Jess still has some of Mari's poems, pressed in the back of a journal that nobody knows about. She was good, always has been good, still is good, probably, not that Jess wants to know for sure. Chris told him that she got picked up by a publishing house in Canada, which is apparently where she lives now. Jess doesn't care. He doesn't.
"You should've told me sooner, man," Chris says, lying on his stomach in front of Willa's playpen. He's got his mp3 player out, playing but turned down, on a mission to indoctrinate Jess' kid into liking prog rock. Willa usually reacts by trying to chew on the headphones. "I wouldn't have made you handle her press if I'd known."
"You were busy," Jess says.
"Not that busy," Chris says. Willa throws her stuffed owl on the ground and Chris patiently picks it back up again for her. "I can't believe she'd do something like this. It's fuckin' wild."
"She's married, what'd you expect her to do?"
"Maybe not this," Chris says.
"I'm fine," Jess says.
"Sure you are," Chris says, rolling his eyes. "Not like you were in love with her or anything. Jesus."
Jess seriously wasn't. "Quit cursing in front of my kid."
"Oh, please," Chris says, rolling his eyes. "You use 'fuck' as a pause filler, Jess. Make it easy on yourself and don't try to be that kind of dad."
Jess sighs, and throws aside the pile of copy he's currently not editing. "Fine. I didn't want to get you involved, okay? That's the truth. You had enough on your plate and it was my problem."
"No, that's your problem," Chris says, "right there. Your heroic flaw, in three sentences."
"Fuck off," Jess says.
"I'm serious. I'm your friend, man. We're in business together. If nothing else, I deserved to know that you were messing around with one of our authors."
Jess winces. "Well, there's a point," he concedes.
"Not to mention the whole baby thing," Chris finishes nonchalantly, and smiles as he picks up Willa's stuffed owl for her one more time. "She's gorgeous, though. Honestly."
"I know," Jess says. She's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Another truth.
"She just gave you full custody," Chris says searchingly. "Just like that."
"She put her husband's name on the birth certificate," Jess says, grinding the words out as evenly as he can. "It's a whole…" he waves a hand. "I gotta go to court for it. But yeah, she wants me to have her."
"She let you name her," Chris says. "She let you name her, but she told you the baby was his?"
"I didn't name her, I just, I suggested the name, and Mari - " Jess shrugs. "I don't know. I don't know, okay?"
"That's so fucked up, man," Chris says. "That's just, that's so fucked up."
"I know," Jess says.
"She's just gonna - she's just gonna walk away. Just like that."
"She's in love with her fucking husband, okay," Jess snaps. "Can we not - "
Willa starts to cry, annoyed that Chris has fallen down on the picking-up-the-owl job. Chris startles, and looks up at Jess with wide, terrified eyes.
"You're such a candy-ass," Jess grouses, and rises from the desk to come pick her up.
"I didn't mean to make her upset!" Chris scoots up on his knees. "I'm bad with kids."
"She's not upset, she just doesn't like you," Jess says, bouncing her. "C'mon Willa, you're freaking Chris out. You're fine, you're good. That's it." Willa calms down almost abruptly, rubbing her face in Jess' shirt. "Such a princess, yeah? I'll tell you what."
Chris hands him the owl, still looking mildly freaked out. "This is so weird," he says. "You being a dad, doing dad stuff. There's child locks on your fucking fridge, man."
"Luke did that," Jess says, rolling his eyes. "They put all kinds of plastic shit on everything. I can't use my own power outlets."
Chris just shakes his head, incredulous. "She's really," he says, pausing. "Yeah. She's real."
"Yeah," Jess says, rubbing Willa's back. She tugs weakly at his collar, drooling on his arm.
"I'm sorry about Mari."
"It's fine," Jess says.
"Sure," Chris says, nodding. "I'm still sorry."
She used to sit right there where Chris is sitting, cross legged on the floor with a glass of wine in her hand. Jess remembers giving her shit about her toenails, which were painted a glittery pink. She wrote him poems on the backs of napkins, and hid them all over the apartment so he wouldn't find them until after she was gone. It was a mistake, such a mistake. She didn't cry, the day Jess came to pick up Willa. She didn't even look at the baby, she only looked at Jess.
"Her husband threatened to sue me," Jess says, and Chris laughs, shaking his head.
"Fuck that guy," Chris says. "Never liked him."
"They had some nanny taking care of her," Jess tells him. "She cried all the time, man. Every time I was there, she was always crying. I never once saw Mari pick her up or, fuck, do anything."
"I'm sorry," Chris says again, somberly. Willa makes a soft noise against Jess' neck, and Jess realizes how tight he's holding her. He makes himself loosen his grip.
"It's fine," he says.
Chris stands up, shaking the owl gently at Willa, who blinks at him disinterestedly. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, you guys'll be fine."
Jess bounces a little, just enough to shake Willa out of her sleepy stupor. "No naps," he tells her sternly. "We're sleeping through the night tonight."
Willa gives a loud, dismissive cry, her opinion on that bit of wishful thinking very clear.
"Hey," Chris says, grinning. "Can I be the godfather?"
"Fuck no," Jess says.