by Jolie Moore
“What about his parents? Surely—”
“At the funeral, I didn’t get to sit where the spouse sits. Everyone assumed he had no spouse because he was a college student and it wasn’t the 1950s. Are you suggesting I should have told them then, graveside? Hey, I know you lost a son, but you’ve gained a daughter in law.”
“They might have—”
“There was no reason to ruin the picture they had of their son. He hadn’t told them yet. He was supposed to have told them that night, but he didn’t. Maybe they said something that changed his mind. I had to stop wondering about what could have been. I had to make a decision about the baby rapidly growing inside of me.”
“You had options—”
She shook her head vehemently. Nari said, “How would I have had a baby as a single mom and gone to medical school?”
“Your parents would have come around…eventually.”
“Maybe yes. Maybe no. But I didn’t have a crystal ball. What I could see of the future looked pretty bleak.”
“You couldn’t figure out something?”
“I didn’t see it that way. What I had was little time to make a very hard decision. What I saw was that I had no means of support. My mother promised her and Apa’s unconditional support for a good number of years if I went to Korea during the pregnancy.”
“You had the baby there?”
“No.”
“So you went away? Like to a home for unwed mothers.” I had a hard time seeing her in a rocking chair on some porch of a southern clapboard house.
“It was my uncle’s house. My parents live in a very tight-knit community. I didn’t want to make it any harder than it had to be for them. I didn’t want to be a lightning rod for church gossip.”
“It was the new millennium, not the fifties.”
“Tell my parents that. They’re still stuck in nineteen seventies South Korea.”
I had been that helpless baby. I had been the unwanted one. “Didn’t you want her?”
“Yes, I wanted her. But I also wanted a life. A future.”
“She could have been part of that.” It wasn’t as if Nari were without resources. Nothing like one of the poor women I’d treated during my residency not able to heat their houses and put food on the table at the same time.
“Don’t you think I’ve been down this road —second guessing myself—a hundred, if not a thousand times, Lucas?”
“I’m just trying to understand. Adoption is for teenage mothers, women on the edge of destitution, rape victims. Not middle class girls from Ivy League Schools.”
“What do you know about women’s lives? I made a decision. A past-eighteen, adult decision about what would be best for my little girl. I’m sad. Sometimes very sad. But I don’t have an ounce of regret. She’s somewhere out here with parents who love her. Two parents. Probably has everything money can buy. I couldn’t give her that. Not one ounce of that. If she’d stayed with me, she’d have had one very sad homeless single parent with a degree in biology but no roof over her head. That’s not a great start for any child.
“I made the best decision I could given the options I had. And I’m sorry if that’s not acceptable to you. I—” she jabbed her hands at her chest. “I bear that burden. Every day and every year. I’ll take it to my grave. But I don’t need you standing here in judgment.”
“I’m not judging you,” I said. But I wasn’t convincing even to my own ears.
“You’ve been judging me since we had Mai Tais in Hawaii.”
I held her small hands in mine. “It just that I really liked you, Nari, but—”
“But what, Lucas?”
“I don’t know if I could be with someone who gave up her own child.”
She looked like I’d slapped her. I watched her back away slowly; then she turned and strode toward her truck. As if in slow motion, Nari pulled open the door, hopped into the Range Rover, and smoothly executed a three-point turn on the narrow street.
I waited for her to back up and pick me up. That wait was in vain. The hulking SUV got smaller and smaller. The right blinker pulsed. Then the car disappeared around the curve onto Sunset.
The thump thump of feet sounded behind me. A jogger, fully suited up in what looked like a thousand dollars of exercise gear, pulled an ear bud out and jogged in place around me. “Nice shoes.”
I looked down at my Red Wing chukkas. “Thanks.” I nodded and he ran off. Hopefully the shoes would last on the long walk to Hollywood.
