Fertility: A Novel (42 page)

“It’s all right. Your father told me about the accident, how he ran away after seeing what he’d done to you. He ran because he was overcome by guilt. He’s still filled with guilt. It’s my belief that it ruined his life. He drinks too much, he eats too much. Don’t get me wrong. I think the world of him. He’s got a beautiful mind. He’s very generous to everyone around him. We have — had — a good life together. But he’s a haunted man.”

“Look, I have no interest in him and I don’t want to engage in this conversation. He has his life, I have mine. I don’t mean to be rude, but I think it’s best if you go and don’t come back,” Rick said, turning his attention to his computer screen.

“But that’s just it, Dr. Smith. He doesn’t.”

“He doesn’t what?” Rick asked, not looking up.

“You said he has his life and you have yours — but he’s dying,” she said.

Rick turned to her. “How do you know that?”

“His doctor told me today. He’s not…going to make it.” She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped her face. “He developed pneumonia — they think because his swallowing was affected by the stroke. They’ve tried everything, but they can’t clear his lungs of the infection.”

“Well, I’m sorry for you. You seem to like him. But you’ve got to know that as far as I’m concerned, he’s been dead for years.”

“I do like him. I love him. And based on the picture of the two of you that he keeps on his desk, I think you loved him once, too.”

“He has my picture on his desk, does he? Well, let me assure you, I’ve kept no pictures of him.”

Kelly dropped her voice. “Look, I know I have no right to ask this. But it would mean so much to him if you could visit, you know, before, before…it’s over.”

Rick looked at her in disbelief. “Do you know what you’re asking?”

“Yes. I think I do. I know it would be an act of mercy on your part.”

“And you think he deserves mercy?”

“I do. He’s a human being who made a terrible mistake and he’s suffered for it.”

“You must think me a better person than I am. I’m just a regular guy. You know, the kind who holds a grudge.”

She was undeterred. “Even though he can’t speak, he knows what’s going on. He communicates by blinking his eyes or squeezing my hand. If you could find it in your heart to let go of that grudge — even for a few minutes — I would be so grateful.”

Rick couldn’t believe what this woman was asking him to do. “Can you tell me one thing?”

“Sure. Anything.”

“How does Eric Stavropoulous get women like you and my mother to fall for him?”

Kelly smiled ruefully, thinking of better times. “Oh, that’s easy. He’s funny and bighearted and smart. I’ve known him for years. I worked for him before I married him. I can tell you, he’s not the monster you think he is.”

* * *

After she left, Rick was as jumpy as a cat. Throughout his life, no matter what had happened, of one thing he had been certain: His father was a bastard. That certainty was the bedrock of his world. Now Kelly Stavropoulous comes along to tell him he’s gotten it wrong. Was there a chance in hell that she was telling the truth?

There was only one way to find out. He speed-dialed his mother’s number.

“Hey, Mom, is this a good time to talk?”

“Just a minute, Rick. I’m cleaning out files in my office and the radio helps pass the time. Let me turn it off.” After a moment she was back. “There. Now I can hear. What is it, dear?”

“You won’t believe who just paid me a visit.”

“I have no idea.”

“Kelly Stavropoulous. She says he’s about to buy the farm.”

“Oh, is he really dying, Rick?”

“That’s what she says. I haven’t been keeping track of him, but her account of things is plausible.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. He’s a young man, at least from my perspective. And I think there’s a small child from this latest relationship.”

“Jesus fucking Christ. He fathered a kid with this woman?”

“He mentioned it in one of his interviews. I’m sorry, Rick. I thought perhaps you knew. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Well, I don’t listen to his interviews and I’m already upset, so what’s one more thing?”

“Why? Why are you so upset? Is it because he’s dying?”

“Hell no. It’s because she just told me what a great guy he is. How he’s funny and generous. Is she talking about the same man who walked out on us?”

There was a long pause. Then Susan sighed with resignation. “Yes, I suppose she is. He could be very charming when he wanted to be. He certainly wowed me when I met him. And yes, he could be funny and generous.”

“So when did you realize he was scum?”

