She Has Your Eyes (7 page)

“I do,” he said softly.

I waited another ten seconds before I asked my next question.

“Do you want her to be?”

He dipped his head, and I tilted mine in an attempt to read his expression. All I could see was sadness, and I wondered if he was thinking about his own father, who, at one time, David was certain that if someone had posed the same question to him about David, would’ve said no.

“I think so,” he said.

“Me too,” I whispered back, our hands clasped. My answer surprised me.

chapter nine

I didn’t go with David to the lab. The test was neither a slow nor painful procedure, and I suppose he wanted to go it alone.

“We should at least call to let her know you got tested,” I said, taking out Wylie’s phone number.

“It’s a bit premature, don’t you think?” he said. “We don’t want to get her hopes up.”

“We don’t want her to think you blew her off either.”

“You can call her if you want, but I’m not comfortable doing so. Besides, my lawyer already contacted her, so it’s not like she’s out of the loop.”

I called Wylie’s cell phone and left a message on voice mail: “This is Andi. I just wanted to let you know that David and I will have new information for you soon. You can call me back if you have any questions.” I recited my cell phone number before hanging up.

She didn’t return the call, but an hour later I received a text message:
Thx.

It was going to take up to two weeks to get the results back. David had tried to persuade me to take a trip somewhere with him, but with the semester already in full swing I didn’t want to cancel classes. Instead, he went to Bermuda by himself,
and I didn’t protest, although I worried about him every day—what if, God forbid, something happened to him and the test turned out to be positive and Wylie wound up never getting to know her biological father? That I put her well-being ahead of my own in this morbid scenario did not escape my attention—wasn’t this the way mothers usually thought?

I was surprised he didn’t go to Italy, his usual battery recharger. I guess lying on a beach and frying his brain in the sun was less work than taking in the museums and architecture. The latter seemed way more distracting than the former, however, and I had assumed he left in order to be distracted. But what if he’d really left to think things through? What if he was making plans? If so, what kind of plans would they be?

He returned four days later tanned and seemingly thinner, although I suspected that my eyes were playing tricks on me. No more relaxed, however.

“I missed you,” he said when I asked why he didn’t stay longer.

“I missed you too,” I replied.

He spent the rest of the week painting, reading, and consulting with clients. Every conversation between us seemed forced; David insisted that we not talk about “the situation” until we got the test results. This time it seemed to be more out of strength preservation than denial

We were dining out with my friends Miranda and Kevin when David’s cell phone vibrated (he usually turned it off in company); he excused himself and made eye contact with me in such a way that communicated it was
the Call
.

“Is everything OK?” asked Miranda, who must have seen the look on my face that I couldn’t hide. It was a few days shy of the two-week deadline.

“He’s just been expecting a really important call,” I explained. “One that can’t wait.”

Ten minutes later—ten
long
minutes—David returned to the table, his casual demeanor gone.

“So, did you close some big art deal, or what?” asked Kevin.

I watched David feign casualness as he smiled his most charming smile (“the escort smile,” I secretly called it) and laughed off Kevin’s question, avoiding me this time. “Something like that.” But when he sat down, he took my hand under the table and squeezed it hard, downing his wine in one shot with the other hand.

I lost my appetite.

We were silent during the car ride home after dinner. Of course I was dying to know the results, and he was dying to tell me. But who were we kidding? I already knew, and he knew I knew, but it was as if someone had stolen our voices.

Once we were home and in the house, David went to the living room and put a couple of logs into the fireplace, balancing one on top of the other. It wasn’t yet cold enough outside to warrant a fire, but I knew he’d been trembling ever since the call. At one point during the preparation, he sat on his knees, staring into the hearth as if the fire were already crackling.

I kicked off my shoes and padded to him, knelt behind him, and kneaded his shoulders as I took a whiff of him and was calmed by his scent. I kissed his cheek, leaning in enough to see him close his eyes and take a deep breath.

“I have a daughter,” he said; it seemed we could speak of Wylie only in hushed tones. I sensed that saying it out loud was his way of accepting it. If he said it out loud, then it was real.

I kissed his cheek two more times and moved beside him. “I know,” I replied, pressing into him. He put his head on my shoulder, and I could see a solitary tear slide from the corner of his eye.

“All these years, and I never knew.”

“How could you have?” I asked.

