She Gets That from Me

by Robin Wells

  I hesitate. “You said you didn’t want to know.”

  “I didn’t.” His voice is hard. “I wanted to honor the contract I signed, but you’ve made that impossible.”

  “I—I don’t . . .” I try to think of a way to make this better for him. He’s acting like I’ve compromised his integrity. “I don’t have to tell you.”

  His brows rise, then hunker low. His eyes are angry and incredulous. “You think this should be a secret between us?”

  I crumple. It’s impossible. I can’t live with it. “No.” My voice sounds as small as I feel.

  “So tell me, Jess. What did you find out?”

  A quote from Donald T. Regan runs through my mind: When all else fails, tell the truth. “I found out,” I say, “that you have a child looking for you.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Zack

  THE NEWS HITS me like a blow to the solar plexus. I take several steps back, turn away, and then pivot again. Holy hell. “Did you contact him? Or is it a her?”

  Jessica lifts her shoulders and shakes her head. “They just have little icons—one for a child, one for a mother, one for a donor. There’s no information about gender or age. I would have needed to give your social security number to read the message or leave a message, but I felt like that would be crossing a line.”

  My face heats. “Oh. So that’s where the line is, huh? No problem assuming my identity or trying to change the info on my cryobank account or lying to me about it.”

  “I’m so, so sorry, Zack.”

  A child is looking for me? Holy moly. My stomach feels like it’s full of lead. I try to take it in, to wrap my mind around it, but I’m bristling with outrage. Jess had no right. She’s opened a damned Pandora’s box. I stride across the room, then back again. Silence, vast and distancing, stretches between us.

  “Look, maybe I didn’t handle this very well, but . . .” Her voice cracks.

  “Maybe you didn’t handle this well?” I can’t believe she’d go behind my back like this and then try to lie about it. I feel like I’m talking to a stranger.

  She raises both of her hands. I’m not sure if it’s a stop gesture or a sign of surrender. “I didn’t. I know I didn’t. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

  “So am I, Jess. So am I.” I pace to the window, then back. “What the hell was the point of this little snoop fest?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you expect me to do with this information?”

  “I—I don’t know.” Tears are forming in her eyes again. “I didn’t mean to tell you yet. I thought if I were pregnant from a donor egg when you found out, it wouldn’t be such a . . . wouldn’t be so . . . we wouldn’t feel so blindsided.”

  Whoa—she’d thought she’d go ahead and get pregnant with a donor egg without telling me I have a child looking for me? I’m too stunned to process the implications of that. “I feel pretty blindsided right now.”

  “You’re upset.”

  “You think?” I hear the sarcasm in my voice and I know it’s not kind. I always try to be kind to Jess—I learned that from my parents—but damn it, I feel absolutely gutted.

  “I handled this horribly.” Jess is shredding the damp paper towel. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  I don’t know what to say, much less what to think or feel or do. That awful silence looms between us again.

  “Look—you need some time to cool off,” she says.

  She’s right; I like to have some space when I’m hot under the collar so I can avoid saying something I’ll later regret.

  “I’ll just head to the airport early,” she says. “You stay here and calm down, and we’ll talk later.”

  I nod, not because I agree—I’m not wanting to agree with her about anything right now—but because it’ll propel her out the door.

  She gets a jacket from the closet, then picks up her purse and slings it over her shoulder. She walks to the entryway and pops up her suitcase handle. “Your dinner will be ready in ten minutes.”

  I know I should thank her for fixing dinner and reassure her that we’ll work this out, but I can’t force myself to say the words. I’m angry and stunned and . . . betrayed. Yes, that’s the word for it. She went behind my back, violated my code of ethics, and then tried to keep me from finding out what she’d done. She wasn’t even planning to tell me a child was looking for me until she was pregnant herself? Christ.

  “W-we’ll talk tomorrow.” She hesitates and looks up at me, as if she expects me to open the door or kiss her or something.

  I can’t maintain eye contact. I want to storm away without saying another word, but hell—she’s flying halfway across the country. What’s the point of being a jerk? I step forward and open the door for her. “Say hello to your folks for me.”

  She nods, wipes a tear, and gives me a peck on the cheek. I don’t respond. I hold the door as she wheels her suitcase into the hallway. Ordinarily I would walk her down to her car, but tonight I just don’t have it in me.

  “Good night,” she calls.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Have a good trip.”

  I don’t even wait for her to make it to the elevator. I step back inside and close the door, glad to put something solid in the aching emptiness between us.

  * * *

  —

  I PACE AROUND the condo, then change clothes and go for a run. When I come back an hour later, the place is filled with smoke. I’d forgotten to take the damned chicken and garlic bread out of the oven.

  I mutter some ugly curses, then turn the oven off. I pull out the blackened mess and toss it in the trash, dish and all, along with the smoking foil packet of bread. I open the windows and turn on the overhead fan, then take a quick shower. I’m still all pent up inside. I start to call my sister in Ohio, then remember that Thursdays are her date night with her husband, so I text my old buddy, Ben. Ben is always up for a drink. In fact, he’s already at the long wooden bar at the District, a couple of drinks ahead of me, when I arrive.

