Seven Days of Us(50)

“Girls, go upstairs please,” said Emma.

“Why? What’s going on?” said Phoebe.

“Nothing,” said Emma. “Just, could you go upstairs, darling?”

The man was looking even more uneasy, his doe eyes flitting around the four of them.

“He shouldn’t be in the house—” Olivia tried again. Why did none of her family grasp what quarantine meant?

“Olivia, please. Just go upstairs. We’ll sort all that out,” said Emma.

Her mother’s face told her she had no choice.

“Come on,” Olivia said to Phoebe.

She put an arm out for her sister as they climbed the stairs. Nobody in the hall said anything. When she and Phoebe reached the first landing, they heard their father say, “Have you two, have you already met?”

“Wait—shh,” said Phoebe, stopping. She leaned over the banister to listen, so that Olivia had to stop, too.

“At Heathrow, when I was fetching Olivia,” said Emma, shrilly. “We spoke! Now, do come on through, Jesse. Tea, tea, tea.”

“What? Who is he?” whispered Phoebe. Her little hand was viselike on Olivia’s arm.

“What’s she doing, just inviting him in?” said Olivia.

“Miserable weather!” they heard Emma say, as their parents walked into the kitchen with the man. The door closed and the voices faded. Phoebe sat down on the top step. “Who is he?” she said again.





Andrew


THE SMOKING ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 9:59 A.M.

? ? ?

Sitting by the fire, Andrew kept scanning Jesse’s face for the girl he remembered, dimly, from Beirut. He couldn’t really see her, though, and he certainly couldn’t see himself—besides the man’s height. He could just see a startlingly handsome, young American, separate from them both. Jesse was sitting on the sofa, Andrew on the armchair. On the table between them were two mugs of very sweet tea, which Emma had made as if they were in EastEnders. He could hear her now, clattering around in the kitchen where they’d left her. The absurdity of Jesse meeting his wife at Heathrow hit Andrew afresh. Never mind EastEnders—this was pure telenovela.

Emma bustled in and out again, with hushed apologies for interrupting and two wedges of Christmas cake. Her offerings sat untouched beside the envelope, which Jesse explained he had been planning to leave for Andrew. His letter said more or less the same as his e-mails, but struck a defeated note. It read more like a good-bye than a greeting, with its sad little summary of hobbies, marital status, and sexual preference. Andrew tried to put this last fact aside to deal with later. Not that it had to be “dealt with.” Andrew had lots of gay friends, and not just through work. He was an open-minded metropolitan, a writer—oh, shut up, Birch, he told himself. Just shut up.

Jesse leaned forward and took a polite sip of tea.

“Sorry about that,” said Andrew, gesturing at his mug. “It’s a British response to shock—dreadful tea. Brandy might be more to the point.”

Jesse laughed. He was wonderful-looking, Andrew kept thinking, rather stunned that he could have produced such a perfect specimen. The picture he’d found online hadn’t done his son justice. Even his eyebrows were extraordinary—as if someone had stenciled them onto his face. And he had those very white American teeth like piano keys. Jesse’s adoptive parents must have seen to that.

“I’m a shock?” he said.

“Well. It’s not every day a long-lost son comes out of the woodwork, so to speak.”

Why was he taking up this odd, jovial tone? he wondered.

“So you didn’t get my e-mails last week?” Jesse asked, after a second, looking at the letter.

“Ah, I did, I did. I’m sorry. I should have replied sooner. I was going to. I had every intention of doing so. But we’re in rather an, um, unusual situation here. Did you read my column this morning?” He was gabbling. He tried to breathe from the diaphragm.

“Your column?” Jesse looked confused. “Uh, I tried to, but I couldn’t get online since last night. Did you write about my e-mails?”

“Your e-mails? God, no. No, my column was about us Birches being in what’s called voluntary quarantine. My daughter Olivia has been working in Liberia, you see, treating Haag victims, and we’re supposed to avoid contact with anyone for a week—or the next three days now.”

“Oh shi—shoot, I totally forgot,” said Jesse.

Andrew was thrown. “Forgot?”

“Emma told me when we met at the airport. Is it, like, OK that I’m here?” said Jesse, glancing at the door.

“Oh yes. Absolutely. It’s really a formality. The NGOs are just being doubly careful. No need to panic.” Now that Jesse was here, he could hardly send the boy back out into the rain. And he wanted him to stay, he realized. Still, what a mess. And quite a shock to find he’d fathered someone who inserted “like” between every word.

“So you didn’t reply because you didn’t want to infect me with Haag?” said Jesse.

“That, and also . . . Well—it’s complicated.” Andrew stopped. He’d prefer not to go into sordid details, but the quarantine excuse sounded flimsy, face-to-face.

“The night I—” He stopped again. How did one explain to someone that they were the product of a meaningless fuck, and that their father was a cheating bastard?