The Problem with Lust, page 25
Chapter Thirty-Six
MAX
* * *
I decide to go see my dad again. I’ve been visiting him a lot more lately, and he must wonder what’s going on.
I don’t usually go to my dad for anything, only because he hasn’t been the same since my mom died—it’s like she took the best part of him with her—but I’m not feeling so great lately.
Trinity hates me, and work holds no interest. I have no place to go, nowhere I need to be and no one who needs me.
That sucks.
As usual my dad is sitting in front of the TV, reading a magazine. My mom’s picture is in the cabinet next to him.
On the way over, I called and asked him if he needed a few things, and he did. Lucky I asked. He asked me to get him a few groceries, and I did.
“Thanks,” he says, when I start putting his groceries away for him. He tries to give me the money, but I refuse it.
“Everything, okay, son?” he asks, watching me empty the grocery bag.
“Yeah, yeah.” I put the grocery bags away, and perch on one of the kitchen stools. I know what he’s getting at. It’s as odd for me to be doing this as I’m sure it is for him to watch me.
“Can I get you a drink or anything?” he asks. “A beer, maybe?”
I scratch my jaw. “No thanks. I’m not staying long, Dad. How are you doing?”
“I’m as good as I was the last time you saw me.”
I smile at him, picking up on his comment because I only saw him a few weeks ago.
“Everything all right?” he asks again, presuming there’s an ulterior motive for my visit.
Something bubbles up to the surface, and because I’d much rather focus on ‘something’ instead of my fuck-up with Trinity, I ask him without thinking.
“After mom passed, did you ever check in with the children’s home to see if my birth mom might have written in?”
He stares at me silently, his thick white brows pushing together, as if he’s trying to figure out why I’m asking him this, and why now?
“I didn’t,” he says slowly, then takes a deep breath in. “I didn’t think to do it, son. Why are you thinking about that stuff now?”
“It’s no problem.” I rush to reassure him because I don’t want him to feel bad. “I was curious, that’s all.”
It’s something I’ve thought about on and off, but it’s not something I’ve lost much sleep over.
Plus, my dad and I, we haven’t really spoken much of things from the past.
“After your mom, things were never the same...” He can’t finish the sentence, but I understand. After my adopted mom passed, he spiraled into the darkness.
“Your mom used to check in with them.” He nods his head, as if he’s remembering that time. “She used to say there might be a chance that your real mom would try to get in touch. A mother would want to know what happened, she used to say. She would check in at that home once a year, sometimes even twice, and then...”
He falls silent.
“It’s okay, Dad.”
“Are you wondering if your real mom’s still alive?” he asks.
“My real mom passed when I was a teen, Dad.” I don’t want him to think that I’m not grateful for what they’ve done for me. I consider them to be my real parents.
I never forgot my birth mom, because she was good and kind to me, and because I still remember fragments of her.
But as I grew older, and she never came back, that hope died and the new life with my parents who adopted me was going so well that the image of my birth mom dimmed and died away.
But when my adoptive mother died, it left me feeling abandoned and helpless again, only this time I was older, and understood more, and felt the pain more.
“I was a mess, Max. Maybe I should have tried harder for your sake, but by the time I started to function again, that place had closed down.”
“Hey, Dad. It’s really okay,” I insist. I wish now that I hadn’t brought this up, and I’m not sure why I have. I don’t know what’s become of her, I don’t even know if she’s dead or alive. I know only that she gave me up.
Choosing to believe what Trinity said, that my mother loved me so much she made the sacrifice to leave me at a place she thought would give me a better future, is a better way to think about it. And that is how I prefer to think about it.
“What’s made you ask about the past, son?”
I shrug. “I just was, Dad.”
Maybe it’s because of the remote possibility that I might be a father.
It’s a slim chance, but it’s a chance I’ve never had before. It’s something I never wanted before, and never thought of, only I’m forced to consider it now and with a woman who is the perfect woman for me.
But Trinity never wants to see me again. I don’t believe that for one minute because I have come to know her.
She probably hates my guts right now, but in time, I’ll be able to tell her how things were for me before she came along.
“Son?” My dad eyes me, his hands clasped together on the kitchen bar. I’ve never asked him these kinds of things before but I can’t seem to keep it in any more.
“I sometimes wonder if she’s still here and alive, or if she ... died.” I shake my head once, wishing I hadn’t brought it up. It’s not fair, talking about my birth mother to this man who is still pining for his wife. “Sorry, Dad. Things have been crazy lately.” I scratch my jaw. “It’s made me think of stuff.”
Not having a solid memory of where you came from makes you question where you’re going.
“What’s been going on?” my dad asks. I shrug.
“Work and stuff.”
“How is that?”
“Okay,” I reply.
“What’s really bothering you, son?”
I haven’t reached out to this man in such a long time, and it feels hard to hit him with all this stuff at once. “Nothing, Dad. I wanted to see how you were.”
