Carver nodded, and Chip patted him on the arm one last time before walking away and thundering down the staircase the way he always did. Carver stood in the shadowed hallway like a ghost, listening to the muffled sounds of conversation downstairs, then crept into his own bedroom. He didn’t turn on the big light or look in the mirror. He brushed his teeth very hard and fast, threw his abused tuxedo into the laundry hamper, then retrieved some comfortable clothes and put them on. His knee and palms were still bloody, but he didn’t feel like dealing with that now.
He heard the front door shut downstairs, and crossed the house back to Chip’s room to look out the window. He watched as Chip came into view, started the Range Rover, traversed the circular driveway and disappeared down the road into the night.
Carver, pitifully, wanted him to come back. He knew it was better this way, that if Chip stayed he would just draw fire from their parents and muddle the conversation, but he didn’t know how to do what he was about to do. He felt like he was about to point a loaded gun at his parents. He’d never had power overthem like this, not once, and it felt wrong. He knew Chip hadn’t been lying, but he was afraid he was somehow mistaken, or that their entire conversation was a hallucination. Carver was afraid of going downstairs and being told he was insane. He was afraid of hurting his parents in an irrevocable way. He was afraid of seeing his father cry.
He paced the hallway, steadying himself. They knew he was up here. He could only put this off for so long. He needed to come from a position of strength, he needed to broach their space and make the first move.
Carver started down the stairs. He could hear them talking quietly in the living room.
He landed in the foyer and turned, continuing his dreamlike walk, staring at the seam between the curtained French doors which provided a sliver of view into the living room like a castle’s arrowslit. The conversation inside quieted. They could hear him walking up.
Carver pushed open the doors. His father was sitting in an armchair, his mother on the couch opposite. They were still in their wedding clothes, though somewhat disheveled. They were looking at him with apprehension and disappointment.
A great and wonderful calm fell over him. They were paper tigers; he was in charge now. He could handle that. It felt like he’d been waiting for this for a very long time.
“Are you feeling better?” Nora said, like she was visiting him in the psych ward.
Carver cleared his throat. “I had a conversation with Chip just now,” he said, glancing between them. His nausea momentarily returned, but he beat it back. “And he told me something that I think the three of us need to discuss immediately.”
They looked at each other, and Doug said, “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” Carver said. “It wasn’t about him, it was about me. It was about my biological father.”
This took a second to hit them, and then they both reacted in similar ways: Doug brought his hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes, and Nora dropped her face into her hands. No one spoke for a long moment. Carver stood still with his hands in the pockets of his shorts, willing to wait as long as it took for one of them to issue a counter. There was no sound but the steady tick of the grandfather clock in the corner.
Finally, Doug said in a thin voice, “What did he tell you?”
“He told me that Mom had an affair with a friend of yours who was supposed to be infertile, and he told me the guy died a few years later. He said he confronted you two about this after Aaron was born, and you confirmed it, but ordered him not to tell me.”
“Oh my God,” Nora moaned into her hands. “Oh, my God. Why? Why would he tell you that?”
“I sort of asked,” Carver said, rocking back and forth on his heels and marveling at how calm he felt. “I asked him if he knew why it’s always been so hard for us to get along, why I can’t seem to please you, and he said he did.”
Doug dropped his hand. “We get along,” he said, staring into space. “You do please us. We’re very proud of you.”
“Ehh,” Carver said, wiggling his palm.
“Can you sit down?” Doug said.
“I’m okay standing.”
“I’d feel more comfortable if you sat.”
“I feel more comfortable standing,” Carver said, offering a smile that neither of them saw. They wore stricken rictuses of guilt and grief as they refused to look at him, like he was a manslaughter they’d committed. “Look, I just want to talk. I’m not planning to melt down, or stand here and browbeat you. I have a lot of questions. I think I’m entitled to answers.”
Neither of his parents spoke. His mother remained bent, her forearms against her knees and her palms pressed to her face, swaying slightly. His father continued to stare into space, frozen. Tears formed in his eyes, then fell and cut a path down his cheeks once the surface tension broke. Carver again felt sick, and pushed it down.
Over the beat of the ticking clock came the sound of canine nails on hardwood in the hallway. The golden retriever came into the room and sniffed him, then went to Nora for attention, then Doug. Doug patted the dog on the head in such a stiff, slow way that he looked like a Parkinson’s patient petting a therapy animal. The dog trotted back out into the hall as if unnerved.
“Okay,” Carver finally said, “look, this is thirty-six fucking years of my life I’ve been in the dark.” Don’t browbeat them, don’t browbeat them. “And I understand this is devastating, and it isn’t the conversation you expected to have tonight, and we’ve already been having, frankly, a shitty night interpersonally. But this is my life.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “This is — you get it, don’t you, what you did to me here? You understand it’s not just about the lie, it’s about the way I’ve felt my whole life, without ever knowing why? Do you get that I —” His voice broke again, and he thumped his fist against his chest and resumed more bassily: “Do you get that I always knew something was wrong, and I always blamed myself?”
His mother began to weep into her hands. Carver hadn’t heard her cry like this since her own mother died. Doug got up and went over to her, sitting down beside her and stroking her back.
“I don’t know what to say,” Doug said to him.
“Truly anything would be welcome.”
Doug nodded, glanced at him for a split second with a tearful red-eyed gaze, then looked away immediately. “I’m your father,” he said.
