by Edan Lepucki
But then he was opening the door and standing in front of us.
“Marco Green,” I said, trying for gaiety. Devin waved and I hitched him higher onto my hip. I felt my T-shirt riding up but held back from pulling it down. I would seem self-possessed, even if that was the last thing I was.
Marco was shorter than I remembered, and he’d gained a little weight in the middle. Sort of a Lorax vibe, but not unappealing. He still had a full head of hair, floppy and boyish, and it was threaded through with gray, like his mother’s had been. He wore brown Carhartt pants and a T-shirt that read GO GREEN WITH GREEN BUILDERS above a drawing of a house that looked just like the one I was standing in front of, except green. His arms were still a deep tan.
“Lady?” he said in a pinched, wobbly voice, and coughed.
“Hi?” I said.
“I thought I said Monday. Didn’t I—”
“I know. I just…”
“Lady,” he said again. Did he even know my last name? “And who’s this?”
Devin waved again, this time more insistent. “Devin!”
Marco smiled. His teeth were tobacco-stained and plaque-ridden, and he was missing one on the bottom. This wasn’t a man like Karl, who flossed twice a day and went to the dentist every six months, his appointment card propped on his dresser as a reminder.
“This is my son,” I said. “My other son.”
I put Devin down but held his hand tightly so that he wouldn’t run off, neither into the street behind us nor into this stranger’s house. Because wasn’t that what Marco was, seventeen years later? I didn’t know him anymore.
“I can’t go home right now,” I said. I knew my voice sounded high-pitched and desperate. Like I was a battered wife or an informant looking for shelter. “I need to talk to you about Seth.”
Marco made a face I remembered well: a put-upon squint that accompanied any request he deemed a pain in the ass: that he get the car’s oil changed, that he buy a carton of milk on his way home. It was the face he made right before he cut his toenails.
“Is this about child support?” he asked.
“If I say yes, will you slam the door in my face?”
“Why come here unannounced? What’s with you?”
“It’s not about child support, I swear. Fuck you, Marco.”
He raised an eyebrow at me, as if he, unlike me, was a law-abiding citizen who always refrained from cursing in front of children.
“Look,” he said, running a hand though his hair, “I wouldn’t blame you if it was. It’s expensive to raise a kid. And you did it without me. But I’ll be honest. I’m broke.” He laughed wryly and he seemed, suddenly, like a totally different man. His laughter had changed. It wasn’t angry anymore. “I’m underwater with the house, it’s not good but it isn’t dire either. Once my business is on more stable ground, I’ll happily pay you. In two years, I’d say.”
“Two years? Seth’s already eighteen!”
“Eighteen? No way.” He looked proud—that was the only word for it. His son was eighteen!
“We’re fine, we don’t need money. We live off Sunset Plaza, with my husband. With Dev’s daddy.”
“My daddy,” Devin said. “Daddy likes French fries.”
“Hollywood Hills?” Marco said.
“Hollywood Hills–adjacent.”
“Shit, I should be the one asking you for child support.”
“That’s not even remotely funny.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, you’re right. I have a daughter. Lucy. She’s here one weekend a month, otherwise she stays with her mom in Claremont.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I’d been so stupid not to assume the most obvious outcome: that this man would meet another woman, and have another child, and love her.
“Seth has a sister,” I said.
“I know it sounds blockheaded of me, but I never thought of it like that. But yeah. Seth has a sister. Lucy has a brother. Wow.”
Marco leaned on the doorjamb and closed his eyes as if he could only organize the facts if he concentrated deeply. So he hadn’t spent the last seventeen years wondering about the son he had abandoned. He hadn’t given any of it much thought at all.
“I can’t believe this,” I said, and again I felt my voice turning whiny and urgent.
Marco opened his eyes. “You’re upset about Lucy,” he said.
“I guess I am.”
He actually sneered at me. “You can’t just show up here, freaking out. What’s the problem? I’ve got Lucy, you’ve got Dylan.”
