New York Echoes (18 page)

“Vickie?”

“Like a miracle. I
swear. Barney calls upstairs and the Martinez woman rushes down. You'd think it
was her long lost daughter. Hell, I guess it was. A goddamned miracle, that's
what it was. Wherever the hell he was for a month, he sure knew the way home.”

Milton felt something shift
inside of himself, a sense of resurrection, perhaps. Born again. He could not
contain his joy. He went upstairs to his writing room, lay on the couch and
listened with pleasure to Vickie's undulating whine.

“She's back,” he told
Barbara when she came home from work.

“Who?”

“Vickie.” When she
didn't react he told her again. “The dog. Mrs. Martinez's dog.”

“Good for her. Now you
have a better excuse for not writing.”

He didn't answer her
fearing that he would give away his elation. He tried writing again, and again
the dog's whine was inhibiting. He felt enormous pity for the creature, cooped
up alone all day in its room. He discovered that when he tapped on his side of
the wall, the whining stopped.

It was then that he
had his eureka moment. He placed his iPod against the wall and programmed it
for hours of classical music, putting it on its lowest volume. The whining
stopped.

Apparently his muse
understood. He began to write again. A story about a lonely dog.

“I think I'm pregnant,” Sheila said.

Her assertion was casual. He could see
her in profile, looking up at the ceiling of the motel room, in the Holiday Inn
tucked neatly in the shadow of the West Side Highway across from the Hudson River. The docks still berthed some of the cruise lines and the fleet. For them,
both East Siders, it was well off the beaten track and a reasonably safe place
to carry out a clandestine affair.

Suddenly Harold wished
he had a cigarette. He had given up the habit ten years before but there was
still a memory imprint when he became anxious.

“Are you sure?” was
about all he could muster.

“I've been through it once before, Hal,”
Sheila said. “Believe me, I know the signs.”

Her little girl was five now. Sandra,
little Sandy, played with his Liz, and they attended the same nursery school,
which was where Sheila and Harold had met and where this conflagration had
begun. They had been drawn together like magnets, catching them both off guard.
Fearing discovery, they had adapted to this weird, twice-a-week routine that
had been going on for seven months. It was a first time for both of them.

Their relationship
transcended guilt or conscience, and their only real fear was exposure, since
neither of them intended to sink their marriages. For both of them, the sheer
ecstasy of this erotic explosion was worth the candle and the risk. “Don't
overanalyze” was their mantra.

Because he was a manufacturer's rep and
could make his own hours and she was a stay-at-home mom who had gaps in her day
when Sandy was in nursery school, they had figured out together that they could
meet at this out-of-the-way Manhattan motel and conduct their business in
delicious isolation and without fear of discovery by the prying eyes of their
normal social circle.

For two hours, raging lust ensued and
left them both gorgeously drained and tranquilized by the effort. 

“I think about you all the time,” Harold
had admitted, after she told him about how she grew moist at the thought of
him.

“It's crazy,” she told him often.

It began always with a wild frenzy, clothes
strewn everywhere, erotic imagination in high gear as they tried everything
they knew to try or had ever heard about. Oddly, their intimacy had its
borders. They rarely talked about life at home with their spouses, as if that
occurred on some other planet. As far as anyone knew, they were well-matched in
marriage, good parents, respected, well-off. They knew each other socially and
were often together as couples. Her husband, Bob, was his regular squash
opponent at the University Club.

Both were from good
stable families with undivorced parents. Were they in love? Hard to say, they
admitted to each other. Call it overwhelming need, he told her. Erotic overflow
was a phrase they bandied about with giggles.

They were both
thirty-five, both Sagittarians. They were certain that this place on the zodiac
had something to do with the fury of their suddenly discovered libidos.

Neither of them had ever stepped out of
line. In fact, Sheila admitted, she had been one of those rarities, a virgin
when she married. Her wedding night was a painful ordeal and it took her a week
for her husband to make his official entry. This was about the most intimate
detail about her marriage that she had ever confided. He told her nothing about
his marital experiences, nor did she ask.

