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.
PETER: Yup.
MARIAN: Can’t sleep?
PETER: Nope. Feel bad about earlier.
MARIAN: It’s okay.
PETER: No. It’s not. I’m sorry.
MARIAN: I am too. Wish you were here.
PETER: 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.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
“Why not? C’mon, Champ … I didn’t mean to imply that I never want to marry again … I just meant that—”
The conversation I was so desperate to have suddenly feels trivial as I say, “Peter. This isn’t what you think. I’m not upset about that … I mean, I was—but this is … something else.”
“What? What is it?” he asks, his voice kind but with a tinge of frustration, impatience.
My mind races, knowing exactly how I could cut to the chase: Peter, my eighteen-year-old daughter is asleep in the next room.
But I’m unable to get those words out—or begin the story at all.
Instead I stammer, “It’s something else—something I have to tell you. I—I’ve kept a secret from you.” I feel relieved the second the words are out. At the same time, I regret my cryptic Lifetime television preamble.
“What kind of secret?” he asks.
“A pretty big one,” I say.
“What? Did you kill someone?” he asks with a nervous laugh. And then—“Sorry. That wasn’t funny. Even if you did, you could tell me. You can tell me anything.”
“I didn’t kill anyone, Peter,” I say, thinking of that word, abortion, that haunted me that summer. Was it taking a life? I could not decide, then or now. All I knew was that I couldn’t go through with it. I wonder if I had made another choice, whether I would have kept that a secret, too. I wonder how I would feel if I were making that confession to Peter. If the shame would have felt greater than it does now. I remind myself that I did the right thing—by having her, by giving her away. Then I bury my face in my pillow as he continues his questioning.
“Was it before me? I mean—it’s not about us, is it? You didn’t make out with Damien Brady, did you?” he asks, referring to the male star of my show. He is joking, but I wonder if he’d view that as a lesser or greater betrayal.
“No,” I say, burying my face in my pillow. “It’s not about you. It’s about me. And something that happened to me eighteen years ago.”
“What? What, Marian? Please just tell me. It’s not going to change the way I feel about you.”
“You can’t promise that,” I say.
He takes a deep breath, then reaches over and kisses me, a hard, openmouthed kiss that lasts more than a few seconds. His tongue is soft, warm, reassuring. When we separate, he says, “Rip off the Band-Aid, Marian. Just tell me.”
And so I do, the words awkwardly tumbling out of me, the story unfolding in its bare-bones form, starting with that summer, ending with the knock on the door a few hours ago. I can’t look at him until I have finished, afraid of what I might find. Disapproval, disappointment, judgment. And sure enough, when I do, it is all there, although he is doing his best to hide it.
“I never told anyone,” I say, as if this makes it better that I didn’t tell him. “Except for my mother.”
“Well. Thank you for finally telling me,” he says.
“Do you still love me?” I ask him.
“Of course,” he says, and although he sounds convincing, I know there is a big difference between love and trust.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says.
But what choice does he have? We both know he can’t retrade on the grand promise he just made. At least not tonight, here in the dark. At least not before he hears the part of the story that I intentionally left out.
5
kirby
I find the photograph of Marian and what must be her parents—my grandparents—the following morning as I tiptoe around her sleek living room, one eye on her closed bedroom door, careful not to get caught snooping. There are a lot of abstract paintings in the room, but it is the only photo—a black-and-white eight-by-ten in a sterling frame engraved with Marian’s initials. In it, she and her mother are wearing party dresses, her mother’s beaded, Marian’s long and floral. Her father is in a tuxedo. They are standing in a vineyard, next to an olive tree with a dramatic background of a valley and blue mountains. Marian is in the middle, her arms around her parents, and they are all laughing. I have the feeling that Marian’s father just cracked a joke as he has the sort of satisfied look that comes after you’ve said something funny. He is lean and tall with a long nose placed on a long face, and a neatly trimmed beard, all of which remind me of a bearded Atticus or a modern-day Abraham Lincoln. And although he is not that handsome, he has the sort of face you want to keep looking at. Her mother is the opposite—petite, elegant, and beautiful, but generic. Her hair is sprayed into a stylish bob, and she is dripping with diamonds. Marian looks about like she does now, only younger and thinner, her hair longer. She is barefoot, her strappy sandals kicked off in the grassy foreground, and she wears no jewelry other than a small gold pendant that appears to be a cursive M. I imagine that they are at a family wedding, at some fancy spot like Napa Valley (although I’m not even sure exactly where that is). In a few moments, some huge-ass cake will be cut, pink champagne poured, and a big brass band will play Sinatra while everyone dances, ballroom style, under the stars.
As I pick up the photo and stare at it more closely, I feel a sudden longing, although I can’t describe exactly why. Would I rather be part of this family? Or is it a simple matter of wishing I had been at the party that night? I put the frame back down on the table, one fact crystallizing in my mind: Marian is rich. I think of the photos in my house—class pictures lining the stairwell and fuzzy snapshots cluttering up the mantel—and can’t help but wonder how different my life would have been if she had kept me. It’s not that we’re poor, but still. Who doesn’t want to be rich? Besides,
she can no longer use money as an excuse to give me away. She could have easily afforded to keep me. It could have been done. She just didn’t want to. The realization doesn’t make me angry, but it does sting a little, and I can’t help feeling a little bitter that here she was, living large, when, for all she knew, I could have been on food stamps. Somehow it makes it more of a rejection than if she had to give me up.
I make my way over to a boxy, white sofa and sit, trying to get comfortable on the rock-hard cushions as I examine the large, glossy books on the glass-topped coffee table, searching for clues about what she likes, who she is. I pick one up called Hamptons Havens and begin to flip through it. It is filled with more photos like the one I’ve just examined, and I wonder if Marian has a summer house there. I’m betting that she does—a huge one she still calls a cottage. Or maybe she prefers Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod, Nantucket, all the spots in New England that blur together and only ring a bell from my mother’s obsession with the Kennedys.
A few seconds later, I hear her bedroom door open. I nervously close the book, doing my best to look as inconspicuous as possible, a difficult task on a white sofa in a sun-drenched room. I look toward the doorway as she emerges in gray velour sweats. Her hair is swept up in a bun, fixed with a comb, and she is wearing brown tortoiseshell glasses that explain my nearsightedness.
“Well, you’re an early bird,” she says when she spots me, her voice too high, too friendly, fake.
I force a smile back, but feel it fade as my gaze shifts to a male interloper, walking a few paces behind her. Wondering when he arrived, in the middle of the night or this morning, I self-consciously cross my arms in front of my Gap sweatshirt, resenting him for being here and Marian for feeling the need to call in reinforcements. As he comes closer, I can see that he is older than Marian—maybe as many as ten years older—but is handsome in that older-guy kind of way, and he looks important. I can tell by the way she glances back at him, and he gives her an encouraging nod, that she cares very much about his opinion of her—his opinion, period. I fleetingly wonder if he could be my birth father, having heard stories about couples giving their first child away, only to marry later. But I know the far more likely scenario is that my birth father is nothing like this man.