  “You look like hell, man,” he says. Ben still looks—and lives—pretty much just as he did right out of law school. His dark hair is thinner and shorter, but he still chases ambulances and women.

  “Yeah, well, I feel that way.”

  “What’s going on?”

  I tell him as he orders whiskey shots with beer chasers.

  “So you were a sperm donor? Damn!” As usual, Ben seizes upon the tawdriest element of the story. “Did they put you in a little room with girlie mags or what?”

  “Actually, they had videos.”

  “Was it embarrassing?”

  I stare at the rough-hewn brick behind the bar. “A little, yeah.”

  “Were the nurses hot?”

  I down my first shot, annoyed at his excessive interest in the prurient details. “I don’t know. They were all older than me.”

  “How much older?”

  “How the hell would I know? I was just nineteen years old. Everyone was older than me.”

  “Wow! If you were nineteen, your kid might be—what? Sixteen or seventeen years old now?”

  My kid. Holy Moses. I run my hand down my face, then take a long pull of beer. “Yeah, I guess. Or younger. Could be a lot younger. They freeze the donations.”

  “Listen to you.” Ben laughs, and hits me with his elbow. “Donations—like you’re putting something in the Salvation Army kettle at Christmas.”

  I take another swig of beer. “I’m glad you’re amused by all this.”

  “Sorry, man. It’s just . . . you always seem to have it so together, and this is quite a situation.” Ben tosses back his shot. “So what’re you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’d make like the Invisible Man if I were in your shoes.”

  “Be serious.”

  “I am. When I was six
teen, my girlfriend thought she was pregnant. I figured I was going have to marry her, so I talked to my dad. Know what he said?”

  I shake my head.

  “‘If I were you, I’d get in my car and drive as fast and as far as it would take me.’”

  I tip back my beer. I can’t imagine a father giving out that kind of advice. My own dad had been a straight arrow. “There’s no price you can put on peace of mind, son,” he used to say. “If you lose that, you’d give anything to get it back.”

  “Thank God it turned out to be a false alarm.” Ben motions for the bartender to bring another round. “So this kid of yours—what do you think he or she wants?”

  I lift my shoulders. “Probably just curious.”

  “What if he wants money for college? Jesus, man—you could be opening up a real can of worms. How many kids do you think you have?”

  “Nothing like that Vince Vaughn movie,” I say. “Most cryobank customers order a few vials because it can take several tries to get pregnant, and I think I donated less than ten times, so . . .”

  “So chances are you only have two or three kids, tops.”

  Oh, man. I haven’t adjusted to the idea of one out there who wants to contact me. I polish off my beer and reach for the fresh shot glass the bartender slides in front of me.

  “Whatever you do for one, you’ll have to do for the others, just to be fair.”

  I suppose that’s true. I gulp the shot. The burn in the back of my throat moves to my chest and loosens the knot there. “The funny thing is, at the time, I wasn’t thinking about kids at all. I was just thinking about making money.” I shake my head. “How could I have been so shortsighted?”

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” Ben says. “You were just a kid yourself, that’s all. And look at it this way: you helped out some folks who really wanted to have a baby. The decision is all on them.”

  For about the millionth time since he died, I want to talk to my dad. So many times over the past few years I’ve wished I could take him out to a ball game or out to the lake to cast a line. We used to have the best talks when we were side by side, driving somewhere, doing something or watching a game.

  I know what he’d say, though. Do what you know is right. Do what you wouldn’t be ashamed of anyone ever finding out.

  Fact is, I’m already ashamed of being a donor. If I could have a do-over, I’d undo that.

  But wait. That would mean whatever kid is out there trying to contact me wouldn’t exist. And that isn’t right, either.

  “So what’re you going to do?” Ben asks.

  “I don’t know.” I finish my beer. The booze is really hitting me. “I guess for right now, I’m going to call it a night.”

  I walk home, past a rowdy group of tourists wearing Mardi Gras beads. It’s the classic mark of an out-of-towner; no native New Orleanian wears beads unless they’ve just caught them at a Mardi Gras parade. I’ve never understood why tourists buy them in souvenir shops and drape them around their necks.

  But then, I’ve drunk a lot more than I usually do, especially after a hard run and no dinner, and right now I’m not too sure why anyone does anything. It’s taking a long time to get home. Oh, hell—I’ve walked right past my building! I turn around and go back.

  When I open the door to my condo, it still smells like burned Italian chicken. I turn up the air conditioner and flip on the ceiling fans, then go to my laptop and Google the words “fertility,” “donor,” “connect,” and “international,” because I can’t remember the exact terms Jessica used.

  There it is. International Fertility Donor Registry—Connecting donor children, donor siblings, donor recipients, and donors. The screen seems a little blurry, but I developed mad drunk-writing skills in college, and I call upon them now. I follow the prompts, enter my donor number, 17677—I’m proud I still remember it after all these years—and the name of the cryobank. My fingers feel fat and awkward, but I manage to put in my name, password, and email address.

  Abracadabra! I’ve accessed the postings for my number.