“Scum? I don’t think I ever thought of him that way. He cut me to the quick when he told me about the affair, with a grad student no less. That hurt, I won’t deny it, but I thought we could weather the storm. But when he drove drunk with you in the car, I actually tried to scratch his eyes out — not something I’m proud of.

“For some reason, though, I never thought of him as scum. Maybe some part of me still loved him, or loved the life we’d built together.”

“What? You mean you loved him and forgave him?”

“Oh, no, no, no. I didn’t forgive him, at least not for a very long time. But what I did do — with the benefit of time — was piece together what I think happened. Now I actually feel sorry for the man.”

“You feel sorry for
him
? Are you kidding?”

“No. I’m not kidding. I think he lost his way. His career took a turn that he wasn’t prepared for. As he got more attention in the media for making complex scientific principles accessible to the public, he started to change. He became vain, something there’d been no hint of before. His colleagues — well, I don’t know if it was jealousy or an accurate judgment, but they started to discount his work as popular pap. Their criticism wounded him deeply, that much I know. He had always aspired to be a top-notch research scientist. Then suddenly, the quality of his work was being questioned by people whose opinion he valued most. The more that happened, the more he pandered to the media. It was something of a vicious circle.”

“You’re a helluva lot more understanding than most ex-wives,” Rick said impatiently.

“Well, let’s just say that my take on him has evolved. At the time he left, I was too consumed with taking care of you to dwell on the wreckage of my marriage. It was all I could do to keep track of your surgeries and procedures, all the treatments and therapies. I had to take a leave from the university so I could keep up with all of it. But eventually you recovered and I had my boy back. I felt like I’d won the sweepstakes: I got to watch you grow up to be the beautiful man you are. Your father missed out on everything. He lost his son. You notice that despite his many marriages, he never had any more children until now. I think that speaks for itself.”

“Well, his current wife says he’s ‘filled with guilt’ about the car accident or some such crap,” Rick said, mocking Kelly Stavropoulous’s words.

“I often wondered how he lived with himself. Even if he didn’t love me anymore, he seemed to love you. What he did to you must have eaten away at him. From the pictures I see of him, it’s obvious that he’s gone to hell with himself. And all those failed marriages. Not exactly the sign of a happy man.”

Rick finally got down to what was tormenting him. “Mom, she wants me to visit him before he dies. She calls it an act of mercy. You’re in a position to know. Does he deserve mercy?”

“That’s a hard question to answer. If I were confronted with your situation, I wouldn’t hesitate to say my good-byes. He has no hold on me anymore. I could find it within myself to perform that merciful act, if indeed that’s what it would be. After all, it’s because of him I have you.

“But,” his mother continued, “I’m not you. You have to decide whether you can forgive your father enough to spend a few minutes with him before that’s no longer possible. No one can decide that for you, Rick.”

“And if I don’t do it?” he asked, seeking absolution before the fact.

“I’m sure only the saints of this world would fault you.”

* * *

The conversation with his mother only muddied the waters further. So the bastard could be charming. And he’d once been a serious scientist before becoming the darling of amateurs and the media. Maybe his wife was telling the truth. Maybe he was haunted by what he had done. Damn it, he deserved to be haunted. But what now, now that the show was almost over?

His mother had said he had no hold on her anymore. Was that true for him? Did his stroked-out father have a hold on him? Rick looked up. It was six o’clock. He turned off his computer and headed for the doors. He needed to get out of the hospital.

As he headed to Sarah’s, he wondered if he was hallucinating. Down the block from where he stood was a tall, curly-haired woman making her way slowly down the street with a cane. Then he recognized the back of the baby carrier the woman wore. It was no mirage. It was Sarah and Anna. His heart jumped and he picked up his pace.

“Hey, you New York City pedestrians,” he said, putting his arm around Sarah’s narrow waist and matching her step for step. “Out for a stroll?”

“Hey, yourself. Indeed we are. We came out for a walk with the therapist, and when our session was up, I thought I’d just keep on walking. The therapist says I’m ready and she’s right. I love being outside — on my own again. What is it, nearly five months since I’ve been able to do this?” As soon as she asked the question she realized that Rick was only half listening. “Hey, is everything okay? You’re heading home kind of early.”

