A Necessary End (27 page)

What chafed wasn't merely her (temporary) destruction of my dream of motherhood. It's that she slipped right past me, as if I were just any other dupe on the street. I've spent my life cultivating a certain distance from others. Then there's Patty, and I'm listening to her woes and sending her checks. I start sharing my secrets in return, so she can tell me I'm a good person. As if she knows the first thing about goodness.

I burned so bright and so hot that for a while, I wasn't even thinking about the birth mother phone. I wasn't thinking motherhood at all. I was on the avenging angel track. Let her pay, and then I'd don my maternal garb. Then I'd be ready.

“Eggs!” I say to Leah and Trevor, clattering a plate down on the dining room table. “Who wants to eat?”

Trevor leaps up. “You got any Tabasco?”

Leah doesn't look away from Michael. “No, thanks.”

After Patty, you would have thought I'd have avoided any potential
complications. Obviously, plenty of others have already turned Leah down. But I have to agree with Patty about one thing: If I'd played it safe, if I'd stopped trusting myself, I would have been letting them all win.

I think of that text: “U know I have plans for them.”

I've been known to make plans of my own. Just ask Patty.

I
'm getting that feeling again, like baby Michael is really Michael, like my brother is watching me through infant eyes. Today, he's lying on his blanket and laughing at me. “See,” he's saying, “you can't get away from me! She won't even let you change my name!”

“He's started smiling,” Adrienne announces, “and I made eggs.” There's something maniacal in her movements, like she's barely held together with chicken wire and string. I know the feeling.

Leah and Trevor are so happy they seem stoned. Smart money says they had makeup sex sometime in the night. Or maybe they actually are stoned. They're all over the baby. If you didn't know better, you'd think they were just regular parents, any other young family.

No wonder Adrienne's on the warpath.

I enter the kitchen and move in to kiss her neck. She practically jumps out of her skin. “Relax,” I say. “It's just me.”

“I made eggs,” she repeats, like she's a doll who's only programmed with one line.

“I see.” One plate's been scraped clean; the other two are untouched. “Did you eat?”

“No. Trevor did.” She bustles around, all useless energy. Without Mick (Cale?), she doesn't know what to do or who to be.

I should suggest something for us to do as a family—as in, Adrienne, Mick, and me—but that new toothless smile of his makes me want to crawl out of my skin. It doesn't help, trying to substitute a name. I still know he's Michael. How could I forget?

“Ray called,” I say. “They're shorthanded.”

She doesn't look at me. It's like she doesn't want to see me lie to her.

“Is it okay if I go in today?”

“Fine,” she says, flat as roadkill.

I briefly consider a shave and a shower but I want out of the house as fast as possible. So instead, I go to the master bathroom to wash my pits and douse myself with deodorant. I stuff my bankroll of hundreds into my wallet and head out the front door, yelling, “Bye,” over my shoulder.

I drive fast and aggressively to the Pyramid; I get flipped off twice for cutting people off. I'm spreading the joy around.

The lot for the Pyramid is full, so I spring for the valet. It's not a great neighborhood, and I don't like walking it with hundreds in my pocket. I've got a thousand on me now, and I plan to double it.

Once inside, I check the board. There are three guys already waiting for $2/$4 Hold'em. Three's a bad number. Not enough to start a new table, enough for a long wait. The problem is, you can't make anyone vacate their seat. It's a twenty-four-hour joint, and people can sit there for days if they want. If they suck, they want to keep rebuying, thinking they'll hit a streak. If they're winning, they want to ride the rush. In between are the rocks: the ones who fold and fold, waiting on just the right starting hand. Leaning against the dull gold rail, I can look down and spy the Hold'em action, and I'm in trouble. No one's budging.

I see that Berkeley kid—yeah, it's Berkeley, he's actually wearing the UC shirt today—comfortably settled in at one of the tables.
With rows and rows of neatly stacked chips in front of him, he's not going anywhere. Same stupid goatee as last time, with a self-satisfied expression on his face.

He's focused on a hand and doesn't notice me watching him from the rail. I know he'll remember me, though. You remember the guys who felted you.

Part of me would love to get a seat at his table. He's the big stack, and it would be an exquisite pleasure to take that distinction away from him. The other part of me thinks it'd be better at a table where it's just good fun, no testosterone-surging bullshit. But really, if there's no surge, is it any fun at all?

From this vantage point, I can study all his moves. He's in way too many hands, and his big bets are far too predictable. I know I can take advantage.