“He told you his name was Devin,” I said.
Now he was smiling. “Hey, wasn’t that what you wanted to name Seth?”
“I can’t believe you remember that.”
“I remember a lot,” he said.
“You hated the name,” I said.
“Nowadays, I can’t summon much energy for hating things.”
“I pretty much hate everyone and everything.”
“No shit.” He bent down and ruffled Devin’s hair so effortlessly it hurt to watch. Then he stood and asked, “You guys want to come in, or what?”
It wasn’t until I stepped inside and saw the hardwood floors and the piece of driftwood balanced on the mantel that I realized I’d expected a bachelor’s hovel: bad carpeting and a too-large TV, bare walls and that take-out stench, stale and salty. This place was spare and masculine without being depressing. The curtains were nice.
The place smelled like Marco, like I was inside one of his T-shirts, my face deep in his neck.
“You still smoke,” I said.
“Only outside. You can smell it?” He looked upset.
“I like it,” I said.
Devin pulled away from me and ran toward the back of the house. Without his body weighing me down, without his little grimy hand in my own to remind me of the life I had beyond this visit, I felt afraid. If Marco sensed it, he probably thought I was just being overprotective of my kid.
“Back door’s open and there’s nothing he can really get into unless he finds my toolbox.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Lady, I…”
“I don’t know why I’m here.”
“Who cares. You’re here. Man, the late ’90s—the whole decade, really, until about 2002…it was just…fuck…hellish for me.”
I followed him to the kitchen, which was partially under construction, the counters covered with a tarp, no oven.
“Beer?” he asked, and I nodded. From the fridge he grabbed a six-pack, some IPA with a big budget for graphic design, and cracked open a bottle on the edge of the counter. I’d forgotten he could do this, open a beer anywhere, use his mouth if necessary. Explained the lost tooth.
Our fingers touched as he handed me the bottle.
“What’s your husband’s name?”
“Karl, like Marx.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means it starts with a K. He moved out a few weeks ago.”
“Karl with a K did?”
I thought of what Devin had called S—“S for Snake”—and I nodded. “It’s a trial separation.”
I took a sip of beer and let it fizz in my mouth.
“Mommy!” Devin beckoned from the yard. Through the window I saw him atop a huge hill of soil, arms akimbo. I felt untethered, like I was a balloon headed for some power lines. “Mommy, come!” Devin yelled.
Outside Marco and I sat on Adirondack chairs under a half-rotting gazebo while Devin played in the dirt. Marco explained that he’d recently yanked out his lawn and hadn’t decided what to put in its place, and I asked if he’d gotten the tax credit. It was strange, how we could go in and out of mundane conversation, as if we hadn’t been apart for seventeen years, as if he hadn’t left me to raise his son a bastard. I finished my first beer and asked for another. I didn’t feel angry or restless, or even uncomfortable. Devin could have been our kid, enjoying his afternoon. We had made a boy before, and we could have made this one too. Or instead.
It was
as hot as the inside of a mouth, but it felt good to sweat.
“How old’s Lucy?” I asked.
“Just turned twelve.”
“Does she have her period?” I didn’t know why I’d asked, but Marco wasn’t bothered.
“Three months ago,” he said, and widened his eyes in pretend horror. He loved her. He was a good dad. “She’s really something.”
“Seth wants to meet you,” I said.
“He said that?”
“He…”
Of course he didn’t know that Seth was nonverbal—and, yet, I’d forgotten. Or let myself forget. I didn’t want to lie, but if I kept going I’d have to explain. That he wasn’t a normal eighteen-year-old boy. I’d have to describe the diagnosis, the struggles, the silence that unnerved adults and annoyed kids. That the man who had left before his son’s first birthday had nevertheless been present for the only word Seth had ever spoken.
“He goes to SMC,” I said instead. “He just finished making a short film.”
