In a few weeks, she’d have an idea what had alarmed him.
While some of the events from that night were foggy, Barbara knew there was no one else up for the role of father of her child. Sure, she’d gone to bed with other guys. But the last time she’d had sex before that evening had been a good (or bad, depending on how you looked at it) six months.
Other things she was sure of? What he looked like, and a first name. She asked the friend who’d thrown the party if she knew the guy’s surname. No special reason, she said. Just, you know, wondering.
She found him.
Broke the news.
He said, “I have no idea who you are.”
The way he said it, it almost sounded like he was telling the truth. Barbara refreshed his memory with every detail she could remember.
“Sorry,” the guy said. “Honest to God, I don’t ever remember meeting you. How long ago was this? I don’t even remember being at that party.”
“Yeah, well, we were both kind of flying.”
“Maybe you were,” he said. “Not me.”
Barbara couldn’t decide what to do. Go after him? Demand a blood test?
And of course, there was one other option.
But again, Barbara was paralyzed with indecision, and did nothing. By the time she found the strength to tell her parents, it was too late to end the pregnancy. Barbara’s mother and father — fucking saints, that’s what they were — didn’t judge. Oh sure, they wanted to know about this man, and Barbara told them she’d talked to him, that he refused to accept responsibility, and had moved to Colorado or Wyoming and gone into real estate. It wasn’t worth the time to pursue him, she said.
Okay, they said. These things happen, they said. No sense ranting and raving. What’s done is done. Let’s figure out what to do.
Give the baby up for adoption, Barbara decided. I’m not cut out to be a parent.
Well, okay, sure, that’s a possibility, her mother said. But that is my future grandchild you’re talking about. If you’re absolutely determined that you do not want to raise this child, well, your father and I have still got a few good years left, and we’ve been talking about this, and we’ve agreed that if you’re okay with it, we’ll do it.
At first Barbara thought, no way. But as that child grew inside her, she started to come around to her mother’s way of thinking. This could work. The world was changing. Alternative parenting options were in vogue. Sure, some people might look down their collective noses at Barbara, but when had she ever cared what anybody else thought?
She knew her mother was betting that when the baby arrived, Barbara would have a change of heart. She’d see that infant and decide to raise the child herself, even if there was no father’s name to put on the birth certificate.
That whole mother-child bond would kick in.
Arla arrived.
The bond did not kick in.
Barbara was tormented that it did not. She was consumed with guilt that she did not want to raise this little girl. Did she love her? Of course, without question. But if there was a mothering gene, Barbara feared she did not have it.
So Barbara’s parents honored their pledge and took Arla into their home. Barbara remained conflicted about how things had turned out. She felt less guilty that she had not given Arla up to strangers, that she was with family. But every time Barbara went home and saw her mother and father so fully engaged with Arla, the guilt bubbled back to the surface. It was an ache that never went away.
Every time she saw Arla, she was reminded of her abdication of responsibility. In those moments, she wondered whether adoption would have been the better choice. Out of sight, out of mind.
She hated herself for even thinking it.
Every week, Barbara sent a good chunk of her paycheck to her parents. She visited most weeks. She did love Arla. She loved her more than anyone or anything else in the world. No one pretended Barbara was not her mother. Arla was not raised to believe Barbara was the aunt who dropped by. No, Barbara was Mom. Barbara’s parents were Grampa and Gramma.
No lies. No attempts to deceive. At least not on that score.
It all seemed to work out.
And when Arla was twelve, Grampa died. Liver cancer. Barbara’s mother carried on alone. Barbara still came by, but as Arla moved into her teens and became the kind of hellion so many teenage girls turned into for a period of time, Barbara had to admit, deep down, that she was relieved to be spared the daily turmoil.
Thirteen months ago, Barbara’s mother passed on. Heart attack.
“This is how I see it,” Arla had told Barbara the last time they’d sat down together. “You leaving me with them is what drove them to an early grave. I was a bitch and a half, no doubt about it, but I should have been your bitch and a half, not theirs.”
“I can’t rewrite history,” Barbara had said.
“Yeah, but you don’t have a problem writing about others who’ve made a mess of theirs,” she’d countered. “Bad things people have done, mistakes they’ve made, that’s your whole shtick. But looking in the mirror, that’s not so easy.”
Barbara hadn’t known what to say. The truth was always difficult to argue.
They’d had a serious argument six months earlier. Arla wanted to go out west, try to find her father. Barbara did everything to discourage her, and offered no clues that would help her track him down. “The man’s not worth finding,” she said. Arla was furious.
Barbara said something she wished she hadn’t. “Maybe you’d have been happier if I’d given you up for adoption and you’d been raised by strangers.”
“You’re the stranger,” Arla shot back. “Always have been.”
And then Arla had gone in for the kill. “I have this friend who’s getting married, and she says her mother’s driving her crazy, wanting to be involved in every single detail about the wedding, and my friend’s like, God, I can’t take it anymore, and I said to her, hey, at least she’s interested.”
So there was every reason to feel unsettled about meeting with Arla this morning. What was Barbara to blame for now? What repressed maternal memory — or lack thereof — had Arla gone over with her therapist this week?
She’d said she had news.
Jesus, maybe it’s about her father.
So far as Barbara knew, Arla had abandoned her idea of heading out west to look for him. Maybe she’d changed her mind.
Arla still was not here — being habitually late to meetings with her was, Barbara figured, a minor act of vengeance — so Barbara scrolled through her Twitter feed. Barbara was almost never without the phone in her hand. The advent of technology had made it nearly impossible for Barbara to be alone with her own thoughts. If she wasn’t writing, or reading, or having a conversation with someone, she was on the phone.
She followed political leaders and countless pundits and various media outlets and even bulletins from the NYPD. And no one had to know that she also followed someone who tweeted, every single day, cute puppy pics.
So shoot me.
She continued to scroll, caught a glimpse of something, then thumbed her way back up the feed. It was a post from the NYPD.
There’d been an elevator accident in an apartment building up on York Avenue. The story was just breaking and details were few.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
“I take it you’re not talking to me.”
Barbara looked up to find Arla standing there.
“Oh, hey, hi,” she said, slipping out of the booth to give her daughter a hug. No matter how angry Arla might be with her, she’d still allow her mother to do that. And Arla would slip her arms around Barbara in return, even if she didn’t pull her in for the big squeeze.