No, that couldn’t be it. How would she have known the condom would break?
She put him out of his suspense. “I didn’t tell Mark yet. My ex-boyfriend. Partly because the dates are better for it to be you, and partly because …” She trailed off.
“Yeah?” he asked. “Why?” He should be half-crazy about the thing with her. The thing with the baby. But he didn’t seem to have space for it. Too much to think about, and he had to let some of it go.
“Because I’d rather it was you,” she said. “And I feel like I need to let you know that. Otherwise, it feels like a guilty secret. I’m wishing it’s you. And I know you’re thinking it’s because you’re richer, but I don’t think so. There’s a maximum amount of child support I’d get anyway. It’s not like I could live on it. Although you’d probably be more likely to pay it, so there’s that. I wouldn’t expect you to be involved with the baby much, either. It’s not like you wanted it.”
He thought,That’s good, because I’d be a lousy father.
She went on, “It’s not even because you’re better-looking. Mark is good-looking, too. You’re one of those beautiful people, though, the ones other people stare at just because they enjoy looking at you. So is Dyma. And I’m not sure that’s always so helpful.”
He didn’t say that he didn’t know what she was talking about. He said, “It opens some doors. You can probably skate on it some, to be honest.”
“It can make you lazy,” she said. “Entitled. Things come too easily, and they always have, so you don’t know the difference. People smile at you more. They pay more attention to you. They give you the benefit of the doubt. It’s good that you played football. I’m guessing you don’t get handed much in football.”
“Nope. You don’t.” This was a weird conversation to have on the day your whole life story had been upended, but it was distracting, he guessed.
“It can make you less kind, too,” she said, “because you don’t struggle enough, and you don’t understand how much other people do.”
“Probably,” he said. “Not sure I see that in Dyma.”
“I hope not. I tried, and so did my mom. Dyma’s beautifulandbrilliant, though, and I don’t think I’m just saying that because I’m her mom.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think you are.”
“She has so many gifts. She’s mostly a hard worker in school, but that’s because she’s so passionate about her interests and she wants to learn more, not because she’s got that … drudge factor. Which I have, so I know the difference. Being willing to slog through, whether you want to or not. She does skate some, in English and History, things like that. It comes too easily. And I wonder if she realizes how lucky she is. Why was her date to the prom an NFL player?”
“Fair point,” he said. “And by the way? I think the kindness comes from you. Also the relentless honesty. Probably the brilliance, too.”
“I’m not brilliant.”
“No? I wonder. What would you have done if you hadn’t gotten pregnant? But you don’t want me for my money or my good looks. So why?”
“Because you’re kind. That’s what I kept coming back to. Which is silly. Dyma would probably tell me it’s not an inherited trait. But I don’t think … I’m trying not to have it be …” She stopped.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m not going to take advantage of it,” she said, “or I’m going to try not to. I just think it’s a good quality. An important quality. It makes everyone else’s life a little bit better, and that matters. The older I get, the more I think that kindness is what matters most. It doesn’t pay, and there’s nothing flashy about it. But it matters. You’re kind, and I want that for this baby.” She smiled at him, so sweetly that he got a head rush. Of emotion, which was weird. “I’m sure there’s a quote in the Tao about it, but I don’t care.”
He took her hand across the table. He shouldn’t. It was an extremely bad idea, whether he was the dad or he wasn’t. He needed to keep his distance. Any lawyer would tell him so.Hislawyer would tell him so, the minute he clued her in.
He did it anyway. He squeezed her hand and said, “Hey. Who’s flying with me to North Dakota again, helping me face the hardest thing I’ll ever do? Who jumped right in as soon as she heard and started making me a sandwich? You’re right that kindness makes everybody else’s life better, but you don’t have to worry about it. If it’s an inherited trait, or even if it’s not, the baby will have it. No matter who the father is. Because it’ll be coming from you.”
32
Secrets and Lies
An hour later,Harlan was slowing the car on a back road. A few miles out of town, with fields on either side. A cold, clear day, with a pale blue sky and a biting wind that seemed to be coming straight from the Pole and sweeping across the flat prairie with nothing to block it.
A house ahead on the right, and two cars parked on the side of the road. A gray sedan and a silver SUV. Jennifer knew this was it, because she saw Harlan go rigid. More rigid.
The house looked completely normal. Ranch style and painted white, with a brick chimney, a front porch, concrete steps, and a rail fence surrounding a patch of neatly mown lawn. A few shrubs, some trees around it to break the wind, and no flowers. It was out in the country, surrounded by fields fuzzed with the vibrant green of springtime growth, but the nearest neighbors were only a couple hundred yards away. You couldn’t actually call it “lonely,” even if it looked that way. It was a little plain, but it was well kept up, and it didn’t look one bit menacing. It looked, planted on the flat prairie under an endless sky in the late afternoon light, like an ad for “Midwestern.”
Harlan pulled the SUV into the drive, the front door opened, and Annabelle was running down the steps to him in her stockinged feet, her blonde hair whipping around her face in the chilly wind. He caught her in a hug, and then he held on. For about a minute.
There were two other people on the porch now. A middle-aged woman who was probably the social worker, and a relaxed-looking man in a sport coat and cowboy boots, his hair a little long, who would be … what?
“Didn’t anybody else come?” Harlan asked Annabelle.
