OCR Text |
Show Motherlunge a novel 161 rapped my knuckles on the table for emphasis-"She has Xavier." He still can't believe it, even after three months: he's a father. "My little baby." "My little baby," I repeated softly for some reason. "Uruguay." Jack let go of my hand. "Pavia's always said that it was me..." His eyes flickered over mine. ".. .That I'm the dad." The statement curled up like a fallen question mark, a hook at the end. "Yeah, she has." I looked over at the door to the bar; it kept opening with a squeak, then banging shut. It was happy hour. A sign behind the bar said Lady's drink free on Wednesday! I thought: in a world full of misplaced apostrophes, you might as well let people make their own mistakes. So I waited and waited, not looking at Jack or saying anything more while he considered his paternity and his wife. He was moving his plastic cup around on the table as if searching for the right spot for it, and he was likely arriving at the wrong conclusion-about Pavia, I mean, not the cup. "And I should keep my expectations low?" His chin jutted out as he looked down at the table. He laughed in a small, joyless way that slightly offended me: that was my laugh he was using. "What fucking expectations?" he said next. "I don't know what the hell Pavia's doing. I doubt she does, either." Under the table, my toes tapped involuntarily due to Irish music and the need to pee. "But like you say, it's been ten months of separation," I said. I grabbed my plastic cup and squeezed it. "Not so much clarity yet" "I have a clear schedule with him-with Xavier. But no fucking idea where our marriage is heading." |