Mom nods and moves to the sink with the tea kettle. She stares out of the back window, gazing at that new mound of earth within the flower bed, where my identifying tile will go. In a month or so, the dirt will have compressed back into place and the weather will be warmer, and Dad will plant new flowers there.
Deb used to tell me hilarious stories of Esther as a puppy – how she regularly dug up part of Dad’s flower garden to bury her treats and toys. She’d then deposit newly uprooted flowers on the back step, like a confession, or a gift – infuriating our usually unflappable father.
‘How’s … Reid?’ Mom asks, and her question takes me by surprise.
‘He’s good, I think. He came up for a visit last week.’ Keeping my eyes on the tile I’m working on doesn’t prevent my ears from growing hot, because I’m hoping she doesn’t ask where he stayed the night.
She’s quiet for a few minutes, making the tea. When she sets a mug in front of me, she says, ‘It was a nice thing he did, flying you home last night. Are you … planning on seeing him, while you’re here?’
I note the slight judgement in her tone and answer defensively. ‘He’s in New York, actually. He won’t be home in LA until tomorrow, after I’ve gone back to Berkeley.’
‘Oh,’ she says, considering. She offers nothing more, padding from the room to take Dad his tea. He’s in his study, working on tomorrow’s sermon. I can’t imagine trying to stand up in front of a congregation tomorrow and be encouraging or instructive – but then, he had to continue doing his job after Deb’s accident. In the face of it, even.
No matter what grief or loss takes place, most of life flows on all around us, as though nothing’s changed. At some point in our sorrow, we each make a choice to sink or swim. There’s no other alternative.
REID
The paternity test results are in. No surprise – I’m River’s father. I anticipated this answer, of course. What I didn’t expect was the irrational dread that tore through me, in the seconds before Dad gave me the 99% confirmed answer: I was afraid he was going to say he wasn’t mine.
‘He’s definitely yours.’ Dad’s dismal tone makes it clear that this wasn’t the outcome he was wishing for. I can’t fault him. This can’t be how he envisioned becoming a grandfather (assuming he’d ever envisioned that), though legally he’s sort of not one yet.
I expected this answer to amplify my frustration with the whole thing, foreseen or not. After all, the possibility that I’ll have to tell Dori just became a probability. Legal concerns – something I thought I’d moved past two months ago when I got my licence back – are about to complicate the hell out of my life. And most bizarre of all – I have a sudden, unwelcome sense of obligation towards Brooke.
I should be angry, but instead, I feel conflicted and relieved. What. The. Hell?
So then I think – maybe it’s biological. I’m a man and I’ve reproduced. Maybe there’s a sort of chest-beating satisfaction at the root of this. How f**king lame and archaic – I mean shit, seriously? On the heels of that thought is the knowledge that this same kid has turned Brooke Cameron into an ardent defender of motherhood – her own, of course – not the institution itself. But still. There must be some primitive impulse to blame.
Six hours later, I’m meeting with Dad to decide what to do next. Dropping into a seat across from him, I wait while he finishes a client email. His home office looks the same as it always has – a near-duplicate of his high-rise headquarters, but I haven’t given it a detailed survey in years.
He doesn’t meet with clients here, of course, so there’s no need for posturing – tasteful artwork, perfectly aligned legal books, smiling family photos. Accordingly, the only artwork hanging on the walls consists of a couple of repulsively gruesome war paintings he inherited from his parents, who died when I was too young to retain a memory of them. The built-ins behind him house a disordered arrangement of California and Federal criminal-law volumes, penal codes (the titles of which made me snigger as a ten-year-old), and thick tomes housing Supreme Court precedents. I thank fate once again for making me an actor, though at times I wonder how far apart my dad’s career and my own actually are.
On his cupboard is an array of framed photos – all turned to face his desk, as though he glances at them occasionally, or can if he decides to. The largest is my favourite of my parents on their wedding day. Next to it is Mom holding me the day I was born – she, fresh-faced and beautiful, and me, nothing but a cranky face the size of a grapefruit, encased in a tube of blue blankets. Another shows Mom and me on my first day of kindergarten, my backpack more like a giant shell on my back. She smiles down at me, her hand on my head, and I’m all teeth and big blue eyes, laughing straight into the camera.
While Dad taps at the keyboard, I rise and pick up the pewter frame. Looking closer, I mentally compare this photo to the one of River. Only a year older than he is now, I look much bigger. My clothes are new and expensive – a mirror image of what hip adolescents wore at the time, though at five, I couldn’t possibly have known or cared. My expression is far from solemn. Even so, I see him in my features. I see him, if he was cared for. And happier.
I didn’t want this, any of it, but it’s like I’m stuck on a track, and the train is coming, and there’s nothing I can do but accept the inevitable and try to mitigate the collateral damage.
‘All done,’ Dad says, and I set the photo back in its place and take a seat in front of his desk, leaning forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. Mirroring the sensation I got walking between Brooke’s box towers a few days ago, the walls are closing in.