“I would’ve done the right thing,” he said. “I wouldn’t have abandoned her.”

“I know.” I stroked his hair.

He picked up his head. “What do we do now, Andi?”

I searched for an answer. “I guess we tell Janine and Wylie, for starters.”

“No,” he said, gingerly touching my chin and turning it to face him. “What do
we
do?”

At first I looked at him, my mind a blank, confused by the question. And then suddenly, like a flash of light or the clang of a bell, the answer became clear to me.

“We get married,” I said.

chapter ten

David looked at me, agog.

“What did you say?”

“I said I think we should get married.”

“But… why?” he asked. He almost sounded suspicious.

I paused for a moment to find the answer. “Because you said it yourself: we’re a family, you and me. We have been for a long time. And now you have a daughter. We should make it official, for her sake.”

“How do we know she’ll be a part of our lives?”

“Because she wants to be. She wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble if she didn’t.”

“What if she changes her mind and hates me? And what about Janine?” he persisted. “What if she refuses to let Wylie see me—see
us
?” he quickly corrected.

“Then we’ll deal with that when the time comes. Look, David,” I started, and touched his cheek. “Wylie or no Wylie, I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I didn’t think I’d ever say that to anyone ever again—hell, I never thought I’d
feel
that with anyone ever again. But I do and I’m finally ready. I want to get married, Dev. I really do. I want to marry
you
.”

I watched him as the words sank in, and he held his breath.

“My God, Andi… do you mean it?”

I nodded my head slowly as a smile crept across my face; I grew more excited by the idea with every passing second.

“Holy shit,” he said barely above a whisper. Then he broke into a laugh as he looked at me, his sienna eyes twinkling as he exclaimed, “Holy shit, Andi!” And he pulled me to him in an embrace so enthusiastic that we both fell over laughing.

chapter eleven

The next day, David called Wylie’s cell phone, spoke to Janine to arrange a meeting (she was not happy to hear from him), and we agreed to drive to Hartford to meet them at the end of the week.

The Bakers lived in a typical suburban house: blue vinyl siding, black shutters, two-car garage, and a basketball hoop at the far edge of the driveway. Wylie enthusiastically greeted us at the door, accompanied by her stepsister, Trish (the “celebrity whore,” as Wylie had described her), a seventeen-year-old Hayden Panettiere look-alike who practically lit up like a match when she saw David.

“
Wow
,” said Trish as she leaned in for a better look. “It’s like… so in the eyes.” David blushed. I then caught her turn aside and mouth
Ohmigod, he is HOT!
to Wylie, who admonished her sister with a glare. Trish excused herself as she grabbed her keys and rushed out the door—I didn’t know if she’d been banished by Janine, or if she already had someplace to be. Based on her reaction to David and her complicit role in all this, she didn’t seem rattled by the disruption to her family dynamic. Wylie took our coats and led us to the living room, a sharp maroon-and-cream color scheme with paintings of
flowers on the walls. David and I instinctively gravitated to the love seat, while Wylie remained standing and waited for her mother.

Moments later Janine entered, dressed in blue jeans and a tight heather-gray jersey top with black sleeves, followed by her husband, who introduced himself as Peter and looked uncomfortable in khakis and a chambray button-down shirt, sweat stains already forming under the arms. Janine carried a tray loaded with cups of coffee and a plate of Entenmann’s cookies. She set it on the table in front of the couch before joining Peter there. Despite this gesture of hospitality, she couldn’t have wanted us there. Wylie sat on the edge of a rocking chair catty-corner from us.

Following the hellos and introductions, we all exchanged nervous glances, waiting to see who would speak first. I mean, how did conversations like this start? Did you ease in with,
So what do you think the Pats’ chances are to go all the way this year
, or did you just come out and say,
And the matching DNA goes to…
? Not that any of us didn’t know why we were there.

David broke the silence. “Soooo…,” he started, but couldn’t seem to find words to follow. He turned to me, as if to ask for help, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say. He then looked at Wylie. “Should we maybe just talk to your parents first?”

Wylie objected. “It’s my life we’re talking about. I have a right to hear every word.”

Janine seemed to want to argue to the contrary, but gave David permission to continue.

“Well…” David stalled again. He looked at me, then Wylie, then Janine and her husband. “As you know by now from my attorney, the test is positive. I’ll be retested if you want, but I don’t have any reason to believe the results were inaccurate.”