“I’m not sure it’s that simple, Dorrie,” Bruce said.
“It’s not simple, Bruce,” said Dorrie. “But you must admit that, as a pediatrician, you can tell which babies were planned and therefore have a better chance of being loved and which babies were not. If you don’t love the mother, Bradley, how are you going to love the baby?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t love the mother.”
“How can you love the mother if you hardly know her?”
“I don’t know, Mom,” said Bradley. “But I do have strong feelings for Grace. I could very well be in love with her.”
“You’d know already if you were in love with her, I think. But let’s say for the sake of our discussion that you do love her. If you love Grace, if you want to be with Grace for the rest of your life, this might work. But Bradley, you must know that even the most committed relationships don’t always withstand the pressures of parenthood. Having a baby changes everything.”
“Maybe in a good way,” said Bradley. “Maybe being a father would make me into a better person.”
“Let’s talk about this again tomorrow night,” said Dorrie, a signal to both Bradley and Bruce that Dorrie needed time and space for reflection. “Let’s see where we are then. Love you, honey.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Bruce, grateful that Dorrie was not in the mood to drill deeper. “Let’s all sleep on this and see what tomorrow brings.”
“Okay,” said Bradley. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
* * *
Three minutes later, Dorrie and Bruce were standing in their kitchen, where Dorrie had filled the teakettle with water and set it on the stove to boil. She stood with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, all softness absent from her face. “You’re upset,” said Bruce.
“Of course I’m upset! You need to be upset, too. This is our thirty-year-old son who’s only recently learned the importance of paying his credit card bill on time, talking about becoming a father to a child that, in all truth, may or may not be his, and settling down with a woman he barely knows. Parents of sons can have this worry, that their young man will impregnate someone and pay for that night of passion for the rest of his life. This is where Bradley is standing right now. He can go forward with this and completely fuck up his life, or he can walk away and learn from this misstep.”
“He has to make the decision, Dorrie,” said Bruce, putting his hands into the pockets of his ancient madras shorts. “Isn’t that what you always tell your patients?”
“He’s not my patient, Bruce, he’s my son. He’s our son. And unless you get on board with me and help him make the right decision, he’s going to be a very unhappy son.”
CHAPTER 12
As soon as Bradley ended the call with his parents, he Googled “Being a dad,” and read several short articles about fatherhood. A few male comedians weighed in with some very funny observations, as well as some useful advice. One of them even compared fatherhood with manhood.
Manhood: This is what fatherhood can give me. Bradley liked this thought. Isn’t this what all male emerging adults wanted to be considered, a man? Being a man implied being a grown-up, not a millennial kid who brags about taking vacations off the grid while wearing his Patagonia clothing and carrying his high-end camping gear on his back in a weather-wicking pack supported by a featherweight frame. He smiled at this image. Millennials didn’t deserve all the criticism they received for being entitled brats, but there was some truth to the stereotype of their being self-absorbed. What would be so wrong about doing the opposite of that and settling down and starting a family, especially with someone as beautiful and mature as Grace?
He had never dated anyone like Grace, even though he had gone out on many, many dates. It was the digital world he lived in that enabled such a feverish romance schedule. The swiping, the texting, the coffee shops and bars—when he first started using dating apps, he was out two or three nights a week with different women. And it had been an exhilarating game for a while, as he got better and better at communicating with, selecting, and then meeting up with strangers. Some wanted nothing more than a hookup, which Bradley had to admit for a good stretch had appealed to him; he had been a willing participant. But he had eventually tired of feeling completely shallow and instead searched for a woman who was a pretty face plus. This had led to Bradley’s next series of dates, with attractive but also earnest women, who had interesting jobs and life goals. Bradley was twenty-six at that point, as were a number of these women. And the dates were great, for the first six weeks or so. And then Bradley could feel the shift. The women were still having fun, but they were also assessing Bradley’s staying power. No one was ready yet to get married, but equally true was the fact that no one wanted to be investing time in a relationship that wasn’t capable of going the distance. If these women sensed that Bradley wasn’t as committed to the partnership as they were, they were gone, often surprising and disappointing Bradley with what he thought were fabricated excuses.
When he turned twenty-eight, the age his parents married, Bradley initiated a new search—this one for his soul mate. And he spent the better part of that year involved in relationships with two women. The first relationship ended when the woman issued an ultimatum about a ring on her finger by Christmas or else. It was happening too quickly for Bradley to commit, so he ejected. The second woman ended up dumping him, declaring him superficial. But her next boyfriend, whom Bradley had researched on Facebook, seemed to have nothing on Bradley except a better apartment. While the frivolousness of her reason for moving on initially shocked and hurt Bradley, he soon after admitted to himself that this form of dating was frivolous, and that he was no longer going to seek a meaningful relationship with the swipe of his thumb across the face of his phone.
