Chapter 12
THE HYPOCRITE
I was still grumpy at Kate when she dropped Barry and me off at the house after nine that night.
We’d completed both puzzles and each of us had reheated at least one plate of food as the night wore on.
Barry was a trooper through the whole of it, chatting with my parents, entertaining my brother’s hockey questions, placing puzzle pieces each time he walked past the table behind me (he had a real eye for it).
They were all under his spell before the table was even set, so by the end of the night, I’d caught Mom prayerfully gazing between us more than once.
Dad, too. Not Ron, but Ron napped sitting up on the couch intermittently through the evening, in true Ron fashion.
“Clothes shopping Saturday?” Kate said as she handed the keys to me. Barry didn’t seem to hear, thankfully, because I couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t try to charm his way into an invite to watch me try on jeans with stretchy waistbands.
“Yes please,” I said, even though I was still mad about the date thing. I could be mad and still take her emotional support while roaming the maternity section of Old Navy. I contain multitudes.
After a final good-night exchange with Barry, Kate was off, waving as she drove off.
“Your family’s great,” Barry said as we stepped inside.
They had been great, albeit embarrassing.
Barry left with a Harvey Janitorial tee shirt and a baseball hat as well, both from my dad, who was maybe the most excited about having another guy in the family—this one famous.
He and Kate both brought up the idea of Harvey Janitorial being an official Barry Wright brand sponsor, and the concept made Mom so excited she sent him home with a couple of beaded bracelets she made to fit his big wrist after dinner. He wore them now.
I wanted to tell all of them that being the father of my child didn’t automatically make Barry part of the family, but Dad wouldn’t have agreed. Plus, if the baby wasn’t enough, talking with Dad for forty minutes about seasonings certainly qualified Barry for honorary-family status in Dad’s eyes.
The food was as delicious as it is every year, though the green bean casserole Mom tried really wasn’t as good as the zucchini one she usually made.
It was impossible to beat; I don’t know why she even tried.
It belongs on the yearly rotation, the spot of zucchini casserole never to be questioned, but Mom liked trying new things, just in case.
Of all the new recipes this year, Ron’s orange zest rolls, Kate’s margaritas, and Barry’s pasta salad were the majority favorites of the table.
Mom asked if he’d bring it again for Christmas, and I told her that Barry probably wasn’t available to come to our Christmas because he had a big family who would no doubt have their own festivities going.
“The break might be too short to travel again,” he said, sparking hope in the eyes of all three of my parents and Jeremy. “If I’m invited, I’d love to come. I wouldn’t pass up this feast.”
“Invite your family here,” Mom said. “Lord knows we’ll have enough meat.”
I tried to imagine the polished family I’d seen in Barry’s locker photo here in my mom’s house, taking off their shoes so as to not dirty the twenty-five-year-old carpet, startling at the wall of cuckoo clocks in the living room, staring down the collection of pig memorabilia in the kitchen.
No, no, it was too much. I hadn’t even met them yet.
“My sister was thinking of coming to visit for the week to see the home game and hang out. I’ll ask if she’d like to come,” Barry said, and Mom clapped in front of her chest like nothing was more delightful. She was still wearing her apron. “Would love to bring you all to a game, as well.”
“You say when,” Dad said, trying not to sound too excited.
“I’ll make bracelets.”
Everyone had lots of questions about Barry’s family; had I met any of them?
Were they all athletes? Any nieces or nephews to speak of?
Any allergies or gluten intolerances? Ron had a gluten-free roll recipe that was pretty good, he could make it for Barry’s sister—was she lactose intolerant?
Was she okay with dogs, should Kate leave Greg Senior at home?
“She hasn’t said yes,” I said through a mouth full of Jeremy’s berry pie. “Chill.”
I had a feeling that Barry was digging his nails into my life, gaining purchase wherever he could so that I wouldn’t be able to easily keep my distance.
The way my mom beamed at him, his plan was working.
Jeremy had managed to create inside jokes with Barry by the end of the night, acting like he was the older brother he’d never had, mooning over him even more than he had when he was just a hockey idol.
The two of them kicked a hacky sack back and forth in the living room while Kate and I worked on the second puzzle, the one with the cats, before the knob of fabric and rice scattered one of our piles and we yelled at them to stop.
I could almost admire Barry’s tactic, the covert needling into everyone’s hearts so they’d feel it a personal betrayal if I blocked him out.
Once inside the house, I tossed the keys on the counter and padded through the kitchen to feed Junior. He was once again pretending I’d never fed him, meowing and nudging at my ankles because he was starving, really on the brink, like I hadn’t fed him in days instead of just a handful of hours.
A true thespian, really.
Barry followed and hung the discarded keys on the key hook before stowing the leftovers in the fridge next to the pre-made meals. I wouldn’t have to make anything for a week between the leftovers and his efforts, which I suppose had been his main selling point for moving in—helping me be pregnant.
I hadn’t even scooped the litter box once since he moved in, as he’d read that it was of the utmost danger for me to do so.
But he must’ve seen tonight that in fact I had lots of help.
Aside from Jeremy who probably wouldn’t give up a bus seat for me unless I kicked him, my family helped me far more than I helped them, but I was trying to change that.
I was trying to show them I was someone who could take care of herself, a hard worker, a responsible mother, a real contributor.
I filled up a glass with water from the tap after letting it run for a few seconds to get cold.
“You keep sighing,” Barry said. He’d stripped off his coat and was now working on the buttons of his flannel. He wore a thin white tee shirt beneath, which was better than him walking about the place shirtless, but not by much. It was a tight shirt.
