Her problems with Matt started with late nights at the office. For the first couple of months, she’d mentioned a joking worrythat the cliche might come true for her. Thatstaying late at the officemight turn out to be the lie it sounded like.
Growing up, Alena and I only had one another. With a single-parent household, and a doctor for a father, we were more often than not alone. Our mother died giving birth to Alena. I was seven, and in the decades since, I’ve tried to figure out which is worse—my experience, or hers. To have loved and lost a mother, or to never have known her at all, and to live with the sense that you’re the one who killed her.
I know Alena thinks it, no matter how many times I assure her it’s not true.
Maybe if our mother was still alive, she would know what to say to Alena about her situation with Matt. Despite being seven years younger than me, Alena was always headstrong, confident. She stood up to our father, more than happy to discard the notion that she would ever become a doctor.
So, my sister is not the kind of woman who suspects a man will ever cheat on her. I know this recent haircut was an attempt to gain back some control, and now it doesn’t stay tucked. I can see how much it’s frustrating her. Even more than her idiot brother.
“You should get one of those—what are they? Bar-ettes?” I suggest, pointing my drink at the strands in her face.
Alena glares, “We’re not talking about my hair right now, Russell.” Which means we’re also not talking about Matt. “I’m serious. Grande could find out about this, and then what? You’re like…arrested for fraud?”
“I don’t think I would be arrested for fraud.” Actually, I hadn’t thought about that. I’m a doctor, not a lawyer.
Alena goes on as though I didn’t respond, “And I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the idea of you…using this woman.”
I think of the way Jules straddled me, riding me in the hotel room desperately, as though trying to get her fill before sheneeded to get back, and I want to say,trust me, she’s using me, too. But obviously, I don’t. If I tell Alena I’m sleeping with her, it’s only going to further make her point.
“I told you, we’re both getting something out of the arrangement.”
Her eyes narrow, but she clearly doesn’t want to bring it up, “Right. Well?—”
But Alena is cut off by some supernatural sense that Ray is waking up, her attention on him before he can start wailing. Last time she came to see me at work, we were both holding a twin, trying to soothe them so they wouldn’t disrupt all the doctors trying to eat with their cries.
“Here,” I say, reaching past her and pulling Ray from his spot in the stroller. He’s heavy and warm, sweating from his nap, and I push some of his hair from his face. The twins both get their hair from their father, but I see mine and Alena’s noses on their faces. The one we got fromourfather.
I settle Ray on my lap and give him a little bite of the quinoa, shooting Alena a look as if to say,see? Babies can eat healthy food, too.
But her eyes are a little unfocused, just pointed generally in the direction of Ray and me. I resist the urge to sigh—I’ve seen this look on her face before. Sometimes when I’m playing with the twins, or when I helped to put them to bed at a party once.
Alena had a geriatric pregnancy after many years of trying with Matt, and several rounds of IVF. Her success made her think my situation could turn around, too.
“You know, my friend Ingrid and her wife just adopted abeautifulbaby boy,” Alena says, her eyes slowly drifting up to mine, her tone getting more urgent. “She said the process really wasn’t that bad, and she loved the consultant who helped them?—”
“That’s great,” I say, hoping my voice is a hard line that my sister won’t cross.
She doesn’t get the memo, “Russ, I just wish you would?—”
“You know how I feel about it,” I say, because she does. After so many times of her trying to convince me to settle down and have kids—you’re so great with Ray and Rory!—I finally told her the truth.
That as much as I enjoy being around children, I’ll never have one of my own. Never look into a child’s eyes and wonder which parts are me, which are their mother.
I reviewed the results myself, poured over the tests to see if there wasanyway. But there’s not. My sperm simply can’t reproduce, and they never could. At the time, I was flooded with guilt, with shame. Then I thought about what I would tell my own patient receiving that news and decided to take it simply as a sign of what my life should be.
It’s fine. I’ve made my peace with it. Maybe I won’t have kids of my own, but I can work with patients. See the smiles on their faces.
For a second, Gus’s face pops into my mind, the lopsided smile he gave me the morning I made him pancakes, the grateful way he stabbed each bite onto his fork.
But—no. Gus is not one of the kids that I’ll have in my life. This arrangement with Jules is temporary. And some day, he might ask about that guy who came around. If he even remembers.
“You’re right,” Alena says, running her hand through her hair and trying to tuck it behind her ears again. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I say, and for the rest of our lunch, I have to fight to avoid the disappointment I feel at the idea of Gus someday having no idea that for one morning, I got to make him pancakes and participate in the domestic routine of his life.
Chapter 18
Jules
