Confidential(28)

“She’s clearly in love with you.”

“Yes.” He didn’t sound happy about it.

“Do you want to break up with her, but you’re afraid of what she’ll do to you?” I ventured. “She sounded really angry.”

“I’m afraid of what she’ll do to me and of what she’ll do to herself. I’m afraid of all of it. But I’m not sure I want to lose her, either.”

“Because she’s exciting.” It was like I could see into him the way he’d been seeing into me.

“Excitement can get exhausting. Constant reassurance can get boring.” He slumped a little in his chair, and we were both quiet for a long minute. Then he reanimated. “I can’t ask you to forget this ever happened. That never works. I tell you not to think of pink elephants and that’s all you’ll think about.”

“What do you think happened? That I learned you have a private life? Shocker!” I smiled at him, and he finally smiled back. “You couldn’t be as good a therapist as you are unless you’d lived a little, right?”

He laughed. I was warming to this role reversal.

I wasn’t sure what I’d learned tonight, but I knew I didn’t want to forget it.





CHAPTER 21





GREER


He meant it to be romantic, sitting on a bench by the water, gazing out at the lights installation along the Bay Bridge, which looked like a giant harp made of incandescent strings. But the thermos full of hot chocolate laced with Baileys just felt sad, as if we were playing at being twentysomething bon vivants instead of a couple of established professionals set up by eHarmony.

Yes, eHarmony. What the hell was I expecting? To find my soul mate? I neither wanted nor believed in those. Even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t need one in order to have a baby. But somehow, I got sucked into a free communication weekend, where I messaged all my matches in one late-night wine-fueled binge. I hadn’t been able to resist the efficiency.

I didn’t want to admit to anyone I’d done this, not even to Dr. Michael. Least of all to Dr. Michael. What would he say—worse, what would he ask—if he knew that I’d messaged only men who already had children (young children, I hoped)? That I’d stopped replying when I learned said children were more than five years old? That I’d been hedging my bets, wishing I could fall in love with someone who conveniently had a baby or a toddler who could feel like my own for only half the week? Then I could indulge my loving maternal feelings with impunity and minimal disruption. Maybe there could be some other way to scratch this terrible itch.

Ron was not going to scratch shit.

He wasn’t bad-looking, and he was nice enough, and he was an orthopedic surgeon. But there was the thermos and his use of the word irregardless. Most of all, though, there was the subterfuge. In one of the pictures on Ron’s profile, he had a gorgeous towheaded kid on his shoulders who couldn’t have been more than three, and it never even occurred to me that it had been taken nearly a decade ago.

“. . . she’s a soccer star,” he was saying. “And I love watching her play, I really do, but sometimes it’s with visions of torn ACLs dancing in my head—”

“You really shouldn’t do that,” I said sharply.

“You think she can tell?”

“No, I mean you really shouldn’t use such an old picture in your profile. It’s false advertising.”

“Oh.” He averted his eyes, turning toward the Christmas tree bridge. “I’m sorry. I just don’t take a lot of pictures of myself.”

He probably hadn’t intentionally hoodwinked me; he might have thought a twelve-year-old was as good as a three-year-old. But that level of denseness irritated me. There was a world of difference between three and twelve. The way they smell, for example. The way they cuddle. Their ability to bond with a new person and love that person as if she’d been around since they were born, as if she were practically a real mom.

I was using words like bond. That might have been as bad as irregardless.

“What about you?” he said. “How old are your kids?”

“I don’t have any.” I glared at him. “Did you even read my profile?”

“Of course.” He looked flustered as he downed the rest of his hot chocolate, his Adam’s apple bobbing in a ferociously unappealing way.

I stood up. “I’ve got to go.”

He followed suit. “Are you sure? I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. And I find you really attractive. I was hoping we could—”

“No, we can’t. You’re not what I’m looking for.” You don’t have what I’m looking for.

Irregardless of his thermos and his daughter, this was a bad idea. There was no substituting another man’s family for the baby I wanted.

Ron looked miserable. He probably didn’t normally get rejected that flatly.

I couldn’t believe what came out of my mouth next. “It’s not you, it’s me.” Not only was it a cliché, but it was never true. It was always at least a tiny bit you, too.

How much was me? For so long, I’d substituted workaholism for passion, but it was all a diversion from whatever was wrong, whatever was missing. Like a bloodhound, Dr. Michael could smell it, and he was following that scent all the way back to my parents. I didn’t know if he could fix it or if a baby would, but I had to find out.