“And now?”
“I’m a father.” He glowed again, just thinking about it. “I have a child. Can’t you see? This changes everything! I can’t wait to see him. Maybe you’ll understand when you have kids.”
“Fuck off. You don’t have kids, you had a phone call. So you’re transformed just like that? In a minute? That’s all it takes? And Sabrina?” Just saying the name made her feel seasick, made the world shift and sway for a minute.
Grayson kneeled up on the bed and grabbed both of her arms. “She just had my baby.” Again, the glow. Like a firefly. Like a glowworm. A lying little glowworm.
In a minute Saina was going to hate herself, but she said it anyway. “And that makes you not love me anymore.”
He shook his head. “It’s bigger than that, hon. I mean, procreation, that’s the whole point of being a man, of being human. This is like the best piece of work I’ve ever made, or better than that. You’ll see, you’ll see. You’re going to be an amazing mother someday, too.”
That was it. Saina did the only thing she could think of. She reached out and stroked him, taking some satisfaction in his stiffening, and then tried to smile as she tightened her grip and shoved him as hard as she could back onto the bed. His head clunked against the wall.
“I was going to break up with you anyways,” she shouted. “I was just about to, and then you had to do this! Why couldn’t you just let me break up with you? You couldn’t just give me that?” Wild, disbelieving, she ran to the bathroom, locking the door and leaning against the vintage claw-foot tub. A minute passed in silence, and then she heard Grayson start to pack up his bag. When he knocked on the bathroom door, she opened it and threw his leather Dopp kit at him and then slammed it shut again.
“So, no chance of a ride to the train station, then?” She stayed silent, no longer even surprised at what he could say. “Okay, I know, of course not. And you probably don’t want to lend me your car, right?” Or maybe his advanced degree of fuckery could still surprise her. “I’m kidding, Saina. A little levity. You always like that, don’t you?” She sat on her fingers, smashing them against the penny tiles, examined a crack in the grouting between the basin sink and the wall, looked at her toenails, still pink. “Saina, please don’t hate me forever. Please try to be a little happy for us, for me and the baby. I think we might name him James. Good name, right? Solid.” He rattled the doorknob. She stayed very still. “Okay, I’m leaving now. You’ll understand someday.” He rapped on the door. Another moment. “I’m not sorry that I came up.”
And then he was gone.
十
Santa Barbara, CA
84 Miles
NOBODY CAME UP to say goodbye to Grace. Maybe no one knew. Her best friends, Cassie and Lo, were out of school at the moment—in Athens with their Greek class—and the thought of telling anyone else felt exhausting. Later, other students would drop out, their families bankrupted by Bernie Madoff and bad real estate, but right now there was only Grace, and she stood in the front vestibule alone, a pile of bags at her feet.
She wasn’t really used to being alone. That’s what happens when you’re the youngest child and every space you occupy already belongs to someone else: your sister’s clothes, your brother’s old kindergarten teacher, you as the tagalong, like a Girl Scout cookie, waiting to see if you’ll be included in their games. And then you’re the only one to be sent off to boarding school, where every moment is communal: breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the same 125 people who know exactly how you butter your toast and how high you roll up your uniform skirt.
Now this. Everything bad was happening to her before anything interesting happened. She sighed. Wasn’t that just the way life was.
“Hello, dear.” It was Dr. Brown, the headmistress.
“Hi, Brownie.”
Brownie raised an eyebrow. “You know we’re very sorry to see you go, dear.”
Shrug.
“But I’m sure that everything will be alright. Your family will find a way through this.”