That occupies my brain for a while, but once it's been fifteen or twenty minutes, I'm feeling antsy. Worse, my mind starts to travel to all sorts of places I haven't been in a long time, places I try hard never to visit. I'm going back to the beginning.

At first, I really did see Adrienne as Michael's girlfriend, only. I was happy for him, and I had my pick of hot girls. I wasn't an asshole or anything; I was honest with all of them. “I'm not looking for a girlfriend,” I'd say, and sure, I knew that for some, that was a red flag in front of a bull, they love a challenge, but I never changed my story. Whatever they did, I still wasn't looking for a girlfriend.

I look back, and I can see that Adrienne systematically set about changing me. She wasn't even the prettiest girl I'd been with, but she was the most determined. She was the funniest, too. Über-confident. It did intrigue me, where she got all that sass, why she was with my brother.

That sounds mean, and it felt mean when I had the thought. But I couldn't help it. She was entirely wrong for him. He couldn't stand up to all that attitude. I think he fell in love with her because she was the first girl he ever had, not because she was Adrienne.

And Adrienne? Did she fall in love with him?

She's always told me no, but she didn't tell him no. I used to hear him saying, “I love you,” and her saying it right back. I wish she hadn't done that. Then he would have known the score, he would have been prepared. But she was his first, and he was defenseless.

When she was at our house, she'd laser in on me, using information Michael had told her. She'd talk to me about cars; she'd convey all their power and all their sex; she charged up the room.

Michael thought it was for him; he was that innocent. But I could see how he'd be confused. After she did that, they went up to his room and had noisy sex. I couldn't hear him, but I could sure hear her. I'm sure that's how she wanted it.

So yeah, I wondered about her, but I didn't flirt back. I know that for a fact. She'd talk to me, and I'd occupy myself with something. I'd start making a sandwich, or I'd turn on the TV. I hoped she wouldn't break Michael's heart, not on my account.

One day, after she'd been with Michael three months, after they'd exchanged “I love you”s, she cornered me. I remember exactly where I was: in the kitchen, drinking my dad's beer after a long day at work. I don't know where Michael was.

She stood close, and she smelled amazing (it was a smell I've since come to know well), and she said, “I love you more than anything.” Then she scampered off like some woodland creature.

It wasn't the “I love you.” I knew plenty of girls said that easily. But “more than anything”—it felt like a promise. I'd offered her nothing, and she made me a promise like that.

Adrienne intrigued me, yes, but girls had done that to me before. What they hadn't done was scare me. I felt the weight of inevitability.

I didn't want to mess up what Michael had going. He would have loved his first girl, any girl, but it happened to be Adrienne. He barely knew his mom; that was heartbreak enough. I didn't want to do it to him.

I thought about telling him some story about Adrienne, a rumor I'd heard about her cheating on him. I thought of confronting her
and saying she had to tell Michael the truth, it wasn't right, what she was doing to him. I never considered telling him the truth, though. It just seemed too devastating, since he already thought I was golden and he was shit.

What I actually did was nothing. In a way, I'm more ashamed of that than I am of what came after. I was a coward. I let my brother get used; I let Adrienne feel like we were sharing a secret, which led her on. If I could go back to that fork in the road . . .

It's not that I chose Adrienne, not then. Honestly, I'm not even sure I chose her later. She chose me, and it was a centrifugal force.

I spent the next two weeks avoiding my house. I dated ferociously. I was removing myself from contention, letting Michael have Adrienne. I thought I was being a good brother. He'd find out soon enough what he was dealing with, or Adrienne would move on to someone else. She'd corner some other guy and tell him she loved him more than anything.

In my gut, though, I didn't believe that last bit. I had a feeling that phrase, that feeling, was reserved for me. Why, though? What was so special about me? I didn't know, but on some level, it puffed me up. To have done so little but to have earned so much—it was heady in a way I still can't explain.

But I was a good brother (or so I told myself) and I stayed away. Then Adrienne showed up at the Chevy dealership where I worked. I was in the back, stacking parts, and suddenly she was there in front of me. We just stared at each other, not speaking. I'd never before had a truly electric silence, didn't know they really existed.

She moved in close, still not saying anything, and she ran her hands up my torso, and I found myself saying her name. And that was pretty much it.

I told her afterward that it was just sex; I said that she should leave me alone, and she needed to stop messing with Michael's head. She was sixteen, anyway, and I was nineteen. I could get arrested. I deserved to get arrested for what I was feeling.

