Ribbons/Hair/Never/There

by Heidi Patacki

Helga and Arnold meet at Eugene's wedding, ten years after the cruel circumstances that split them apart. Helga reveals a secret, and its not what you may think.

8. You'll Never Know

---

A/N: Sorry it's taken me so long to update, but I am now determined to finish this story. Thanks to everyone who has encouraged me to do so. To make up for the long wait, this chapter is 25 pages long, and full of the juicy twists I had planned. I hope you'll enjoy. :)

8. You'll/Never/Know

I rubbed my eyes, sitting up in bed. I thought, maybe if I brushed away the sleep there, I could make my vision of Ruth disappear. But when I took my hands away there she was, still standing in the middle of my room, wearing a slinky skirt, a tank top, and an evil smile.

" What . . ." was all I could say. I prayed I was having a nightmare. I hadn't seen Ruth since I'd stumbled out of her house the night before I asked Helga to marry me, and her reappearance could only mean disaster.

" Arnold," she said with a grin, walking slowly toward me. "Your grandfather just said the funniest thing to me, when I showed up at your doorstep . . ."

" You can't be here," I said, remembering Helga's promise to come over early, to join me in bed before we left to go have a look at her sonogram.

" It seemed as if he was expecting me!" she said with a laugh, putting a hand on her hip. "He welcomed me right in –"

" Ruth, you've got to leave!" I said, standing, angrier now. I was wearing only the boxer shorts I had fallen asleep in, and I watched Ruth survey by body.

" He asked me how the baby was doing," she said absently, looking at my bare chest. She flicked her eyes up to mine, and I felt an icy crush inside my stomach, the floor dropping from beneath me. I had told Grandpa, who always got up at dawn, not to be surprised if my new wife came to the door. He hadn't seen Helga in years, and his memory was not exactly a bear trap. He had mistaken Ruth, who, for some ungodly reason, had shown up at the boarding house, for Helga.

" Ruth, you've got to go," I said, walking to my bedroom door and holding it open for her, my breathing quickening as I realized how badly this could go. She walked toward me, but instead of sliding out of the room she slammed a palm against the door and pushed it shut, pressing herself to me as she did, my back against the door.

" I'll admit I was caught quite off guard," Ruth mused, as if we were having a casual conversation. She ran a finger along the outside of my ear, and I jerked my head away from her touch.

" Get off of me," I said, gritting my teeth.

" My baby?" she continued, ignoring my protests, her eyes on my shoulder. "My baby is gone, has been for a long time." She jerked her eyes up to mine, and I swallowed. I wanted to rail against her, but suddenly it all fell onto me – how much pain this girl who had me imprisoned under her grip was in. She had mentioned, when I told her Helga was pregnant, that she had gotten "the operation" when under the same circumstances.

She smiled at me – a sick sort of false expression.

" It was fun, though," she said softly. "I got to play the damsel in distress, right? I answered him, 'Fine.' My baby's fine. He hugged me! He told me how happy he was that I was a part of the family now!" She laughed out loud, a sort of cold cackle that made my skin prickle with goosebumps.

" Ruth—"

" Arnold, dear, have you gone and gotten married?" she asked, lifting my hand and searching for a ring.

" Ruth, what do you care?" I asked, sliding away from her. "What happened between us, it wasn't . . ."

" Real?" she said, lifting her eyes to mine. I watched them go from a creepy imitation of mirth to stone cold loathing, and pressed my back closer to the door. I saw how much I had hurt her, and it made me feel like horrible, but at the same time, I was afraid for my life.

" I'm sorry if I –"I began, but before I could finish she had whipped her tank top off over her head. She was bra-less beneath it, and she pressed her bare chest to mine, grasping desperately at my shoulders.

" Maybe if you can make me pregnant, too," she said, a wildness in her voice that I didn't know how to respond to, "Maybe it will be okay." Her bottom lip started to quiver. "Can you make things okay again, Arnold?" she asked, her voice shaking. "Can you save me, too?"

" Ruth . . ." I said, my heart breaking for her. She crumbled against me, sinking to the floor, crying. I realized that she probably hadn't even come to the door – Grandpa must have seen her when he was picking up the morning newspaper: Ruth, haunting the sidewalk outside, staring up at the house. He would have taken her for Helga, invited her in – Ruth got a first-rate tour of the life the Other Girl got to have.

Ruth had played the game of not caring so well that I had eaten in right up. I had been so wrapped up in Helga that I didn't even realize I was breaking Ruth's heart all the while. I thought of her alone all day in that giant penthouse, sitting and waiting for me to call and tell her she was right. That I couldn't do it with Helga, I couldn't be the good guy and plug it out until the end. That there were no happy endings, only girls left alone to do what they had to do, like she had been.

I put my arms around her fragile shoulders and let her weep against me, there on the floor.

" I'm sorry," I chanted again and again. "I'm so sorry, Ruth."

I sighed and looked around the room for the clock – Helga would be coming soon, and I still had to get Ruth out of there before she arrived. I opened my mouth to ask her if there were any family members or friends I could call for her, someone to pick her up and stay with her, tell her it was going to be okay. I had already made that promise to someone else, and I wouldn't be presumptuous enough to promise the same for Ruth.

That was when I saw it – a face in my window. Looking in from my fire escape was a pair of blue eyes framed by blonde hair – one I had known since I was a little boy. Now the face of my wife – Helga's face.

So she had come to the window after all.

" Wait," I said without thinking, under my breath, too softly to be heard. Ruth, oblivious, sighed against my shoulder. Helga's face disappeared.

" Wait!" I called, louder now, letting Ruth fall from my arms, standing and running to the window. When I reached it I threw it open, and saw Helga climbing frantically down the ladder that led up to the fire escape.

" Helga, stop!" I said, throwing one leg out of the window, onto the fire escape. I could hear her crying as she reached the alley below, and she set off running without a word.

" Stop!" I cried, starting down the ladder. My head was spinning. I could explain. It wasn't what it looked like. But it had looked so perfect. Ruth and I, both half-dressed, holding each other in my room.

At the thought of what Helga saw, of how completely destroyed this one image would leave her, I lost my head and missed a rung on the ladder. I tried to grab onto it again as I fell backwards, but my hands were shaking too violently.

I heard Ruth, who was now watching from the open window above, scream as I fell toward the alley.

And then I felt the concrete meet my skull, and it was all wiped away.

---

When I opened my eyes a bright light was shining into them. I blinked it away, groaning at a sudden pain that spread from the back of my head all the way down my spine.

" He's awake!" an unfamiliar voice called, and the light snapped off. For a few moments longer, I still couldn't see, but pretty soon my grandfather's smiling face came into focus.

" You okay, short man?" he asked.

" He'll be fine," the man with the light answered, standing. I realized slowly that he was a paramedic. Things came rushing back to me – the fire escape, Helga. I cast my eyes around the room and saw Ruth, fully dressed now, standing with a cup of tea and a distraught look on her usually confident face.

" Helga," I muttered, trying to sit up, a blinding pain in my neck forcing me back down again. I groaned, pinching my eyes shut.

" He'll be sore for a little while – he fell almost eight feet," the paramedic said, packing up his bag. "Keep him still for the rest of the day, and if the pain persists you can bring him into the hospital –"

He broke off when he saw me trying, in great discomfort, to sit up again.

" Hold it there, cowboy!" he said accusingly, and I glared at him and let my head drop back down onto the couch.

" There's something I have to do," I muttered, everything still a bit fuzzy.

" Well, it'll have to wait," the paramedic said. "No activity today, do you understand?"

I said nothing. I knew there was no use arguing with him – I would have to wait until he left. I shut my eyes and thought of Helga – God, where was she? I knew I had to get to her, and fast, if I had any chance of explaining what she had seen.

After the paramedics left, I looked up to see Grandpa and Ruth peering curiously down at me.

