little one, Sofie, she’s five, she drew a picture of me. I put it up on the wall at work.”

Eric looks seriously fascinated by his burrito.

“You know their mom died, right?” I say.

He looks up from the burrito. “Uh-huh.” Looks back at the burrito.

“I guess that’s why I feel this, like, bond with them. Because I know what it’s like to lose a parent when you’re just a kid. So, at the end of the day, Sofie hugged me and asked Dr. Sanchez if she could come back. And I said anytime, I’ll watch them, but Dr. Sanchez said the nanny’s back tomorrow.”

Finally, Eric speaks. “Maybe you should be a nanny.”

He did
not
just say that.

I almost say, “Fuck you.” Instead, I turn the set back on and flip over to the decorating show.

He stays through the show’s end. Then he takes both our plates to the kitchen and goes off to the bedroom. A dating reality show comes on. Eric hates dating shows, even though I’ve told him that seeing all those skeevy losers on TV makes me appreciate him more.

Tonight, a slimy banker named Jeff is trying to decide who he likes better, a blond skank or a brunette skank. Normally, I’d root for the brunette, but the blonde is named Vanessa, so she’s my girl.

Forty-five minutes into the episode, Jeff and the brunette (her name is Andrea, which they say like ON-dree-uh) are in the hot tub. Jeff is weirdly lacking in body hair. He must wax.

Jeff tells ON-dree-uh that he feels a real connection with her but that he likes my girl Vanessa too and he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. ON-dree-uh says, “Let’s not think about tomorrow. Let’s think about right now.” She puts her arms around him and they start kissing. You can see tongue, which shouldn’t be allowed on network TV. Kids could be watching.

The phone rings. It’s probably another call about lowering credit-card payments. I really need to figure out how to get on that Do Not Call list.

“Hello?”

“I’m trying to reach Eric Fergus.”

He is sitting on the bed, leaning against a bunch of pillows, reading a library book. When he sees me, he takes his iPod buds out of his ears.

I hold out the phone. “It’s for you.”

My stomach hurts, and not from eating too many burritos. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. The woman on the other end of the line is no telemarketer.

In the months since I sent Ian’s DNA sample off to Helix Laboratories, I’ve envisioned meeting Ian’s donor. I’ve imagined long conversations about his childhood and family background. But, fearful that I might jinx the outcome, I’d never taken the time to prepare questions or plan my approach.

After talking to Wendy Winder, I finally got down to it, thinking and writing rapidly, having decided that telephoning after ten o’clock would be unconscionable, a poor reflection of both my character and on my appreciation for social norms, but that if I could get through before 9:59, all would be okay.

 

One thing I foolishly neglected to take into account: the possibility that his wife might answer the phone. At the sound of her voice, my stomach clenches.

“Hello?” A television plays in the background.

“I’m trying to reach Eric Fergus.” My voice sounds lower than usual.

She doesn’t respond. In the moment it takes for her to pass along the phone, I jot an additional note at the top of my list:
Apologize re: time.

“Hello?” On the other end, something crashes. A door slamming, perhaps?

I try to keep my voice steady. “My apologies for calling at this late hour. Am I speaking to Eric Fergus?”

“Yes.”

I dive right in. “My name is Laura Cahill, and I’m an attorney in Orange County. Before we proceed, I have a few brief questions.”

“Is this a survey?” he asks, interrupting my flow.

“No.”

“And you’re a lawyer? I’m sorry, I don’t understand what—”

“I am an attorney, but this is not a legal matter. I only told you that for the purposes of identification.” We haven’t even made it past the second point on my list—the third if you count the apology regarding the time—and already my pajama top is damp under the arms.

I continue, “For the purposes of confirmation, were you born on May second, 1977?”

“. . . Yes.”

“And do you have an older brother named John Jameson Fergus?

He hesitates even longer this time before confirming. We haven’t even gotten to the Big Question yet. Perhaps I should shift my talking points, prepare him for the shock that lies ahead.

“Dr. Fergus. Eric. Nine years ago I conceived a son through artificial insemination, and I have reason to believe that you were the donor.”

When he doesn’t respond, I forge ahead to reassurance: “There’s no cause for alarm. I don’t want to interrupt your life in any way, and I’m not looking for you to take any kind of role in my son’s life.”

“Before we go any further, let me tell you how grateful I am. Thanks to your selfless act, I was able to fulfill my dreams of motherhood and bring a beautiful, bright, loving child into the world.”

Still nothing.

I clear my throat. “Dr. Fergus, can you please confirm that you donated sperm at the Southern California Cryobank sometime prior to January of 2003?”

He is silent.

“Well. Did you?”

“Oh my God.”

“Is that a yes? . . . Hello?”

“I will take, um . . . I’ll take that as a yes. Of course we would need a DNA test to confirm your paternity, but based on the information I’ve acquired, it looks like we have a match.”

“But . . . but . . . the bank promised that my identity would be kept secret. They said no one would ever know.”

“The bank has maintained your confidentiality and has never identified you by anything other than your donor number, 613. I tracked you down using genetic testing. Your brother John was registered with an online genealogy site, and my son matched.”