Chapter Ten

When the plates were cleared to the sink and nothing but a bottle of wine sat on the table between them, Eric said, "Something kind of unexpected happened to me today."

"Really?" This might be a good segue into the sudden appearance of her son. "Me too. You first."

"You know how I had a girlfriend before I met you?"

"You mean a fiancé? Cindy?"

"Yeah. Anyway, she sent me a friend request on Facebook today." Eric had mocked Facebook for years, but when they moved to Philadelphia, he finally opened an account. He thought it might help him keep up with Julie and with his boys from Texas.

"Really? And did you accept?"

"I figured I'd better ask how you felt first."

"Do you want to accept? I mean, she did rip out your heart, throw it on the ground, and disappear without another word."

"I know. But I'm kind of curious what happened to her. "

"Did you look at her profile?"

"What I could see of it without accepting her request. She's a graduate of Oklahoma University, with a B.A. is in accounting. She works at some CPA firm in Pittsburgh – "

"- That's nearby," Tami said, suddenly feeling a little less casual about the whole thing.

"And she's divorced."

"Surprise, surprise."

"So, are you okay if I accept?"

"Why wouldn't I be okay? I'm not the jealous type, Eric."

He reached for the wine bottle and refilled their glasses.

"Your Facebook password," she asked, "it's still Julie47, right?"

He chuckled and she smiled.

"So," he asked leaning back in his chair. "What's your unexpected thing? "

[FNL]

"Listen," seventeen-year-old Tami said, shattering the silence between them, "I don't know why I told you. No one in this town knows except my Uncle Raymond. I came here to get a new start, and I got one. So please don't tell anybody."

"I promise. I won't."

"Thanks." She pulled her knees up against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The moon was huge tonight, a giant, irregular ball in the sky. It was worth remarking on, but they weren't having a friendly conversation. "I guess you want to get going now," she said.

He didn't leave. He began rocking again. A minute of silence past, and he said, "You're a very honest sort of person."

She turned her head to look at him.

He bent the tab of his beer can back and forth. "Cindy…I never had any idea what she was thinking. I thought I did, but clearly I didn't. She kept all sorts of things from me. How she was feeling. What she wanted. So it was just so sudden, you know?" The tab broke off. He pushed it inside the can. "I feel like you wouldn't do that to a guy."

Why was he complimenting her? Hadn't he just heard what she said? "I had a baby," she reminded him. "I was sixteen. I put it up for adoption."

"It would have been easier for you to abort it, wouldn't it?"

"I tried. It wasn't easier. I walked out."

"It took a lot of courage, what you did." He turned his eyes toward her now. They were soft, slightly damp pools of a dozen colors in the glow of the porch light. "Cindy and I waited a while. We dated our whole sophomore year first, but we were still only sixteen, the first time we did it."

They really had been together for a long time, Tami thought. What must it be like, to have one girlfriend for years, to be ready to marry her, and then just have her walk away?

"I don't know what I'd of done," he continued, "at sixteen, If she'd gotten pregnant. I mean, I'd of stepped up, but I don't know how I'd of done it. What did your boyfriend do? The one who got you pregnant?"

"He wasn't even really my boyfriend." Tami felt like the word "slut" was emblazoned across her chest as she admitted these things to him. "I knew him from around school, but we weren't close or anything. We made out at the party, and he kind of ushered me into one of the bedrooms, and he was two years older, and I didn't want him to think I was totally inexperienced. I wanted to impress him. I wanted him to like me. I was a fool. I thought it meant something. But the next day he just acted like nothing happened. Like he didn't even know me."

"Asshole," Eric muttered. "But you told him, right?"

"Yeah, I told him. He said it wasn't his, but it had to be. I was a virgin. My first time and I got pregnant. What are the odds?"

"Didn't you use something?"

"I was stupid. He promised me he'd pull out."

"So," Eric asked, "did you get a paternity test?"

"No. He offered me money for an abortion, and I took it. When I decided not to have the abortion I told him, and he said he'd done his part, that I was on my own. We never spoke again after that."

"How did your mom take it?"

Tami slid her legs down and rested her feet on the porch again. "Better than I expected, actually."

"My dad would have slapped me six ways to Sunday. I mean…if I'd of gotten a girl pregnant."

"Wish his dad felt that way."

They were quiet for a while. "Want another beer?" she asked.

He answered in the affirmative, so she went to retrieve one. When she rejoined him on the porch, he was leaning over the railing. "Some moon," he said as he turned to receive the beer. He cracked it open and leaned back against the rail. She hoisted herself up and sat on the railing beside him. "So…you don't despise me?" she asked. "You know, you saying it would be irresponsible and all that?"

"Well, it was irresponsible," he said. "Having sex with some guy you hardly knew, not using any protection. But I think you know that."

She bit her bottom lip. "Yeah," she muttered.

"But no, of course I don't despise you. You…you're a tough girl, Tami Hayes. And a smart one too. And sweet."

She groaned.

"What?"

"I don't want to be sweet."

"Why? It's hard to be both tough and sweet at the same time. And the world could use a little more sweetness. God knows I could." He put his beer down on the railing and turned to face her. He put a hand on either side of her legs against the railing, so that his body was almost touching hers. "Did I completely blow my chance?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"The other night? When you kissed me."

Her cheeks warmed with the memory of that humiliation. But when she realized what he was asking, she smiled. "Not completely."

"I just wasn't expecting it. And I wasn't quite ready to move on."

"But a week later and you are?" A week later and after finding out she was stupid enough to get herself knocked up? "I'm not easy you know, if that's why you're suddenly interested. I'm not that person anymore. I know who I am now."

"You found yourself."

She laughed a little. Then she felt bad, remembering what Uncle Raymond had told her, that Cindy told Eric she was leaving him to find herself. "Yeah," she said. "I have. I know what I want now."

"What's that?" he asked.

"A college education. A career of some kind. Self-respect. And…" She looked him straight in the eyes and took the risk. "Someone like you."

That was when he kissed her.

It was a little like a fairy tale, that kiss. Tami didn't think she could ever forget that sensation, but she did forget it. And forgetting was fine, because what eclipsed it was over twenty years of loving Eric Taylor, thousands of other kisses, nights of passionate sex and nights of tender sex, nights of simply fooling around, laughter and tears, a hundred fights and two children.

Two children, together.

And the one child, somewhere, she'd given birth to alone.