" Now that we know you're okay, short man," Grandpa said, looking from me to Ruth. "Would one of you kids mind explaining to me what in the sam hell's going on here?"

" I lied," Ruth said quickly, letting out a ragged sigh. "I – I'm not who you thought I was." Grandpa nodded, and looked down at me.

" I married Helga, Grandpa," I said. "Helga, remember? The girl with the pigtails?"

He scratched his head.

" The unibrow," Ruth offered dryly.

" Ah, yes!" Grandpa said, a light bulb flicking on. "Interesting . . . choice, Arnold!"

I rolled my eyes. "She doesn't have a unibrow anymore," I snapped, again trying to sit up.

" Whoa, where ya going there, pal?" Grandpa asked, gently pushing me back down. "You heard the doctor. And I still don't understand why this young lady had me believing she was the one you married." He glanced at Ruth.

" I – I didn't know what I was saying," Ruth quickly explained. " I was upset. And – this is all my fault . . . I shouldn't have come here." She looked at me.

" I'm sorry," was all I could say to her. She nodded somberly and picked up her purse, which was sitting on the coffee table by the couch. She leaned over me and kissed my forehead, looking into my eyes.

" Forget it," she said sadly. "Its not your fault." With that, she straightened, nodding with a sheen of embarrassment to my grandfather, and went out the door without looking back.

It was the last time I ever saw her.

When Ruth left, Grandpa sat down on the coffee table and sighed.

" I'm still confused," he said. "Am I having a senior moment, or does none of this make any sense?"

" Second option," I groaned, staring at the ceiling. I felt like my life was ending and there was nothing I could do about it. My head was pounding.

" But – you are really married, aren't you?" he asked. I nodded as best I could with my minor head injury.

" I don't know for how long, though," I mumbled, trying to sit up again.

" Cut that out, short man!" Grandpa said, standing. "No moving, remember?"

" I have to!" I shouted, loosing my patience. "Helga saw me with Ruth. She thinks – I had something going on – with her."

" Oh boy," Grandpa said, putting his palm to his forehead. "You didn't, though, right?"

" Not . . . really," I muttered. "Not since I was married, anyway!"

" Cripes, Arnold!" Grandpa exclaimed. "I never realized your life was so complex!"

" Anyway, I have to go explain to Helga that all of this is just a big mistake, a misunderstanding," I said, sitting up again, and this time making it up onto my elbows.

" Can't you just give her a phone call?" Grandpa pleaded, nervously watching my struggle to sit up straight.

" No, I've got to see her," I said, feeling a desperate need inside of me grow stronger once I said it out loud. I HAD to see her. Immediately. With this in mind, I swung my legs over the couch, gritting my teeth and trying to ignore the accompanying pain.

" I don't know, Arnold," Grandpa said, watching me. "Maybe she just needs some time to cool her heels before you talk?"

" You don't know Helga," I mumbled, imagining all the walls I'd slowly broken down throughout the summer being bricked over again. Every minute that passed without an explanation felt like another piece of her heart that I was tearing out – I had to see her as soon as possible.

When I was finally able to stand, Grandpa helped me to the door.

" I'll get the car," he said.

" No," I said. "I'll walk. I – I have to go alone."

Grandpa chewed his lip, watching me go for the doorknob. A sudden sadness seemed to sweep over him, and I realized that he was thinking of his son, my father, going out this same door, in a hurray and on his way to right a crisis. My eyes went to the spot on the floor where I had sat, three years old, watching them go, too.

" I'll be back," I assured him, and he offered me a half-smile.

" Good luck, short man," he said.

---

As I jogged down the sidewalk toward Helga's house, the pain in my head and neck grew stronger. I winced with every step, my back aching and my head pounding from the impact. But I kept moving, the sun beating down on me as I went. We could still make it to our sonogram appointment if we hurray, I thought, a bit of insanity setting in over the pain and confusion of the day.

When I reached Helga's brownstone I was sweating, short of breath, and desperate to lay eyes on her. If we can just look each other straight in the eye, I thought, she'll know I'm telling her the truth when I let her know everything with Ruth and I is long over.

But I couldn't completely believe that. My hand was trembling as I reached out to knock on her door – I was terrified of the wrath she would unleash. I couldn't even imagine how much seeing me with Ruth had hurt her.

I knocked.

There was no answer, but I could hear movement inside the house. A woman's whispered voice – heavy footsteps on a wooden floor. I swallowed my fear, and knocked again.

I'll set this all right, I told myself, my heart hammering. She'll believe me. She loves me – she'll believe me.

But even as I told myself this, I felt guilty. It was my fault Ruth had shown up at the house that morning – I had been careless with her. When had I become so careless? Careless enough to get Helga pregnant. To break Ruth's heart, and to somehow have the two pitted against each other, both believing I was in love with the other.

My grandfather wasn't the only one who hadn't realized before that my life was so complex. But I told myself this was all behind me, I would fix things with Helga and we would move on happily and look back on this and laugh. That is, we would if she ever opened the door.

" Helga?" I called inside. I heard something drop to the floor – sounded like a glass tumbler. A woman cursed. "Hello?" I called. I knocked again. I waited. Nothing.

I ran around to the side of the building, but the ladder on Helga's fire escape had been pulled up. Jogging back around to the front, I felt a sudden surge that I couldn't push away. This was my life, slipping quickly away from me. These were the minutes that were making every difference. I knew it then, somehow – this day would change the rest of my life, one way or another. I jogged up to the door and pounded loudly on it.

" Helga, I know you're in there!" I shouted. "Please, you've got to open the door! Please, Helga, let me explain! It was nothing – I know how it looked, but Ruth was – Oh, Helga, just let me in and I'll tell you!" I gave the door a few more pounds and waited.

My cries were only met with silence. I felt a quavering in my chest, and I knew I was going to loose it soon.

" Helga please!" I screamed, now at the top of my lungs. "Don't be stupid, you know I love you, Helga, I love you so much!" I wailed, like a moron, professing my love at the locked door. Neighbors across the street opened their windows to watch the scene I was making. I heard voices inside her house again.

Now shaking, sweating, nearing tears and not caring who saw, I backed up, stumbling down her stoop. I stood at the foot of it, looked up at the house, and screamed as loud as I could:

" HELGA!"

No response. I fell to my knees on the spot. The attending neighbors clapped respectfully at my performance. I started sobbing – how had this happened? How had everything been wrecked so quickly? Why wouldn't she see me?

" Helga, where are you, I love you," I moaned through my tears, the pain of my earlier injury coursing through me and taking what little sense that I had left after all that had happened since the sun had risen over Brooklyn that morning.

Suddenly, I heard the door opening. I gasped in surprise, and my tears halted as I gathered myself to my feet to meet her.

But it wasn't Helga who now watched me from the doorstep. It was her father, Big Bob. I felt myself shrink as he looked down at me, glaring at me with a disdain that made me want to run for my life.

" You," he said through a sneer.

" Please, Mr. Pataki," I said, wiping my eyes, feeling like an idiot. "I need to see your daughter."

" What'are you supposed to be, her husband or something?" he asked with a scoff. "Get lost, you punk scum."

My instincts told me to do whatever this very large man wanted, but I knew I couldn't leave that easily. I had to see her, no matter how much more physical pain I had to withstand in order to make it happen.

" I can't," I said, standing my ground. "I've got to see her, please."

Bob snarled at me.

" You've got some nerve, kid," he said, rolling up his sleeves. " And if you don't get the HELL out of here right now, I'm gonna have to walk down those steps," he said, nodding down at the stoop. "And you're not going to like it, trust me."

" Mr. Pataki, I didn't DO anything, I swear!" I cried, stepping up onto the stoop. He narrowed his eyes at me.

