Always the Last to Know(111)

“As long as the baby wants,” Noah said, and there he was, his son in his arms. He smiled at me; my face grew hot. Other parts, too.

“Hi, Marcus,” I mumbled.

“Abwee!” he answered.

“Want to hold him?” Noah said. “He smells good. Now. That was definitely not true half an hour ago.”

“Poop explosion!” Mickey said cheerfully.

I took the little guy. Oh, wow. He did smell good. He was a sturdy baby, and his black hair stood straight up. Dark eyes, like his father.

“How old is he now?” I asked.

“Six months,” the proud parents answered in unison. Like Mom and Caro.

Had my parents ever been like that, so in sync that they finished each other’s sentences? I couldn’t remember.

Marcus yanked my hair. “You’re pretty cute, kid,” I said, untangling the strand from his chubby little fist. “Pretty cute indeed.”

“Well, I’m feeling very third wheel here,” Mickey said. “Should I go?”

“No! No, stay,” I said. “Um, I got an exciting e-mail today. I think I might be having a gallery show in New York. Noah, remember that painting I did for the brownstone people? One of their friends owns a gallery, and he wants to feature me.”

“Holy shit! That’s great!” Mickey said.

“Yeah. It’s funny, it’s actually a gallery you’ve seen, Noah. Way back when.”

“Really.”

It wasn’t a happy and excited word, not the way he used it. “Yep. So I’ll be wicked busy for the next week or so. Painting. More of the same stuff, you know? Those flowers?” For some reason, I was glad to be holding the baby.

Noah took him from me, reading my mind as he usually did. “Mickey, would you mind taking Marcus next door? I’ll come back for him in a little bit.”

“Sure! Glad to. I need to nurse anyway.” She shot me a look. “Maybe see you later? But not if you two are fighting, because I’m on his side. It’s a coparenting loyalty thing.”

“We’re not fighting!” Shit. We were about to fight, weren’t we?

Mickey left, Marcus babbling away.

“So,” Noah said, sitting down across the table from me. “A gallery show. Wow.”

“Yeah. Hasan Sadik. Very, very prestigious.”

“For that flowery porn painting.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, that’s one way of putting it, sure. I think the interior designer called it a huge vagina painting. So I have to make more of the same. That’s what I was doing most of today.”

“How are you gonna work that?”

“Uh . . . what do you mean?”

“Are you moving back to the city?”

“Um . . . I don’t know. I mean, eventually. I have a job there. Teaching. So yeah. I guess so. But the problem is, my father isn’t—”

He threw up his hands. “Are you kidding me?”

“No. Why?”

“Jesus, Sadie! We slept together!”

“I know! I was there! And I’m really happy about that.”

“Are you? Because I’m feeling used all of a sudden.”

I tried a smile. “I think it was a mutual using, pal.”

“I love you, Sadie.”

“I love y—”

“I never stopped. So we spend more than a decade apart, and then you come home and we get back together, and now you’re leaving again? For that same New York bullshit?”

“Okay, for one, it’s not—”

“Your sister is right. You’re unreliable.”

“—bullshit. Noah. It’s what I’ve worked for all my life. And when did Juliet say I was unreliable?”

“Once your father’s situation is settled, you’re done, aren’t you? You’ll go back to the city and maybe come out here to visit a couple times a year.”

“And for two, my father’s situation is a long way from settled.” My eyes filled again at the thought of Dad, but I refused to cry right now.

Noah clenched his jaw and looked out the window. “I have a son now. A family. You can’t pop in and out of our life whenever you feel like it. You have to make a plan, Sadie, and it’s clear I’m not in it, and Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I fell for this again.”

“I think you missed the part where I said I loved you.”

“And what exactly does that mean?”

“It means exactly what I said! I love you, Noah!”

“Are you gonna stay here? Are you going to marry me?”

“This is hauntingly familiar, you giving me ultimatums and telling me how life should be.”

“Are you going to stay?”

“I don’t know!” I shouted. “Should I? What’s even here for me anymore? Maybe you, if I meet all your criteria? The father who loved me is gone, and according to my mother, he’s not getting better. You have a family without me and you’re just fine with that, you’ve made that clear. My sister and mother are in a club I was never asked to join. I was recently told by my boyfriend that out of all his girlfriends, he was almost sure I was his favorite. I teach school and earn just above the poverty rate and I’m making these fucking couch paintings and somewhere along the line, I seem to have lost my soul, and then I finally get a huge, life-changing chance to show at a dream gallery, and yesterday we sleep together and you tell me you love me, but today you don’t want me. What the hell am I supposed to do?”