Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [119]
Now both his eyes were open. “What?”
“Well, a stepfather. A step-boyfriend-father.” The whiskey had made me merry, like one of those laughing girls I’d always watched with my mouth pressed in a disapproving line. Who knew it was this easy, to find a new personality in a bottle?
“Wait. Wait.” He was blinking at me, holding the sheets to his chest. “Slow down for a minute here.”
I perched on the bed in my underpants, legs tucked underneath me and tilted coquettishly to the side.
“Look,” he said, sitting up and holding me by the shoulders. “I like you, Tina. I like you a lot. But . . . I mean, the thing is...”
I jumped off the bed before he could say any more, before he could elucidate the reasons he didn’t want me. I scooped up whatever clothes I saw on the floor, feeling dizzy as I bent over, and hurried into the bathroom. Wrong, I thought. I’d been right about India, but I’d been wrong about him.
A second later, he was banging on the door. “Hey, Bettina. Can we talk about this?”
I decided that we couldn’t . . . because, really, what was there to say? “I need to go.” I combed my fingers through my hair, washed my hands and face, rinsed my mouth with water, and opened the door, pushing past him to where I’d left my shoes. Darren had pulled on his boxer shorts. His hair stood up in spikes, and his face still had that tender look without his glasses. He touched my cheek, then my hair. “Stay with me.”
Are you my boyfriend? I wanted to ask . . . but the words reminded me of a book I’d read when I was little. Are you my mother? The mess of my life came crashing down, leaving me breathless. My father was dead, my mother was gone, and I was responsible for a baby who wasn’t mine. It seemed, in that moment, more than I could bear, more than anyone should have to.
I pressed my lips against his shoulder. “I need to go.” I kissed his cheek, then the corner of his mouth, thinking that he wouldn’t try to keep me, so I was surprised when he took my shoulders and held me motionless in front of him.
“Hey. Listen.” He paused, scratching at the top of his head. “I don’t know if I like babies. I’ve never really thought about it. I wasn’t expecting to have to think about it for a while, you know?”
I nodded. I knew.
“But, the thing is, I like you. I like you a lot.” My heart was rising, rising. I wanted to jump in the air, or into his arms again. “It’s like, if I found out you had, I don’t know, herpes or something.”
My heart stopped rising. My mouth fell open. “Are you actually equating my half sister with a venereal disease?” I asked.
Darren picked up his glasses off the coffee table, put them on, and looked at me defiantly. “You know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do.”
“It’s like...” He scratched at his head some more, thinking. “A preexisting condition,” he finally said. “I’ll deal with it. Whatever it is.” He opened his arms. “Now come to papa.”
And, almost in spite of myself, I went.
INDIA
When I was seventeen, my junior year of high school, my grandfather had a stroke that left him paralyzed on his left side.
My yaya tried to find the right kind of facility, a place with round-the-clock nurses and physical therapy, and aides who could help lift my grandfather from his bed to his wheelchair, then from the chair to the toilet or the shower. But insurance only paid for six months at a place like that. When the time was up, my grandfather came home, where he’d fly into rages, face red, spittle in the corners of his lips, glaring at my grandmother in frustration, or in tears. Why can’t, why can’t, was the phrase he’d repeat over and over, as she’d tell him, in Greek and in English, Vassily, calm down! He couldn’t be left alone: unattended, he’d throw things, start fires when he turned on the stove and then forgot about it.
For six weeks we managed. In the mornings, we’d work together to get him to the bathroom, shaved and dressed and into his chair. My grandmother would stay with him while I was at school. I turned down my starring role in the drama club’s fall musical so I could