Rosa was Jane. Eli saw it immediately. Her hair was still dark; her skin still that glowing golden bronze that Eli remembered, and she had the same dark brows, the same dark-eyed, direct stare. “Hello, Rosa!” Eli said, into the camera of Gabe’s phone. “It’s wonderful to meet you!” He saw—or, maybe, he just thought he saw—her eyes widen incrementally, her mouth fall open for just an instant. Then that look of recognition, if it had been recognition, was gone, and Rosa was saying, “It’s nice to meet you, too. Thank you for making Gabe feel so welcome.”
“Of course,” Sarah said. “Gabe is a sweetheart. We’ve enjoyed having him.”
“Yes,” Rosa said quietly. “Gabe’s a good boy.”
Sarah said that they were all looking forward to seeing her. Rosa said, again, how grateful she was that they’d given Gabe a home during the pandemic. Sarah praised Gabe’s kindness with Dexter and Miles—“Not to get ahead of ourselves, but he’s going to be a wonderful father.” Eli’s stomach lurched as Sarah and Rosa smiled at each other, as more pleasantries were exchanged; more plans were made, and, finally, the call concluded.
Later that night, Eli quielty asked Gabe for his mother’s number—“just so Sarah and I know how to reach her.” But when he called, the calls went straight to voicemail.
He tried texting. Hi, Rosa, this is Eli Danhauser, Ruby’s dad. I’d love to talk to you for a minute.
Nothing.
Rosa, it’s Eli Danhauser again. Please call me when you can.
Nothing.
Rosa, it’s Eli Danhauser. I really need to speak to you. Please call. It’s important.
Nothing.
Maybe she’s avoiding me, he thought, then laughed at himself. Obviously she was avoiding him. She’d recognized him, and her response to the horrible truth was to stick her head in the sand, an impulse Eli completely understood. Still, he kept trying. He called early in the morning. He called late at night. Rosa never picked up.
Days—miserable, frantic, clenched-fisted days—sped by, tipping into weeks, with the two voices constantly arguing in his head: He’s my son. No, he isn’t. I’m Gabe’s father. No, I’m not. It happened. No, it didn’t. Some days he’d wake up calm, thinking, What are the chances? What are the chances that some stranger I slept with half a dozen times twenty-two years ago, a stranger who told me she was going to have an abortion didn’t have an abortion, and had a son instead, and the son grew up and came to New York City and fell in love with my daughter? Are the chances one in a million? One in a billion? Then he’d remember that people did win the lottery, even when their chances were infinitesimal. It happened sometimes. People got lucky, or in his case, unlucky.
Then it was June. Almost every morning, Eli would come up with a new idea, or revisit an old one—steal a toothbrush! Ask to borrow a hairbrush! Tell Gabe breast cancer runs in the family, and that we need to screen him for the BRCA gene! For a few hours, the idea would seem watertight and foolproof. Then doubt would creep in, and he’d find a dozen holes in the scheme he’d dreamed up, and end up back where he’d started, completely and utterly fucked.
There was only one more thing that he could think of, a Hail Mary pass, a high-risk, last-ditch maneuver. Only a desperate man would ever consider it, but Eli was desperate and completely out of options. And so he called his brother. “Sure,” Ari said without even asking what Eli wanted with him.
Eli arrived at the diner where they’d agreed to meet right on time and secured a booth in the back. Ari sauntered in, ten minutes late, an ironic fedora cocked over his forehead. He looked handsome, happy, and relaxed. Eli hated him for it. As his brother slid into the booth, smiled at the waitress, and asked for a cup of coffee—“light and sweet”—Eli realized that this was a historic occasion: the first time in their lives that he had been the one to come to his brother for help.
“What’s up?” Ari asked.
Eli swallowed hard. As succinctly as possible, he explained what he needed, without exactly saying why. “Gabe says he has no idea who his father is, and I just want to make sure that it’s no one we need to worry about.”
Ari narrowed his eyes. “Worry about how?” he asked. “Like, if his father’s a mobster or something?” He smirked. “Could Gabe be the son of Son of Sam?”
“I want to make sure there aren’t any genetic issues,” Eli said, and hoped his brother wouldn’t push. Which, of course, Ari did.