Where We Belong (8 page)

“So. Tell me more. Tell me all about yourself,” I say.

She crosses her arms, and says, “What do you want to know?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound like I’m interviewing you.”

“It’s okay,” she says, but still offers no information.

“So. I know how old you are,” I say. “Eighteen.”

She nods, expressionless. “Yeah. I had to be eighteen to get your name.”

I nod, remembering the contract I signed—as well as the lie I told on the signed, sworn affidavit.
I don’t know the identity of the birth father.
I push him out of my brain, as I’ve done a thousand times before, and at least a dozen tonight.

“So you’re a senior?” I say.

She nods.

“Are you going to college next year?”

“I don’t know. I just got into Missouri … Last week.” She shrugs, then glances out the window overlooking a darkened Madison Avenue. “But I really don’t want to go to college.”

Her answer disappoints me, but I pretend to be unfazed. “You can always take a year off to think about it,” I say. “That’s what I did.”

My voice trails off. She gives me a look, and I can tell she suspects what I did during that year, but she doesn’t ask. Instead she clears her throat and says, “So I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here…”

Without thinking or hesitating, I reach across the table and cover her hand with mine. Her fingers are cool, slender, delicate, her middle one dwarfed by a large turquoise ring that extends up to her knuckle. She tenses, but doesn’t recoil, and I return my hand to my lap. “You don’t need a reason,” I say.

She gives me a look I can’t read and says, “I just … needed to meet you … I felt like … something was missing … you know … not knowing … where I came from and stuff…”

I consider echoing the sentiment in a knee-jerk fashion, implying that something has been missing in my life, too, but know this isn’t true. Earlier tonight the only thing I thought was missing was a proposal from Peter.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” I say instead, although I’m fairly certain that this is an overstatement if not an outright lie.

She swallows and waits as we both stare at each other awkwardly then look away in unison.

“Okay. How about this,” I say, focusing on a fleck of gold in the marble counter. “I ask you a question. Then you ask me one. We’ll take turns. Anything goes.”

She nods, as I realize that it is a dangerous game for me. What will I tell her when she asks about him? The truth, of course, but there are so many gradations and interpretations of the truth that such a thing, in its pure form, practically doesn’t exist. At least it hasn’t in my life—and maybe that is true for everyone.

“Okay. Let’s see … Do you have any siblings?” I say.

“One sister,” she says, and then tells me that her parents thought they couldn’t have children but then got pregnant right after they adopted her. “Her name is Charlotte. She was a miracle,” Kirby adds, expressionless.

“Are you close?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, Charlotte’s cool. Really nice. And she’s a crazy good swimmer with the best butterfly time in the city’s history. She has Olympic potential—she’s that good.” She gives me a telltale eye roll and says, “Everyone loves her.”

“Wow. Maybe a little too perfect?” I guess.

“You could say that.”

I smile, but she remains stone-faced.

“Your turn,” I say.

She bites her lip, then copies my question and asks if I have any siblings.

“No. I’m an only child. My parents love to travel and thought it was easier with one child,” I say, the explanation I’ve always accepted at face value suddenly sounding ridiculous.

She nods, then whispers. “Your turn.”

I glance up at the pair of chrome pendant light fixtures above the island and remember watching Peter change the bulbs last week. It is the extent of his handiness. “Do you have a boyfriend?” I ask, hoping the answer is no.

She shakes her head and fires back, “No. Do you?”

I nod, thinking of my conversation with Peter, one that now feels as if it took place at least two weeks ago rather than less than two hours ago. “Yes. We’ve been together a few years.” I stop there, deciding that anything else is too much information, at least for now. Then I swallow and ask her about her favorite subject in school.

“I don’t have one,” she says.

“Fair enough,” I say, then wait for her turn.

“Okay. I know this is sort of a rude question,” she finally says. “But how old are you?”

I smile and say, “It’s not rude for another four years. I’m thirty-six.”

I can see her doing the math in her head as I give her the answer. “I was eighteen when I had you. Your age.”

