“Not the details, just want to know if that’s what it was like with him.”
I lick my dry lips and grip my steering wheel more tightly. Flickers of heated moments with Paul pulse through my veins; his mouth, his fingers dancing across my skin, the deep and raspy groans he would let out as we made love. “Yes,” I answer. “It was like that with your father.”
“Was he the only guy you’ve ever been with?”
I shake my head. As a mother, I hate to admit to my daughter I’ve had sex with more than one man. She sees me as this perfect woman. But I don’t want to lie to her. “No, baby. He wasn’t.”
She chuckles a little. I think my honesty surprises her. “How many?”
“Neena!”
“One, two?”
“Four.”
She scrunches her face up. “That’s not very many, Mom. You’re nearing forty. That’s only like one a decade.”
“Well, what can I say? Ages one to ten were rough years for me,” I say, dryly.
“Okay, that’s a good point. But it’s still a low number.”
I can’t help laughing. “By whose standards?”
“I don’t know. The modern woman,” she sasses. “I read in a magazine that the average person has eight to ten sexual partners in their lifetime.”
I twist my mouth. “What magazine did you read that in?” Apparently, I’m slacking on supervising her exposure.
“I don’t remember,” she mumbles.
“Well I don’t think a person should feel the need to meet any definite number. Just because some statistic says society meets a number doesn’t mean we have to.”
“Well, you’re below average.”
“Sorry my number disappoints you, Neena,” I chuckle.
“Do you think Dad has been with a lot of women?”
I snort. I cringe to think of that number. “You’ll have to ask him that.”
“I can’t ask him that!” she shrieks.
Flicking my blinker and turning into the office parking lot, I say, “Then I guess we will never know.”
“Are you sad you never got married?”
Parking the car, I turn off the ignition. She’s out in full force today, asking me all the tough questions. “I was married,” I admit. “Once.”
Her eyes widen to the size of saucers. “What? To who?”
“His name was Kurt. It was a long time ago.”
“How could you never tell me this?” The look on her face is sheer shock.
“I don’t like to think about it, I guess.”
“Do you still love him or something?”
I laugh. “No,” I answer firmly. “But I did, or . . . thought I did, and he hurt me badly.”
Neena deflates a little, her tiny mouth curving into a frown. “What an asshole.”
“Neena!” I scold, even though I can’t help smiling a little.
She cracks a little grin. “Sorry. But he sounds like one.”
I pat her leg. “Do you think less of your mother now?”
She shakes her head animatedly. “No, Mom. I want to know more about you.”
“I think I revealed all of my skeletons today,” I say, as I open my car door.
Neena climbs out as well, and as I unlock the office door, we both turn at the sound of a van pulling in the parking lot. I sigh loudly. This little girl, Ashley, is relentless. I got us in two hours early in hopes of missing any reporters.
“Hurry up and get inside,” I tell Neena. But Ashley practically hops out of the van while it’s still moving and rushes in behind us.
“Ashley,” I say her name firmly. “Enough of this. The answer is no.”
“Actually,” Neena says. “I want to give her the story.”
I freeze as I stare at Neena blankly. “What story?”
“The story of you and Dad and your lives and how I came to exist.”
Ashley, to her credit, remains silent, but I can tell she’s fighting a smile. She thinks she’s won. “Neena, you don’t—”
“I’m dying,” she snaps, shutting me up instantly. She’s never spoken to me this way. “Maybe if I had a lifetime I’d get to hear the story of my parents bit by bit. Even if you don’t want to tell me now because I’m young, you might have one day when I was older. But that’s not going to happen, Mom.”
“Neena, please—”
“I want to share this story, and I want to hear yours and Dad’s.”
“We can tell you the story. We don’t have to make this public knowledge.”
Stepping gingerly toward me, my heart nearly stops when she looks up at me and I see the tears brimming in her eyes. Neena hardly ever cries. Through all of this, the treatments, the sickness, the bad news, she’s been strong. “Please do this for me, Mom.”
Pulling her into me, and pressing her head to my shoulder, I exhale shakily. My sweet child wants our stories. She wants to know the path that led to her existence. But she’s too young to understand how reliving the past can be painful. It doesn’t matter though. Not anymore. I have so little I can give her right now other than my love and attention. If this will make her happy . . .”Sure. If Paul agrees, we’ll do it.”