“So you don’t feel any pain because of the herpes?” he asked.
“No. It’s like a dormant virus that I can’t get rid of.” How could she explain that she felt contaminated? “I just feel like. . . there’s something gross about me.”
“You mustn’t feel that way. I’m sorry.” David frowned. “You must know that I don’t feel that way about you. I could punch Ted for doing this to you, but I’m glad he did what he ultimately did. I should thank him, really.”
Ella laughed.
“Ella, I think it’s okay.”
“No.”
“Yes. Yes. I’ll do some research. But if I understand it, it’s like a tattoo.”
“I never thought about it that way,” she said.
“But all the research and facts won’t tell me how to feel. How would my feelings change because of this?” he said.
Ella looked at him, not knowing what to say. He was so kind.
“I think you should marry me if you love me,” he said.
Ella was surprised by his words. “I do love you,” she said. The words came out so quickly, and she wasn’t sorry.
“After the divorce is final. And the herpes. If I get it, and if it hurts, you’ll have to take care of me.” David crossed his arms.
“You’re serious.”
He nodded. “The marriage thing is serious. You don’t really have to be nice to me if I get herpes. I was kidding—”
“You really think it’s okay?”
“It’s not okay. It’s awful for you, and it must seem horribly unfair. But illness is like that, isn’t it? You don’t ask for it.” His mother was the gentlest woman, and her cancer was nothing less than brutal. “But doesn’t everyone have unfairness? You’ve had your fair share of that. But herpes—that doesn’t matter to us.”
“How?” Ella hadn’t expected him to say any of this. “Where did you come from?”
David put his arms around her. “Oh, you sweetheart. You sweetheart.”
Feeling the stiffness in her body break, Ella moved closer to his chest.
Ted had not expected the news of his father’s death, although it had been long in the coming. His father had hypertension and diabetes and had suffered two strokes. For the past ten years, he’d had chronic kidney problems and dialysis three days a week. He had not been well enough to travel to Ted’s Harvard College graduation, his Harvard Business School graduation, or his wedding. His sister had just phoned to tell him the news of their father’s death, saying that Mom said it was okay if he couldn’t make it to the funeral. His mother hadn’t spoken to him since she’d found out that Ted had left Ella and the baby. When Ted tried to reach her, she refused to pick up the call or return his messages.
“I don’t think I should go,” Delia said after he asked her to come with him. “Baby, I do want to be there for you. But you haven’t spoken to her yet, and you might want to be alone when you talk to her.”
Ted looked miserable sitting there by the beige cordless phone. His sister had been sobbing hysterically on the call, which had made him only stonier. “Do what you want,” he said.
The last time Ted and his mother spoke was after she had called the house in August last year and spoken to Ella before her overdose. The next day, his mother had phoned him at the office （this was something she had never done before） and told him that she wouldn’t speak to him again until he worked it out with Ella. At the hospital, after Ella had her stomach pumped, Ted had asked her to take him back, but she had refused. Ella had wanted the divorce. Ted told his mother this, but she still blamed him. His mother said that you can’t quit a marriage because you got a better offer. “People and promises are not like jobs,” she’d said, then hung up on him. He had tried to phone her a few times, but his mother wouldn’t relent, and eventually he had gotten tired of trying. His plan had been to take Irene to see his parents for the Fourth of July. But then his father died on him.
Ted took the large green throw pillow from the chair he was sitting on and put it over his gut. He crossed his arms, the pillow wedged between his arms and his torso. All he could picture was his father’s charcoal-colored face, the sad yellow eyes and small mouth. His father had loved him in his gruff, quiet way. Ted had been his favorite. Before Ted went to Phillips Academy, his father had taken him to the airport and given him a small white envelope. “Don’t let anybody tell you you’re nothing just because you’re poor and Oriental. They’re wrong, Teddy. You’re my son. But, Teddy, don’t come back to this stupid place. I’ll come to see you. I never want to see you living in Alaska.” Ted could almost feel the touch of his father’s grayish fingers—scarred from scaling fish, the tip of his right pinkie lopped off from a cannery accident. For all these years, he’d kept the yellowing bong-tu, after spending the five twenty-dollar bills, framed on his desk, because his father had written “Teddy” on it in his own hand.