It wasn't just sex, though. It was fate. I'd never felt anything like it.

She broke up with Michael, and that was the beginning of the end. The end of Michael, but now, I think, the end of me.

All this time, I've treated Adrienne's manipulation like it's some charming quirk of hers. Adrienne's a force, I've always said. She'll use all she has to get what she wants. But maybe that's not just ambition or drive; it's a sickness.

I was nineteen, and I couldn't hold my own against Adrienne. Leah's nineteen now.

I saw the way Leah was smiling at Michael this morning. So pure, so clean. She's had it rough, and maybe she's starting to think that Michael is her second chance. She could be right.

I need to protect her: from Trevor (who's a classic sociopath, just think how he tried to work an old drunk guy at the pool table last night); from Adrienne. Leah's young, but that doesn't mean she can't be a good mother. That baby is her flesh and blood, not ours. She has claims on him at every level—legal, emotional, you name it. If she decides she wants to be his mother, she has that right. I'm not going to let Adrienne take it away from her.

We're not going to destroy another young life.

Y
o, Adrienne!” Trevor says, and then laughs. “Has anyone ever said that to you before?”

“Only my whole life,” I answer. I force a smile, like we're all friends here. I'm on the couch feeding Michael, but with Trevor and Leah clustered around, it just doesn't feel the same. I'm on edge. “U know I have plans for them” rings in my head. The
u know
means that Trevor is at least aware of her plans, which seems pretty disloyal given my support for his plan to get Leah back. I want to kick his ass out into the street, with Leah soon to follow, but he's still my best hope. Unless he intervenes, she's got another ten months here. Ten months to bond with my baby.

I need to get Trevor alone and ask for the truth. Somehow, I feel like he might tell me. I can't ask for Leah's plans directly, of course, not without giving away that I saw their texts. But there are other ways.

“My dad loved that movie. He loved all, like, five of them,” Trevor says. “Even the one with Mr. T.”

Leah laughs. “Your father has the worst taste.” I feel like it's a
jab at me, like Leah's saying any movie with an Adrienne in it is worthless.

“Leah and me were thinking that we'd take little dude out today. Just to the park or something. Leah says he doesn't, like, get out much.” Trevor's tone is casual, but he's not looking at me.

Doesn't get out much. Translation: You, Adrienne, don't take him out. As in, you're a bad parent. As in, Leah is judging my parenting and sharing her brilliant maternal insights with Trevor.

I stare down at Michael in my arms, willing myself to calm down. Only Michael. He's all that matters.

And they want to take him away from me—out to the park or something. What's something?

“Could we just, like, borrow your gear?” Trevor continues. “I know he needs a lot of junk. Car seat and all.”

“We just want him to, like, see the sun,” Leah says.

He gets out plenty. I put him in the Björn and we traverse the backyard together. I show him things. The trees, the weeds, the grass that Gabe can't seem to get around to mowing. Leah doesn't know how Michael and I spend our time.

Unless she's been observing me and I haven't even realized it.

First Leah takes Michael to the park without me, then what? It seems unlikely she'll want to raise him (especially when she's still into Trevor, who doesn't want to be a dad). But those texts show she's no fan of mine and that she doesn't like how I've been treating Gabe. If I don't start doing some damage control, she could decide that she wants Michael with a different family. There are scads of couples on the prospective-parents website who'd be happy to take my place.

“You're right,” I say. “The park sounds great. Maybe I could go with you guys?”

They exchange a surreptitious look. It's not the outing they had in mind.

“I trust you completely,” I tell them. “I just think it sounds like fun.” I look to Trevor, my supposed ally.

“Yeah, that's cool,” he says. Leah doesn't glare at him, so that's a start.

It's not going to be easy, sucking up to Leah. But if I want to neutralize the threat that she poses to my life with Michael, it has to be done. Two can play Machiavelli around here. I need to remember that this is all just a means to an end, and this time, I'm getting my happy ending.

“Let me show you how to pack the diaper bag,” I say. It's a gamble, including her more rather than less, but once she realizes how much work Michael really is, she's going to bail. “You'll need to know for when you take him out on your own.” I turn to Trevor. “You can watch Michael a minute?”

“Uh, yeah.” His smile telegraphs discomfort. Good.