“I’d love to meet him. He sounds great—and I think…I think I’m finally ready. But let me tell Lucy first. She’s coming in two weeks.”
“Sure, okay,” I said. “He thinks your name is Mark, by the way. He doesn’t know anything about you.”
Marco nodded, unfazed. “You were probably right to do that. Hey, you have a picture?”
I thought of Kit’s portraits. “You have to see him in person.”
We both watched Devin, who was now on his belly like a soldier leaning over a trench. “Lion coming!” he yelled. “And a bear!”
“Cool kid,” he said. And then: “I know why you’re here.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Because your husband moved out.”
Before I could reply he took out his phone and I thought he was going to show me photos of his daughter until he said, “Let me text the neighbor girl. She’s two years older than Lucy and has this big trampoline in her yard. I bet Devin would love it.” He was already typing.
“But I don’t want to hang out with the neighbor girl,” I said.
“I know that. You’re staying here.” He looked up at me. “Isn’t that what you want? For you and me to be alone?”
He leaned over and tapped his bottle against my calf. I thought I could feel the cold glass through my jeans.
“You always loved that I was down for you any time,” he said. “I’d hate to disappoint.”
—
The way Astrid told me her trampoline was “kidney-shaped” suggested she didn’t know what a kidney was—bean or organ. She was only fourteen but she already had a tattoo of a butterfly on her wrist and the sickly and easy-to-please look of unloved girls everywhere. I had a bad feeling in my gut as she led Devin out the front door; he loved her immediately, but he was two and a half, he was an idiot. I had agreed to pay Astrid seven bucks to watch him.
“You can just Venmo me if you don’t have cash,” she said on their way out.
Marco’s hand was on my ass as soon as the door shut.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
“This,” he said, and kissed me.
I remembered his mouth, the hard and soft of it. I remembered the way he tasted, I wanted to suck it up.
He put his hands on my shoulders and nudged me gently against the wall, and once there, he unbuttoned my jeans. Both of his hands cupped me, so hard I thought he might lift me into the air.
There was no hesitation here. Marco would have me naked in less than a minute if he wanted it that way. It would be rushed and rough, as it had always been. I didn’t know if he was like this with all women, but he was like this with me, and that’s what mattered, that’s what I wanted.
He pulled me into his bedroom and in a few efficient movements he had unzipped his pants and slid on a condom. A magic trick. He hadn’t even taken off his clothes.
“Turn over,” he said.
“Take off your shirt,” I said.
He pulled his T-shirt over the back of his head like some men do. I deliberately looked away. Already I was imagining the sharp teeth of his zipper biting into my skin.
He pushed down my pants and underwear and before he tipped me onto the mattress, I felt his coarse chest hair scratch my back. I missed that. I waited on all fours, hands into fists against his pillows, but he wasn’t moving. I was already thinking about the antiseptic slap of the condom, craving it. Karl and I never used them.
“Come on,” I said.
He was making me ask for it.
“Please?” I said.
As Marco grabbed my hips, digging his thumbs into my sides, all I could think was that Marco wasn’t Karl. Karl was deliberate and thorough in the bedroom, and he brought me to orgasm every time we made love. Having sex with him was like enjoying a multicourse meal that’s so elevated and meticulous it makes you rethink common ingredients like bread and butter, the way they can work together to become something miraculous. Karl didn’t just touch my body, he considered it, appreciated it.
Marco was done with me in fifteen minutes and he didn’t make any noise. When I came it was with a sharp, shocked bark, an orgasm that doesn’t so much broaden pleasure as sever it from its ache in one ruthless snap. On the wall in front of us was a calendar with a Saturday and Sunday circled in black. When Lucy would be there, I assumed.
Marco left the room to get rid of the condom; I heard a toilet flushing.
When he returned, I said, “Well.”
“I’ll call you once I’ve talked to Lucy.”
“If I don’t hear from you,” I said, “I’ll just send Seth here, uninvited.”