She inhales sharply. “Oh,” she says, glancing away again. I study her profile, deciding that while our chins are similar, hers is better, slightly stronger than mine but still feminine. Her cheekbones are more defined, too, and I know where she gets them. I think of him now, again, in a rush of visual memories, wondering how many more questions until we get to him. I feel myself start to yawn, try to stifle it and lose the fight. She yawns back, as I remember reading that the urge to sleep is a powerful biological response to stress and pain, both of which I’m feeling now.

“I should go,” she says, as I notice dark, bluish circles under her eyes. “I know it’s really late.”

My heart sinks, yet a larger part of me is relieved that she won’t be staying. That his name hasn’t come up—and that maybe it never will. Maybe I’ll never have to tell her the painful memories that I’ve spent eighteen years trying to bury.

She stands, making a slow move toward the doorway.

“Where are you going?” I ask, expecting her to tell me she has a friend or relative in the city.

She removes a wrinkled piece of paper from her back pocket and reads off the name of a youth hostel with an address near Chinatown. I feel an enormous rush of guilt and shake my head. “Absolutely not. You’re staying here.”

She opens her mouth, as if poised to protest, but then closes it, looking too exhausted to try.

“One more thing,” I say, bracing myself.

She raises her eyebrows, as I clear my throat and ask if her parents know she’s here.

She stares into her glass, a clear no.

“Do you still live with them?” I say.

She nods, looking slightly indignant, and says, “I didn’t run away if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I just … wondered…?”

“They think I’m in Alabama. With my friend and her mother.”

“So they don’t know that you planned to do … this?”

“Do this?” she says with the faintest trace of hostility, although she must know what I’m getting at.

“Meet me,” I clarify.

Now downright defiant, she shakes her head. I wait for her to meet my gaze, knowing that we’re at a pivotal moment. I know what I should do—insist that she phone them—but I’m afraid to do it. What if she gets angry? What if she leaves and never comes back? Then again, she’s a teenager, thousands of miles away from her parents. I ask why she lied to them, trying to understand her situation before I make a decision or pass judgment.

“This is none of their business,” she says. “And frankly. They are none of yours.”

“Okay … Listen … I’m not going to try to make you do anything, but—”

“But what?” she snaps, her eyes flashing, her jaw set in a stubborn line. Although I know I’m not her real mother, it is my first taste of what it’s like to be one. It fills me with a sense of fear and inadequacy. “There’s no reason to call and upset them. Besides, I’m eighteen. An adult. Technically. So it’s cool.”

I nod, afraid of pressing her and upsetting the fragile understanding that we’ve crafted in the last few moments. “Okay. We can talk about it tomorrow,” I say. “I just—I just want you to be okay. Whatever is going on in your life. Whatever you’re feeling … I just want to help you.”

I mean what I’m saying—at least I think I do—but the words sound thin. Like an actor who has no emotional connection to a scene and has to use a menthol tear stick to cry.

“Thank you,” she says as we yawn in unison again. Then we stand and face each other.

“You’re welcome, Kirby,” I say. It is the first time I’ve said her name aloud, and I wonder how I possibly could have ever not known it. That I ever could have thought of her as a Katherine, the name I had called her during those first three days—now seeming too formal, too traditional, too ordinary for the girl she seems to be.

I lead her back into the hall, collect her bag, and show her to the guest bedroom, next to mine. I point out the attached bathroom, the linen closet full of towels and extra blankets, and the drawer stocked with hotel toiletries in case she forgot anything. Then I wish her a good night and tell her to come get me if she needs anything. Anything at all.

*   *   *

An hour after I’ve taken an Ambien, I am still alert and wide-eyed, staring into the complete blackness of my bedroom—a tough thing to achieve in New York City, especially in a corner building. I think of the day I told my decorator that I didn’t much care whether we went with cool colors or warm, an upholstered headboard or iron bed, as long as I had custom window treatments that blocked out all traces of light from the street below. Yet suddenly, for the first time in my adulthood, I am afraid of the dark—or at least afraid
in
the dark. It is an irrational feeling yet I roll over and quickly snap on the light the way I did as a child, my eyes darting about the corners of the room. It occurs to me that maybe I’m afraid for Kirby, but I resist the urge to go and check on her; it feels presumptuous on the heels of eighteen years of utter cluelessness.