" You except me to believe that, you lousy – after what you did to my kid?!" Big Bob totally lost it, and grabbed for me with a look of fury on his face. But I was too fast for him – I ducked under his tree-trunk arms and made for the open front door. If I could just get up to Helga's room –

But before I could get inside, Bob grabbed me by the waist and started to yank me back.

" That's it!" he roared. "You're dead, you little shit!"

Before he could throw me across the road, I grabbed onto the frame of the door.

" Helga!" I screamed into the house as Bob pulled on my legs, trying to force me out and stretching me into a horizontal line. My back and neck demanded that I give in and just let the man kill me and put them out of their respective misery, but I wouldn't. My hands held fast to the door frame.

" Helga, please!" I yelled inside. My sweaty hands lost their grip on the door and I fell to the floor. Bob spun me onto my back and I winced, and when I opened my eyes his fist was coming down to meet my face. My leg involuntarily and quickly reacted to this, and kicked him in the stomach before he could make contact. I watched Big Bob's eyes cross in pain, and tried to roll away, but he caught me again by the waist.

" Dead!" he kept screaming, now in a mindless fury. "You're dead!"

I was seeing red at this point, my head was in so much pain. I could hear a woman screaming and suddenly realized Miriam, Helga's mother, had joined us on the stoop, and was trying to pull Bob off of me.

" Don't, Bee, don't!" she pleaded with him. "Think of your blood pressure! Your blood pressure!"

While she restrained him I managed to roll down the stoop and onto the sidewalk, out of Bob's grasp.

" Don't you ever, EVER show your face on this stoop again!" Bob was screaming, his face red, the veins in his neck popping. "Or I WILL kill you, you hear? I WILL KILL YOU!"

These were the last words he managed to get out before Miriam shoved him, with all of her might, into the house. When he was inside she leaned against the front door, panting, unmoving, as if her presence there was holding him inside. I could hear things breaking inside the house. Miriam looked down at me – I was slumped in a heap in front of the stoop, struggling to breathe, my right cheek darkening into a bruise.

" Are you," she asked, breathing erratically herself, "That Arnold boy?" She glared at me.

" Yes," I managed to say, weakly, from the sidewalk. I was certain that I was dying, and sure that I deserved it, especially under Miriam's accusing stare.

" Well, I hope you're happy," she sniped at me. "Our little girl's in the hospital because of everything you've done to her!"

I sat up, the pain suddenly snapping away.

" What?" I said, "Helga?"

" Yes, Helga," Miriam spat. "Or can you even keep track of the names of all the girls you're screwing around with?"

I opened my mouth to tell her that she was wrong about me, but before I could she opened the door and disappeared into the house herself.

" Wait!" I screamed, pulling myself up. The shock of the news unable to keep the pain at bay any longer, I felt dizzy when I stood. " What hospital?" I cried. "Which hospital!"

I got no answer, and I was afraid that if I stood there much longer, Bob would either shoot me on the spot or call the police. I wandered down the street, away from Helga's house, in a complete daze. The neighbors, still paying rapt attention, watched me go.

I didn't know where I was going, I just walked. Helga was in the hospital. That meant she had not only been emotionally ruined by everything I had done, something physical had happened to her to.

And if something had happened to Helga, then our baby . . .

I couldn't even finish this thought. My mind returned to the one idea that it could wrap itself around: I had to see her. Find her. I looked around the street, and saw a phone booth up ahead. I walked, zombie-like, until I reached it, and pulled open the door. I shut myself inside – the heat in the little box was unbearable. I listened to myself breathing, to my heart pounding in my ears. My vision was blurry from pain and confusion. Helga was in the hospital.

Focus, I demanded of myself, my hands fumbling for the phone book that was lodged under the receiver. I pulled it out and searched for the numbers of the area hospitals – I forgot my alphabet in the meantime, and when I tried each phone number, I would screw up the sequence of the numbers at least once in my stunned panic.

It only took two phone calls to find the hospital she'd been admitted to: it was one of the two that were closest to our neighborhood, which made sense.

Not that anything made sense, in that moment.

When I found out where she was I raced from the phone booth and ran to the corner, desperate for a taxi. None came, but I did see a familiar old Buick driving toward me. I ran out into the middle of the street, waving my arms, and Gerald slammed on the brakes.

" Arnold, have you lost it, man?" he screamed at me, sticking his head out the window.

" Gerald!" I shouted, running over to the passenger side door and letting myself in. "Drive me to Northside Hospital."

" What?" Gerald asked, still looking at me like I was insane. " What for? Did something . . .," he trailed off, and his face softened.

" Aw, shit, Arnold, your grandfather –"

" No, it's Helga," I spat quickly. "Go, Gerald, now!" I said, getting impatient.

" Helga?" he asked, making a face. "Helga Pataki?"

" GO! NOW!" I screamed, about to lose it.

" Okay, okay!" he said, frowning and turning the car around. As we sped off toward the hospital I started to hyperventilate. I didn't even want to think about the news that was waiting for me at the hospital. I shut my eyes and heard a buzzing sound – my head was still pounding from my fall, and my neck was killing me.

" Dude, are you okay?" Gerald asked. "It looks like someone messed you up pretty bad."

" Big Bob," I muttered, opening my eyes. I could hardly blame him for wanting to kill me. I had hurt Helga – I couldn't even imagine how much she was suffering, not knowing the truth. But what had landed her in the hospital? I sucked in my breath and prayed she hadn't tried to hurt herself.

" Helga's dad?" Gerald asked, speeding out onto the freeway. " Arnold – what's all this about? What happened?"

" Please," I said, swallowing a lump in my throat. "I don't want to talk about it right now."

" Fine," Gerald muttered, sounding a little offended. But, in the moment, I didn't care.

When we pulled up to the hospital I catapulted myself out of Gerald's car before he had even come to a complete stop.

" Whoa!" he shouted, watching me jog for the front doors. "Hold on! Do you want me to wait for you?"

" You don't have to," I called back, as the sliding glass doors opened and I ran inside.

I fell against the front desk, and the two nurses behind it stared at me as I leaned there, gasping for breath and about to pass out from the pain in my head and neck.

" Can I help you?" one of them asked dryly.

" My wife," I said, trying to catch my breath. "My wife was admitted here. I need to see her."

" Your wife's name?" the nurse asked, reaching for a chart.

" Helga Pataki," I said, guilty tears gathering in my eyes as the nurse stared at me. Her dark eyes seemed full of accusation to me. " She's blonde," I said, my voice breaking. "And pregnant," I added, in a tearful whisper.

" And your name?" she asked.

" Arnold," I choked out. "Her husband."

" Uh-huh," she said, handing me a clipboard and a pen. "You'll need to fill out those visitation papers."

" Please, I don't even know what happened to her!" I said, dropping the clipboard on the counter, my hands shaking too hard to grip the pen. "Just let me see her, I need to know if she's okay!"

The nurse opened her mouth to answer me, her expression stern, but then the other nurse, an older woman, stood up behind her.

" I'll take him up, Kelly," she said, giving me a pitying look. " He can fill out the paperwork once he gets up there."

" Fine," the other nurse said with a sigh, falling back into her seat. The older nurse came around the desk and offered me a sympathetic smile.

" She's in room 319," she said. "Right this way."

She led me to a bank of elevators, and we rode up to the third floor. On the way up I started shaking terribly, beads of cold sweat forming on my throbbing forehead.

" Are you alright?" the nurse asked me gently. "Were you in an accident?"

" Yes," I said, my voice unsteady. "It was an accident."

" Maybe we should admit you for a check up," she suggested, as the elevator doors slid open.

" I don't care," I said, barreling out into the hall. "I just need to see her."

I jogged down the white, florescent and linoleum hall, looking at the numbers on the doors. When I came to 319 I found the door open.

I looked inside: Helga was lying on her side in a small, twin bed, facing a window that spilled warm afternoon light onto the blanket that covered her legs and midsection. I let out a sigh of relief. She wasn't hooked up to any machines. She wasn't wearing a cast. She was going to be okay. Now all I had to do was somehow convince her that what she had seen had been a crazy aberration.