Chapter 23
Nari
The intense gut-churning guilt of leaving Lucas stranded lasted for all of ten seconds. Pressing the trip meter to zero, I watched the numbers tick upward as I drove through Brentwood, past the 405, UCLA, into Bel Air, then Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. It was eight plus miles before I spotted his car, ticketed, but intact.
Hell, Mr. Judgmental Ass Sierra Hiker could make the walk or he could call a taxi.
Ten minutes later, the sound of computerized music filled the cab. I looked around. Sounded nothing like my iPhone notifications. I braked, pressing the button for my building gate. Something slid from under the passenger seat onto the floor mat. Easing into my assigned parking space, I turned on the dome light. It was a phone. The display had a 802 number. Woodstock, Vermont. Had to be Lucas’ phone. Shit.
Before I could decide how many kinds of asshole I’d been, my own phone rang. For a hot second, I considered chucking both through the sunroof, cloistering myself in my place, and calling it a day. As shitty as Mondays were, they had to be better than this weekend.
“Simon,” I said in greeting.
“We…Nari…I came here like a…I don’t know what. Bull in a china shop isn’t right. I was insensitive. Please have dinner with me. I don’t want to leave things like this.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Maybe we’ve said all that needs to be said.”
“Please.”
“Simon—”
“You’re kind of my last link to Andrew as an adult. Mom and Dad can’t talk about him except as a little boy. They’ve packed away the memory of those last few years. But I need to remember my brother, and you were a big part of that. He wanted to marry you. You were his future.”
I held in a sigh. I’d do this for him. “I’ll pick you up at six,” I said. This maybe had to be the last time I talked to Simon. There were a bunch of reasons he shouldn’t forget his brother. But maybe I needed to bury the memory. Maybe we’d reach a truce on that later.
That left me three hours to decide whether to rescue Lucas. The dome light winked out and I sat in the darkened cab going back and forth. Wouldn’t he get to Kenter and make his way down to the shops on Bundy? Or maybe walk into a coffee shop on Barrington. One of those places would have a pay phone, or someone would let him borrow a cell to call a cab, surely.
Guilt started gnawing at my belly. Or it was hunger. Either way I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a payphone in Los Angeles.
“Ummmm,” I moaned out loud, then pressed the Homelink button to open the gate.
Two hours later, I was no closer to finding Lucas. I’d gone from the beach to Hollywood and back twice before I gave up. When I arrived at the hotel to pick up Simon, I was sure I looked the worse for wear.
“You have anything in mind for dinner?” I asked as he buckled himself into the seat.
“I thought we could go to the Santa Monica Promenade. I’m not picky.”
I drove a couple of blocks and found a spot in one of the many utilitarian municipal lots that dotted the city.
We walked the four blocks up and back before deciding on a bistro with great al fresco ambiance.
“I thought you’d bring your guy friend,” Simon said, snapping open the crisp white napkin and placing it precisely on his lap.
“I don’t exactly know where he is.” I pulled Lucas’ phone from my pocket and placed it on the table. “We had an argument and he lost his phone.”
Simon’s look said
he wasn’t convinced by my explanation. “He lost it?”
“Look, he pissed me off big-time. So I did something not all that mature. I ditched him in Brentwood.” I made my tone as blasé as I could. “I figure he’ll call his phone. Or I can drop it off at work on Monday. No biggie.”
“That’s pretty low,” Simon said just as the server slipped truffle and shaved parmesan salads in front of us. The way he’d said that had to rival the “we’re very disappointed in you” talk parents give when they don’t think punishment works any longer. I nearly jumped from my seat and made for my car to take a fourth trip up and down Sunset.
“He hikes with the Sierra Club.” I said, pouring on too much vinaigrette and trying to still maintain breezy. “He’s a pretty in-shape guy. He can handle a few miles.”
“He was in clubbing shoes, not Timberlands.”
“What do you want me to say, Simon?”
“What could he have said that would push you that far?”