Often, in the aftermath, cooling down in
a temporary recess, they talked of their kids, never tiring of describing their
antics.

Harold was surprised
at his own ingenuity, the logistics and planning required to enjoy their few
hours of sexual bliss. He had figured it all out time-wise, and it had worked
exceedingly well, without a hitch. He was dead-certain that neither his wife
nor her husband had the slightest suspicion.

He let the revelation
of her pregnancy sink in, the shock of it taking some steam out of the routine.
Up to then, the possibility of pregnancy posed the least risk of all.

“How could that
happen?” he asked. “You said you were on the Pill.”

“I am.”

“It's supposed to be
foolproof.”

“I might have
forgotten or something.”

His mind was racing
with possibilities.

“Are you
dead-certain?” he asked, turning to her, leaning on one elbow, his hand tracing
her profile, then tickling her down to her nipple, which was instantly erect.
Her hand moved to caress him. As always, he rose to the occasion and they did
it again, more slowly this time, ending it more quietly than at the beginning.
They had gotten each meeting down to a triple-header.

But while his body
reacted in its usual fashion, his thoughts were busy with deciphering the
impact of her news.

“What do you intend to
do?” he asked when they had finished. He looked at his watch. There was still
time. She didn't answer him, but got up to use the shower. She was always
first, leaving ahead of him. He sat on the edge of the bed, mulling the consequences
of their complicated future. Finally, he got up and went into the bathroom
while she toweled herself dry. He repeated the question.

“Do?” she replied.
“I'm not sure.”

“Abortion?”

She shook her head and
made a face.

“Why? Isn't that
procedure for unwanted children?”

Dismayed, he got into
the shower and adjusted the taps to make it hotter than normal, as if it were a
form of punishment. In his mind, he characterized the revelation as a disaster.
She was putting on her makeup when he returned to the bedroom and began to
dress. Finally, he asked the central question that had been bugging him.

“Whose is it?”

She shrugged.

“I haven't got a
clue,” she said turning to him, smiling. “I couldn't begin to calculate.”

“There is a scientific
way to find out. A paternity test.”

“There's that. I
thought of that.”

“It will prove who the
father is.”

“Probably.”

“Isn't that important?
Wouldn't you like to know?”

She put a brush
through her hair and didn't answer.

“Did you hear me,
Sheila? Wouldn't you like to know?”

Their eyes met in the
mirror.

“Would you, Harold?”

Coming up with an
answer stumped him. If he was the designated father, then what? Neither of them
was going to give up their spouses, and it was certain that neither of them was
willing to go through the trauma of confession or anything that would endanger
the stability of their normal lives, especially the lives of their children.

“Aren't you upset?” he
asked.

“More surprised than
upset,” she confessed.

“Does Bob know?” Odd,
how fucking Bob's wife had changed nothing in Harold's relationship with her
husband. It was as if, in this manly arena, wives didn't exist. What surprised
Harold as well was that he had no pangs of conscience as far as his own wife,
Alice, was concerned. He supposed it was the same way in the relationship
Sheila had with his wife. He had not observed the slightest bit of tension
between them in those social situations that brought them together as couples.

“I haven't told him
yet.”

“Why did you tell me?”

“Because we share a
secret. And you could be the father? And . . .”

“And what?”

“You supply a lot more
little sperms to my eggs.”

“It's not a matter of
quantity, Sheila. It has to do with timing.”

“I don't keep track.
With Bob, I do my wifely duty on a regular basis. I'm not the instigator.” She
smiled. “We're hardly as active in that department as you and I.”

“Are you saying that
because of our greater frequency, I am the likely father?”

She sighed and
shrugged.

“I wish I knew.”

He looked at his
watch. It was getting late. Somehow the dilemma had taken on greater urgency.

“Then how will we ever
know?” he asked.

“What will it matter?
I'm married. Whoever is the father, the child will have a good home. If it's a
boy, Bob will be happy. He always wanted a boy and, eventually, we were planning
to have one more child.”

