“No. She didn’t.”

“It makes no sense. I’m not judgmental, am I? I might have been a little shocked at first, but I’d have gotten over it. Why didn’t she come to me … or you, for that matter? You of all people would know how she feels.”

“You know Neva,” I said. “It just takes her a little while. She’ll come around.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Grace groaned. “It’s just so frustrating. Why doesn’t she come to me? Maybe if I was more like you—”

“She didn’t come to me either, remember?”

“No. I suppose not.” This sated her a little.

“Besides,” I said, “Neva wouldn’t want you to change. She loves you.”

“Maybe, but she doesn’t like me very much. My husband doesn’t either. You are my mother, so you have to love me—biology forces it.” A short pause followed. “Would my father have liked me, do you think?”

I hesitated. Stupidly, I hadn’t expected that Grace would draw a parallel between her grandchild’s absent father and her own. Stupid, because I’d already made the connection myself. “I … yes. Of course he would.”

Another silence ensued, this one long enough to unsettle me.

“Did you ever love him, Mom?”

Grace had asked a million questions about her father over the years. The color of his hair when the sun hit it. The lilt of his accent. Whether he was so tall he would’ve hit his head on the top of the doorway if he wore a top hat. She liked details. The one, single photograph I had of Bill, a wedding photo, was tattered and bent from spending so much time in Grace’s pocket or under her pillow. But this question, she’d never asked before.

“Yes, I did. Once.”

She sighed and I wasn’t so deaf I didn’t hear her relief. I hoped we could leave it at that. Because when Grace needed answers, she didn’t leave a door unopened. And this particular door was one best left shut.

“So what should I do, then? About Neva, I mean.”

“It’s not for me to say.”

“But if you were me?”

“I’m not you. But if you’re asking what I’m planning to do … I’m going to accept her at her word—that her baby has no father—and ask her how I can best support her.”

I wondered if any of this was getting through. Hard to tell with Grace. One minute she could be all emotion, and the next—who knew? Robert had once described a date with her as an emotional bungee jump. Grace had thought it was hysterically funny at first, but once she thought more about it, had become cross with him. Case in point, I suppose.

“You’re right. As always. But…” Grace sounded unsatisfied. I could picture her by the phone, jiggling back and forth as she used to as a child when she couldn’t make sense of something.

“But what?”

“How can you stand it? A secret like this? Isn’t it eating you alive?”

I almost laughed. If only she knew.

“Secrets are hard,” I said. “But if keeping the secret allows you to have a relationship with your daughter? I, for one, think it’s worth it.”

4

Neva

When my mother doesn’t know what to do about something, she talks about it. I’ve got this problem, she’ll start, and then vault into whatever’s on her mind. It doesn’t matter if it’s a stranger, a client, my father, or my grandmother, she’s happy to air her linen, dirty or otherwise. Generally speaking, she already knows what she wants to do. I get the feeling she just likes the sound of her own voice.

When I was twelve, Dad got a bonus. He’d promised me for years that if he got a bonus, we could go on vacation—anywhere I wanted to go.

“So where’s it going to be, Nev?” he had asked. “Disneyland? Hawaii?”

“I don’t know. How about … Seattle?”

It was the first place that sprang to mind. But once I’d said it, I was pleased with my answer. I could picture the three of us moseying around the Pike Place Market in our rain jackets, ducking into a café for clam chowder when the heavens decided to open. “I liked the movie, Sleepless in—”

“Seattle!” Grace said. “Of course, I loved that movie. That scene where they meet on the top of the Empire State Building and … hang on—” Grace clapped a palm to her cheek. “New York! That’s where we should go. That’d be cool, right?”

“Grace,” my father warned. “It’s Neva’s choice.”

“Uh…” I was caught off guard. My thoughts scrambled to catch up. “New York would be kind of cool … I guess.”

“Just think about it,” Grace said. “We can go to the top of the Empire State Building just like Meg Ryan and Tom Cruise—”

“Hanks,” I corrected.

“—and we can go ice skating at Rockefeller Center!”

Dad frowned. “It’s August, Grace.”

“—and we can picnic in Central Park!” Grace was beaming from ear to ear. It was hard not to get caught up by her enthusiasm.

“Now, wait just a minute,” Dad said. “The destination is Neva’s choice. Not yours.”

Grace pouted. “She said it sounded cool—”

“Maybe it does. But if she wants New York, I’m going to have to hear it from her lips, understand? Her lips?”

Two heads swung to me. And because they were staring at me, and because I did think New York would be kind of cool, I nodded. But a few days later—once Grace had booked the tickets—I realized I didn’t really want to go to New York. I wanted to go to Seattle.

*   *   *

I rolled over in bed, trying to get comfy. It was no good. My belly felt heavy and it wasn’t just my belly. This wasn’t how I’d wanted things to go. I knew, with the rational side of my brain, that people would find out I was pregnant sometime. But another part of me believed that as long as I could keep it to myself, I’d be in control.

Giving up on sleep, I headed for the kitchen. I had visions of warm milk with cinnamon and honey, but as I had neither cinnamon nor honey, it would have to be plain milk. As I stood waiting for my mug of milk to heat in the microwave, a shadow appeared on the floor beside me.

“Geez, how’s a man supposed to get any sleep?”

I smiled. “Don’t you have your own place, Patrick?”

“You gave me a key!”

“For emergencies. Three years ago.”

I removed my milk and turned around. Three years ago, Patrick had been a new divorcé, drowning his sorrows in the bars that were a lot closer to my College Hill apartment than to the East Greenwich home he’d shared with his wife. He never told me the details of the split and I didn’t ask. I didn’t need to. Patrick was a good guy, and a wonderful doctor, but when it came to women, he was like a fat man at a buffet: he couldn’t help himself. After several weeks of him ringing the buzzer—or climbing up the fire escape—to my apartment in the small hours of the morning when he’d had too much to drink, I relented and gave him a key. I expected that once Karolina moved back to Germany he’d start spending more time at his own home, or maybe buy himself an apartment in town. But three years on, I still regularly found him on my couch, snoring after a big night out or catching some z’s before an early shift at the hospital. The strangest part about it was … it wasn’t strange.

“I’d have thought that as a well-respected, well-paid doctor, you could afford a hotel, or at least have a girlfriend in the area. I mean … what?”

Patrick’s face was pale. He stared at my stomach, and after a silent curse, I followed his stare. My hospital shirt was dry now, but it had become stiff, making my belly look, if anything, larger than it actually was. I assessed my options and found only one. I had to tell him. I was going to tell him sometime and there was no hiding it now. I may as well have screamed, Hello! There’s a life growing inside me! Come and take a look!

“You’re pregnant.”

“Yes.”

For once, smooth-talking Patrick couldn’t seem to find any words. “Who’s … who’s the father?”

I sighed. “This is awkward. I don’t know how to say this, but … it’s yours.”

Apart from his lips, Patrick’s face didn’t move an inch. “It’s mine?”