I know he wants this as much as I do.
Only one time did Aaron whisper to me as we lay there in the darkness of the bedroom, still trying hard to catch our breaths after we were through, that he wondered what she would look like and when I asked, “Who?” he said, “Our baby girl. Our baby girl.” I beamed there from ear to ear and when I told him I didn’t know, he said, “I bet she’ll look like you.”
And then he kissed me slowly and deeply, the kind of kiss I felt all the way to my every extremity, and though he didn’t say it, I knew that in Aaron’s eyes if our baby girl looked like me, that she’d be the most beautiful girl in the world.
In all my life no one has ever made me feel as special as Aaron makes me feel.
I’ve watched him garden, watched the way he carefully carries the peat pots from greenhouse to garden, his every move screaming of paternal instinct; the way he digs the perfect holes, assessing their dimensions twice for accuracy; the way he lays the tiny biodegradable contraptions inside as if setting an infant in a crib, scattering soil over the top as gently as drawing a blanket to a sleeping child’s chin. He waters and watches and waits, and as he does, I watch him, this solid figure who, by his stature alone should be anything but gentle and soft-spoken, and yet he is. He wears his chestnut hair short these days, easier to hide behind the chef’s cap so there can be no false claims of hair in food, at least not from him, his hands and forearms marked with a selection of scratches and burns. For as long as I remember, he’s had them, those scratches and burns: badges of honor, war wounds dating back to his culinary school years.
There are times I find that I can’t take my eyes off those scars.
Each time he steps carefully through the garden, tending the seeds, careful not to step on our seedlings, it strikes me what a good father Aaron will one day be, so patient, so protective, so loving, the way he is with me.
And so, to say the words aloud now, to tell him I’ve started my period, would be to confess to Aaron that though we tried again this month, tried to conceive a baby, we failed.
After I wiped my eyes, I joined him on the dock for coffee and together we watched the boats pass by and shortly before two o’clock, as always, he left for work and again I was alone.
jessie
Everything changes with the break of day.
As the sun rises, gliding over the horizon, the world turns bright. The oppressive burden of night disappears. For the first time in eight long hours, I can breathe.
In daylight, I find myself standing above the floor register on the bedroom floor, feet straddling it. I stare down at the black rectangle between my legs. There’s nothing ominous about it; it’s just an ordinary metal grate, cold now, the furnace no longer producing heat. I rub at my arms in an effort to warm them up.
I shower and dress and head out into the day. Outside it’s a cold start, no more than forty degrees that will rise up to sixty-five by midday. The sky is blue for now, though there’s rain in the forecast. The grass is wet with dew. My fingers are cold as I lock the door.
From where I stand, I catch a glimpse of my landlord through the window of her own kitchen. It’s the back of her, just a pouf of hair and the ribs of a blue sweater before they meet with the wooden slats of a chair. It is a distorted image at best, muddled by the reflection of the outside world on glass. She doesn’t see me.
I could knock on the door, make an introduction, but that really isn’t my thing.
I round the side of the carriage home, gathering Old Faithful from the alleyway where I left her, leaned up against the side of the home. Ivy grows up the brick of the garage, the leaves starting to turn red. The alley is abandoned. There is nothing more than garage doors and Dumpsters here. City of Chicago garbage bins. No people. No rats. No feral cats. No signs of life anywhere. I settle Mom and her urn into the basket on back, nothing more than a metal milk crate that I keep secure with bungee cords. We set off down the street.
It’s no secret that Chicago is the alley capital of the country, with over a thousand miles of shadowy backstreets. The kind of darkened corridors where people like to hide their trash and vermin, and nobodies like me.
Morning traffic, as always, is a mess. Millions of people move this way and that like cattle in a cattle drive. My first stop is the same as always: coffee. I take it to go with a sugar twist from the bakery, where the donuts are fresh and the coffee is hot and cheap. I don’t have six bucks a day to spend on coffee, and the owner knows me, sort of. She always says hello and calls me Jenny, and I don’t have the heart to tell her that, after all these years, she’s got it wrong. I set my coffee in the cup holder, pedaling away, making my way toward the Loop. I take my time, moving in wide circles around cars and trucks illegally parked in the bike lines, careful to avoid the city’s sewage grates. I stay away from potholes.
Having no luck finding my social security card in the box of Mom’s paperwork, I started the day with an idea in mind: getting a new one. That and figuring out how to get my name removed from this inauspicious death index it’s on. I head toward the Social Security Office and there, wait in line for a mind-numbing hour, only to learn that in order to get a new social security card, I need to prove who I am. Something more legitimate than just my word. I need to provide some sort of official identifying documentation like a driver’s license or a birth certificate that says I’m Jessica Sloane, neither of which I have.
On the advice of an employee at the Social Security Office, I head next to the Cook County Clerk’s Office in the Richard J. Daley Center—the Bureau of Vital Records—in the hopes of tracking my birth certificate down.
When I arrive at the Daley Center, the plaza is teeming with people. I tie Old Faithful up to the bike rack outside, watching as men and women in business suits take wide strides across the plaza. I rush past the Picasso and into the imposing lobby, where I wait in line to pass through security, looking on as others empty their pockets with the speed of a snail. I make it through the X-ray machine and the contents of my bag are searched. When I’m deemed harmless, the guard sends me on my way to the clerk’s office, which is in the lower level of the building.
A surge of people wait before the elevator doors and so I take the stairs alone, heading down where I take my place in a long line, sighing in solidarity with those who also wait, avoiding eye contact, losing patience.
When it’s my turn, an employee beckons, “Next,” with a hand held up in the air so that I see her there, hunched over a computer screen, shoulders sagging. I go to her, telling her what I need.
Suddenly it dawns on me all the information I’m liable to find when the woman locates my birth certificate. Not only the documentation I need to prove I’m Jessica Sloane, but the place where I was born. The exact time I slipped from Mom’s womb. The name of the obstetrician who stood below, waiting to catch me as I fell.
My father’s name.
In just a few short minutes, I’ll know once and for all who he is. Not only will I have proof of my own identity, but of my father’s as well.
I would never have done something as flagrant as seek out my birth certificate from vital records if Mom were still alive. That would have broken her heart, my having access to all these things she never wanted me to have. Searching our home seemed innocent enough, but tracking down my birth certificate feels like a really egregious act were she still here.