“Frankly, I don't
understand your attitude, Sheila,” he said, irritated by her apparent
indifference. Throughout their intimate relationship, they had never had an
argument. If there was tension, it was always the underlying thought that their
affair would be discovered. 

“I've thought about
this, Harold. I've made peace with the idea.”

“I don't get it,” he
said, feeling his anxiety accelerate.

“OK then, suppose it
is your child. Are we prepared to make this admission? Are you prepared to tell
your wife that you have fathered a child with another woman? I certainly am not
prepared to tell my husband. Why rock the boat? Who needs the aggravation and
anxiety?”

“I say abort it and
get rid of the problem.”

“I thought about that.
Tell you the truth, I hate the idea. Besides, suppose there are complications.
Then what? What do I tell Bob? That I secretly aborted his child? ”

“Or mine.”

“Never that.”

“I always thought you
were pro-choice.”

“What has that got to
do with it? Yes, I am militantly pro-choice. And my choice is to have this
child.” She turned to him and patted his cheek. “Hey baby, during my first
pregnancy, I felt real sexy. Nothing will change for us. You'll see; it won't
be long before things get back to normal.”

“Normal? This is
normal?”

“Look, Harold. It's
not like I'm single. That would be a whole other matter. I'm married to a good,
solid man. We are quite comfortable, as you know. The child will be well cared
for, just look at our girls. Stop being a worrywart. Having a child should be a
celebration.”

“But whose child?”

“Mine.”

“And mine.” He paused.
“Maybe.”

“There is no downside
here, Harold.”

“Yes, there is. If
it's mine, Bob will be raising another man's child, paying the bills, being
Daddy, a deceived man.”

“So,” Sheila replied.
“He won't know he's been deceived. He'll love this child like he loves Sandy. And if it is yours, you can be content in the knowledge that he is being well cared
for.”

He began to pace the
motel room, looking nervously at his watch.

“But he might look
like me. Be easily distinguishable. If it's a boy, he'll grow bald early. Bob
has a full head of hair. He's shorter than me. His eyes are a different color.
Look at my nose, my chin. If he's a male, he won't look anything like Bob. It
could be obvious to anyone who observes closely. And if it's a girl, she could
look like my daughter. Her ears are exactly like mine. Not to mention the
differences in our DNA.”

“You're overanalyzing,
Harold. We agreed. None of that.”

“This is not in that
category Sheila. This is serious stuff. We're talking about a human being and
that human being has a right to know who his or her father is.”

“OK then, let's make a
determination.”

Then what, he asked
himself. It all came down to the aftermath.

“You should have been
more careful, Sheila,” he said.

“Well, I wasn't, or
the Pill didn't work. In that case would you like me to sue the manufacturer?”
She laughed suddenly and touched his crotch. “Did it ever occur to you that
this is the culprit?”

“Or Bob's.”

She patted her hair
and slung her pocketbook over her shoulder, then kissed him on the cheek.

“Gotta go.”

“There is only one
obvious solution,” he said.

“Not to me.”

“How can you expect me
to live my life without knowing for sure?”

“Don't be so dramatic,
Harold. Nobody's life will be disrupted. I'm OK with it. Why shouldn't you be?
Nothing will change for you. I'll bet there are millions of women in the world
who have led their spouses to believe that their children have been fathered by
them, even if they weren't. Don't sweat it. If he's not the father, Bob will
never know.” She looked into his eyes. “Unless you tell him. I certainly
won't.”

“You talk as if we men
are just around to supply the crucial ingredient.”

“But you've got to
admit that you guys certainly enjoy the process.”

“I haven't heard any
complaints from you.”

“Who's complaining?”

They exchanged glances
and he knew in that moment that this clandestine physical affair was over, but
that their attachment would linger for a lifetime in other more mysterious ways.

“You know what I
think, Sheila.”

“What?”

She was going out the
door, pausing to look back at him.

“You women don't
understand the profound significance of fatherhood.”

“You're right, Harold.
We don't.”

She closed the door
behind her, leaving him alone with his uncertainty.