“Oh, man, I couldn’t wait to get out of there today,” he said.

“Tough day?”

“I got a visit from my father’s wife.”

“Oh. That must have been a little sticky,” Sarah said.

“You could say that again. You should see this woman, Sarah. She’s got to be twenty years his junior. She’s attractive, seemingly nice, well-spoken. The works. How the hell he gets these women, I have no idea.”

It occurred to Sarah that the son might have inherited some of the father’s magnetism when it came to women, but she kept the thought to herself. “What did she want?”

“Well, she started out slow…thanking me for checking on him. That wasn’t too bad. She turned to leave and I thought, ‘All right, I’m home free,’ but then she started in on how the old man had told her all about my career, how proud he is of me, how sorry he is for what he did to me, how he’s weighed down by guilt. The whole nine yards.”

“Had you any inkling about any of that?”

“It was news to me.”

“He hasn’t spoken to you in years, right?”

“Decades.”

“But he’s proud of you?”

“So she says.”

“And drowning in guilt?”

“That about sums it up, at least according to the wife.”

“Did she sound credible?” Sarah asked, attempting to weigh the evidence.

“I didn’t know what to make of it, so I called my mother to see if any of it made sense to her.”

“And?” Sarah asked.

“And she thought it could be — what word did you use?”

“Credible.”

“Yeah, she thought it could be credible.”

“So maybe that’s not so bad. It makes him sound more like a human being than the ogre I’d imagined. And he did father you, after all. He must have some good in him,” Sarah said.

“That’s not the end of it. His wife wants me to see him because he’s dying.”

The two of them stopped walking and looked at one another. With Anna between them, Sarah took hold of his hand. “Listen to me. Whether or not you decide to comply with her request, know this: You’re the love I never expected to find in this life. You’re the father of this child who was never supposed to be. By my lights, you’re a hero. You’re my hero.”

“Well, I don’t feel like a hero. I feel like a five-year-old kid who’d like to pummel his no-good father for leaving him high and dry.”

“Is it okay if we sit down for a bit? I think we’re blocking foot traffic here in the middle of the street. And Anna would likely enjoy a break from the carrier.”

“Sure,” Rick said as he took the baby in his arms and walked with Sarah to the ledge of a concrete planter. They sat down and grew quiet, each watching the pedestrians pass before them and mulling over Rick’s options.

It was Sarah who finally broke the silence. “You know, just the other day I learned a little something about one of my physical therapists — the one I told you about with the glass eye?”

“Yeah, I remember. But what does this have to do with what we were just talking about?”

“Hold on a minute. It connects. I promise.”

“Okay. I’ll bite. So what did you learn about your therapist with the glass eye?”

“I learned how she lost her eye. She was six years old and a teenage neighbor was playing around with a BB gun. She was just sitting in her backyard — on her swing set with her little sister — when she took a direct hit to her eye.”

“Are you telling me this to somehow make me feel better?”

“I’m telling you this because she told me how she came to forgive that neighbor boy.”

“And how was that?”

“She said if she hadn’t forgiven him he’d still be living rent-free in her head. Something about that image really struck me. What do you think about maybe freeing up some of the psychic real estate taken up by your father? We could use it for our life together. Remember what you told me when I was in the hospital? About things being in the past tense and how we’re moving forward now?”

“Me and my big mouth.”

“I love your mouth. I love all of you,” Sarah said. Then she kissed Rick just as a taxi blasted its horn and a man yelled out, “Hey, watch it, buster.” That set Anna on a crying jag. Any further discussion of Rick’s dilemma had to bow to the needs of their hungry, tired baby girl.

* * *

Rick had a restless night. He finally dozed off just as the sun started streaming through the bedroom window. When he awoke he knew what he had to do. He got up, went into the living room and called the ICU. Though his condition was grave, Eric Stavropoulous was still alive. Rick went back into the bedroom and threw on some clothes.