“I’m as fine as can be. It’s you I’m worried about now.”
I don’t want to make the kinds of mistakes my birth father made. I don’t want to be that kind of man, and the truth is, I don’t know if these things are inherited or formed by the people who bring you up.
What if Trinity is pregnant, and what if she has a baby that’s mine?
I’m secretly thrilled that she could be, even though I feel bad that this scenario wouldn’t be so good for her. It would mess up her life and her career, being so unexpected.
She didn’t envision any of this, but she also has to understand that this wasn’t completely my fault. If I remember it rightly, she was the one who instigated the first moves on that fateful day.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
TRINITY
* * *
Miraculously, even though I am late for my period, I manage to get through the next few days without falling apart. I had a blood test for the STDs, and all is clear on that front.
Benji is a great comfort to me in my dark moment, but even he can’t know how topsy-turvy things have become for me. My life as I know it hangs in the balance.
I make it to my art class as usual on the following week, but by now I am days late for my cycle. Tomorrow, I’ll have to buy a pregnancy test.
MAX
* * *
I need her to know that I’m here for her no matter what. I want to fix things between us, make her see that I wasn’t technically cheating, but there are other bigger worries to deal with first.
She doesn’t want to see me, I get that, but I need to see her. It’s been weeks since she told me she never wanted to see me, but we have to talk.
I need to know that she’s okay.
I was tempted to go see Trinity yesterday, but I knew she had her art class and she’d be back late, so I shelved that idea.
The next day, I am torn between showing up outside her school or going to her apartment.
I’m not expecting her to welcome me back with open arms, but Trinity isn’t temperamental. She’s grounded, sensible. I’ll be able to reason with her sooner or later.
Plus, I need to know.
Is she pregnant?
If she is, I need to know so that I can be there for her, no matter what she decides.
I want to see her face-to-face, and I am tempted to go to her apartment and wait for her there, but I have to respect her wishes.
Instead, I call her.
“We need to talk,” I say, rushing to get my words in before she hangs up. I hear a sigh from her.
“I know.”
This is refreshing. I take it as a positive sign that she hasn’t hung up, that she’s talking to me. It lifts my mood.
“I was going to show up at your school or your apartment.”
“I told you you’d get me in trouble if you showed up here.” She sounds angry.
I want to tell her that I will support her no matter what, that I care for her.
I want to tell her that I want us to resolve our problem, that I never cheated, nor did I two-time her, though this would require her to understand the exact nature of a friends-with-benefits relationship, and I don’t think she has the patience to hear me out on that note.
I want to remind her that I tried to tell her many times that I wasn’t the right person for someone like her, but I wanted to be.
I want to tell her that I’ve never had a connection with anyone like I have with her, and I will beg, without shame, to be allowed to be a part of her life; whether she’s pregnant or not.
I want to do the right thing.
“We need to talk,” she says, cutting off my chain of thoughts. Those four little words are like a burst of sunshine in my dark little heart.
“I know. Let’s talk. Let’s talk now.” I don’t want her to say she’ll come to see me in the next few days.
“I’ll come over,” she says. This is the second time she’s asked me not to come over to her place. Dread starts to settle in my skin, as if this is a sign of her keeping me at bay and of cutting all connections.
“Cool.” She can come over, and we can talk. “What time?” I’ll finish up early, and go home and shower, make myself look presentable.
“I’ll come over on my lunch hour.” She hangs up before I’ve had a chance to protest.
Her lunch hour?
That gives me a limited window of time with her. A niggling feeling starts to worm its way out of my stomach, and then I figure it out. She’s pregnant. That’s the only reason I can think of her needing to talk to me and so urgently.
I don’t feel worried, or sad, or disappointed. I’ve never had to think of a situation in which this would ever happen, because I’ve always been careful, but now that this has happened, I’m faced with a situation in which I could be a dad.
A huge grin spreads across my face as I walk back to the garage.
“It’s back,” says Al, his hands and coveralls all smeared with grease.
I touch my cheek gingerly. “What?”
“A smile.”
I roll my eyes and get back to work even though I can’t concentrate because my ears are on alert for a notification on my phone. I look around from time to time to see if Trinity has showed up.
A short while later, she calls me to say she’s parked nearby, up the street.
“I’ll be back,” I tell Al and go out to meet her.
She gets out of her car the moment she sees me and waits on the pavement, her arms folded.
I feel sad that things have come to this, that we’re meeting like strangers, as if she’s someone who needs to ask me a question about her car, instead of someone who meant something.
I try not to look her over, to see if she’s looking healthier, to see if there’s a tell about her.
“Hey,” I say, smiling, because it’s so good to see her. I’ve walked out with a cloth in my hands, and I’m wiping my hands clean, as I try not to stare at her too intensely.
She looks good.
I’ve missed her.