When Bradley turned twenty-nine, he was without a girlfriend on his birthday for the first time since college. There was no one to plan a party or a dinner out with other couples, so he met his single male friends at a brew pub after work. The conversation homed in on sports, philosophy, and craft beer, with only the occasional comment being made about a hot girl at the bar whom none of them on that evening was interested in approaching. It was a guys’ night. They drank too much beer, ate enormous bacon cheeseburgers, and downed several rounds of bourbon shots. Bradley had been hungover for two days, but it had been the best birthday celebration of his twenties: no gifts, no expectations, no disappointments.
A few months after he turned twenty-nine, Bradley was ready to reenter the dating arena. But he was resolved to meet women the old-fashioned way: on his own terms and in person. And it was not too long after this that Grace Trumbull walked into the offices of Broadbent & Shapiro. Bradley immediately noticed Grace because she was so poised and pretty, but he didn’t immediately think about dating her. For one thing, she was older. And for another thing, she didn’t seem much interested in him. And of the two things that stopped Bradley from asking her out, her neutrality toward him mattered much more than her age.
Bradley was a handsome young man, and, like most handsome young men, he knew this about himself. He noticed women noticing him. He noticed when they became light and bright in his presence. And who wouldn’t like this kind of attention? He didn’t care if these women were simply interested in his looks or the amount of money in his wallet or the location of his apartment. He was not ashamed to admit that he liked the attention.
But Grace had offered none of this when they first met. As far as Bradley could tell by her demeanor, she didn’t seem to care about him. Sure, she said hello to him when she saw him in the break room, and she made eye contact with him when they spoke to each other. But the light behind her eyes didn’t intensify when she looked at him. Her smile didn’t grow. Her laugh didn’t amplify like that of the other, much younger, women in the office. She had the confidence to be herself, even though she was a vice president in a marketing firm specializing in creating illusion. Her indifference intrigued and motivated him. And, in fact, h
e was just days away from mustering up the courage to ask her out for lunch when Paul Broadbent paired them on the Maritime Museum assignment. It was destiny, Bradley decided. He was meant to be with Grace. And if he was meant to be with her, then she was meant to be with him. Was the baby they made in the backseat of Grace’s Cadillac proof?
CHAPTER 13
When Bradley was processing comedic musings about fatherhood, Grace was on the phone with her ex-husband. They hadn’t spoken to each other for the first two of the eight years they had been divorced. But Grace had called Kenny after she’d read about his father dying of a heart attack, and after that, they had talked every six months or so. Their relationship was not so genial that either one of them contacted the other without a reason stated at the outset of the phone call. But it had been long enough now that the pain Grace had inflicted on Kenny by telling him she wouldn’t move to Maine and have children with him, and the hurt caused by Kenny when he told her he was not only going to remarry but also that his fiancée was pregnant, had subsided to a level that was tolerable to both of them for the duration of a twenty-minute conversation on the phone.
“You’re pulling my leg, Grace.”
“Maybe I wish I were. I’m really pregnant.”
“After all those years of saying you never would be. Here you are,” Kenny said in that familiar soft, thoughtful voice.
“Are you mad?”
“No, Grace, I’m not mad,” said Kenny. “I feel a little something, but I don’t think it’s anger.”
Grace opened the can of ginger ale that sat on the table beside her living room couch and took a sip. “You’re wondering why I didn’t want this before,” she said. “You’re wondering why I want this now.”
“Maybe, Grace. Maybe that is what I’m wondering.”
“Well, I guess the reason I didn’t want to have children before is the same. You know all about it, and neither of us wants to revisit that well-worn ground.”
“What about now then?” asked Kenny. “Why have you changed your mind?”
“It’s a fair question,” she said, “something that I’ve asked myself. Maybe it’s because I’m older now and not so certain anymore. This unexpected pregnancy has made me think about a lot of things.”
“But I thought you didn’t ever want to do this, that you had no interest in being a mother.”
Grace sat up and put her hand to her stomach. The nausea had passed. “I didn’t want it,” she said. “But now that I’m faced with the fact that I’m actually pregnant, and that I might never be pregnant again, I guess I’m changing my mind.”
Kenny took a long sip of his coffee. “So you’re having this baby so you can be a better mother to it than your mother was to you?” he asked.
“I can hear in your voice that you don’t think that’s a good reason.”
“Do you think it’s a good reason? You’ve been convinced for, what, twenty years that you didn’t want children because you had such an awful childhood. And now, just because you happen to be pregnant, you suddenly want to be a mother? I’m having trouble following your logic.”
“Maybe that’s because it doesn’t make sense, Kenny.”
“And what would have happened if the condom had broken when we were together, and you got pregnant? Would you have had a change of heart about that baby?”
“I’m not sure that’s a fair question.”
“Sure it is, Grace. You’re telling me, if I’m hearing you right, that you’re pregnant from a romp in the backseat of my mother’s Cadillac with a guy you barely know, never mind don’t love. And that because you’re forty-two instead of thirty-two, you need to have a baby to somehow validate your existence?”
Grace knew that even though Kenny’s voice had become a tick louder, he wasn’t angry. He was simply trying to understand Grace’s decision, which she wasn’t explaining well because she hardly understood it herself. “I know this is crazy, Kenny.”
