Fatherless: A Novel (14 page)

“Are you
sure about that?” Julia asked.

Tommy’s eyes widened like those of a witness caught perjuring himself.

“I’m pretty sure your mommy said you should only have one cup of water so you don’t wet the bed.”

“Daddy wets me have two.” His last-ditch effort to delay the inevitability of night-light solitude.

Julia was eager for Tommy to join Joy and Leah in dreamland but couldn’t find the strength to stand her ground. “Half a cup,”
she conceded. “And then you have to fall asleep. Deal?”

“Deawl!”

Twenty minutes later Julia sneaked into Tommy’s room to confirm he had fulfilled his end of the bargain. She wanted the kids
fast asleep before hiding away in the guest room to give Angie and Kevin the next best thing to a romantic hotel rendezvous.

Leaving her door slightly ajar, Julia changed into her nightgown and propped herself with pillows behind her tablet. Her fatigue
put up a brief protest before submitting to a tiny surge of adrenaline sparked by Julia’s tap on the digital screen. Two messages
appeared, both of which had arrived during the flying Lego calamity.
Where did three hours go
?

The fight over Fin must have been more intense than Maria had implied. Jared almost never asked Julia to talk. It was his
aunt’s job to smooth things over, to cajole Jared from hiding behind the protective shell of his locked bedroom door. Glancing
at the time she decided to wait until morning to call. She opened the second message.

Julia tapped Paul’s image. She heard a single ring followed by a stew of pounding music and laughing crowd chatter.

“Hi, Jewel!” Paul shouted. “Hold on a sec while I find a quiet spot.”

Moments later the background noise dipped, along with the volume of Paul’s voice.

“There we go,” he began. “Great party at the Funky Buddha. Wish you were here!”

“I’m in DC. I got your message. Is now good for you?”

“Now’s great. I might be hungover in the morning!” He laughed more than the joke deserved.

“What’s up?”

“The editorial board is pressing me pretty hard on this bright spots controversy. They want something soon.”

Julia felt a mix of exhilaration and alarm. RAP editorial board mandates generally meant top story billing. They also meant
walking the journalistic high wire without a net.

“How’s it going, by the way?”

“Making great progress. I’m interviewing Congresswoman Florea and Trisha Sayers on Monday.”

He didn’t react.

Remembering that he had arranged both meetings, she quickly added, “And you’ll never guess where I am right now.”

“You told me. DC.”

“I’m in the Washington residence of Congressman Kevin Tolbert.” She let the name sink in.

“Good Lord, girl! You do move fast!” He seemed both impressed and mistaken.

“Not like that!” she said hastily. “I’m in the guest room after spending a day with Kevin’s wife Angie. You remember. I told
you we were high school friends.”

“Right.” He sounded disappointed and intrigued. “Any openings?”

“I think so.” She thought of her agreement to attend church. “I plan to meet several of his associates tomorrow morning.”

“Perfect.”

A brief intermission.

“You said you had an idea for the feature?” she reminded him.

“Oh yeah. A soft-think idea you can take or leave.”

Julia knew that Paul’s “soft-think” suggestions were actually nonnegotiable edicts. “Great. Let me hear it.”

“I want to position this story as your next
Guylanders
.”

Another surge of adrenaline.

“I don’t follow.” But she did hope.

“Think about it, Jewel,” he continued. “You became a legend by exposing the downside of a major demographic shift. You gave
women everywhere a vocabulary for describing their angst.”

He was right. Her
Guylanders
feature had struck a major cultural chord. For decades two trend lines had been moving in opposite directions. Women were
on the rise, earning most of the college and graduate degrees and filling most openings in the more lucrative professions.
In a few short decades, American girls managed to overtake centuries of boy’s-club bias and patriarchy to become the most
affluent, independent females in history.

Over the same period, however, another trend had emerged. American boys were more than happy to hand over the reins to assertive
gals. Unlike their grandfathers, more and more guys inhabited the comfortable borders of Guyland, where they formed clans
of rent-sharing roommates and worked part-time jobs to protect time for climbing virtual-world ladders and sampling the endless
supply of young women offering no-strings-attached pleasure.