" Helga," I said, taking a step into the room. She turned slowly, and when she looked up at me the expression on her face made me take a step back. It wasn't hateful or grief stricken, angry or even disappointed. The look on her face was stone cold indifference. She looked vacant, as if she wasn't even seeing me, but looking through me.

" Helga?" I said again, unsure of how to proceed. She laid motionless on the pillow, and my heart rate spiked as I imagined she might have brain damage from whatever had happened.

" Leave," she said, the hate that was hidden on her face surfacing in her voice, which came out in a furious hiss.

" Helga, what happened?" I asked, already starting to cry. "Why are you here?"

" The doctor called it a stress induced episode," Helga explained, eerily calm. "Thanks," she added coldly.

" Ruth told my grandfather she was you," I babbled, trying to explain, trying to put it in a way that sounded believable. "She came upstairs and took her shirt off, she was crying –"

" Why don't you just shut up, Arnold," Helga snapped. "I don't even know why you bothered to come. You're off the hook now. Go cavort about with Ruth and whoever the hell else you've been banging behind my back."

" No!" I said, walking toward her.

" Get away from me!" she shrieked, her placid veneer crumbling. I backed up, and some of the red drained from her face. She glared at me.

" Why don't you just save it?" she said, shaking her head.

" I was fooling around with Ruth, but that was before – before –" I struggled to come up with a time when our relationship had turned serious. God, was it only yesterday? The same day we got married? Time and events slurred together in my mind, and flashes of brilliant red began to fan out across my vision – my head was being assaulted from within, the physical and emotional stress tearing at my skull.

" It was my mistake," Helga said, making her face still again. " You were a fantasy. I shouldn't have let you make me think it could be real." Her lip trembled for a few seconds, but she bit down on it, stopped it, and stared at me flatly again.

" Helga, I love you," I said, my knees shaking. "Please believe me. Ruth is nothing to me compared to you –"

" Why, because you knocked me up first?" Helga asked with a scoff. " What if it had been her? You wouldn't have given me a second thought."

" But this was meant to happen," I said, timid, whispering now. " You and me."

Helga laughed.

" Just get out of my life," she said, shaking her head. "I don't need this. I don't need you. And I never want to see you again. Understand?"

" No," I said, shaking my head. "You can't do that. You have to listen to me."

" Says who?" Helga screamed, suddenly furious again. "I don't have to do anything for you or anyone else. You're free now, and so am I." Her lip trembled again, and she looked away from me, out the window.

" Helga," I said, moving toward the bed, thinking that if I could just get my arms around her I could make her understand that I loved her.

" Don't you understand what I'm saying, you idiot?" she sneered, turning to me and stopping me in my tracks. Tears slid down her face, which was pale and haggard. "It's over."

" But –"I began.

" But the baby," she said, shaking her head. "No, Arnold."

A chill moved down from my shoulders to my feet, and the pain from my injuries was wiped away. My skin froze. No.

She couldn't mean that.

" I lost it," she told me, point blank, biting away a sob. I saw her swallow it, saw her force the pain away. "The doctor said it was the stress of the trauma," she said, looking away from me.

I had no words. I simply stood there, in the middle of the hospital room, halfway between Helga and the door.

" So that's it," she said, smoothing the blanket over her legs, her hands shaking as she did. "You don't have to worry about me anymore. We're both . . . emancipated."

She was a poet, even then. Emancipated. The terrible irony of the perfect word. Neither of us felt anything like freedom. I knew her well enough not to buy her performance, not that anyone would. I was feeling robbed, cheated, and ruined, and so was she.

" That can't be right," I said quietly. Stupidly, I felt like I would know if my baby had been taken from the world, lost. I didn't feel that – in my heart, slow to catch up with my mind, I still felt the bundle of our hybrid love waiting at the center of Helga, this broken girl laid out before me.

" Look, there's something I should have told you," she said, letting out her breath and swallowing her tears at last. "It wasn't necessarily your kid. I slept with some other guys that month."

I knew instantly that it was a lie, but the sentiment was so cruel that it still sliced through me, or what was left of me.

" Who?" I asked, narrowing my eyes, which were clogged with tears.

" Curly, for one," she said, looking down at her hands as if she might begin ticking them off on her fingers. "And a guy from my poetry class. I just wanted it to be yours, because I thought you were – well. I thought you were a good person. One of the best ones, actually."

She looked up at me, icy indifference pooling around her blue eyes again.

" That's what hurt most of all, it's so strange," she said, her voice quiet, bruised. "Not the baby, not the betrayal – just the disappointment."

She laughed darkly and looked down at her hands again.

" You'll never know how much faith I had invested in you," she said, her voice sinking deeper into whispers. "Not that you would love me, just faith in you. That you were . . . a decent . . . kind . . .," she trailed off and looked up at me. "That you would not do something like this," she said, barely audible.

I didn't know what to do. My head started to fill with white hot pain again, as the shock from what she had just said receded.

" That was my fantasy about you," Helga was saying, her voice growing quieter, more distant. "That I could come to your window, crawl inside, that you would want me when I arrived." She stopped, and I saw her fists clench at her sides.

" I just wanted to believe that there was someone, somewhere who wouldn't let me down," she said, staring at her lap.

" The baby is . . .?" I trailed off, still stuck on her earlier words.

" Dead," she said flatly, looking up at me. I couldn't face her sterility, her delicate shoulders slumped in defeat. Her disappointment in me, which had taken the color from her face, taken our baby, taken her soul and left her body bereft.

I turned toward the door. I wasn't sure where I was going. I couldn't see straight from the pain in my head, and I stumbled and caught the frame of the door.

" Arnold?" I heard Helga say behind me, her voice tiny again as she watched me crumble to the floor.

That was the last thought that stabbed at my mind before I passed out on the linoleum floor: that Helga still cared a little bit, enough to call out to me as I collapsed.

It gave me a little bit of hope as I lost consciousness for the second time that day, letting the pain from my injuries take me.

---

When I opened my eyes I was still in the hospital, but I was lying in my own bed, in a room that was dark except for the glow of the TV. My eyes drifted from one side of the room to the other: I saw the window, the blinds cracked, the sky outside black. I saw my grandfather, sitting in the corner with a cup of coffee, watching the evening news.

They had given me morphine, and I felt strange. Like I was floating over the floor rather then lying in a bed. I lifted my hand, looked at it. I felt drunk, groggy, and immeasurably calm. My neck and head didn't hurt anymore. I looked over at my grandfather, who still hadn't realized I was awake.

" Grandpa," I muttered, my words a little slurred. My jaw was harder to move than usual, and my tongue felt heavy. Grandpa stood up and walked to my bed.

" Hey, there, short man," he said. His voice sounded weary – he suddenly seemed so old. Later I would feel terrible about everything I put him through that summer, but in the moment I was only comforted by the pressure of his hand on my forehead.

" I shouldn't have let you run off like that," he said, sighing. " I should have listened to the doctors – I didn't realize how bad you were banged up. You had a concussion."

" Oh?" I said, fairly oblivious to the seriousness of the situation at the moment.

" They're going to give you a CAT-scan tomorrow morning," he told me. "After you passed out they gave you something for the pain and that knocked you out for awhile."

" It's nighttime already," I said, dreamily, looking toward the window.

" Yep," Grandpa said, dragging the chair over to the bed and sitting down beside me. "You were out for a while. You had me a little scared, Arnold." He forced a laugh.

" I'm sorry," I said, sincerely.

We were quiet for a moment. I was enjoying the feeling of being so doped up that I couldn't really recall why I had been so upset earlier. The whole terrible conversation with Helga seemed like a fever dream.

