Two weeks later, she’d sat on a bench outside of his apartment and waited until he’d emerged. As soon as he saw her, his eyes had gone wide. He’d come racing across the street toward her, oblivious to the honking cars and the cursing cabdrivers, looking terrified and sick with guilt. Rosa had shuddered, thinking, If he feels bad, I feel worse.
Briefly, tersely, she told him what had happened, and what she needed. He’d looked faint when she’d said that she wanted an abortion and had agreed to give her money immediately. He’d gone running back to his apartment （more honks, more curses）， leaving her standing there, weak-kneed and nauseated, sick with guilt. She thought, I could leave, right now. I’ve already taken away his chance to be a faithful husband and honor his marriage vows. I could at least leave him his money.
But she’d needed his money. So she’d waited. She’d walked with Eli to the bank. When he’d offered to go with her when she had the procedure and had insisted on giving her his name and his phone number, she’d thought she would die, right then and there, just burst into flames from the shame of it. A dozen times she’d come close to blurting out a confession: I was pregnant before we hooked up, I just needed money, I’m using you, I’m a liar. A dozen times, she made herself keep quiet.
He can afford it, she told herself fiercely. But Rosa knew that it wasn’t the money that mattered, it was what she’d done, how she’d taken a good man and pulled him down into the dirt. She’d taken a faithful man and made him a cheater; she’d taken an honest man and made him a liar. For six hundred dollars, she had found a good man and corrupted him… and she would have to carry that knowledge with her, about what she’d done and what kind of person that made her, for the rest of her life.
On the beach, with the waves muttering to the sand, tumbling rocks and shells and bits of sea glass until their hard edges were rounded down and softened, Rosa stood in front of Eli and made her confession. She told him she’d come to New York because she wanted to be a singer. She told him she’d gotten pregnant, and that she wasn’t sure who the father was, because she’d been sleeping with a few different men, all of whom were broke. So she’d set out to find a guy who could do what her boyfriend couldn’t, and pay for an abortion.
“And that was me.” Eli’s voice was very dry.
“That was you. Only, once I had the money, when I was flying back home, I changed my mind.” Rosa hung her head, looking down at her bare feet on the sand. “I’ve felt awful about it—about what I did to you—almost every day of my life,” she said. “And then, when I realized that Gabe was living with you—that you were his girlfriend’s father…”
Eli shook his head. “What are the chances, right?” He turned and looked at her.
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” he said. “When you realized that Ruby was my daughter—when you recognized me—why didn’t you call me? Or return any of my emails?” His voice was loud, splintered with anger. “Do you have any idea what the last year of my life has been like?”
“I was ashamed.” Rosa hung her head. “I lied to you. I thought you’d be mad.”
Eli gave a squawk of laughter. “I would have been too busy being relieved that my daughter wasn’t going to marry her half-brother to be angry.”
“I’m sorry,” Rosa said. “I know that doesn’t mean much now, but I am. I’ve felt awful about what I did—about lying to you—for as long as Gabe’s been alive. It was a terrible thing to do.”
Eli barely acknowledged her apology. “I just want to make sure I’ve got this right. You were already pregnant when we were together. There is absolutely no chance that Gabe is my son.” Eli’s hair was wind-tossed, his cheeks stained red.
“That’s how it happened,” said Rosa. “If you were Gabe’s father, he would have been about two months premature when he was born. And he weighed almost nine pounds.”
“Oh, thank God,” Eli said. “Oh, thank God.” He wrapped his arms around Rosa’s waist and spun her, delightedly, in the air, whooping with joy, blurting out fragments of sentences, half-finished thoughts. “You have no idea—the whole time he was living with us, I kept looking at him, and seeing you, and thinking—but I didn’t know your name, either—and when I found out, you weren’t answering my texts or my calls—and I couldn’t tell Ruby, and Sarah would have killed me—”