“How are you?” he’d asked as she’d clambered into the car.
Instead of answering, she’d just given an unhappy shrug.
Two weeks later, Eli walked outside, on his way to the subway, and to his morning’s first class. Jane had been sitting on the park bench across the street, wearing her leather jacket and a sad look on her face.
Eli’s heart dropped. A part of him wanted to run. Instead, he made himself walk toward her, schooling his face into stillness. Her dark hair was gathered in a limp ponytail. Her nails and her lips were unpainted, and there were dark smudges under her eyes.
“What’s going on?” Eli asked, his voice brusque, almost rude. She looked up at him steadily. He felt his heart sink even further.
“I’m pregnant.”
Of course, he thought. All the times they’d had sex, for three nights, in pretty much every position, on basically every available surface of the apartment, including the bathroom counter and the breakfast bar. There’d only been that first, brief conversation about birth control. Don’t worry. I’m safe, the woman had said and Eli had believed her. The bagel he’d eaten that morning, in his sunny kitchen, waiting for the water to boil so he could bring his wife the tea she hated but had to drink instead of coffee, felt like it was going to erupt out of his mouth. Had he really thought he’d get away with this? Had he actually imagined there would be no consequences for cheating, for having incredible, illicit sex with another woman while his wife was unhappy and suffering?
The woman’s voice was hard-edged when she spoke. “And don’t even ask if it’s yours, because I haven’t been with anyone else.”
Eli hadn’t planned on asking. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, scrubbed one hand through his hair, and forced himself to breathe as he imagined Annette finding out, and leaving, and taking the baby with her, leaving him stuck, raising a child with this woman about whom he knew nothing, not even her last name.
“I’m not going to keep it,” the woman said coolly.
Eli felt the breath whoosh out of him. The woman’s mouth had a bitter twist. “So don’t worry. You don’t have to look like your whole life just went down the shitter.”
He nodded. “What do you—how much is—”
“Six hundred dollars,” she said.
Eli swallowed hard. Part of him wondering if she was scamming him, if this was what she did—sleep with strange men for entire weekends and then show up telling them that she was pregnant. But another part saw those dark shadows beneath her eyes, saw the ragged, chewed thumbnail on her right hand, and believed her. And knew that six hundred dollars was a small price to pay.
“Wait here.”
He’d jogged into the lobby and taken the elevator up to the apartment, calling some excuse in the direction of the bedroom, where Annette was still in bed. In the kitchen, he’d rifled through the mail until he’d found the check his grandparents had sent him and Annette for their wedding, and another from an aunt in Arizona. The woman had walked with him to the bank branch, waiting on the sidewalk while he went inside. “Hundreds okay?” asked the teller, and Eli had nodded, watching as she’d slipped the crisp bills into a white envelope. He and Annette had talked about buying a new couch with some of the wedding money, hoping to replace the sagging, cat-clawed Ikea sofa that the previous tenant had left behind. Maybe she wouldn’t remember, Eli thought.
Back outside, he handed the woman the envelope. She folded it in half and slipped it into her purse.
“Do you want me to come with you?” he asked. “When you have it done?”
She’d looked startled. Then she looked sad. “No.” Her voice was glum, her posture defeated. “I’ll take care of it at home. Back in California.” She made a sad, scoffing noise and tugged at the end of her ponytail as she shook her head. “New York hasn’t been so good to me.”
Eli felt another stab of guilt. It wasn’t the city, it was him. Him, and probably other men, who’d treated her like she was disposable, an object for their pleasure. “I’m sorry. Really, I am.” He’d pulled one of his business cards out of his pocket—he’d just gotten them, for when he’d start seeing patients at the school’s clinic—then the pen he’d taken from the bank. He wrote his home number on the back of the card.
“Here,” he told the woman. He’d handed it over and watched as she’d read it. “That’s me. Eli Danhauser. That’s my number, if you need to reach me.” He’d tried to smile. “Or if you need your teeth cleaned.”