Chapter 27 Erin
Erin
It was a while since I’d visited Ireland. Instead of going to visit Saima on Long Island for the weekend, I went to visit Mom and Ruby. The guilt got to me. Dad had told me the father of Ruby’s baby was unknown.
Sober pregnant Ruby was different. We talked about Milo for the first time in years.
Ruby had never blamed me, and I wept with relief.
She urged me to get back out there and live my life.
I was grateful that my sister had seen the light, and that we were able to reconnect.
She sounded like an adult for the first time.
She still planned an acting career. Mom was going to be doing a lot of childcare, but she was a young grandma at forty-nine, and I think she relished the role.
I went back to Boston feeling like a burden had lifted off my shoulders.
I had not wanted a relationship because I didn’t think I deserved one.
But Ruby had told me there were trustworthy guys out there, and I guess if she could say it, it must be true.
Most of my friends had coupled up and were married with kids or had kids on the way.
I’d kissed a few frogs but none of them had turned out to be princes.
I noodled around on the dating websites to see who was out there.
My work girlfriends Larissa and Dawn and I tried speed dating and with some hilarious and some troubling results.
I met one man who was upfront by the third date about the fact that he needed to get married and have a baby on the way within the next six months to inherit a quarter of a million dollars.
He said he’d give me ten per cent but that we had to stay married for five years before we officially divorced as per the terms of the will.
We could put the baby up for adoption as soon as he got the money.
He could not understand why I didn’t swoon into his arms. He upped his offer to twenty per cent.
I deleted his number and blocked his calls.
I had a few months emailing and texting losers and time-wasters, a lot of whom wanted to show me photos of their dicks – as if any woman would be persuaded into a date by a photo of a penis.
My friends and I laughed at these, stupid, ugly and offensive at the same time.
I will never understand why men do this.
I thought I had found the perfect guy after a few dates with a charming self-described Christian man, particularly well-groomed and a terrific kisser, who never wanted me to go back to his place or he to mine.
On the fourth date, I asked him bluntly if he was gay.
His shoulders drooped and he begged me to keep his secret.
I played along for six months because he was fun and I met his family on one occasion who declared me ‘adorable’, but after the ‘dinner with the folks’ I had to tell him that I could no longer keep up the lie.
I stayed friends with Cisco and his real partner, Chad.
I regularly had them to lunch with Aunt Rachel, when she came to the city.
Then there was the mild-mannered divorcee.
He was interesting when you got him talking but cripplingly shy; it took an hour on each date to get him to loosen up.
We liked the same music and went to see Prince and Usher.
He was an awesome dancer. He was surprisingly skilled in the bedroom department too.
I liked him. And then, after three months, he vanished.
My calls, texts and emails were not returned.
He dropped me like a sack of lobsters. In fact, I never saw him again. I still wonder what happened to him.
One morning, in the office, there was a letter waiting for me, postmarked Boston. I recognized the typewritten envelope. I wasn’t hard to find. My name was on the publisher’s website.
You think running away to New York is the solution? I’ll always find you. I don’t know whose DNA they found but it certainly wasn’t Milo’s. You know that.
Margie would get tired of this eventually.