The feeding is over, so I transfer a drowsy Michael into Trevor's arms. In a perfectly timed act of collusion, Michael lets out a fetid fart. “I'll change him,” I say, “once we're back.”

Trevor nods, his nostrils flaring like a thoroughbred's. Leah stifles a laugh as she follows me to the nursery. Once there, I run through a check of the diaper bag, talking the whole time about how many burp cloths Michael needs, extra pacifiers, making sure there are enough wipes and diapers . . .

I'm being intensely boring on purpose, and Leah's eyes are glazing. That's it, Leah. Get a load of the tedium that is infant care. The only thing that makes it worthwhile, really, is that Michael is the absolute most gorgeously phenomenal baby in the world. But I'm not about to point that out. I'm too busy telling her about all the possible contingencies we need to prepare for, emphasizing his abject helplessness and the heft of caregiver responsibility. If she thinks it's all about watching him smile on a blanket, she's getting schooled.

“The thing is,” I say, “he's a lot of work, and I know that can be kind of daunting. It's that way for Gabe.”

As expected, she wakes up at the mention of Gabe's name.

“It's not just the work, though, with Gabe, or the way we've had
to totally and completely change our lifestyles. It's the trauma. Do you know what I mean?”

“His brother's suicide?”

I nod. “Gabe and I were talking the other night about how the memory of his brother holds him back. He really wants to bond with the baby, but he's so afraid to love someone and lose them.” I'm making it up as I go along, but I can see Leah's right with me. “He's trying hard to work through it. He might start seeing a therapist. Also, we're playing around with nicknames, because just saying ‘Michael' brings so much back for him. But, you know, marriage is about times like this. Standing by people, understanding them. I mean, love is about times like this. You relate, right?”

“Not exactly.”

“You're trying to forgive Trevor. Which I think is great, by the way. I can see how much you love each other.”

She starts to smile, as if in reverie. I bet they're in his car every night. Not my business, not my problem. Might even be my solution, if Trevor's pillow talk is about going back to Rhode Island. I'm sure the neighbors never see; they're lights–out–at–nine thirty kind of people.

Leah stops at the smile. She doesn't want to give me too much. She doesn't trust me.

Not yet, anyway. But I'm making headway. I smile and lift the diaper bag onto my shoulder. “So that's it! We're ready.”

I have Leah join me for a step-by-step diaper change, taking care to point out all the fundamentals and tips I've learned along the way. Fortunately, it is a full dirty diaper—smelly and sticky. It's a nine-wiper. Leah can't keep the distaste off her face. This is going swimmingly.

Then it's time for a lengthy car seat tutorial. Finally, we're off.

The park is a suburban-planning oasis: a small duck pond, different stations where kids can play stagecoach and ride painted horses or sit in a metal box marked “Post Office,” climbing equipment and seesaws, swings for the big kids, swings for the little kids. I suggest
we start on the big swings, and take the first shift, resting Michael against my shoulder and supporting his neck as I push myself back and forth, my feet never leaving the ground. There's a woman beside me who has her daughter on her lap, a baby who's much bigger than Michael but has a newly hatched look. There are thin blond tufts of hair electrified around her head, anchored by a flowered headband to denote femininity. “How old?” the woman asks, smiling at Michael. Leah answers before I can.

In the ensuing conversation, Leah is playing mom. So the woman beside us naturally assumes I'm the grandmother. “Are you in from out of town?” she queries.

“No,” I say. “They all live with me.”

I see the conclusions immediately being drawn: that Leah is my daughter, a teen mom, and now I'm supporting her and her boyfriend so they can afford to raise their mistake. But she arranges her face into a blandly pleasant expression that says, No judgment here. Meanwhile, on the other side of us, a mother who's about my age studiously avoids looking at us. I have a feeling she is most definitely disapproving of our quartet.

I try to ignore both sides of us and focus on Michael. “Wheee!” I tell him softly. I'm rewarded with his new gummy smile, and that is definitely reward enough.

Leah and Trevor are lurking next to us, whispering. I think I hear Trevor say, “Then tell her,” and Leah steps over to me.

“Could I take over now?”

It's been maybe three minutes. But then, this was her outing. It's also my chance to reestablish some sort of relationship with her. “Sure!” I smile as graciously as I can, but I feel a stab of pain as I relinquish him. She places him carefully against her shoulder and sits on the swing. I can tell that she feels like I did when I first brought him home from the hospital: both mindful of his fragility, and captivated by it. She's likely never been needed before, and it's a heady feeling. Addictive, even.

