Eli cast his mind backward, scrolling through the calendar, adding nine months to the date of his hookup, trying to remember precisely how pregnant Annette had been when she’d gone storming off to her sister’s.
“And you’re a native Californian?” he asked Gabe.
“Yep. Born and raised.”
“Any brothers or sisters? What do your parents do?”
“Daddy,” said Ruby, “can we skip the third degree? Or at least save it ’til dinnertime?”
“It’s fine,” said Gabe, with an easy smile. An easy, familiar smile. “No brothers or sisters. It’s always just me and my mom.”
“And what does she do?”
“Dad.” Ruby’s tone had sharpened.
“She likes to sing,” Gabe said. “But she’s a nurse.” Singing and nursing meant nothing to Eli, who could remember exactly how Jane had tasted, how she’d smelled, the filthy things she’d whispered in his ear while they were in bed, the tiny cooing noises she’d made, but hadn’t bothered to ask about her job or her hobbies.
He made conversation with his daughter and this boy, all the while with that numbness spreading through his body, up to his hairline and out to his fingertips. As soon as he could escape, he’d gone to his office, opened his laptop and started searching for Gabe. Gabe’s account was private, but, later that night, he approved Eli’s friend request. Eli scrolled through hundreds of pictures—Gabe at college, Gabe at home, Gabe at parties, on beaches, on stage—until he finally located a picture of Gabe with a woman he presumed was Gabe’s mother. It was a shot from a high school graduation ceremony. Gabe, in cap and gown, had his arm around the woman Eli was almost positive was the one he remembered from long ago.
Almost but not completely positive. Her hair was shorter, her face looked older… but was it still, essentially, the same face? A big part of him said yes. A small, increasingly desperate-sounding part, said no. Another part of him still clung to the hope that even if his mother was Jane, Gabe probably had a different father… and the biggest part, shrill and terrified, was saying that he had to find out if Gabe and Ruby were using reliable birth control, because Ruby getting pregnant would be a nightmare, but Ruby getting pregnant with a boy who turned out to be her half-brother would be a tragedy beyond all imagination. Another part, a cool, mocking part, had questions. Like, had Eli really imagined he’d gotten away with it? Had he actually thought his sin would go unpunished? Well, the joke was on him. He thought of something that he’d once heard Ruby say: Karma might not always be fast, but that bitch is always on time. And now she’d sprung her trap. Eli would be forced not only to confess to his long-ago transgression, but also to break his daughter’s heart. He could imagine the look on her face, her eyes wounded behind her glasses. You cheated on my mom? And Sarah. What would Sarah think of him when she found out? I think we need some time apart, he could imagine her saying, her voice cool. She’d turn away from him, leaning forward, so that her hair would obscure her face. I think you should move out for a while. He’d lose his daughter. His wife. His home. Everything.
Eli plodded through the rest of the year, numb and shamed and frozen. Part of him—most of him—argued, persuasively, that Gabe couldn’t be his. Gabe’s mother’s name was Rosa, not Jane, and if Eli actually was Gabe’s father, Gabe would have been born six weeks early （of course, Eli couldn’t think of a subtle way to ask Gabe if he’d been born prematurely. Ruby was already suspicious of all the invasive, personal questions he’d asked）。 Part of him thought that the worst was true, that he’d been the one to get Gabe’s mother pregnant and that, instead of an abortion, she’d had a baby. In this tormented, divided state, one part of his brain insisting that it couldn’t be true and another part whispering that it was, Eli existed through endless days and even longer nights. He made conversation and ordered groceries; he washed dishes and folded laundry while he collected the evidence, piece by piece, evidence that, maddeningly, wasn’t enough to prove anything. He learned that Gabe’s mother had briefly lived in New York, trying to make it as a singer when she’d been young. “She didn’t have a lot of support,” Gabe said. Gabe had been born in California, although whether his mom had gotten pregnant there or in New York, Gabe couldn’t say （and Ruby had shrieked at Eli for even asking. “Dad, how is that possibly any of your business?”）。