For so many years I’d kept so many secrets. How had they all come to the surface in such a quick time? Everyone had a piece of the story. Daisy, the marriage. My mom and my uncle, the baby. Lucas, both.
“He said that in no uncertain terms, he couldn’t see having a relationship with me.”
“I’m sorry. That’s pretty harsh coming from a guy who was naked in your apartment not too long ago.”
I laid down my fork and fanned my face with my hands, trying to keep the heat from rising up my cheeks. “He got the free milk,” I said. “Guess he doesn’t want the cow now.”
“Nari, in no way do you resemble a cow.”
I mashed my cheeks with my hands. “Yeah, well. Mooo.”
“Sorry about all this.” Simon held his hands in supplication. “I came at a bad time.”
“How could you have known a guy I’ve been seeing for half a minute would find me morally reprehensible?”
“I don’t want to pry, but those are big words.” His chair scraped a little as he leaned forward. “Did you disagree over work?”
“No, it’s nothing as simple as me being a Kevorkian fan and him not believing in DNRs.”
“What then? Maybe I can help. I am a man, after all.”
A man who looked a lot like my deceased husband. A man I suddenly wanted to confide in with every bone in my body. I was tired of hiding, concealing, pretending to be someone I wasn’t. It was getting to be too much of a burden.
“He said he couldn’t be with a woman who gave up her baby for adoption.”
“But how does that apply to you? You never had a baby.” Simon’s face was so earnest. His look so matter-of-fact that I instantly regretted my honesty. I was about to ruin the picture he had of me as the sad, lonely widow. I didn’t say a word. Fiddled around with the salad, letting reality sink in. Simon was a smart man who could compute a target company’s profitability at a glance. Surely fitting together these puzzle pieces wasn’t rocket science.
Finally he spoke. “You were pregnant?”
I nodded. “Very much pregnant.”
“That’s why Andrew proposed so early? He said that he was going to wait until graduation, but suddenly he needed the ring very badly. Mom had to make a special trip to the safe deposit box.”
“We eloped.”
“Jumbo Mexican shrimp with saffron rice,” a waiter prompted. I pointed at Simon. “Curried Squash Soup with Red Lentils, Coconut Milk and Clams.” I accepted the plate. Prolonging contact with the server, I asked for water, an extra napkin, and bread. It took three separate trips from three separate people to fulfill my requests. Only when the table was quiet again could I peek at Simon under my lashes. His face was business-like, stern. I steeled myself for the interrogation that was surely coming.
“You had the baby?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he or she?”
“She. I don’t know.”
“Aren’t adoptions open these days?”
“Not in California.”
“And you’re okay with that.”
“Very much so.”
“Why didn’t you tell us you were married?”
“We eloped during Christmas break. I had tried telling my parents. That was an unmitigated disaster. The weekend he…the last weekend in Philadelphia, he was supposed to tell all of you.”
“You were supposed to have come with him.”
“It was the biggest mistake of my life. I wish I’d been there. But I had a big Physics exam on Tuesday. We were going to our first pre-natal appointment on Monday and I wanted the extra time to study.” I pounded a fist against my temple. “This all sounds so damned stupid now. What exam could have been this important?”
“Don’t beat yourself up. You didn’t know,” Andrew said.
“I don’t know why he didn’t tell them. But the way the funeral was planned, it was obvious they didn’t know.”
“But…later.”
“Why, Simon? What would I have gained? I was pregnant. My mother was pressuring me to make a decision.”
“What did she want you to do?”
“Give the baby up. Go to medical school. Finish what I’d started. What they’d really been paying for all along.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, reaching across the table. Those big hands, nearly carbon copies of Andrew’s, covered mine.
“Are you angry?” I tried not to flinch. “You can tell me the truth.”
“Not mad, but mystified.”
To my horror, tears leaked out. “I was a widow, pregnant, and needed to finish my last semester in college. I was probably too hormonal to be rational. But I just wanted to get better, go back to normal. My parents promised me that would happen if I let them take care of everything.”
