Mrs. Wetzle shook her head. “He pre-paid. I didn’t need to even ask for it.”
“Thank you anyway,” I’d mumbled, making my escape.
I’d been avoiding Mrs. Wetzle’s gaze ever since. And when the Christmas popcorn balls arrived each year, I gave mine to Adam.
Adam abandoned the wagon under the tree, because nobody would bother stealing it. “Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand. “Spill it, sis. You look destroyed. Like Sarah Conner at the end of Terminator 2.”
“That’s an apt comparison. Because the crud is about to hit the fan,” I said.
Adam giggled. “Just say ‘shit,’ Kira, like everyone else does. Or pick a different metaphor. Flying bits of crud just aren’t scary.”
“In this case they really are.” Before we could reach Main Street, I steered my brother toward the lonely dock, instead of the ice cream place.
“Damn. If we’re not even going for soft serve, this must be really serious.”
Oh, you have no idea. I dragged Adam out to the end of the dock and sat down cross-legged. He flopped down next to me. And then I blurted it out. “He’s back in town.”
My brother was silent for a long moment. “No shit?” he said, finally. “I assume we’re talking about Vivi’s daddy.”
“Right after you guys got out of the car, I saw him. And we spoke for a minute.” I edited out the kissing, not because Adam would disapprove, but because I wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, or what to think about it. “We’re having lunch tomorrow.”
“Jesus! So how’s that discussion going to go? ‘These sandwiches are fantastic. And by the way, our kid turns four next month.’”
“I’m going to tell him.”
“Of course you’re going to tell him! That’s the right thing to do.”
I flinched. “Adam,” I put a hand on his wrist. “I haven’t done the right thing. Not at all.”
“Not true!” He rubbed my back with one hand. “You’ve done all the right things, Kiki. It hasn’t been easy, but you’re doing well.”
“No. You don’t understand.” I took a deep breath. “I never told you that I found out who he was.”
“Wait… What? He’s some guy named John Smith who spent the summer in Mrs. Wetzle’s place. Are you saying that wasn’t true?”
“It was, and it wasn’t,” I whispered.
“Kiki.” His voice held a warning. “There’s enough soap opera in our lives already. What’s the story?”
Right. If it was this hard to explain it to Adam, how was I ever going to tell John? Or Jonas. Whoever. I sighed. “Okay, when Vivi was nine months old, I saw his face on an album cover.”
Adam whistled. “A good album cover?”
“Do you know the band Hush Note?”
I watched Adam’s eyes bug out. “Oh my god, Kiki! You got knocked up by a rock star? What’s his name?” Adam dug his phone out of his back pocket.
“He’s Jonas—”
“—Smith!” he yelled. He spoke to his phone: “Siri, show me if Jonas Smith has a hot body!” He squinted at the screen. “Hey—Hush Note is releasing a new single this weekend. Wait—what I really need is YouTube.” He tapped feverishly on the screen.
It was just my luck that cell phone service had arrived at Nest Lake. In no time, my brother pulled up a video clip of Jonas Smith in concert. I leaned over Adam’s shoulder to see. I’d done this before, though, peering at clips of him, trying to understand who he really was.
On Adam’s screen, Jonas sang hard, one sculpted arm clutching the microphone, torqueing his body as if to squeeze the sound out. The stage lighting had an orange hue, lending him an otherworldly appearance.
After a moment, I had to look away. Whenever I saw one of those videos, it brought him further away from me, not closer. It was like watching a stranger.
Today on the dock, though, I’d found the real man. And tomorrow we would meet again, and I would spill my secret.
But then what? He’d probably freak out and disappear. And that was actually the best scenario. The scarier one was that he’d sue me for custody. Not that John was mean. But living with Adam—a lawyer—had been an unwelcome education on the topic of interpersonal disasters. The cases passing through my brother’s office showcased every kind of crazy thing people did to hurt one another.
I dreaded telling him.
“That is one hot piece of man,” my brother said, still squinting at his phone. “A burning hunk of love.” He clicked the phone off and stuffed it into his pocket. “But Kira, you knew who he was, and you never told him? That’s so wrong.”
“I know, Adam. I should have tried harder to contact him.”
“Did you try at all?”
I was silent, because the answer to that question was somewhat complicated. But he mistook it for denial. “Tsk, tsk,” he said. “You are a bad girl.”
“What do you think will happen?” I raised my eyes to him, and the sight of my thoughtful big brother was a balm on my soul. Without Adam, these last few years would have been unsurvivable.
He leaned back on his elbows. “Well, really that depends on him. If he wants to acknowledge the child, the court will grant him visitation, if he asks for it. And you’ll get a shitload of money in child support. Actually, you can get the money whether he wants to acknowledge Vivi or not.”
“I never cared about his money.”
“God, Kiki, why not? If you took a full course load, you could graduate in a year. Seriously, why wouldn’t you take the help that’s coming to you?”
This was another difficult topic, because I’d been sponging off Adam for years. Any child support I’d failed to collect had cost my brother more than it had cost me. But I did have a reason for not telling Jonas Smith about Vivi. Actually two reasons.
Just after he’d left Maine, I’d reached out to him, and he had ignored me. That had hurt very badly. I told him how much he meant to me. And in return, he said nothing.
And then there was the guilt. “The pregnancy was my fault, Adam. I told him we were covered, but…” I cleared my throat. I would tell my brother anything, but it was hard to say it out loud. The birth control gel I’d brought with me that night had been purchased during happier times. It was past its expiration date, which I hadn’t checked.
Also, you were supposed to reapply it in between uses. But I hadn’t done that, either.
So I’d born a child with a man who never wanted to hear from me again. And while I knew he deserved to know—and that Vivi deserved to someday meet her father—I hadn’t told him. Yet. I knew I needed to. I just hadn’t made it happen.
“It doesn’t matter,” Adam said. “The law doesn’t care which of you forgot to put the goalie in front of the net. Even if you flat-out lied, any guy who has sex is still responsible for the results.”
“I didn’t flat-out lie.”
He covered one of my hands with his own. “I believe you, Kira. But I’d still love you no matter what.”
I let out a big breath and said a silent prayer of gratitude for my brother. In the silence, I heard the distant thump of a bass line echoing across the lake. “Do you hear that? His band is staying at the lodge. I’m supposed to meet him there tomorrow.”