I stand beside Trevor. We're both watching Leah, but she's only watching Michael, and he's watching her. I know how compelling that gaze can be. She hasn't moved a limb yet, she's too mesmerized by her baby.

Yes, that's her baby. She feels it now, and so do I. So does Trevor, who appears to be every bit as frightened as I am.

They're such a perfect tableau of mother–child love that even the disapproving mother seems to soften. “These are the moments you'll remember forever,” the “no judgment” mom tells Leah. Leah's too absorbed to respond. She doesn't even turn her head. She sees nothing, hears nothing, except for Michael.

I see Trevor make his decision: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. He moves behind Leah, puts his arms around her and Michael, and speaks softly into her hair. She looks up at him and smiles. Then he talks to Michael, who blinks up and smiles, too. Oh, God, that smile. It is the most gorgeous kick to the gut that I could ever receive.

Trevor could join, but there's no place for me. How do you fight maternal love? It's the strongest substance in the world.

That doesn't mean I can't try.

This is just one moment in time, but it doesn't change the inalienable facts. Which are: Trevor is in school, and obviously has no job or he wouldn't be able to drive cross-country on a moment's notice. He's got a slew of siblings; there's no room in his house for him, Leah, and a baby. More significant, he wants Leah, not an infant. Then there's Leah herself. She's clearly got no parental support, no marketable skills, and no job. But above all, my maternal love has more longevity and durability than hers. I will outlast her. If I need to, I'll break her.

I move closer to them and compliment them on their skills. Trevor's pushing is so delicate! And Leah's a champion head cradler! Smile through the pain, that's it. This is my version of childbirth.

I throw in a few flattering remarks about Gabe, how this will be “his kind of thing.” I want Leah to remember that Gabe and I are the real parents. Also, I need to sound sweet on Gabe, since our robust
love was the reason Leah chose us (that, and no one else would accept her terms). I've always known Leah likes Gabe, and I saw in her texts that my treatment of Gabe was one of her issues with me.

“Yeah, Gabe should come with us next time,” Leah says, but she sounds dreamy and faraway. Intoxicated, that's what it is.

“I bet he'd like that. He's more of an outdoors person.” It's an asinine thing to say, as if Gabe's love for his baby depends on how much sunlight he's metabolized, as if Michael is a form of seasonal affective disorder.

A few more minutes go by, and then Leah asks the “no judgment” mom, “Do you know where there's a bathroom?” She sounds full of regret. “I have to go all the time since I had this one!” She gestures toward Michael, and her casual ownership shanks me.

The mother smiles. “I hear you. There are port-a-potties over there, past the baseball diamond.” She gestures into the distance.

Leah stands up, hesitating. She doesn't want to give Michael back to me any more than I wanted to give him to her.

I step forward, arms outstretched. “There's Purell in the diaper bag,” I tell her, ever helpful.

“I'll be right back,” she says, warningly. She looks at me, and then at Trevor. She's telling me not to get too comfortable, that she'll be back for Michael; she's telling Trevor . . . what? That he better not reveal her secrets? Her plans?

I get lucky. The baby chick next to us begins to cry, so her mother says a quick good-bye and they vacate the swings. It escaped my notice when the mother on the other side left, but she's gone, too. Now that Trevor and I have some privacy, I intend to take full advantage.

“Do you want to take a turn?” I say, indicating the swing, and Michael. Trevor shakes his head, passing my test. I sit down and kiss the top of Michael's head, murmuring my love for him. “How's it going, with Operation Rhode Island?”

He shrugs.

“Has anything changed? Are you thinking maybe you like it
out here?” My chest is tight. I feel like my whole life depends on his answer. “That maybe you want to be a father after all?”

“No, it's not that.” He looks like he doesn't know if he should say more.

“What is it then?”

“I brought up the idea of moving back and she bit my head off. She said, ‘Don't you want to spend time with your son? This is, like, your last chance.'”

His last chance. That means she's still planning on letting Michael go, right? “You seem to like spending time with him.” What I mean is, stop giving Leah false hope.

“Yeah, this is cool. But it's not like I want him around all the time. I'm doing this for her.” He looks directly at me. “Can I stay longer, if it takes longer? I guess I was, like, kind of cocky. I thought I'd get here and she'd look at me and I'd look at her and she'd be all like, ‘Take me home, you bag of awesomeness!'” He smiles, but I can see he's hurt.