“I don’t need to. We can stay in the new apartment, and it’s so close to Irene. And when you get a new place, it will be close to the old one so we can see Irene as much as possible.” Delia felt happy to say her name. She wanted to be a stepmother. She loved Ted, and of course she would love Irene. “I’d love to see her. Soon. Can’t you bring Irene here?”
“I don’t know. I usually just visit her when Ella is there. She’s walking, but she’s not potty trained yet.”
“I know how to change diapers.”
Ted sealed up the wardrobe box with packing tape. Ella wouldn’t want Delia to be with Irene. The lawyer had said to avoid unclear behavior. The baby talked some, but would she tell Ella about Delia?
“All in good time, my love.”
Delia walked back to where she’d left her work. She had more clothes to sort through.
“I didn’t know you liked kids so much,” he said.
“I love kids. You know I love kids.” A corner of the closet was nested with dustballs. Delia grabbed a rag from the table.
“We can have kids. As many as you want. I like kids.” A lot of the guys on Wall Street with big jobs had three or four kids. Their favorite complaint was the cost of private school tuition.
Delia wiped up the dustballs, trapping them beneath her rag. She threw the rag into the garbage can. “But what if I can’t?” she said quietly.
“Of course you can,” Ted replied, not in the least perturbed.
“Ted. . .” Delia looked at him.
“Yes, sweetie.” He had finished his bit of packing. There wasn’t much for him to do. Delia had already finished the kitchen things.
“I don’t know if I can.”
Ted didn’t know what to say. She was serious.
“I’ve tried to get pregnant for years. And I can’t. Is that going to work with you?” She closed her mouth and look at him straight. If he wanted to leave right now, she would let him.
“Oh,” he said. Should he have asked her why? The determination in her face was not easy to take. He had actually thought they would have children together. The idea of just the two of them was a little lonely.
“We could adopt. And we’ll have Irene.” Delia picked up the loose plastic hangers from the floor.
Ted shrugged. Adoption seemed like taking on other people’s problems. Who knew what you could get? How could you verify their backgrounds? He said nothing.
“There’s all kinds of technology now.” Ted felt brightened by the things he’d heard about. A few of his colleagues had had kids through IVF. He pushed the box off to the side of the room. He turned to her and saw that Delia was now seated inside her coat closet, odd pairs of shoes heaped about her folded knees, her arms clutching her legs. He went to her.
“Hey? It’s okay. We’ll work this through,” he said. Delia wasn’t crying. That was her way. His Delia was stoic, the way he was.
“I want you, Delia. And we’ll have Irene.”
She smiled at him. He did love her. Delia didn’t bring up the town house again. She would trust that Ted would get everything he wanted. Maybe they might even have a child of their own. Who could say for sure? When she was with Ted, everything did seem possible.
2 STEAM
DOUGLAS SHIM REACHED FOR HIS OVERCOAT from the long row of hooks along the bumpy concrete wall of the church basement. He’d already put on his walking cap. He patted his suit pocket and felt the hand-drawn map of where Charles Hong lived.
Apparently, the choir director had the chicken pox. As chair of the church hospitality committee, Douglas traveled to the homes of the infirm and elderly each Sunday. In these visits, however, there were times he wished he weren’t a doctor. Even as Elder Shim reminded the bedridden parishioner that he was an eye surgeon and didn’t specialize in whatever ailed him—liver, pancreas, gallbladder, prostate, the list went on—he found himself having to play the doctor anyway and listen to the patient describe his illness and treatment in a muddled fashion. Douglas was routinely asked to render a second opinion for which he felt unqualified. Elder Joseph Han and his wife, Deaconess Cho, were accompanying him to Brooklyn today, and he scanned the room to find them.
Leah approached him by herself, as ever, her steps small. Her braided hair was pinned into a bun, and her head resembled a white flower on the stem of her neck. She wore a simple tan-colored coat.
Douglas broke into a smile. “Ah, Deaconess Cho. We didn’t have a solo from you today. It’s too sad, don’t you think, when I have to hear your perfect voice get swallowed up by those toads in that choir of ours?” He grinned like a naughty child waiting to be chastised.