It was true that there were no emotional factors on the spreadsheet. The focus was on practicalities such as child care (father and extended family in Australia), job opportunities (approximately equal) and whether or not to continue the MD (multiple factors, no clear result).
‘Maybe she made the spreadsheet to make me feel better,’ I said.
‘You know,’ said Gene, ‘a statement like that is only possible in your and Rosie’s relationship. You need to be together to protect the rest of us. Don, there is no Number 34. He’s an excuse.’
‘There was a Skype message.’
‘I don’t know about any Skype message. What I know practically is that Rosie is a handful. And theory tells me that men don’t generally volunteer to take over a baby who doesn’t have their genes.’
Sonia gave Gene an incomprehensible look. ‘If you worked in IVF—’
But my mind was working in another direction. Rapidly. I have always been better with numbers than names. Now I remembered where I had seen the number thirty-four.
Before I had time to process the information, Sonia said, ‘Do you want to hold Rosie?’
It seemed an inappropriately personal question, until I realised what she was saying. Given names are not unique identifiers.
‘The baby is called Rosie?’
‘Rosina. But we’ll call her Rosie. If the sonogram had been wrong and it had been a boy, he would have been Donato. She’s only here because of you. You and Rosie.’
‘It’s going to be confusing.’
‘I hope so. It’ll mean you’ve got Rosie back into your life. Which you have to do. Here.’ She passed me the baby. I held it for a few moments, but my mind was still analysing the consequences of the Number 34 insight. I gave Rosie II back to Sonia.
‘What’s the total?’ I asked Gene. ‘With the sunk cost deleted.’
‘It takes nine points off. Hence minus two.’
‘Are you sure?’ I recalled the ticket counting for only four points. I reached for the spreadsheet to check, but Gene gave it to Sonia.
‘You want to check my arithmetic?’ he said.
‘Minus two,’ said Sonia.
I was stunned. ‘She’s made an error? The spreadsheet recommends remaining together?’
‘In the world you live in, yes. I don’t know about Rosie. She may want to add three points for the pain of changing the decision. How would I know?’
Dave walked in as I was planning my response.
‘Is everything okay?’ he asked.
‘Zero change in the baby situation,’ I said. ‘Do you have your vehicle?’
‘Yeah, it’s—’
‘JFK,’ I said. ‘Immediately.’
Dave was waving his keys but Sonia would not let me go without further advice.
‘Don’t try to argue her to death. And don’t forget to tell her you love her.’
‘She knows that.’
‘When did you last tell her?’
‘You’re suggesting I need to tell her multiple times?’
Love was a continuous state. There had been no significant change since we were married—perhaps a diminution in limerence, but it seemed unhelpful to provide Rosie with progress reports on that.
‘Yes. Every day.’
‘Every day?’
‘Dave tells me he loves me every day, don’t you, Dave?’
‘Uh huh.’ Dave waved his keys again.
35
I booked my ticket online on the way back to the apartment. Only full-price tickets were available, but they had the advantage of being refundable. Rosie was notoriously disorganised, but in important matters such as international travel she overcompensated by arriving early. I hoped she might not have passed through security by the time we arrived. Rosie did not have the ‘special’ status that I had been awarded by the airline as a result of past contributions, so could not access the airline lounge. I would text her if necessary to find her, but did not plan to warn her.
We stopped at my apartment to get my passport.
‘You don’t need it,’ said Gene. ‘It’s a domestic flight as far as Los Angeles. You can use your driver’s licence.’
‘I don’t have one. It expired.’
‘Aren’t you taking anything else? I’d pack a bag, just in case.’
‘I’m only going as far as the airport.’
‘Just throw a few things into a bag.’
‘I can’t pack without a list.’
‘I’ll tell you what to pack.’
‘No.’ I was reaching a stress limit and Gene must have sensed it.
I retrieved my passport from my bathroom-office cabinet. I would use the travel time between the apartment and the airport to solicit advice from Dave and Gene. It was critical to optimise my argument before I saw Rosie. I realised that there was an opportunity to improve the advisory panel. On the way out, I visited George and he agreed to join us.
I sat in front with Dave. Gene and George sat in the back seat.
‘What are you going to say to her?’ said Dave.
‘I’m going to tell her she made an error on her spreadsheet.’
‘If I didn’t know you so well, I’d think you were kidding. All right, I’m going to play Rosie. Ready?’
I supposed that if Sonia could imitate Rosie, there was no reason why Dave could not. I looked out the window to avoid being distracted by his anomalous physical appearance.
‘Don, I’ve thought of something I missed on the spreadsheet. You snore. Five points off. Goodbye.’
‘You can use your normal voice. I don’t snore. I’ve checked with a recorder.’
‘Don, whatever you say, I’ll find something else to put on the spreadsheet because it’s only there to convince you I’ve made the right decision.’
‘So you won’t come back no matter what I do?’
‘Maybe. Do you understand what you did that made me leave?’
‘Explain it again.’
‘I can’t. I’m Dave. You explain it to me to make sure you understood it.’
‘I was doing things that you could do already, only in an annoying way.’
‘Right. You were in my face all the time. The toughest thing for fathers is to find a role. For me, it’s being the breadwinner.’
‘You want to be the breadwinner? I thought you wanted to look after the baby, then get a research job.’
‘I’m being Dave now. You’ve got to work out where you fit. What position you play. She thinks she doesn’t need you. There’s only one relationship in her mind now: her and the baby. That’s biology.’
‘You’ve been paying attention,’ said Gene.
One relationship. Our relationship had been usurped, superseded, rendered obsolete by the baby. Rosie had what she wanted. Now she didn’t need me.
‘This must happen with all relationships,’ I said. ‘Why don’t all relationships split up?’
‘Groupies,’ said George. ‘Seriously, you’ve got to find your own way. None of my relationships was ever the same after the first kid.’
‘Give it six months,’ said Gene. ‘It gets better.’ Gene seemed to have chosen a timescale that supported his argument, like a populist denier of global warming. Obviously his marriage was now in a worse state than six months after the birth of Eugenie. But he had recently resumed contact with Carl. It seemed reasonable to conclude that happiness in marriage was not a simple function of time, and that instability was part of the price of an improvement in overall wellbeing. My experience was consistent with this.