“Sure, I remember you. How you doing?”
“Very, very badly.”
“Would you like to meet for a coffee?”
“Where are you right now?”
“At my apartment. Sixteenth, between Third and Fourth.”
I looked out the window, managed to focus on street numbers long enough to see that we were on Fourteenth.
“I’m in a cab, two blocks away,” I said. “Can I drop by?”
It wasn’t meant to be Kevin. It was meant to be Angelo.
85
My buzzer jolted me awake—every cell in my body got such a fright I thought I was going to have a seizure. I’d lain down, with the photograph of the little boy on my chest, and I must have dozed off.
On shaky legs, I got to my feet and the buzzer went again. Christ Almighty! What time was it? Just gone 8 A.M. This early in the morning, it could only be one person: Rachel.
Angelo had called her the day before, when it became clear that he had a total lunatic on his hands. She had showed up with Luke, and I’d given a garbled account of the photo and letter, which they insisted on seeing. Then they tried to take me home but I refused to leave and eventually they went away again. But I guessed that Angelo had kept Rachel up-to-date with my movements, letting her know that I’d gone home.
It was Rachel. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
“As good as can be expected considering that my dead husband was unfaithful to me.”
“He wasn’t unfaithful.”
“I hate him.”
“He wasn’t unfaithful. Read the letter. Where is it? In your bag? Get it out.”
Under her watchful gaze, I reluctantly unfolded the letter and tried to read it, but the words were jumping all over the place. With a sharp rustle, I thrust it at her. “You read it.”
“Okay. And listen carefully.”
Dear Anna,
I don’t even know how to start this letter. Start at the beginning, I guess. This is from Janie, Janie Wicks (née Sorensen), Aidan’s ex-girlfriend. We met briefly at Aidan’s funeral, but I’m not sure if you remember me, there were so many people there.
I don’t know how much you know of what’s been going on, so I’ll just tell it all. It’s hard to write this without drawing a bad picture of myself, but here goes. After Aidan left Boston to work in New York, he came home a lot on the weekends, but the in-between bits were not good, and after, I guess, about fifteen, sixteen months, I met someone else (Howie, the man I’m married to now). I didn’t tell Aidan about Howie (or Howie about Aidan) but I said to Aidan that he and I should take time off and date nonexclusively, just to see.
So for a while I was dating (and sleeping with) both Howie and Aidan—whenever he was home from New York.
Then I found out I was pregnant. (I used contraception, I’m not a candidate for Jerry Springer, but I guess I was that one person in ten thousand or whatever the stats are.) The problem was I didn’t know if the father was Aidan or Howie. (Take it from me, I know how trashy that sounds.)
I wanted to talk to Aidan about it, but the next time he came home to Boston, it was to break up with me. He’d met someone else (you), he was crazy about you and wanted to marry you, he was sorry to break up with me like this, we’d always be friends, you can imagine the script. So I had a choice to make: Do I tell him I’m pregnant and completely f**k things up for him and you? Or do I take a chance and hope that the child is Howie’s? So I took that chance and Howie and I got married and I had little Jack and we’re all crazy about him. He didn’t look much like Howie when he was born, but he didn’t look much like Aidan either, so I decided to act like there was no problem.
But when Jack got a little older, he started to look lots like Aidan. I swear to God, it was like every day, his features became more and more Aidan’s. It was all I could think about and I was just sick with worry. Then my mom noticed and called me on it. I admitted the truth to her and she made me see I had a moral obligation to tell Aidan he had a son and the Maddoxes that they had a grandson. (Totally honestly? I so didn’t want to tell them. Being selfish, I was worried about Howie and my marriage.)
Anyway, first I told Howie. It was really horrible, especially for him. He moved out for a while but now he’s back and we’re trying to work things out. Then I called Aidan, and like anyone being hit with that sort of news, he went into a total tailspin. His worry was all about you, he was freaked out that you might think he’d cheated on you. But just to make it way clear: this happened before he and you were exclusive. (Like, at least eight weeks before.)
Anyway, I e-mailed him some photos of Jack so as he could see the similarity for himself. But, a day or so later, Aidan got in the accident and I don’t know if he ever got to tell you about Jack. If all this comes out of the clear blue sky, I am truly, truly sorry.
I was ready to tell the Maddoxes about Jack when I heard about the accident and then I didn’t know what to do and my mom said Dianne and Fielding [“Fielding? Is that Mr. Maddox’s first name?” Rachel asked. “Funny, I never thought of him as having one.”] were not doing so good, that the news might be too big a shock for them and I ought to wait until they were improved.
But Dianne and Fielding are still not so good and the right time to tell them still hadn’t come along.
Lots of times I wanted to call you and check to see if you knew about Jack and also just to let you know that I miss Aidan, too. He was a great guy, the best. But I sorta felt I couldn’t talk to you about Jack until I’d told Fielding and Dianne and I felt it would be wrong to just talk to you about Aidan and not tell you about Jack. Does that make any sense?
Anyway, I was just waiting for a good time to tell everyone, but, as you probably know, Kevin has fast-tracked it. On Tuesday I bumped into him at Pottery Barn (isn’t that the most unlikely thing ever? Kevin Maddox at Pottery Barn?). I hadn’t seen him in the longest time and I was really happy to see him. But then Kevin looked in the stroller and he was staring at Jack like he was looking at a ghost.
Right there in Pottery Barn, Kevin started yelling, “This is Aidan’s son! Aidan had a son! Mom has a grandson! Who knows? Does Anna know? How come no one told me?” Then he burst out crying and I was trying to explain but security came over and asked us to leave.
I said, “Kevin, let’s go get a coffee and I’ll tell you everything,” but you know Kevin. A bit of a hothead. He took off, yelling that he was going to apply for custody and he was going to call you right away and tell you everything. So I guess you’ve had at least one manic phone call from Kevin.