That night spent coasting on morphine was the beginning of a bad thing. After I left the hospital I began self medicating: booze didn't dull the pain quite as well, but I took what I could get.

" Helga," I muttered just before I drifted back into dreamless sleep.

" What's that, Arnold?" Grandpa asked, turning the news down.

" Where's Helga?" I asked him.

" I – I don't know," he said. "I was told that they found her in your room. You want me to go check on her for you?"

" No," I said, after considering for a moment. I didn't want to be left alone. At the moment I didn't think about the fact that Helga was probably alone, and far more conscious than I was.

---

I have very blurry memories of the following week. I had my CAT-scan, and it was determined that my brain was not bleeding. I didn't try to see Helga that first day after I was admitted into the hospital: I figured there was no point. She was too angry, and I was pretty hurt myself by what she'd said about the baby not being mine. I stayed in a funk, letting doctors poke and prod at me until I was released in the evening.

When we got back to the boarding house the painkiller buzz started to fade rapidly, and I was sore and devastated. My kid was dead and it was my fault – sure, it was a misunderstanding that had caused the stress that ended Helga's pregnancy, but it was born out of my own selfish fumbling. I shouldn't have given Ruth the time of day after I found out Helga was pregnant. I should have seen her for what she was sooner.

I ran over all of the things I should have done differently constantly, every day. I didn't leave the boarding house for a week, didn't try to contact Helga. I had no idea what the hell I would say to her, how I would ever be able to face her again. I stayed in my bed, sobbing and pathetic. I only ate when Grandpa threatened to take me back to the hospital. Gerald tried to visit me, but I told Grandpa I didn't want to see anyone.

After a week of mourning, I pulled myself out of bed, showered and got dressed. The headaches that I had been getting had subsided, and my bruises from the fall had faded to a light greenish color. Emotionally I was still a wreck, but I had decided that the only way I could heal would be with Helga. I told myself that we needed each other. No one else could understand what we were going through.

Before the healing began, I knew I would have to convince her that she was wrong about me and Ruth. I would always blame myself for what had happened, but I still didn't want Helga thinking that I had willingly betrayed her after we had gotten married.

When I padded down the stairs that first morning, Grandpa looked up from his omelet with surprise.

" Hey, short man!" he said, smiling. "Good to see you up and about."

" Yeah," I mumbled, "I think I'm going to – go over there."

Grandpa nodded somberly.

" I think that'd be the right thing to do," he confirmed. I smiled sourly to myself.

" The right thing to do," I echoed in a sigh. There was a time in my life when I cared about nothing more – I got a reputation at school for being obsessed with justice and random acts of good samaritanism. It was just that I had been so wounded as a kid, so broken up whenever I saw someone getting mistreated. My heart couldn't handle it. How had I become so good at doling out mistreatment myself?

I walked to Helga's brownstone with my hands in my pockets. It was the first of August, and the heat on the city streets was sweltering. Kids ran around me, chasing after the ice cream truck as it made it's noon-time rounds around the neighborhood. More rode past me on bikes, shouting to each other and laughing. I watched them, envious. I wanted to be a kid again. I wanted to start over. If I could have gone back in time I still would have been walking to Helga's house – my eight year old self would walk up and knock on her door, tell the angry girl that I knew how she felt, and it was okay. What would we do? Would she still fight me? Would she still deny everything? Or would we go inside, sit on her couch, and watch TV, holding hands?

That was all I wanted from her that day. I just wanted to sit beside her in silence. I would expect her to still be angry with me, of course. I would expect her to still feel betrayed. But I wanted a moment of silence before I began explaining again. Before I tried to win her back I just wanted to sit beside her, to feel the loss of our baby, suffer together, and put everything else aside.

It took me a few minutes to get up the courage to knock on her brownstone's door. When I did I stepped back, afraid that Big Bob might answer and try to pummel me again. But instead, a slim, blonde beauty answered the door. I perked up for a minute, and then I realized it wasn't Helga, but her sister, Olga, and that she was giving me her best stern expression.

" Yes?" Olga said, very curtly. I couldn't imagine Ms. Perfect being rude to anyone, but clearly she was willing to make an exception for her sister's low life teenage husband.

" Is Helga here?" I asked, my cheeks reddening under the scrutiny of her stare.

" Helga's gone," Olga said, with an annoyed little scoff.

" What?" I asked, the last of my crumpled heart balling up tight, the pressure seizing my chest.

" She left," Olga answered plainly. "Two days ago. She and my parents had an argument and she went to live with my aunt in Seattle."

" But," I stuttered, dumbfounded. She couldn't just be gone. It was impossible – this neighborhood couldn't exist without Helga. I couldn't exist without my wife.

" That's – that can't be right," I said, fumbling stupidly over the words. "People don't just pick up and move away in one week . . . with no warning . . .," I trailed off, knowing it was fruitless. I could feel it in the hollow hallway behind Olga: Helga was gone.

" She was very upset," Olga said tightly. "You're Arnold, I presume?" she added. I nodded solemnly, wishing that I could be anyone else.

" You really broke my baby sister's heart," Olga said, her lip trembling at the thought of it. "How could you do that to her?"

" You don't understand," I said, shaking my head. "She – I – it was a misunderstanding."

" Hmph," Olga said, shaking her head. "Well, if you know anything about my sister, you know that she doesn't forgive and forget very easily, if at all."

" I know," I mumbled, my chin falling to my chest. "But I can't just give up – I love her. This is all a mistake. It's already cost us so much – I have to see her again, to explain."

" I don't think she'll listen to you," Olga said, shaking her head. "And if I were you I'd get out of here. My dad will be coming home for lunch, and if he sees you –"

" Just tell me where she is," I said, shaking my head. "I've got to go there. I've got to see her – it can't just end like this."

" She told me she never wanted to see you again," Olga said, shaking her head. "I've already spent years trying to regain my sister's love – I'm not about to go against her wishes now."

" Then at least her phone number," I begged, trying to make my face look as desperate and pitiable as I felt. "Please."

" She won't speak to you," Olga said, frowning.

" Olga, I'm not a bad person," I said, putting my hands together, a pleading posture, a last resort prayer. "Helga knows that. She'll see it if I just get a chance to tell her what really happened."

Olga looked at me for a long time, studying my face as if she was looking for a clue, trying to decide if I was worthy or not. Finally she sighed and turned around, disappearing into the house. I waited in front of the open door, praying that Bob wouldn't come up behind me and put a few more holes in my head for daring to show my face here again.

When Olga returned she had a folded up piece of paper in her hand. She gave it to me, looking at me, still stern, but a little sympathetic.

" She wanted so much to believe that you really loved her," she said softly. "I guess I want to believe it, too."

With that, she shut the door in my face.

---

I called Helga's aunt's house five times before I could actually get my wife on the phone. Her aunt cursed at me, told me to leave her alone, told me that Helga never wanted to hear from me again. But I didn't believe her. When I finally got through to Helga I tried to explain, but she wouldn't hear it. She would go to the grave believing that I had maliciously manipulated her into believing I loved her, all the while screwing Ruth and laughing about it behind her back.

Often the phone calls – the ten or so we had in that first year we were apart – ended in her slamming down the receiver. At first she did all the shouting, but eventually I shouted back, furious that she wouldn't listen to reason. Why couldn't she understand that I loved her? Hadn't she been able to see it on my face, that day we were married, and even in the days before? Didn't she know me – hadn't she known me since the beginning of time?

We never talked about the baby she had lost. It was too hard, virtually impossible, and seemed almost irrelevant. As weeks turned into months I began to realize that trying to patch things up with Helga was fruitless. I remember our last phone call well. I had turned nineteen by then, and so had she.

" Arnold, please stop," she begged. "I'm tired," she said, and I could hear it in her voice: emotional exhaustion. "I'm so tired," she'd said, nearly breaking into sobs.