“I’m so, so sorry about the ring. Even if you hadn’t been married I was being selfish to come out here and ask you for it.”
“Your mom is right. It should be back in the family. Some living, breathing person should be able to enjoy it. Keeping it in a box is stupid.”
Simon sat back, put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his folded hands. His mother was probably having a heart attack somewhere. She had been lax about a lot of things, but manners hadn’t been one of them. “Well, I feel like a colossal shit,” Simon said.
“Don’t. I can’t take the guilt right now.”
“Well that Lucas sounds like a colossal shit.”
I laughed long and heartily at Simon’s words. They were so unlike him, and so true at the same time.
Chapter 24
Lucas
“That was a really crappy thing you did,” I said to Nari. We were standing in the clinic’s empty waiting room. She’d had her hand on the door when I spoke. We’d ignored each other most of the day, but I wasn’t ready to leave it—us—just yet.
“That was a seriously crappy thing you said,” she shot back, not sounding the least bit guilt-ridden.
“I was stranded in L.A,” I said, ignoring the meat of her response.
The walk down Sunset hadn’t been too bad, actually. Once I’d gotten to Brentwood Village, I convinced the guy behind the counter of the Belwood bakery to let me use the phone. I might have said I was a doctor and that there was a dire emergency at UCLA. Fortunately, one of the Sierra Club guys lived in West L.A., was listed by 411, and picked me up. But I wasn’t going to tell her any of that. I wanted Nari to care that she’d left me marooned in the big city.
“Jesus. It was Brentwood. The worst that could happen is that you get run over by a van of gawking tourists.”
“So that’s it?” I said, snapping the jaws of the clipboard on the receptionist’s desk. The loud crack of metal on wood bounced off the mostly empty walls.
Nari suddenly looked world-weary. My heart felt like a fist had clenched and squeezed the vulnerable muscle. I’d put that look on her face, no one else. “You have a deal breaker. I broke it. I don’t think there’s any reason to drag this—”
The door opened. I looked up the sam
e time Nari did. “Can I help you?” I asked. The receptionist and nurses had gone home at six on the dot. We weren’t equipped for emergencies, but I gave mean directions to the closest hospital.
“Are you Lucas’ father?” Nari asked, staring at the guy in wonderment. “William Coates, right?”
I don’t know how I hadn’t seen it at first. But there in front of me was the other half of my biological parents. The tall curly-haired half. The square jawed half. The detached earlobe half. A puzzle came together. Standing before me was the secret to the universe—my universe at least. I had no idea what to do with that knowledge. It was like standing in a planetarium where all the answers were visible, but none obvious.
“You’re Nari?” He shook her hand. “Laura said you’d come with Lucas.”
“Laura didn’t mention that you were local,” Nari said.
“I’m not much anymore. Drove here straight from Tahoe.” He removed what could only be described as a trucker hat, curling the brim in his hands. This was not a ninety-dollar fashion statement, but something he wore to protect his head from the elements.
“That’s a long drive,” I heard Nari say. “Why don’t you have a seat? I’ll get you a coffee?”
“That would be fine. Thanks,” my…father…said. Nari disappeared into the back, and he sat. I stood.
“How did you find me?” I asked. I’d given Laura my phone number, but not much else.
“My…I…Medical Board.”
Public license, public disclosure. I felt unaccountably nervous. Nari came back in with a coffee in one hand, a doughnut from this morning’s Krispy Kreme run in the other. Seemingly grateful for both, William took a huge bite of the fried dough. “The good doughnut place in South Lake Tahoe closed about a year ago.”
“So…let me get out of your hair. I’m sure you two have a lot to catch up on.” The wind from Nari opening and closing the door was cool on my face.
After yesterday, I guess Nari didn’t have any reason to stick around. I’d nailed that door shut but good. I stuffed down the regret that had risen up the minute her taillights had disappeared.