“It’s Kate.” I had to complain to someone, and he’d probably get it, what with all those siblings. I took a sip of water and swallowed a couple of prenatals. “She went on a date last weekend.”
Kate never went on dates, or she hadn’t for a long while, or I thought she hadn’t. Now I couldn’t be sure. Was she frequently going on dates? When did she have time for that? What was to say she wasn’t secretly pregnant with a stranger’s baby? Would she even tell me?
“Oh?” Barry moved around the kitchen and living room, hanging his coat on the standing rack, folding his shirt and tossing it on his deflated air mattress. “Someone you don’t like?”
“Nothing like that. He’s probably fine.” I knew nothing about him, other than his name and profession. He had to have a PhD, right? A scientist? “She didn’t tell me.”
“When she got asked out?”
“No, like at all. I had to find out from Jeremy.”
“What’s the problem, then?”
“She always tells me things,” I said. “I don’t know, it feels like the sort of thing she should have told me.”
Barry turned on the standing lamp in the living room while I made my way to the bathroom to take off my makeup. I kept the door open while I wiped the cotton pad across my cheeks and eyelids.
“You’re mad at her?” he asked.
I toed the door shut to pee and mulled over this. Maybe he wasn’t close enough with any of his siblings that their problems felt like his.
When I’d washed my hands, I opened the door again and he was waiting just outside. He had the faraway look like when he was working through something.
“I think I feel betrayed.”
“The date was last week?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“And she didn’t tell you about it, not a text or anything?”
“Right.”
I leaned over the sink to wash my face, splashing cold water and then warmer water on my skin. When I toweled dry, Barry was standing in the same place, his thoughtful look replaced with an impatient one. I didn’t know how to read all his expressions, and I could never tell what he was thinking.
I watched him as he worked through something before looking back up at me.
“What would you have done with the information?”
“Uh…” The bathroom was starting to feel as small as it was with him caging me in. I picked up my toothbrush and toothpaste just to do something with my hands. “Helped her pick an outfit? Offer advice?” Dates were exciting sometimes. I wanted to be excited with her.
He rubbed a hand across his jaw and nodded slowly.
“To be clear, you’re mad that your sister didn’t tell you something that has nothing to do with you.”
“For a week,” I added, though we’d already been through this.
The only sounds in the space were my teeth brushing and Junior crunching on his food from the kitchen.
I didn’t know what Barry was getting at, but he was so still and watching me intently, like every word out of my mouth had double the meaning.
It made me squirm, but I brushed my teeth better than I had in weeks, thirty seconds on each quadrant and behind the bottom teeth. At this rate, I’d even floss.
“You see how this sounds coming from you,” Barry said, not a question.
My face betrayed my hurt and confusion in the mirror, but I busied myself with rinsing the foam from my mouth and making sure the porcelain was clear of splatters.
I’m not sure what I was expecting from Barry, but not this.
Even if I did sound ridiculous, I thought he might at least give me a moment of sympathy, of “your feelings are valid” before the cold hard truths.
“How does it look? Like I’m a caring sister?”
“You don’t like when you’re left out of the loop,” he said. “It feels like shit, right?”
It dawned on me all at once that Barry was not the person I should be talking about keeping secrets with.
“Oh.”
Barry repeated the noise and nodded at me finally getting it.
I thought about sliding past him, pushing him so that I might be out of the bathroom and have a modicum of space away from his interrogating and indignant eyes.
He moved before I could, pushing off the door frame and stalking across the living room.
His back was to me, his shoulders tensed when I followed.
“Wait,” I started, but I had no idea how I’d continue.
“Hannah—” Barry cut himself off and took a breath. “Would you ever have told me?”
I took a halting breath and then released it.
I couldn’t say yes, but I wanted to. I wanted to lie, say that I had been about to tell him, that I’d been gathering the courage to call him that very week when he found me asleep at the practice facility.
He wanted me to say that, I could tell. He wanted to know that he was someone I would have told, and I was someone that would tell.
Maybe if I lied, he’d stop looking at me like I was a sad thing he didn’t know how to trust, like I was just as selfish as he’d guessed.
“No really, how old would she have been when I found out? When she graduated preschool? College?” His voice was thin, not yelling, but worse: exasperated.
He sounded tired and sad, and it might have been easier if he was just angry.
“In thirty years, would I get one of those DNA kits and find out that my daughter had been living forty minutes away with two kids of her own?”
I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t look at him either. I couldn’t.
“I wasn’t going to come in so early that day,” Barry said. “When I ran into you, I didn’t need to be there. I thought about stopping for breakfast first or sleeping in another hour. It fucking—”
Barry broke off. The couch groaned as he sat down on it, then the floor when he stood back up. The heater clicked on, sounding through the vents as dusty warm air started blowing from the grate in the living room.
“Your family is so good, Hannah. They’re welcoming and they’re so thrilled about this baby, it’s impossible not to feel excited around them.
” I peeked up at his face and forced myself not to look away.
“It haunts me that if I’d slept in that morning, I still wouldn’t know. Because I wouldn’t, would I?”
After a few moments of sustained, painful eye contact, I shook my head. Junior brushed against my ankles, then sauntered across the room to do the same to Barry.
“Right,” Barry said.
He picked up his shirt and walked right past me to the basement door, closing it behind him.
Junior’s meow pulled me from staring at it.
I could only curse and retreat to my room, crawling beneath the comforter and tossing from one side to the other trying to get comfortable.
I listened for his creaking steps through the house, but Barry didn’t come back upstairs before I fell asleep, hating myself more than I had in some time.