by Kevin Wilson
His apartment was fifteen minutes from Meggy’s, and they saw each other often. They would meet at a coffee shop and share a table, reading or writing. They rarely spoke to each other, simply shared the same space. They were still married, legally. They still fucked in those sad moments when they needed it. They were together and apart, and it made perfect sense to them.
After Mindy Shibayama’s mother died, Jameson and Mindy sold her house and, according to Diana, moved to Mexico. They disappeared so easily because of course it was that easy. Who was stopping a single person in this world from vanishing without a trace? How hard was it to step out of your life and into something that not another person knew?
Paul and Meggy had long given up on closure. It seemed such a privileged thing to expect, answers in light of such a mystery. They knew that their baby was dead and was also alive. They knew that nothing would ever change that.
13.
Seven years after the disappearance of their baby, Meggy walked into the DeKalb County Public Library to see a poetry reading at the Georgia Center for the Book. It was a quarter after five in the afternoon. She sat on a bench outside the restrooms, waiting until six, when the event would begin. She was reading another fifty-page chunk of Paul’s novel, which was now more than fifteen hundred pages long. It was, she had to admit, completely engrossing, though she wondered if anyone else would think so.
Her own book, Motherson, written under the pen name S. R. Swann, had been published by Four Way Books, and it had been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She did no readings, no book tour. There was no author photo on the back of the book, the briefest of bios. Her sister had worked with another lawyer to set it all up, to ensure that no one else knew the author. This mystery had created enough interest that Meggy sometimes imagined that the acclaim for the book was partly based on the sheer fact that people wanted to know the truth. And she knew that she would never give it to them. For as long as she lived, they would never know.
While she sat on the bench, she felt the presence of someone hovering in front of her. She looked away from the manuscript pages and stared into the face of her own son.
“Hello,” he said, smiling. He was older, seven or eight, wearing a pair of camouflage shorts and a white T-shirt. He was chubby, his hair cut severely. But she could see her son in this boy. His eyes, his expression, whatever light was inside of him, this was her son. She could not breathe. She wanted to reach out and touch his face, but she held back. She had to be sure.
She said the name of her baby, and the boy smiled. She said it again, and the boy nodded. “Hi,” he said.
“Can I kiss you?” she asked her son, and he nodded. She kissed him on the lips, which were so soft. He smelled like grape bubble gum. He was missing one of his teeth.
“Can I take you home?” she asked. Her son nodded. “I have a backpack with clothes in it,” he said, growing excited. “I have some books, too. I checked them out.”
She stood, her entire body electrified. She could not make her arms and legs do what she needed them to do. Her son seemed to understand. He took her hand, it fit so easily into his, and he led her through the hallway, out the doors of the library, and onto the street.
“My car is over there,” she said, and the boy walked with her. She unlocked the door and he slid into the backseat. She got into the car and started it. The radio was playing, and she quickly turned it off. She waited for someone, anyone, to stop her, to tell her that this was not real, that it was all a dream. She waited for someone to come and take her son out of her car. But a minute, maybe two, passed, and nothing had changed. She looked in the rearview mirror and there was her son, still smiling. She pulled out of the parking lot, onto the street, and started driving.
“Where are we going?” her son asked.
“Home,” she said.
14.
“I’m hungry,” her son said once they were back at her apartment, and Meggy asked him what he liked to eat. “Pizza,” he said. “I love pizza.” She had frozen pizzas in the fridge. She would learn everything that he loved, everything about him. She turned on the oven and then she sat at the kitchen table beside him. She ran her fingers through his hair. “That tickles a little,” he said, giggling.
There was a knock on the door. She had called Paul from the car, had told him only that she had found their son and did not stay on the line long enough to have to explain. She stood and walked to the door, but she paused before opening it. She knew that he might not believe her, that he could try to make her give their son back. Right now, it was just her and her son and no one else in the world. It was so thrilling to keep it this way. But Paul deserved a part in this. He had been through it just the same as her. Just the same as their son. She opened the door.
Paul pushed past her and stood over the boy.
“Hi,” the boy said. Paul said the name of his son. The boy nodded. Paul knelt beside the boy and stared at him. After a few seconds, he looked over at Meggy. “It’s him, isn’t it?” he asked. She nodded. Paul hugged the boy tightly.
“Is the pizza ready yet?” their son asked, and Paul and Meggy both laughed.
After dinner, night coming on, the three of them climbed into Meggy’s queen-size bed, their son between Paul and Meggy.
“Are you happy?” Meggy asked her son.
“I am,” he said. “I’m so happy.”
“We never stopped thinking about you,” Paul said.
“Good,” their son said. “That’s good.”
“We love you so much,” Meggy said.
“I love you, too,” their son replied, so easily that it broke their hearts into a million pieces.