I’m missing her right this moment even though I’m standing right in front of her. There’s an iciness in her posture which wasn’t there, not even that first day when I crashed into her.
“How are you?” I ask, wanting to tell her all these things and more. She definitely looks beaming.
Blooming, even.
Warm, and cuddly, and as curvy as ever. My eyes dip down to her stomach for the briefest of seconds. Could be my child she has inside her.
“I’m not pregnant.”
Her words fall like a guillotine slicing my hopes to shreds.
“You’re not...?”
I try to find more words but she’s smashed my dreams with that announcement. Bludgeoned them, even.
“No.” She looks calm. Relieved. “I’m not.”
Until she spoke, I still harbored dreams that she could be pregnant. I can see that this is the best outcome, I can see that, for her and for me, but especially for her. The disruption, unpreparedness, and unexpectedness of such a thing thrust upon her would have been too much. It wouldn’t have been fair.
But for my own sake, I feel a tremendous sense of loss. As if something precious has been taken away from me. This was the first time I had ever been faced with the idea of bringing a child into this world.
Me, Sex-Crazy Max, who wanted only a good time and an easy life. I was presented with the prospect of being responsible for a tiny person. I imagined doing the right thing by him or her.
I started to believe it might be true. I knew it was a slim chance; these things often are hit and miss. Like the good time in my life, lately.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asks, looking confused by my silent reaction.
“That’s...that’s too bad,” I say, looking away, because I can’t face her.
“Too bad?” Trinity snaps. “Too bad?” She springs forward like a Rottweiler. “That’s because you’re not the one whose life would have changed. You’re not the one who’d have to explain to everyone what happened.”
I’m too stunned, still, by her announcement. I can hear her, but I’m not taking her words in. I’m still standing in NoHopesville. I had been so prepared for her to be pregnant, because of her long absence from me, and because she said we needed to talk, that I’m just as ill-prepared to deal with the consequences of her not being pregnant.
And for me, I’m shocked by the realization that a baby was the thing that I’d been so looking forward to.
“Max,” she says, looking at me. “Say something.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
TRINITY
* * *
“Max, say something.”
His eyes turn shiny. He’s not about to cry, I don’t think, but he looks...teary.
“What do you want me to say?” he asks. He starts cleaning his hands again with a cloth that he’s pulled out of his pocket.
“I’m so relieved. It’s been such a worry.” He stops wiping his hands, a line appearing on his brow.
“Yeah. Yeah, it must be.”
We stand like strangers in an uncomfortable, unfathomable silence.
“I’m clear too.”
“Clear?” He can’t even bring himself to look at me.
“My tests for the STDs,” I whisper, but the moment I hear those words out loud, it occurs to me how insensitive I sound. As if I was blaming him for that.
“I told you I’ve always been careful.”
“I wasn’t sure whether to believe you.” Now that there is no fear of being pregnant, and no worry that I’ve caught anything, I feel braver than I have in a while.
“Gina and I had a mutual arrangement, I don’t know how many times I have to explain that to you.”
His words jab me like a lance, so I throw the lance right back at him. “You always said you weren’t the right guy for me. That’s the thing I should have taken heed of.”
“Yeah, lady, maybe you should have. You’re talking as if I was the one who seduced you.”
I’m about to say “Didn’t you?” but it’s not true. We’re both adults. He might have tried his lines on me and his charms, and I noticed them enough to react, but he also gave me plenty of chances to not get involved.
I was the one who couldn’t hold back a lot of the time. You could say I was the one who made a move on him and forgot the condom.
It was as much my fault as his.
I’m relieved that I’m not pregnant, because children are in my plan, but not just yet. If I had been, I would have made adjustments.
But I’m not, and I don’t have to think about that now.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little sad when my period came yesterday. I didn’t even need to buy the pregnancy test. I felt relieved, but also a little sad. But relief isn’t the reaction I sense from Max. This surprises me even more than discovering that he had other women.
“I would have been here for you, no matter what happened, no matter what the result of that test was,” he says.
“I didn’t need to take a test.” I look away. It seems much too personal to share this information with him, even though we’ve been so close and intimate with one another.
But now, we’re like strangers again.
“Oh, I see.” He opens his mouth as if he wants to say something more, but doesn’t.
He looks like he hasn’t shaved for so many days that he’ll soon be in danger of sporting a beard. I prefer him more when he has sexy stubble.
I feel a pang of sadness crossed with guilt for him.
“I wanted you to know,” I say.
He nods his head. “Thanks.”
I sense it wasn’t the news he’d been hoping for, and it surprises me. Of all the people I can imagine being upset by this news, I never imagined it would be Max.
“Well, you know where I am,” he says, and looks as if he’s about to leave. I’m unprepared for his abruptness, especially because I begin to see, to sense, to figure out that the chance of a new life might have meant more to him than I first thought.
