A spark in the sky, anotherneshni,another child. It was that simple, and that unexpected.
I am sitting in the bathroom on the closed toilet seat, trying to keep myself from flying apart, when Brian finally comes in. He is not the man who begged me to stay just an hour ago. He is hard, his eyes flat and empty. “Meret’s asleep,” he says. “I managed to find her three studies on the Internet that showed flawed DNA test results due to foreign bodies in the sample.”
I try to nod, but I can’t even do that. I think that if I move an inch, I’m going to shatter. Brian leans against the vanity, the marble surface that has my face lotion and his shaving cream on it, side by side, as if it were that easy. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks finally.
“I didn’t know.”
It is the truth, although now, I wonder if I was just trying to convince myself on some subconscious level. By the time I found out I was pregnant, I’d already lost my mother. I’d had what I thought was a period. I’ve always been irregular, and time had warped in hospice, so my last moments with Wyatt seemed months earlier, rather than weeks. Now, though, I remember how Meret was born two weeks before her due date, as the nurse reassured me she looked just as robust as any full-term baby. I remember holding her, staring at the curve of her ear, and thinking of the shape of Wyatt’s. But then, there was Brian, rocking Meret when she had colic. There was Brian, tossing her in the air until she squealed with delight. There was Brian, teaching her how to jump in from the side of a pool. Eventually, I stopped looking for my past in my future.
Maybe I’d been blind. Or maybe I’d justwantedto be.
“I didn’t know,” I repeat, tears sliding down my face. “I didn’t know.”
Brian’s jaw is so tight that it distorts his face. I barely recognize him. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t actually believe you,” he says. “Can I ask you just one question? Did you pick me as an easy target?”
“No. I fell in love with you.”
He shakes his head. “Guys like me, we live in our grandparents’ basements and collect comic books and eat leftovers for breakfast. We might meet girls who are smart and funny and pretty, girls who don’t have to coach themselves on conversation topics before they walk into a room, girls who see us as more than science nerds—but we never take them home. And we never, ever get lucky enough to marry them.” He looks at me, so cold I shiver. “I should have known.”
“Brian, I swear to you. I didn’t know Meret wasn’t yours.”
“She’s mine, goddammit,” he snarls. “In every way that counts.”
I nod, swallowing. “Yes. Of course.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “So now what do we do?”
“We?” Brian says. “I don’t even know who you are.”
He walks out of the bathroom. I follow him, but at Meret’s door he gives me a look over his shoulder that stops me. I watch him slip inside to spend the night watching over her.
She’s in the best hands, I realize. Far better than mine.
Brian may not know who I am, but I do. I’m a coward.
Which is why I take the overnight bag I was packing before my world fell apart, and slip out of the house.
—
AFEW WEEKSago when I left, I hadn’t been the one at fault. After Brian had missed Meret’s birthday dinner, when he came home swollen with an apology about Gita, I got in my car and started driving.
He’d texted.Please, Dawn, I’m sorry.
Let’s talk.
I made a mistake.
I’m getting worried.
I had watched the messages rise on the GPS screen, ignoring each one.
Until one came in from Meret, who had been in her room as her father and I argued. She knew nothing about Gita; she—I thought at the time—did not realize that I’d even left the house.
Come say good night?
So less than an hour after I walked out of my house I walked back into it, and Brian apologized. He approached the way you would a feral animal, or someone whose world has gone to pieces around her. He said he thought I was gone forever. I went up to Meret’s room, tucked her in, and pretended I’d never left.
But I had.
All these weeks, I have not told Brian where I was driving to, when I was interrupted by Meret.