Many said the trends of guy passivity and gal advancement had fueled the innovations that created the multibillion-dollar
in vitro selection industry. As age ambushed millions of women, they now sought something no Guylander seemed willing to provide.
A child, rather than a mate, became the life partner of choice.

Girls on top.

Boys having fun.

Every child a wanted child.

The perfect world.

But getting what one wants does not guarantee liking it. Julia’s feature was the first mainstream story to overtly associate
a decline in male achievement with a rise in female depression. She compared the phenomenon to separation anxiety after centuries
of male domination. Like abused children taken from parents to foster-care safety, oppressed women needed time to adjust to
a better existence.

Medicate the depression
, she had written.
Don’t abandon the dream
.

“I think you can do it again,” Paul continued. “I’ve already decided on a title for the feature.”

A feature I haven’t even outlined
? she thought.

“
The Breeders
.” He paused for impact. “What do you think? Clear. Simple. A short title like
Guylanders
. It has your name written all over it, pardon the pun.”

“I’m not sure. I mean,
Guylanders
wasn’t an offensive word. But
Breeders
is used, you know, like an ethnic slur.”

Momentary silence suggested Paul hadn’t thought of that. He protested anyway. “Apples and oranges. You can’t equate offending
religious nuts with demeaning an entire race.”

Glancing at the family photo hanging on Angie’s guest room wall, Julia wasn’t so sure. But she went along anyway. “What do
you have in mind?”

“You need to get inside Tolbert’s head. Spend time with his coalition. I promise you’ll find more than enough to characterize
the bright spots agenda as radical breeder nonsense.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said pensively.

A rhythmic thump resurfaced on the other end of the line, accompanied by what sounded like a sea of humanity shouting over
one another. Someone must have opened whatever door Paul had hid behind to take Julia’s call.

“There you are!” The faint voice sounded vaguely familiar. “Come on, Paul. You’re missing the table dance contest!”

Julia resisted the urge to ask, choosing instead to end the call. “Go back to your party. I’ll touch base with you in a few
days.”

“Do,” Paul shouted. “Bye, love!”

Julia set her tablet aside and reached for a decorative pillow sitting on the undisturbed half of the bedspread. She held
it close while sorting a half dozen thoughts and feelings.

The thrill of journalistic resurgence.

The challenge of a big idea.

The pressure of a tight deadline.

The determination to win at all costs.

Hushed voices interrupted her sorting. Angie and Kevin had arrived home. Quickly slipping out from under the covers, Julia
quietly pulled her door closed.

Kevin gazed
at Leah slightly longer than he had at Tommy or Joy, the final stop on his promised round of inspections before joining Angie
in the bedroom. All three were blessedly asleep. He glanced at the floor beneath the guest room door. No light. Julia was
out after what must have been an exhausting night of a job well done.

The phone in his jacket vibrated. Reaching into his pocket, Kevin congratulated himself on the silence, recalling too many
opportunities for intimacy derailed by an ill-timed ring that woke one or more of the kids. He decided to ignore the message,
turning instead toward the kitchen, where he retrieved two glasses. He checked for orange juice, without which he could not
mix fresh mimosas, Angie’s favorite indulgence when accompanied by fresh strawberries.

Moments later he arrived at their bedroom door, one hand awkwardly balancing the glasses while the other held a small plate.

Another vibration. Two instant messages in rapid sequence piqued his curiosity. It had to be Troy burning the midnight oil
again. He slid into the kids’ bathroom to free a hand by placing the strawberries on the sink counter.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the message, the kind Kevin received routinely whenever Troy had screened
a request and determined a meeting advantageous and safe. He ignored the attachment, confident in Troy’s judgment. But then
he read the second message.

He immediately opened the attachment: an interview request from Julia sent to his office in-box a mere six minutes earlier.

Kevin smiled. Apparently, Julia was not as soundly asleep as she had made it appear.

Angie had already lit the bedroom candles by the time Kevin arrived. Eyes still adjusting to the diminished light, he heard
her voice before he saw her.

“Are they asleep?”

“Like rocks,” he assured her.