So instead, I check my phone, wishing there was someone I could talk to about the biggest news I’ve had since she was born. Without a much longer conversation, there is only one option—my mother. But I know she is asleep next to my father and the only way to call her would be to awaken both of them. My father would assume the worst—that there is terrible news. Which he would probably deem this to be—one of the reasons my mother and I chose to keep this secret from him in the first place. Besides, I really don’t want to talk to her about it, not yet anyway, remembering her advice to check a different box on that form.
It is for the best if you cut all ties, forever.
It was clear that’s what she wanted, and although I never knew if it were for her sake, mine, or both, the memory has often kept me from discussing it with her.

I nervously scroll through my e-mail and texts, wondering if Peter is awake. I suddenly miss him, and desperately wish we hadn’t ended our evening the way we did. More important, I wish he knew my secret. I wish I had told him, suddenly regretting my decision not to tell him. I think of all the logical times I could have—every time a friend had a baby; when he told me Aidan’s birth story, how Robin’s water broke during an opera and how she nearly delivered in a taxi on Third Avenue; or when he confessed
his
own deepest secrets—that he plagiarized a paper at Dartmouth and once slept with a stripper at a bachelor party in Vegas. I didn’t judge him—and don’t believe he would have judged me. And yet, he
might.
He might decide that any woman who could give up a child isn’t fit to be a mother. At least not a mother of
his
child. He might have a problem, at the very least, with the fact that I kept the secret from my own father, from the
baby’
s father. There were just too many risks involved, too much downside. It was easier to leave it alone. Cleaner. Simpler. Safer. Or so I thought until now.

I switch off the light and close my eyes, but the desperate feeling of wanting to talk to him will not subside. So I send him a text, asking if he’s up. Seconds later, my phone vibrates. I grab it, eager for his words, the way I always am when he writes, but much more so tonight. I text as fast as I can, reassured with every exchange.

P
ETER
: Yup.

M
ARIAN
: Can’t sleep?

P
ETER
: Nope. Feel bad about earlier.

M
ARIAN
: It’s okay.

P
ETER
: No. It’s not. I’m sorry.

M
ARIAN
: I am too. Wish you were here.

P
ETER
: Do you want me to come over?

Before I can reply no, the phone rings and I greedily answer it, still following my ingrained instinct to keep my secret, spinning fresh justifications, excuses.

“You okay, sweetie?” he says, his voice sexy and scratchy. I hear ice in a glass and know that he is sipping scotch, his version of Ambien.

I try to answer, but can’t.

“Champ?” he says. “You there?”

“I’m here,” I say, managing to make my voice sound even and normal.

He asks again if I’m okay, a tinge of guilt in his voice—which, in turn, makes me feel guilty for being upset with him. How can I expect a man to commit to me forever when I’ve omitted such an important detail about my life?

“Yes,” I say. “I’m here.”

“Do you want me to come over?” he asks gently.

I desperately want him to be beside me, but then think of Kirby in the next room and tell him no, it’s late, I’ll call him in the morning.

But he’s already made his decision. “I’m coming over,” he says, then hangs up before I can protest again.

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later he is in my room, undressing down to his white Brooks Brothers boxers, the only kind he ever wears. The smell of his skin comforts me, as does the heat of his body next to mine.

“Now,” he says. “That’s much better. Talk to me.”

I glance toward the door, even though he’s whispering, worried that she’ll hear us.

I swallow hard, wondering what to say, how to begin.

“I’m sorry I upset you,” he starts, holding me.

“No. It was my fault…” I say, trying to stop him right there, the guilt beginning to choke me.

But he continues, “No. You were trying to talk about our future—and I was … dismissive. Let’s talk about it now.”