“Do that, and I’ll tell him about our little visit.”
I stood up and put on my pants. “What did you spend the money on?” I asked. “The money my mom gave you?”
“I don’t remember,” he said.
“How could you not remember?”
“It wasn’t just one thing,” he said.
When I didn’t reply he reached into his pocket and pulled out some cash. He handed me two five-dollar bills. “This is for Astrid.”
36.
When Seth kissed me, my mind went, this isn’t happening, this is happening, this can’t happen, his lips biting mine like my mouth was something to gnaw. I pulled away.
“This can’t happen,” I said.
He didn’t sign or gesture or reach for his phone, he just stood there, breathing hard. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I had no idea what he was thinking, and while that should have confused or frustrated me, it didn’t. Not in the least. The tequila was still smoking my bloodstream and I felt like a pistol that had just been fired. If I drank any more, Katherine Mary would have a hold on this situation. Couldn’t let that happen now could I?
“You better go,” I said, and, poof, like that, he was gone.
I didn’t see him for a while after that. I began painting Bless This Mess (Mother No. 2), trying to make it matter as much as it had before the kiss. I opened and reopened Lady’s photo, studying it. Seth looked just like his dad.
One evening, I heard Lady yell, “Why would you let her take those photos?” Lady started to cry—a keening wail. “Dammit, Seth!” she yelled.
I pictured him standing at the top of the stairs, giving nothing away. Lady would be red-faced in the foyer, the skin under her eyes a zombified gray from the weep of her mascara. I was worried they would wake Devin, but the argument stopped as abruptly as it had started, and I was left with my ear cocked like a dog’s, longing for more. It had to be Kit, she must’ve photographed him. I didn’t dare ask Lady about it and I didn’t have the chance to ask Seth, because he didn’t give me one; he was never around. Three nights, four nights, no visit.
On the fifth night, I finished the painting. It had come out garish and flat, goofier than I’d intended. I could have sold it on a street corner, next to some cowhide rugs.
It was past midnight, and I was just signing the back when the Cottage doorknob twitched.
“Who’s there?”
There was no answer. My insides went sharp and hot as a blade. Seth. I placed the painting back on the easel. Part of me—no shit, the Esther Shapiro part—knew I couldn’t let him in. He was practically a child. He was Lady’s son. He didn’t speak—but why did that matter?
I unlocked the door.
There he was, already inside the Cottage: his hair mussed, his feet bare, a shy smile. I thought he might come at me with the abandon of a toddler before a trough of ice cream, taking my tits into his hands, nudging at my neck, but he didn’t, he was waiting for me to do something.
“Please be careful of the easel,” I said, and I felt less like Katherine Mary and more like Everett Forever.
Now he was peering at the painting.
“It’s one of the mothers,” I said, standing close behind him. His neck was tan and I had to hold myself back from tucking the tag back into his shirt.
He pointed at the woman’s frizzy hair, which looked even sillier than it had in the photo, and turned to raise an eyebrow at me.
“I sort of overdid the curls. They were just really fun to paint.”
He held out his phone. Something was already typed there, ready for me to read.
Can I see the pic?
“I already deleted it. Oh—you mean the one your mom sent.”
So this was why he was here, he didn’t want me at all.
He held my phone close to his face, totally rapt, his eyes darting back and forth across the screen, like he was straining to memorize every detail. I let him look for only a minute or two before I pried it from his hands.
“Time’s up,” I said. “I have to work.”
He raised his eyebrow again.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I make art.”
He made a face like, Go on. And also: Prove it. That he could express both without saying a word—that’s what got me. I thought of the girl who had been in here with him, before me, the one Lady thought was too weird for her son. If the girl really didn’t like to be touched, then how was Seth able to cross that line? He must have made her skin hurt, made her nerves flinch and rattle. If he liked her, he wouldn’t like me.
Enough, I thought, stop thinking about that. It was Katherine Mary, hypothesizing, plotting.