“Julia?”

“No sign of life.” True, if you discount messages intended to be read on Monday.

“Good,” she said, stepping from the shadows into the warm glow of a dancing flame.

Kevin’s heart began to race as it had on countless occasions since their wedding night as he anticipated opening the same
favorite gift in new wrapping paper.

Flowing lace in precisely the right locations.

A single finger summoning him to draw closer.

An alluring grin that enticed him back into everything they had known together: the flirty glances of a teenage crush, the
tingling thrill of gently held hands, the sweet taste of a first stolen kiss, the breathless wonder of caressing her honeymoon
body.

He smiled gratefully for a fifteen-year discovery of pleasures both had come to crave.

“I told you I had a surprise.” She blushed at his greedy gaze. “Do you like it?”

He approached, delightfully conflicted between a desire to satisfy her and anticipation of his own culminating release.

“You’re amazing.” He brushed his lips across hers. “Thank you.”

Angie and Kevin lay on top of their bedspread gently caressing one another’s arms. The intensity of their union had both exhausted
and refreshed. Still catching his breath, Kevin sensed himself being renewed, as if a mysterious tailor were repairing his
frayed edges. He turned his head to look into his wife’s contented eyes. He wondered if she felt the same. Had he been for
her what she had been for him, a brush in the hands of a gentle artist adding yet another finishing touch?

She rolled onto her side while pulling his arm around her relaxed body from behind. They held one another silently for several
more minutes.

Kevin felt himself drifting into sleep until Angie’s voice pulled him back.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

He forced his eyes open. “Thinking?”

Angie giggled. “I forgot. Your mind ceases to function after we make love.”

She was more right than she knew. “My mind is in perfect working order. Although I’ll admit not as perfect as other parts!”

She giggled again. “I was thinking about Julia.”

He ignored the bruise to his ego. “What about her?”

“I was trying to imagine what it’s like for her. You know, no husband or kids. Having sex instead of making love. I couldn’t
live her life.”

“I certainly hope not!” he teased.

She slapped his hand, then raised it to her lips for a gentle kiss. “You know what I mean.”

“She probably can’t imagine living your life either.” He immediately disagreed with himself. “I don’t know, maybe she can.
After all, she was made for it.”

“Made for what?”

“Family.”

“She’d beg to differ.”

“Sure. But she’d also know it’s true.” He said it as if launching a political speech. “Do you remember what God said after
making Adam before Eve?”

“‘Just kidding’?”

He moved his hand to her naked side to threaten tickle retaliation.

“Don’t you dare!”

He moved his hand back, receiving another peck. “God said it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone. After describing everything
else he made as good, he called something he made not good.”

“I never thought of that.”

“I told you. My mind is in perfect working order,” he continued. “He couldn’t have meant that Adam was bad. He must have meant
Adam was incomplete. You know, unfinished.”

“Makes sense.”

“Men and women are two halves of a whole. I bet Julia has moments when she feels incomplete.”

“She certainly doesn’t show it. I’ve never met a more confident woman.”

“I have,” he said.

She turned her head in his direction. “Who?”

He propped himself up on this right elbow to kiss Angie on the cheek. “I know a woman who is confident enough to volunteer
for the most important job on earth, a job very few of her girlfriends would even consider.”

She turned toward Kevin’s eyes as he continued.

“I know a woman so courageous that she quit a successful career in order to give three kids the kind of love and security
no other person in the world could provide.”

Her hand rose to his face in an invitation to kiss her fingertips before saying more.

“I know a woman who stood up to an arrogant pediatrician and defended the dignity of a little girl whom God entrusted to our
care.”

Kevin used his palm to intercept a single tear leaking from Angie’s eye before it could reach the pillow.

“And I know a woman whom every guy in high school wanted to date, but who wisely chose to become Kevin Tolbert’s better half.”

Angie burst into moist laughter as she mashed her face against her husband’s.

“I love you,” she said through a flood of tears.

“I love you too.”

They lay side by side to resume their gentle caresses. After a few minutes Angie’s hand moved lower, surprising Kevin with
an invitation to a second round of intimacy.