  Just as Jess said, the icon of a child pops up. It’s just a big round head and a little body clad in short pants, nonspecific gender-wise, of the same ilk as the international male-female restroom symbols. A dotted line connects the kid icon to a male icon at the bottom of the page. The explanation at the top reads, Icon in center of screen is seeking contact with icon at bottom.

  My heart stutters, then revs like a race car. Sure enough, there’s a kid out there wanting to make contact with me!

  I stare at the screen for a long moment, then go back to the prompts. It’s a secure site. If I register with my social security number and pay additional money, I can read the message. I’ll also be able to respond and post messages of my own. My fingers hover cautiously over the keyboard as if it’s a swamp full of gators.

  “What the hell,” I mutter. I enter the information and pay the fee with my PayPal account.

  Thank you for registering. Your application will be processed within forty-eight hours.

  What? I have to wait?

  Two minutes ago I didn’t know I’d ever want to do this, and now I’m frustrated at the delay.

  “You are one screwed-up dude,” I mutter to myself. I turn off the computer and notice that the room seems to be tilting. It takes three tries before I can stand up. I stagger to the bedroom, collapse across the bed, and fall fast asleep.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Quinn

  I’M THE FIRST to arrive for the May meeting of the single parent group on Thursday morning at seven thirty. We usually meet here at the Java Hut every first Saturday, but changed it to this morning at 7:30, before work because a couple of members have weekend conflicts. I get a chai latte and head to our usual table. This month, the painting on the wall is a sofa-sized acrylic of an empty armchair strapped into a roller coaster. According to the Post-it note stuck beneath it, a hopeful local artist wants to sell it for forty dollars.

  I study it for a moment. It exactly captures the way I’ve been feeling for the last month; life has been a series of plunging lows, fast curves, and scary climbs, and I haven’t felt securely strapped to anything.

  Brooke was my human safety belt—the person who made me feel secure and grounded. She was the person I called first whenever anything happened, the person I could talk things through with, the person who would tell me, “You’ve got this,” and make me believe it. She was smart and wise and kind, and I valued her insights and judgment. I really need her right now to help me sort through everything that’s going on, but obviously, she’s not around.

  I take a sip of my steaming drink. I almost didn’t come today because I knew her absence would be so pronounced. I started attending the meetings because Brooke encouraged me to accompany her to one when I first moved to New Orleans, and I kept coming back because it’s such a great bunch of women. Women, and one guy, I mentally amend.

  Brooke found the group listed in a free weekly newspaper shortly after she moved to New Orleans:

  A support group for singles who are (1) interested in becoming parents without a partner through adoption, artificial insemination, surrogacy, or the old-fashioned way, or (2) choosing to raise a child without a partner.

  Not having a parenting partner doesn’t have to mean not having support!

  Brooke discovered that the members were bright, funny, and warm, and they soon became close friends. I didn’t fit the criteria, but they welcomed me with open arms anyway.

  Everyone in the group is mourning Brooke. And while the thought of being around other sad people isn’t exactly uplifting, I know it’ll be good for us to get together. There’s something healing about being with others who share your pain. Plus I have some personal news I can’t wait to share.

  The first member through the door is Annie, a human resources manager with an oil and gas company who suggested
this meeting time. Annie has an eight-year-old son, Sean, who catches his school bus at seven. She’d been in a relationship with the child’s father, but he took off before Sean was born. Pretty and tiny as a doll—she’s a couple of inches shy of five feet—she has long brown hair and wears large black-rimmed glasses. She waves, then heads to the counter to order a coffee.

  After she gets her drink, she makes her way toward me. We hug hello. “How are you doing?” she asks as she sits down.

  “Fine.”

  She sees right through my automatic reply. Her dark eyes warm with empathy. “I know how close you and Brooke were. This must be a really hard time for you.”

  I nod, tears forming in my eyes. Tears are never very far away these days. “Brooke’s grandmother said something a couple of years ago that kind of sums up how I feel,” I say. “She’d just lost a dear friend to cancer, and Brooke asked how she was coping. Miss Margaret said, ‘Well, back in the day, Johnny Carson did a recurring soap opera skit on The Tonight Show. The studio camera would focus on audience members, and Johnny would read ridiculous things about them. It was called ‘The Edge of Wetness.’”

  Annie laughed.

  “Miss Margaret said, ‘That’s how I feel because I keep tearing up. I’m always on the Edge of Wetness.”

  Annie pats my hand, and then Sarah bustles through the coffee shop door. Her gray-streaked hair curls wildly around her head, and today she looks every one of her forty-four years. She waves, and stops at the counter to order coffee.

  “Where are the twins?” I ask when she makes her way over, a large cappuccino in hand. Her nanny takes Thursday mornings off to take college classes.

  “My mom’s watching them,” she says. “One hour is the most she can handle, so I can only stay for forty-five minutes.”

  It’s no wonder her mother imposes a limit; the boys are human fidget spinners. The last time Sarah brought the two-year-olds to a meeting, they’d all left after fifteen minutes because the boys wouldn’t stop tearing around the room and shrieking.