A Little Hope(19)

“I shouldn’t have.” He looked down at his glass but couldn’t drink. It was as though he was coming back to life and realizing what was happening. There was no room for her. Because of her, he was saved, and now he had to save Kay. He had to. I got to the shore—some shore. I’m no longer drowning. He had to get Kay there, too. The midwinter sun was reflecting brightly off the February snow outside Melinda’s window, the icicles dripped with a hint of promise, and he wondered for a second why he never saw dishes outside for the stray cat. “Thank you for helping me,” he said. He knew she would know what he meant.

“Don’t mention it.” She crossed her legs and looked up at the ceiling. “I’ll see you around,” she said.

He didn’t hear anything from her until Iris was four. When the lawyer came to his office with a file folder and the picture of his child, who looked curly haired and serious in the Kmart portrait with the blue background. “What’s this?” he said, and the lawyer had humorless eyes, as though he were some sick deadbeat pervert. “The mother of your child would like support for the day-to-day care of your child.”

Every time she said your child, he thought she meant Benny, and the dizziness he was feeling from this unexpected news was replaced with a tug of sadness. “Tell her I would have liked to have known about this earlier, but I will meet these support requests.”

“Does that mean you want to keep it quiet so your wife doesn’t know?” the lawyer asked. Her eyes were so dark and stern.

“She knows already about my time with that woman.” He lied. “So you may leave the paperwork here and remove yourself from my office.” He made a shooing motion, which felt good. Which helped to relieve the rush of worry and sickness that was coming over him.



* * *



He told Kay that afternoon. She didn’t shriek. She didn’t say anything. She nodded as though she really did already know. Her cheeks looked so smooth and polished, and she sipped her tea.

“Well?” he finally said.

She pointed to the door. It was two o’clock, and the sun was steady and bold. The cuckoo clock ticked in the kitchen. “Please get out,” she said quietly. He didn’t know where to go. He almost went back to work. He felt shame and guilt and fear about what would happen between him and Kay (he could not lose her—he would fail Benny if he did), but he also felt a faint new possibility. Maybe Kay would come around. Maybe Iris was a solution, not a problem. He went and saw two movies and fell asleep in the middle of the second one.

That night when he returned home, she ignored him. She put on her nightgown and rubbed lotion on her hands. She clicked off the bathroom light as he stood by their bed, not sure if she wanted him there, not sure if she’d tell him to leave again. “I don’t want to ever hear a word about this child,” she said.

“I’m so—”

She put up her hand. They were fifty then. Why did he do what he’d done? How could he have hurt the only woman he loved? “Pay the bill they send from your office, but never, ever mention this girl.”

He nodded. She shook her head and went to her side of the bed. “Is this where you want to be, Alex?”

He nodded again. “Of course.”

“Then that’s that,” she said, and turned off her light.

He lay awake that night listening to the clock over the white fireplace in their bedroom. He looked at her every so often to see if she was still awake. He wanted to tell her they should meet this girl. That it wasn’t her fault. That maybe, maybe she could bring something to their lives. But he knew better.

So every other month or so, he met Iris in secret. She was beautiful. Always smiling. She had Benny’s nose, he thought. Sometimes certain words she said (hug, button) reminded him of Benny’s voice. It made him teary but also made him sing inside. He’d take her to the zoo like divorced dads did. He’d buy her new shoes and give her a fifty-dollar bill. “Hang on to this in case you need anything,” he’d say. Her eyes would be so big holding the money.

His life seemed to be divided into Iris time and non–Iris time, and he counted the moments until he saw her again. Once in a while, he’d cut out of work a couple of hours early and call Melinda (they were always cordial—not warm but cordial) to tell her to cancel the babysitter, that he could meet the school bus, that he could take her somewhere for dinner. God, how thrilled he was by this girl. He loved to look in his rearview mirror and see her buckled in his back seat as he took her to the park, the miniature golf course, the café. How did the universe know she was just what his empty world needed? Why couldn’t Kay give this a chance? He hated sneaking around, but to be honest, Iris was worth it. And he thought he brought something to Iris that benefited her, too: a lightheartedness as a parent, a patience her mother sometimes lacked, a sense of financial security most young parents could only wish for.

What a gift this lovely girl was, what medicine, for lack of a better word. She had a good vocabulary even at six or seven, and she had an earnest quality not many kids had. He watched her become a teenager, and he couldn’t believe she still wanted to meet him regularly. “Sure,” she’d say. “I could eat pizza.”

Never, ever mention this girl. So he didn’t.

He wondered if Kay had any clue. When he said he worked late and went to her chorus concert, sitting in the very back row but clapping the same as any parent. When he bought her those skis for Christmas or told Melinda he’d pay for her class trip to Disney. And then college came, and his money went to tuition, to textbooks (when the hell did they get so expensive?), to a meal plan. But he was happy to do it. That’s my girl, he thought once when she made dean’s list.