Before he could—if he was even going to—my dad appeared. “All right, we’re all set. Shall we?” He walked over and grabbed the remote to turn on the football game.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hug my father and thank him, or if I wanted to strangle him. Cal glanced from my father, to me, and back to my father. “Enjoy the game!” I said brightly, and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Please tell me there’s something I can do to help,” I said, walking up. Mom was just setting out the place settings on the table and getting out the dishes to put the food in. She frowned. “Well, I suppose you could start on the dishes…”
Dishes. Excellent. The mindless task that I needed right now. I jumped right in while Fern sipped from her water cup and ate some baby carrots my mom passed her. It was nice and peaceful in the kitchen, and I loved it, but I also knew that it couldn’t last. Cal was going to ask about Fern. How could I answer him? What could I possibly say in response?
I could lie… hmmm. I briefly considered it as I began to wash the dishes, setting them in the dishwasher. But no. I was honest to a fault, for better or for worse. I had kept this secret from my parents out of necessity, because I knew that telling the truth would only end up in hurt and tears for everyone, but I couldn’t lie to Cal. Besides, he’d know that I was lying. There were times I was shocked Mom and Dad hadn’t realized, given Fern’s eyes. She looked just like Cal.
It was painful, like someone was gripping my heart, claws digging in, to consider telling Cal about his daughter. To consider telling him the truth. But what else was there? I had never been good at lying, especially not about big things, and so if he asked…
If he asked, I would tell the truth. No matter how terrified it made me.
5
Cal
I watched Mark carefully out of the corner of my eye as we sat, watching the game. In the kitchen I could hear Violet and Maggie cleaning up and getting the dining table all nice for the dinner, and it was so reminiscent of that night five years ago that I felt like I was choking on it.
“First time I’ve seen your granddaughter,” I mentioned, trying to keep my voice even. “In fact, I… I didn’t even know that Maggie had a child.”
Mark laughed, sounding startled, and turned away from the game to look at me. “Oh, c’mon, Cal, I know that you zone out but really?”
I shrugged.
Mark shook his head, still chuckling. “I’ve mentioned her plenty of times but you must’ve been focused on your work. You remember that time I told you that you were liable for a huge hit on your taxes from the time you sold that giant canvas for close to a million dollars?”
I nodded, but to be honest, I barely remembered that conversation. Maybe Mark was right. I did have a tendency to lose myself fin my art. But could I really have zoned out so much, gotten so lost in my own little artistic world of color and light, that I didn’t hear about Maggie being pregnant?
Casting my mind back five years ago, I tried to remember what happened. Specifically, what happened after that Thanksgiving night between us. I’d started a whole new series of art after that—stylized news that were all, if I was being honest, versions of Maggie. I hadn’t studied her exactly, while we’d been together. Our coupling had been wild and passionate, heat of the moment. I hadn’t stopped to take pictures or to admire. Now I kind of wished that I had—some memento to remember her by. Or at least taking a moment or two to really look at her and drink in her beauty.
But I’d been kind of obsessed with that series. I’d imagined my muse, the woman—the not-Maggie, as I had christened her in my head to try and lie to myself about what I was doing—in every pose imaginable. I’d focused on that series for almost a year and a half. It had been one of my most successful series, actually, and I’d even done a few gallery openings in New York and L.A.
Oh, right, that had been right before LACMA had done a retrospective of my work and I’d gone out there for a while—done the lecture circuit. Visited various colleges, mostly on the west coast. Made some appearances. In a way the art world moved faster than other worlds. By my mid-forties I was an old-timer while the young whippersnappers in art were pushing boundaries, etc. Just as I had once been.
At the same time, it often took until your forties for the work you’d done in your twenties to even be appreciated. Ah, life.