Jane Doe(55)

A heterosexual couple next to me hardly speak to each other at all, though they are lively with everyone else. I wonder why they stay together. Their arms never even touch accidentally. But they each tell hilarious stories about their work on local plays, and I like them both a lot for entertaining me. This is almost like a Christmas dinner, a little holiday for me before I have to get back to my darker side.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Luke whispers before dessert.

“I’m enjoying myself. I like your brother.”

“Thank you. He’s pretty great. Don’t you have a brother?”

“Yes. And he’s not great at all.”

Luke laughs and doesn’t press the issue, and I’m glad. My brother was never a brother to me. He was a bully with shitty bully friends. When our parents would disappear, he didn’t take care of me; he didn’t even bother reassuring me. Instead, he’d say things like “Maybe they got tired of you being an ugly freak,” and then he’d use the unsupervised time to stay out late and vandalize abandoned homes.

That was my brother. But Luke and Johnny seem close. Whatever they went through in their family forged sibling solidarity. Luke smiles at his little brother as if he’s proud of him. That’s nice.

I really wish this weren’t our last night together. But Meg deserves to be avenged and I’ll have to sacrifice to avenge her.

As dessert is served—apple bread pudding with rum sauce: yum—Johnny stands and taps his wineglass. I glance at Luke, but he gives an exaggerated shrug.

“Okay, I admit this is more than just a last-minute dinner party. We invited you guys here to announce some news.” Johnny tugs Isaiah’s hand to prompt him to stand up too, and their arms go around each other’s waists as if that’s their default. “A year ago, just after the wedding, we started the process of applying to adopt a baby—”

Luke’s sharp gasp cuts through the other murmurs of surprise.

“It’s been a long road, but . . . we’ve found a birth mother who really likes us, and we really like her, and . . . our baby will be born in February.”

I turn to see Luke’s reaction. He whispers, “Holy shit.” His skin loses all color and his eyes go wide. I’m not sure he’s happy. But then he smiles and everything about him lights up. Tears glisten in his eyes. “Jesus, brother,” he says. “That’s amazing.”

He shoots to his feet and rounds the table to give both men big, squeezing hugs. “I’m going to be an uncle!”

Everyone laughs and congratulates him before crowding close for their own hugs. Johnny is openly crying. The joy in the room is palpable, even to me.

This is the kind of future I lost when I lost Meg. I try to soak up the love, though it doesn’t belong to me. It heats my skin and even sinks a little deeper, the glow warming me briefly inside.

When Luke returns to my side, I hug him and tighten my hold when he squeezes me hard enough to squish the air out of my lungs.

“I’m going to be an uncle! For real!”

“That’s so cool. You didn’t have any idea?”

“None. He’s good at keeping secrets, I guess. I’m just . . . wow. I wonder if I could coach a T-ball team. That would be cool, right? Whether it’s a boy or girl, they’ll like T-ball, won’t they?”

I’m laughing at his wide-eyed wonder. “I have no idea.”

“Yeah, I bet they will. Maybe I should buy a bigger place so the kid can come sleep over whenever they want.”

“It will be a few years before you’d need more room, I think. I had no idea you were this into kids.”

“I’m not! I mean, I never imagined I’d have my own, and since they’re gay, having kids wasn’t an assumption, but . . . God, Johnny will be a great dad, and Isaiah comes from a huge family, so . . . yeah. They’re going to make a really great world for their kids.”

“That’s a lovely way to put it.”

We’re sitting again, and Luke is absently holding my hand and staring at his bread pudding as if he’s seeing a million scenes playing out at once.

“You don’t want kids?” I ask.

He shakes his head, then seems to snap out of his daze. His eyes dart up to meet mine. “I mean, if the woman I’m with really wants kids, I’d seriously think about it.”

I laugh again at his obviousness. No point in explaining that I don’t want kids. Luke will get the hint when I disappear.

Maybe he won’t be the one person in the world who thinks of me after all. I can already tell that his universe will be too full of this tiny niece or nephew.

Isaiah and Johnny take their seats and we finally get to our desserts as they explain that the birth mother knows the sex of the baby but they want it to be a surprise. “The mother is a great girl,” Isaiah says. “First in her family to go to college. She wants to work in criminal justice, maybe even go to law school.”

Everyone at the party is vibrating with excitement. Everybody loves babies. I won’t get to experience the wait or the arrival, but I’m glad that Luke gets this. A real family. He’ll always have a place to go for Christmas.

That’s nice for him. It would have been nice for me too. But he’ll be much better at it. He’ll be more involved, more in love with the experience. He won’t just be leeching emotions from other people because he can’t feel his own.