“I’m not necessarily saying that,” he said. “What I’m saying is that you need to think really hard about this, about what are you are trying to prove, Grace, and whether it really matters. You haven’t seen your mother since the day we got married twelve years ago.”
“I know,” said Grace. “I know how long it’s been.”
“I think it’s safe to say she doesn’t care about what kind of mother she was to you. And I don’t think she’d care if she knew you were pregnant with her grandchild. She has checked out, Grace.”
“But maybe I care, Kenny. Maybe this is for me and not for her.”
“Have the baby because you want a baby, Grace. Do not have the baby to right a wrong.”
“That’s not it,” said Grace.
“Okay,” said Kenny, taking another sip of coffee from his mug.
“And you love being a dad,” said Grace. “You told me that your children are the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“They are one of the best things, yes,” he said. “But that’s only because I wanted to have them.”
“I know,” said Grace. “And I’m sorry I didn’t want to give them to you.”
“Don’t be sorry. That’s water under the bridge.”
Grace set the soda can down on the coffee table in front of her. “It was a selfish decision.”
“It was how you felt at the time,” said Kenny, offering a small laugh. “There was certainly nothing I could say to talk you out of it.”
“It sounds like you’re trying to talk me out of this.”
“No,” said Kenny. “I’m not. If this is what you want, I think you’d be a really good mother. I always have.”
Grace thanked Kenny for listening before they said their goodbyes and hung up. She got up off the couch and walked to the kitchen. She scrambled two eggs and took them, along with two pieces of dry toast, out to her deck, to look at the water. She sat at her circular wood table under the large umbrella that pierced its center. The shade and the breeze off the Sound took the intensity out of the late July heat. She ate ravenously, feeling the food in her hungry stomach instantly nourishing her body and clearing her head. She closed her eyes for a moment, focusing on the feeling of fullness that was so welcome after all the emptiness.
* * *
Robin had taught Grace to make eggs. First Grace learned the basic recipe for scrambled eggs, and then she progressed to the fancier versions, with additions like cream cheese, cottage cheese, bits of bacon or chunks of sausage. Grace and Robin had eaten eggs for dinner, usually with a side of heated green beans from a can, when Grace’s grandparents, Laurie and Rick, were out for the evening. Laurie and Rick hardly ever ate at a proper restaurant—who had the money for that?—but they were out at least once a week at a church Bible study and potluck. They were grassroots, layman-led, to-the-letter, holier-than-thou church people, Laurie and Rick, who taught Grace about the Lord’s approval of hard work, sober living, and suffering the consequences of foolish actions. That’s what Robin was doing when she was home making eggs for Grace and not living the life she had imagined: suffering the consequences. It was her obligation to raise Grace, penance for her sin, a joyless task.
As is the case with most high school seniors, it was not Robin’s plan to have a child at eighteen. She, like her ex-boyfriend, was planning on going to college. Laurie, a home healthcare worker, and Rick, a car salesman, didn’t have the money to send Robin away to school. But they were supportive of Robin’s idea of enrolling in the local community college. Neither Laurie nor Rick, high school sweethearts, had been able to go to college, as they were expected to find work, their minimum-wage salaries depended upon to meet the household expenses of their respective families. They had hopes for and expectations of their daughter, that she would continue her education, that she would land a high-paying job with health benefits and a guaranteed pension. And that she would care for them when they were finally able to retire. Instead, they were stuck with a slut, a word Grace knew the meaning of long before she should have, and an illegitim
ate grandchild.
Even though her primary role was caring for Grace, Robin was still expected to contribute to the Taylor family income. Because she was gifted (Laurie’s word) with a needle and thread and at operating Laurie’s sewing machine, Robin became a part-time seamstress, taking in hemming projects mostly, that required little more than a quick pinning session and a zip through the Singer. She drove herself to the church every Wednesday evening after dinner, so that people could bring their clothes and alteration requests to her and use the parish hall bathrooms to change into whatever skirts, dresses, or pants needed attention. As soon as Grace was old enough for elementary school, Robin worked five short days a week at That’s Sew True, the only alterations shop in town. They were very busy and therefore happy to have Robin as an employee, to accommodate her schedule, even if it meant only thirty hours a week of labor instead of forty. On top of this, Robin still took in whatever sewing the church people required. At Laurie and Rick’s insistence, she gave parishioners a discount, what quickly became known at the Church of Fire and Water (CFW) as Savior Savings.
As suggested at CFW, Laurie and Rick used the Old Testament as their model for household operations. They had little use for what they called soft Christian principles or quick forgiveness for sins, no matter how small. They read the Bible to Grace every night before she went to sleep; it was their version of a bedtime story. But they mostly read the stories of revenge, jealousy, rage, and adultery, and they left nothing out. It wasn’t until Grace was older that she flipped to the New Testament and discovered Jesus and his message of love. When she asked her mom about it, Robin told her that the foundation of a righteous, pious existence was rooted in the practices and prophecies of the ancient people of Israel. And that the notion of forgiveness for all who repent—especially those at the last minute—was nonsense. Everyone had to pay his or her dues.
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