" What do you want?" I had asked, my own voice wavering. I was lying on my back in bed, staring up at my skylight – there was a light rain in New York; it was evening. I remember it well, that last moment, those last words.

" I want to forget you," she pleaded. "I want to go on with my life."

" But I love you," I had said, gnawing on my bottom lip to keep myself from crying, or screaming in frustration. "It doesn't make any sense to give up."

" Give up on what, Arnold?" she asked, with a heaving sigh. "We had a few nice days."

" You know it was more than that," I insisted.

" Arnold stop, please stop," she had cried. "Please. If you love me, please just let me go."

" Then you do believe I love you!" I had exclaimed: one last try.

" Arnold," she had said, beginning to weep. "Don't do this to me. Stop telling me you love me. I can't handle it. Stop calling here. It only hurts me to talk to you. Just stop."

So I did. We exchanged somber, shell-shocked goodbyes, and hung up our respective phones. I laid in bed a long time, not crying, just staring blankly up at the rain. I can't deny that I felt a little bit of relief. I was heartbroken, but I was free. I had my whole life ahead of me.

---

But it had been a cool, empty life without her. Not unhappy, necessarily, not dull or even lonely. But colder. Colder than the promises we made that day we were married.

I stood with my back pressed against the brick wall in the alley where we'd taken cover from the storm, Helga's face buried against my neck. I let the memories wash over me as I watched the storm subside: our entire sordid past, which could be measured as one summer or as an entire childhood and adolescence: two young lifetimes leading up to one thing, one thing that didn't happen.

" Are you okay?" I asked, looking down at her. She lifted her face to mine and smiled: her blue eyes were red-rimmed, but she looked genuinely happy to see me, which was something I never would have predicted. I had been told that time heals all wounds, but I had never believed it. But here we were: how bitterly we had parted, how much pain we had caused each other, but now, now it seemed we were ready. If not to forgive, to at least be civil.

Or at least to hold each other against the storm.

I wanted very acutely to kiss her, but I didn't. She was wiping at her eyes, looking up at me like I was some kind of angel all of a sudden. I was afraid she'd morph back into her vengeful self at any moment.

" I'm alright," she said, laughing a little and sniffling.

" Want to get out of the rain?" I asked.

" Arnold," she said, giving me a mischievous look. "Was that some kind of come on?"

" Yeah, right," I said, rolling my eyes. Seducing her was not exactly the first thing on my mind, despite our embrace. We had more than a few things to discuss.

Helga raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

" What happened to your date?" she asked, stepping back and straightening her dress.

" What happened to yours?" I countered, feeling the familiar animosity rising back to the surface as the clouds above us cleared. People from the wedding party were laughing now, including Eugene, who was dancing through the puddles with his new husband.

" I told you, Curly's not my date, just my friend," she said, turning to walk out of the alley. But before she could, I grabbed her arm and pulled her back in. She looked at me with surprise.

" Wait a minute," I said, not willing to leave this place yet, this place where we had found a strange peace in the middle of a storm.

" I missed you," I said, only realizing how true it was as I said it. I touched her face, she leaned into my hand.

" Yeah," she said, grinning a little to herself. "I thought about you – from time to time."

" So you didn't completely forget about me," I said sarcastically.

" Not completely," she said quietly, looking down at her feet.

We walked out of the alley and into the light that was breaking through the clouds. Wedding guests were starting to disperse, leaving for their homes or hotels to dry off and recuperate. I saw Eugene hugging Nadine goodbye.

" Hey," Curly said, walking over to us with a grin. "Freak thunderstorm. Who would have thought?" He winked.

" Yeah," I said, running a hand through my wet hair. "I should have known to take out a new insurance policy when I got the invite for the wedding."

" Curly gave him a huge box full of assorted Band-Aids for a wedding gift," Helga said, smirking at him.

" Awesome," I said, and we all laughed. I put my arm around Helga and looked at Curly.

" Hey, you don't mind if I steal your girl, do you?" I asked.

" I'm not his girl," Helga said, rolling her eyes, but she stayed pressed to my side.

" We have a lot to talk about," I explained.

" Yeah, you do," Curly said with a nod, raising an eyebrow at Helga and signaling that they had probably discussed the probability of her seeing me at the wedding.

" Have you seen Julia?" I asked, looking around for my date, who had all but faded from my thoughts.

" No, I haven't," Curly said, scanning the thinning crowd. " Maybe she took off when the rain started."

" If you do see her, let her know I've gone back to the hotel," I said, and Curly nodded.

" Look, we should get together later," he said, putting one hand on my shoulder and one on Helga's. "For old time's sake."

" Sounds good," Helga said. "We'll call you."

Curly beamed at us.

" Look at you two crazy kids," he said, giving us a little wave. " Together again." Helga and I watched him walk off, stomping through puddles as he went.

" So I guess you told him all about us," I said, walking with Helga toward the street.

" Yeah, he knows everything," she said.

" You guys are pretty close, huh?" I asked, feeling more than a little jealous.

" For the past couple of years, yeah," Helga said. "He wrote to me after I first got published, and we became friends again."

" So you actually read your fan mail?" I asked, reaching up into the air to hail an approaching taxi.

" Why, did you write one?" Helga asked darkly, knowing the answer.

" No," I said, opening the taxi's door for her. "But I did read them. All three chapbooks."

" Yeah right," Helga said with a laugh, climbing into the taxi.

" You don't believe me?" I said, climbing in after her. I gave the taxi driver the address of the hotel Julia and I were staying at, and watched Helga, who looked out the window on her side of the backseat, her hands folded in her lap, her expression serene and amused.

" You look great," I said. "Did I tell you that?" And she did. She looked certain of herself, fuller, happier. As happy as morose little Helga Pataki could look, anyway.

" Quote one," Helga said, turning to me with a wicked look.

" Huh?"

" Quote one of my poems, if you're such an aficionado," she said, raising a eyebrow.

I searched my mental repertoire for the appropriate one. What she wasn't suspecting was that I had memorized several of them. Why? They were about me, for godssake. Of course she never used my name, but she didn't have to. The bulk of her published work dealt with me: me as the golden angel boy, me as the wicked, beautiful teenager, me as a lover, me as a wrathful god – who was it? Ah yes, Shiva, the Hindu god who regularly wiped away the world. That was one of the more colorful metaphors.

I opened my mouth to quote one of the diatribes, one of the angry laments, but then something else came to mind.

" The comfort stained posture of your sleep, hands cradled against skin, back turned in exhaustion's retreat –"

" Arnold, don't," Helga said quietly, looking away from me, out the window.

" My most lucid and mysterious dream, laid out before me," I whisper, finishing the line. It's from the one poem she wrote about our child, the baby we made, the baby I erased with my carelessness. In the poem she wrote as if that child existed, as if his life had been allowed to play out. I recognized it at once. Any other reader would have assumed she was writing about her living son. But I knew.

" Just, please," she said, putting her hands over her face and shaking her head. "You don't understand."

" Don't I?" I asked in a whisper.

She shook her head, face still covered by her hands, and I reached over and drew her against me. She put her head against my shoulder.

" I don't want to talk about that," she whispered into the cloth of my shirt. "Not yet."

" Okay," I said, feeling guilty, kissing the top of her head. " Okay."

We climbed out of the taxi after I paid the driver, and Helga followed me into the hotel.

" You're doing alright for yourself," she said, glancing around the impressive lobby as we headed toward the elevators.

" And you're not?" I asked with a scoff.

" Poetry isn't exactly big business," Helga said, following me into an elevator. "And to answer your question about fan mail – yes, I do read all of it. It's not as overwhelming a task as you might imagine."

" But you've had critical success," I reminded her, disheartened somewhat by this. "I read your reviews."

" I've done alright," she said with a shrug. "Funny, that you read my reviews. Even more so that you work for a publisher."

" We don't publish poetry," I told her as the elevator doors slid open to the fourteenth floor. "Mostly textbooks – science and math."