Meggy’s cell phone, which was on the dresser, was vibrating. Paul’s own phone was playing a soft ditty under the pile of his clothes on the floor. Then the room grew silent, nothing in the entire universe except the sound of the three of them breathing. And when the phones sounded again, and then again, and then again, never stopping, Paul and Meggy simply held on to their son, the thing between them, that held them together, that they had lost and somehow found. They had found him, and they would never ever lose him again.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the following:
Julie Barer and everyone at the Book Group, especially Nicole Cunningham.
Zack Wagman and Ecco, with special mention to Allison Saltzman and Emma Janaskie.
Kelly and Debbie Wilson; Kristen, Wes, and Kellan Huffman; Mary Couch; John, Meredith, Warren, Laura, Morgan, and Philip James; and the Wilson, Fuselier, and Baltz families.
St. Mary’s Sewanee, for the use of the Hermitage, where I wrote several of these stories.
Sewanee: The University of the South.
My friends Ann Patchett, Leah Stewart, Matt O’Keefe, Sam Esquith, Cecily Parks, Isabel Galbraith, Lucy Corin, Lee Conell, Claire Vaye Watkins, David Syler, Heidi Syler, Jason Griffey, Betsy Sandlin, Manuel Chinchilla, Lauryl Tucker, Kelly Malone, Elizabeth Grammer, Katie McGhee, Matt Schrader, and Caki Wilkinson.
Finally and most emphatically:
Griffith Fodder-Wing Wilson and Patchett Halcomb Wilson.
Leigh Anne Couch.
About the Author
KEVIN WILSON is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Perfect Little World and The Family Fang, which was made into a film with Jason Bateman and Nicole Kidman. His story collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth received an Alex Award from the American Library Association and the Shirley Jackson Award. Wilson teaches fiction at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he lives with his wife and two sons.
WWW.WILSONKEVIN.COM
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Praise for Perfect Little World
“Wilson writes beautifully about parents and children, blending the keen social observation of Tom Perrotta or Meg Wolitzer with the deep, affectionate understanding for oddballs that has always been Anne Tyler’s territory. There’s swe
etness, even when the book’s humor gets dark.”
—Boston Globe
“A charming tale of reinvention, newfound family, and the challenges of creating one ‘perfect little world.’”
—Southern Living
“The sheer energy of imagination in Wilson’s work makes other writers of realistic fiction look lazy.”
—Newsday
“Family is far more than a biological bond; that’s not a groundbreaking idea. But Wilson has found a lovely new way of telling readers something they know by heart.”
—Houston Chronicle
“A wry and surprisingly tender novel that should delight Wilson’s many fans.”
—Dallas Morning News
“The compensation is a greater richness in the characters, and a refreshingly un-ironic attitude toward love.”
—Knoxville News Sentinel
“Wilson . . . does an incredible job of telling a compelling story while addressing important social issues. . . . Thought-provoking.”
—Deep South Magazine
“In light and lively prose that practically tap dances on the page, Wilson shrewdly probes the intricate tensions and machinations that lie at the core of this eccentric family unit. . . . A provocative and uplifting read.”
—BookPage
“Stellar. . . . Compelling . . . realer and wiser and sadder and eventually reassuring about human nature than dozens of other novels.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Bittersweet. . . . Wilson delves into the drama and tensions inherent in this strange aquarium. . . . A moving and sincere reflection on what it truly means to become a family.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Sweet and thoroughly satisfying. . . . Wilson grounds his premise in credible human motivations and behavior, resulting in a memorable cast of characters.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[A] moving novel about love, parenting, and the families we create for ourselves.”
—Library Journal
Also by Kevin Wilson
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth
The Family Fang
Perfect Little World
Copyright
“Scroll Through the Weapons” (as “An Arc Welder, a Molotov Cocktail, a Bowie Knife”) in Ploughshares
“Housewarming” in South Carolina Review and New Stories from the South: 2010
“A Visit” in Missouri Review
“A Signal to the Faithful” in A Public Space
“Sanders for a Night” in Southwest Review
“No Joke, This Is Going to Be Painful” in Tin House and New Stories from the South: 2009
“The Horror We Made” in American Short Fiction
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BABY, YOU’RE GONNA BE MINE. Copyright © 2018 by Kevin Wilson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover design by Allison Saltzman
Cover art © csaimages.com
FIRST EDITION
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wilson, Kevin, 1978– author.
Title: Baby, you’re gonna be mine : stories / by Kevin Wilson.
Other titles: Baby, you are gonna be mine
Description: First edition. | New York : Ecco, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017034160 (print) | LCCN 2017034600 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062450685 () | ISBN 9780062450524 | ISBN 9780062450678
Classification: LCC PS3623.I58546 (ebook) | LCC PS3623.I58546 A6 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017034160
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Digital Edition JUNE 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-245068-5
Version 05152018
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