The Accidentals(94)

I gasp.

“Oh!” Aurora says, taking my hand. Jake squeezes my other one.

“She is, naturally, a genius,” he says, and the crowd laughs. “Recently she said something so clever and true that I couldn’t let it go. So I wrote this song for her. I’m going to call it ‘Double Negative.’ It’s a song that asks for her patience. I figure by the time she turns thirty I might figure out this fatherhood thing.” He closes his eyes and begins slapping out a bluesy rhythm line on his guitar.

I can’t not love you,

And I can’t not care

I won’t take no for an answer,

And I won’t bow to despair.





I don’t stop hoping,

But I won’t forget to say

That you’re not wrong in anger,

And I can’t wish that away.





You don’t believe that I am true

It took far too long for me to come through.





But I am your double negative

Where everything wrong turns right.





You might say that I am trite

But don’t fight me, girl, on this tonight.





I am your double negative

Where everything wrong turns right.





I have to sit down when it’s over. I fold myself into my seat and put my head in my hands. Eventually the theater empties out, leaving just the four of us in the third row.

Aurora fumbles in her purse for some tissues. “Here, sweetie.”

“Thanks,” I hiccup.

“You two! It’s like duel of the tearjerkers,” Aurora says. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think Frederick won.”

“He can keep the trophy.” I sniff. I dig my phone out of my pocket. Payback is a bitch, I text to him.

“So what happens now?” Jake asks.

It’s the question I’ve been asking myself for a year. But lately it seems less difficult to answer. I put my head on his shoulder. “After they pack up, there’s a party somewhere. Probably at the hotel. We’ll go ask Henry in a minute.”

When we stand up, my phone buzzes with a response. It says only: I love you Rachel.

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