" How boring," she said lightly as we made our way down the hall.

" It's a living," I muttered, a little offended. But it was what I had ended up doing, almost by chance. I had wanted to get a degree in anthropology or medicine, follow in my parents' footsteps. But maybe I was too afraid of where their footsteps had led them. Maybe I resented them – of course I resented them.

" Where did you go to school?" Helga asked when we reached my room, and I slid the keycard into it's slot.

" Cornell," I told her. She rolled her eyes. "Where did you go?" I asked, peeved by her reaction.

" Didn't," she said plainly, looking ahead, beyond the door I was opening. I was about to ask her why she hadn't gone to college when I followed her gaze and found Julia standing in the middle of the hotel room, glaring at us.

" Just what the hell is this?" she asked, crossing her arms in fury.

" Julia," I said, blanching. "This is . . . my wife."

Julia raised her eyebrows, and then slowly shook her head.

" Just perfect," she said with a taut smile. "I should have known, Arnold, I just should have known. The girls at the office told me about you, but did I believe them? Hell no –"
"What'd they tell you?" Helga asked, walking into the room.

" Don't answer that," I begged.

" Your husband isn't exactly faithful to you," Julia shouted, throwing out her arms. "I mean – HELLO!"

" It's not that kind of marriage," Helga said plainly, sitting down on one of the double beds in the room with a sigh. Julia scoffed and grabbed her suitcase, began throwing things into it.

" I'm getting a plane out of here," she said, shaking her head as she packed. "And you better damn well reimburse me for the flight," she added, turning to shoot daggers at me with her eyes.

" I will," I said, feeling horrible. "I'm really sorry, Julia. I didn't expect this to happen."

" Great excuse," Julia spat, pushing past me on the way out of the room. She slammed the door behind her, and I looked back to Helga.

" So why didn't you go to college?" I tried, hoping we wouldn't have to discuss that.

" You've got a bit of a reputation at the workplace, have you?" she asked, not letting me get away with it.

" All they say about me is that I don't commit to anyone," I told her.

" What are you holding out for?" she asked me cattily, leaning back onto the bed.

" Don't ask," I grumbled.

" So, Cornell, huh?" she said with a sigh. "What'd you get your degree in?"

" English," I told her, my cheeks going a little red. "Focus in composition."

She tipped her head back and laughed.

" Not your kind of composition," I snapped quickly. "Rhetoric. Academic stuff."

" So that's what led you to the publishing business?" she asked.

" Yep."

We stared at each other for a moment. Helga laid back onto the pillows of the bed, letting out her breath. Cautiously, I laid down beside her, rolling over onto my side to face her. She stared up at the ceiling, lying on her back.

" We should really get out of these wet clothes," she said, not looking at me. We waited a few seconds before bursting into laughter.

" There are some robes in the bathroom," I suggested cautiously.

" Too weird," she said, yawning a little.

" Agreed."

I stood up and fished through my suitcase, coming out with a clean, white Oxford shirt, a t-shirt, a pair of boxers and a pair of jeans. I tossed the Oxford shirt to Helga, and she caught it.

" You can get dressed in the bathroom," I said, nodding toward it.

" Oh, can I?" she asked, mocking me, but she got up and went into the bathroom, shutting the door.

When we were both dressed in dry clothes we resumed our spots, but on the second double bed, as the first was now damp. I stared at Helga, she stared at her ceiling, her hands. I tried not to glance down at her long, white legs, protruding desirably from the bottom of my white shirt.

" My life with you has been so ludicrous," she mused.

" Thanks," I muttered.

" To think that I would end up in a hotel room with you, wearing your shirt." She shut her eyes and laughed a little to herself. "I thought I would hate you viciously, as soon as I saw you again."
" I never believed that you hated me viciously," I told her, which was partly a lie. I had suspected it in a few dark moments. But I had never believed it, not completely.

" I wanted to hate you," Helga said quietly.

" Why didn't you go to college?" I asked, wanting to change the subject.

" I just didn't," she said, getting a little testy for some reason. "I couldn't afford it, for one thing. My parents cut me off when I left home."

" Why'd you leave home?" I asked her, afraid I knew the answer.

" To get away from you," she said plainly.

" But your sister told me you had a fight with your parents," I said, frowning. She put her hands over her face.

" I can't do this," she moaned. "I can't talk about the past with you Arnold, not now, not yet. I'm still trying to get over the shock of seeing you again."

" Okay," I relented. "We'll talk about – about --,"

" The weather," Helga said, giggling to herself.

" How's your aunt?" I asked, wanting to know what it had been like, her running away, her hiding from me all those years up in Washington.

" She's fine," Helga said, playing with the cuffs on my shirt. " It was the best thing for me, moving up there with her. We have a lot in common – she's my mother's sister and she was always kind of neglected as a kid. Mom was this big swimming champion, and Kate – my aunt – was just, well. There."

" You weren't just there," I told her. "You were incredible – you won awards for writing even when we were kids."

" You didn't think I was incredible," Helga said, rolling her eyes.

" Yeah I did," I insisted. "I admired you."

Helga cracked up.

" What's so funny?" I asked, sitting up on my elbow. She grinned up at me.

" Admired me?" she said, chuckling. "What on earth for?"

" You were brave," I said, "You were honest. You told people how you really felt."

" No I didn't," she said, staring up at me. "I was in love with you for years. I never told you."

" You told me," I said quietly. "Once."

" That day after we got married," she mused.

" It was the best day of my life," I told her, honestly. "The day before Ruth showed up and ruined everything –"

" Shh," Helga said in a rush, shutting her eyes. "I don't want to talk about Ruth."

" You still don't believe me," I said sadly.

" It doesn't matter anymore," she said, shaking her head.

We were quiet for a moment after that. I looked at Helga's stomach, watched it rise and fall with her breath.

" So you never married?" I asked her, though somehow it was already obvious, and not just because her finger still lacked a ring.

" Nope," she said. "Not even close. I had a few boyfriends. Poets." She scoffed, and I smiled, satisfied with her disappointment in other men.

" My longest relationship since you has been six months," I told her. "And that was painful. Tina, that was her name. She was Asian, a real smart and sweet girl. But after six months just the sound of her voice was driving me nuts. I broke it off."

" I'm sure you've broken a lot of hearts," Helga said with a sigh.

" I wouldn't be surprised if you'd done the same," I returned, a little coldly. "You did a number on mine, anyway."

" Yeah, right," she muttered.

" Fine," I said, sitting up, frustrated. "Fine, go on thinking I never gave a damn, if that's what makes you happy. I'm not even going to try to convince you anymore that I did."

" Good," she said curtly. "I'm sick of hearing it. Actions speak louder than words, Arnold," she added, accusing.

" Oh?" I said, a wicked idea popping into my head. Before I could crush it I took her advice, shutting my mouth and letting actions take over. I leaned down and kissed her on the lips.

Helga grabbed my shoulders, surprised, and her lips parted a bit, swallowing my kiss in her gasp. I pulled back and looked down at her.

" You really want to kiss me after all this time?" she asked, and for once there was no derision and doubt, just sincere surprise and curiosity.

" I thought we agreed not to talk," I said.

" Arnold I'm not going to sleep with you," she said sternly.

" All I'm asking for is a kiss," I told her, though, to be honest, I wanted more. I was surprised with myself – I had not expected to find my teenage desires creeping up through my body when I reunited with her.

" What's the point?" she whispered, her voice trembling a little.

" We've got nothing to lose," I reminded her.

She reached up and put a hand on either side of my face, drawing me back down to her. I shut my eyes and leaned over her, bringing my lips down to hers. I exhaled into her mouth as we kissed, relieved, sated, my body relaxing around hers.

" Arnold," she whispered when I drew back to kiss her cheeks. " This wasn't part of my plan," she said, looking up at me.

