“Andschool?”
“I'll figure that out. Just notyet.”
“What about the father? Does he have aname?”
I bite my lip, preparing to lie. I've already decided that Isaac's name doesn't matter. Knowing his first name isn't going to make him magically materialize. It was one hour. At this point he was a sperm donor. Just like my mother was adeliverer.
“Mike," I say, picturing the neon sign of the bar.Can't get more basic than Mike.“But I've already decided it doesn't matter. I can't locate him, and you won't be able toeither.”
“The hell I won’t,” he growls, his chest puffing out. “I’ll hire a private investigatorand—”
“He left the country three days after that night. A long trip, he said. And before you ask, I don’t know why he was leaving. I didn’t ask. Because I didn’t want to know.” The less we knew the better, or so I thought at thetime.
One hour spent trying to forget, and for that I’ll spend the rest of my life remembering that onehour.
“I made my bed, and now I'll lie in it. This baby wasn't planned, but it's mine.” My hand goes to my stomach, rubbing the flatness. “I'll raise it myself. I know how to be a single parent. I've been watching you foryears.”
Dad shakes his head. “If only yourmother—”
“Don't give her that much power. Don't start thinking about the way things could’ve been if she'd stayed.” It's a fruitless endeavor. And it does more harm than good. I wouldknow.
His eyes grow shiny. “Can I come to your first doctor'sappointment?”
“I'd be mad if youdidn’t."
He hugs me the same way he did whenever I got hurt when I was little. The way only a dadcan.
“Do you want dinner?” he asks when he releasesme.
I nod, wiping my eyes. “Of course. A lot of dinner. I'm hungry thesedays.”
He chuckles, but the sound is more incredulous than joyful. He goes to the kitchen. Ifollow.
“I have just one request for you." He looks over his shoulder as he stands in the open pantry and moves stuff around. “No more life-altering surprises for a long time,OK?”
“Agreed.”
The rest of our evening is pleasant, mostly, but there are some awkward moments. My thoughts move frequently to Isaac, to our hour together, the way I quietly dressed and tip-toed out. Leaving wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I liked his deep voice, his quiet competence, the way his hands felt on my skin, like they were supposed to be there. We had a tangled rhythm, an interwoven flow. The entire hour was an apex of cast-away pain and welcome pleasure. When our time was up I thought about telling him thatsomething other than flowerswhen he came back was possible. In the end, my rational brain won. We had placed a time limit on ourselves, and so had circumstance. He was leaving soon. So I leftfirst.
I had no way of knowing this would happen tome.
This isn’t how I pictured my life going. But this is what it isnow.
And if I know anything, it’s how to handle theunexpected.
* * *
It surprisedme how much I liked being pregnant. But what surprised me even more was the way I felt when the doctor laid my baby on mychest.
“Did you decide on her name yet?” she asked. I’d been waiting until I saw my baby’s face to nameher.
“Claire,” I whispered through the curtain of tears streaming over mylips.
A nurse approached with her arms open. “I need to clean her and take her measurements.” She lifted Claire off my chest and, even though she was mere pounds, I felt the absence of herweight.
“Be careful. Don’t trip.” I told the nurse, frightened for my daughter’s safety for the first of what I knew would be countlesstimes.
She smiled warmly. “Ofcourse.”
