I shook my head and tried to focus on the documents I was reviewing for a smaller project that was under Octavia’s purview. She wasn’t happy to have me looking over her shoulder at it, but she hadn’t said anything to our boss or directly to me. Instead, she had expressed her displeasure by bullying Iker into turning down the thermostat, which made it lucky that I had my mittens.
I worked and time ticked past…but my thoughts did drift back again to what Juliet had said. I wasn’t thinking about the mushy part, but about what her sister told her. It was basic biology that created a baby, a spermatozoon meeting up with an ovum. Yes, that meeting could have been the result of a loving relationship, but it obviously didn’t have to be. Biology didn’t care.
So why should I?
It wasn’t like it was a new idea, because plenty of women did the same thing. They wanted children and they made it happen, just like how I had wanted to become a lawyer and had plugged away until I was. Still, I would have liked to do it with a partner. My own parents loved each other so much, even after more than fifty years of marriage. My dad brought my mom a cup of coffee every morning, brewed strong in the pot just the way she liked it. Then he added a lot of milk to his because he wasn’t as much of a fan. She watched football with him, although she hated it. Her sport was basketball and, of course, fastpitch softball.
I would have liked to make someone coffee. I would have liked to sit together and enjoy baseball, or if he liked, I was also into football. Softball was non-negotiable. Maybe there was a person like that out there, but maybe not. I just needed to find someone who wanted the same things, like children and companionship,and that would be enough. At least that way, no one would grow old with only the company of a monitor lizard. Octavia’s Grosvenor had bitten her severely while they were on their cruise and they’d had to make an unexpected stop in Puerto Rico so that she could go to the hospital to receive IV antibiotics. Was that the life I wanted?
And was that the life I was headed for? Who was to blame for that? I had spent nine years with Dax, hoping that I could somehow convince him to marry me…no. I had been hoping that I could convince him to love me, but he hadn’t. He never had. His feelings had been as fake as the diamond simulants I’d worn on my left hand. I looked at the very faint white line that remained there and thought about the future, and I decided that I was going to have to take action about spermatozoa or I would need to buy my own Grosvenor.
“Hey, Camille,” Juliet answered when I called her again the next day. “Did you want to talk more about the truck?”
“No, thanks.” I didn’t really want to talk or think about that again, or even to see it in the driveway every day. I got right to the point. “I wanted to ask if you know any single guys that you could introduce me to. Between you and all your siblings, you must have a big circle of people. Maybe someone has a nice friend who’s looking for a serious relationship that will lead to marriage and children in the near future. Within the calendar year would be best.”
“Uh…yeah, one of us has to know somebody. But I probably won’t phrase your requirements that way,” she said. “Let mesend out a request in our group chat and see what comes back, and I’ll let you know.”
Good. In the meantime, when I took a moment to eat lunch, I looked into other ways to meet someone. I got serious about my apps and I did check out speed dating like my mom had talked about. I started to peruse the profile of a guy who wanted someone who would be happy to cook, clean, and also cater to his various fantasies, which seemed to include having sex in public roadways…I wasn’t opposed to trying new things but the forecasted high for today was only thirty-one. Also, I wouldn’t have wanted to cause an accident.
As I was contemplating potential road rash issues, Silas called my cell. That hardly ever happened and I got extremely excited to see his name. “Hi,” I answered happily, but he was already talking, too.
“My father’s in bad shape. He’s in Ohio somehow and he really is dying. He’s in the hospital and I have to get down there. Can you be here for Lyra?”
“Of course!” I had already started to gather what I’d need to work from home. “What’s wrong him?”
“Sounds like it was some kind of long-term issue but I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell’s going on but it’s real. He’s pulled shit before, scamming to try to get money but this…this is happening. I have to go.”
“I can drive you,” I said, but he’d already figured something out, something about paying the bartender from Château Moderne to take him because he still didn’t have a license, which sent himinto a minor spin about being an idiot and screwing up his entire life. “Silas! Just get there however you can, and I’ll take care of Lyra.”
I heard him draw in a breath. “I owe you.”
“No, you don’t. Go.”
I told my colleagues that I had a family emergency and rushed out of the building, but he was already gone by the time I made it home. A pair of giant jeans was on the stairs, like they had fallen from his bag before he left, and there was also a single sock. I picked everything up and held it to my chest, as if I was hugging Silas and not just his clothing. I was extremely worried about him and about Lyra, and even a little about his dad. Was this why he hadn’t made it to Detroit for Christmas, because he was already in a hospital? Had he been on his way here, trying to see his kids?
By the time Lyra got home from school, I had developed a strategy. I had briefly talked to Silas on his way to Ohio and he agreed that we had to tell her something about her father, but that since we were also fuzzy on the details? The story would likewise be fuzzy.
“Hi,” I greeted her and Boris as they walked up our front path.
Both of them stopped and stared at me like I might have been a spit-dripping alien simulant. “Why are you home?” she asked suspiciously.
“I took the afternoon off, like a vacation day. So I made cookies,” I answered, and that was good enough for the two of them. They hurried inside to eat and to play but when Boris had to go hometo (I assumed) a dinner of saltines, Lyra and I sat at the kitchen table together and she got very suspicious again.
“Where is Silas?” she wanted to know.
His location was something I was sure about. “Toledo,” I said.
“That’s in a different state,” she informed me, and I nodded.
“He got a call that your dad is sick there.”
Her eyes widened and her lower lip came out slightly. “What’s wrong?” she asked me.
“I’m not exactly sure,” I said honestly. “Silas isn’t either, and the doctors and nurses are trying to help him. But he’s very sick.”
“Like he’s about to die?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I had to admit. “Silas is in a part of the hospital where you can’t use a cell phone, but when he leaves there, he’ll call us.”
