Twenty-Nine
Five orgasms later (Tilly: three, Nate: two—those were my kind of stats!), I was in a postcoital love fog, floating on a mattress
cloud, anxieties annihilated by the cocktail of dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin sloshing in my brain. With my head on Nate’s
chest, his fingers twirling a lock of my hair, my loved-up hormones told me the ultimate lie—nothing bad could happen if I
trusted him.
“I have something to tell you,” I said. I’d begin at the beginning, only leaving out Layna’s assistance. He would take care
of me. He would get me out of this disastrous mess.
“All ears,” he said. “But hang tight.” He threw back the covers and sat up. That’s when I saw it, glowing in the moonlight.
A birthmark on his lower back. An all-natural Florida tramp stamp. A perfect copy of Phoebe’s. Or hers was the copy.
It was like being slapped across the face with a dirty dish towel.
Because I suddenly understood why I’d felt such an instant connection.
As if I’d known Nate forever.
He’d donated sperm in Boise.
I’d received donor sperm in Boise.
Now I knew why his every gesture seemed familiar! When we’d gotten ice cream, the girls had shown Nate their double-jointed
elbows, their ability to fold their tongues into that weird cloverleaf shape. Only he could bend his elbows back and fold
up his tongue like origami too—because those were genetic anomalies they’d inherited from him!
As Nate padded—clueless and happy—to the bathroom, I curled up into a literal ball of shock.
The sperm I’d gotten had been from an eighteen-year-old donor.
That was eight years ago, so I’d assumed the donor would now be twenty-six.
Nate was at least forty-five. That math didn’t add up.
But he’d been a freshman at Boise State when he sold his sperm.
It could have sat in a freezer for twenty-something years before being released to me.
A gargling moan escaped me.
“You okay?” Nate called from the bathroom. The toilet flushed.
No biggie. Just realizing you’re probably the father of my children. “Fine!” I squeaked.
I’d been fifteen when I stared across the syrup-sticky Kansas City diner booth at my bio dad for the first time. A year before,
I’d developed an overpowering urge to meet him. It didn’t come from a dissatisfaction with my mother—even during my resentful
teenage years, I still deep down knew she was the greatest. It was more of a pressing need to solve the mystery of who I was
and why. I had my mother’s sense of humor and limp hair, but I wanted to meet the man who’d bequeathed me my flat feet and
strange cravings for Sun Chips with cottage cheese.
In that diner booth, I’d studied my father’s graying hair and puffy neck. The red veins that crisscrossed his nose and cheeks,
alarming as cracking glass. What had I expected? That he’d be handsome and fascinated by me. That he’d ask me about my friends
and interests. That he’d want me to explain how Alanis Morissette’s music was actually more important than grunge, but when
looked at critically, could also be considered an attempt to cash in on the riot grrrl movement’s revolutionary sentiments.
That he would gaze at me admiringly and say, “You are so hip and smart—just like I imagined.”
But after a perfunctory, “You’re pretty like your mother,” he’d ordered the meat lover’s breakfast plate for both of us—not
even bothering to learn I was in my vegetarian phase—and proceeded to natter on about an import business scheme he was trying
to get off the ground.
“You probably haven’t heard about it yet because you live in Boise, but button-up shirts worn backwards are about to be big,” he’d said, using his toast as a sponge for his revoltingly runny egg yolk.
“My company’ll sell men’s dress shirts designed to fit perfectly when you wear ’em backwards.
” He leaned forward as if to impart an insider trading secret. “It’s a style that’s gonna be huge.”
The year before, a hip-hop duo had had one irresistible top-of-the-charts banger. They’d done it while wearing their dads’
dress shirts backward. For about a month, tween boys across the land had copied them. Like a defective firework, the fad had
never fully popped off. Yet my biological father was pontificating on this “future” trend as if he was Sir Mix-a-Lot predicting
the comeback of the big booty.
By the time he’d paid the check, my dad had asked me exactly two questions about myself. “You freeze your ass off up in Boise?”
and “You get along with your mother?” When we left the restaurant, he didn’t even offer to walk me to the motel where my mother
waited to console me.
When I burst into our motel room, I wailed, “How could you let a man like that get you pregnant?”
She’d hugged me, her familiar smell of menthol Virginia Slims a comfort. “Oh honey,” she said. “Hot young men with swagger
sometimes turn into middle-aged blowhards.”
Now a gush of water hit the bathroom sink. Nate. If he was the twins’ sperm donor, they would never suffer the disillusionment
I’d felt when I encountered my bio dad in the flesh. They already adored him.
My thoughts picked up speed like a skateboarder bombing down Fuller Avenue toward Hollywood Boulevard. Was it possible Nate
knew he was the twins’ dad? I dismissed the idea instantly. He wasn’t a psycho—if he was their father and knew it, he wouldn’t
keep it a secret from me.
If I told Nate what I suspected, he might react badly.
And if he discovered I’d committed multiple felonies, he could actually want to have some say in Phoebe and Alice’s lives.
Then again, what self-respecting bachelor would want custody of seven-year-old twins?
But if Lucia (aka Principal Cruz) found out what I’d been up to of late, she might want to take the kids.
Ever since I first saw those two heartbeats on the sonogram monitor, I’d called every shot with regards to the twins. Breastfeeding
or formula? Co-sleeping or no? How much screen time was too much screen time? My own mother had provided input, but ultimately
every choice had been mine alone. Every time I heard a nightmarish co-parenting story from a divorced friend, I’d felt grateful
not to have to compromise. I was an imperfect parent, but I knew what was best for my girls. I wasn’t about to give that up—no
matter what else I had to relinquish.
Nate stepped out of the bathroom, naked and painfully beautiful in the dim light. He was smiling, hair tousled, eyes dreamy.
“Now,” he said, “what did you want to tell me?”
I sat up, grabbing frantically for his clothes. “You have to leave,” I said.
His face fell as I tossed him his jeans. “I thought we were—?”
I scrambled to explain my sudden vibe shift. “I don’t want the twins to see you when they get up.”
“Could we talk for a minute?” he said. “Before I go?”
His bewildered expression ripped my heart from my chest. I wanted to tell him being with him was better than rollerblading
on the Venice Beach Boardwalk, or laughing on a patio in the sun with friends, or even crushing a stand-up set. But sometimes
the hardest thing is the necessary thing. To protect my kids, I could lift a car. I could move to my hometown and work a job
I absolutely hated. I could push away the sexiest, sweetest man I’d ever been with.
“Alice wakes up at two every morning from a nightmare where SpongeBob is stranded on land and is drying out. So I need you
out of here,” I said. “You understand.”