" You had a plan?" I asked, my voice husky, my lips impatient to reconnect with hers.

" Kind of," she whispered, giving in to the same thing I was feeling, lifting her head to kiss me again. I slid over on top of her, my Oxford shirt wrinkling as I crushed it beneath the weight of my body.

" We should call Curly," she said, breathlessly, pulling back when I leaned my face down to hers.

" Why?" I asked, kissing her eyelids. I felt her smile, her lips moving against my cheek.

" This is counterproductive," she mumbled, and I noticed the nervousness in her voice. How could we be nervous with each other anymore, after everything we'd been through? But I was feeling it, too – I felt like I was a teenager again, wondering when I could make the next move, wondering if I would even have the nerve.

" Are you saying . . . there's still no chance?" I asked, backing off a little. I was afraid to ask, but I needed to know – I could feel that boyish love rising through me again, something that hadn't happened to me since that day in the pool with Helga, the day I asked her to marry me. I couldn't invest too much in her again only to watch her run away.

" I don't think so," she said, her face falling. "But it's not your fault," she added quickly.

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I sat up, sliding away from her. I went to the window and stretched, watching the sun sink down behind the Los Angeles sky scrapers. It was the first time I had been to the City of Angels.

" We should go sightseeing tomorrow," I mumbled absently as Helga dialed Curly's phone number.

" Hmm," was all she said.

I turned my eyes back to the window as she made our dinner plans with Curly. I felt a little dejected, and a lot tired. I wanted to crawl back in bed with her: maybe not even for salacious purposes, just to sleep. I had slept with her only twice: that night in the bathtub at Rhonda's house, and on our wedding night. I didn't remember the bathtub, but I could picture the two of us there: eighteen again, half-dressed in rumpled prom clothes, drunkenly wrapped around each other. I thought about how stupid I was that summer, how uncharacteristically indulgent, and how I wouldn't trade those months, that mistake, our disgraceful and wonderful courtship, for anything.

---

We met Curly at a restaurant downtown, a chic Asian called Roppongi that he recommended. Apparently it was owned by some celebrities – Curly seemed to want to impress Helga and I, and he insisted on paying for our dinners.

" Try the duck quesadillas," he said, taking a sip of the Chinese beer he had ordered.

" You know," I said, opening my menu. "L.A. suits you."

" I love it," Curly said, beaming. He had come here with acting aspirations, and had actually gotten a part on a soap opera shortly after he left college. But his acting career had gone down the tubes as fast as Rhonda Lloyd's had, after her brief stint as an MTV veejay, which she skipped college for. Now he drove a flower delivery van.

" Funny that both you and Rhonda got into acting," I said, thinking of it. "Two kids from Brooklyn."

" They were always dramatic," Helga offered, sipping her glass of Amaretto.

" That's so disgusting that you drink that straight," Curly said, making a face at her.

" I like sweet things," Helga said with a shrug, taking another sip and raising her eyebrows at him.

" That must be why you ended up with Arnold," Curly said with a mischievous grin.

" We hardly ended up together," Helga said quickly, making a face and taking another drink. I took a gulp of my own beer, my cheeks heating.

" In a cosmic sense," Curly clarified innocently.

" You ever see Rhonda anymore?" I asked him hurriedly, wanting to change the subject.

" Um, yeah," Curly said, glancing slyly at Helga. "From time to time."

" They had an affair," Helga told me smartly. "Or two, or three, depending on how you define affair." She gave Curly a wicked look. "As in cosmic or physical."

" Well met," Curly muttered with a smirk.

" You and Rhonda?" I asked with surprise. "I always thought she was too snotty to –"

" Date someone without a pedigree?" Curly finished for me. "Yeah. That was mostly her parents – she got over it as she got older. Her parents, however, did not. They openly loathed me."

" Just because your family didn't have money?" I asked.

" Well, I was also kind of a lunatic," Curly amended with a shrug.

" Was!" Helga said, snorting with a laughter. Curly glared at her in mock annoyance, grinning.

" Rhonda's a lunatic, too," he said, drinking. "She's just better at hiding it than me."

" No," I said, shaking my head. "I always thought she was nuts, even when we were kids."

" They fooled around in high school, even," Helga said, smirking at Curly. "No one knew – even I didn't find out until prom night."

" Yeah," Curly muttered. "The night Rhonda broke it off with me – for the first time. Helga was my –"
"Pity date," Helga finished with a grin.

" Concerned friend," Curly amended, drinking. "Until she disappeared on me at the end of the night."

I downed the rest of my beer at the mention of that night – the night everything between Helga and I began, or at least came to fruition.

" It worked out for you, though," Helga reminded him. "She took you back by the end of the night, if I remember correctly."

" Yeah," Curly muttered, "And then broke up with me again a week later, only to come sniveling back after two months." He shook his head, and signaled the waiter, dropping his empty glass of beer onto the white table cloth.

" I'm done with Rhonda," he mumbled. "Done."

" Sure," Helga said, out of the corner of her mouth.

" No one's ever done with their first love," I mused, a little drunkenly, as Curly ordered a bottle of wine for the table. I glanced at Helga, but she seemed to be avoiding my gaze.

We had a delicious dinner – fish with banana sauce, duck quesadillas and pineapple fried rice, among other strange and scrumptious concoctions. We all ate off each other's plates, downed an entire bottle of wine, and finished off the meal with thick, purple plum liquor. We talked about the old neighborhood, talked about elementary school and high school, and what our lives had been like since. I would recall virtually none of our conversation the next day, thanks to the alcohol, but it was a sort of magical evening spent lost in our memories, laughing about things that had once been tragic, recovering, if only for a moment, from our pasts.

I threw my arm around Helga's chair midway through the meal, thoughtlessly and confidently, and by the time we were brushing off our dessert drinks she had scooted her chair over toward mine and was leaning against me, laughing at something Curly had said. I kissed the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her hair, and shut my eyes.

Let me stay, I thought, and for once I wasn't only begging the alcohol's buzz to linger. I wanted to stay in this place where Helga and I had forgiven each other – I was willing to move to Los Angeles for it, to give up everything in order to stay here, where the past and present had reconciled, bizarrely and without disaster.

---

That night recalled the whirlwind inebriation of the first time Helga and I had made love only this time we were laughing instead of crying and moping. I have little memory of leaving the restaurant, but I'm pretty sure I thanked Curly, hugged him, and fawned over him, promising to keep in touch, promising that we would not drift apart again. And I remember Helga clinging to my side, giggling against my shoulder, carefree and comfortable like a normal wife, a wife I had spent a life with instead of a life avoiding. Curly put us into a cab and we were on each other as soon as we slid onto the dirty seat, barely coming up for air to let the poor driver know where we needed to be dropped off.

We had a hard time making it through the hotel lobby without cracking up, and once we made it into the elevator we lost it completely, doubling over in laughter. I have no idea what was so funny – whatever it was it was lost in the je ne sais quoi of the drunken evening. But it was funny, in retrospect, that Helga and I had so easily fallen back together, as if none of the horror of her last week in Hillwood had happened, as if ten years had not passed.

When we made it up to the hotel room we stripped out of clothes and fell, awkward and still laughing, onto one of the double beds. We made giggly, sloppy love, inhibited by none of the reservations we would have harbored had we been sober. And when we were through we collapsed effortlessly around each other, Helga letting me draw in her close, her hands tracing lazily up and down my back.

" Arnold," she said in an exhausted sigh, breathing onto my collarbone, her head and shoulders tucked in close. "You're much better at this now," she told me absently, her eyes already drooping.

" Was I so bad back then?" I asked, pulling the covers up over us with my free hand.

" Yes," she answered honestly, smiling against my skin. "But I loved you anyway," she added, giving me a squeeze.

" Stay with me," I begged, hoping she would remember this in the morning – how we felt, how we couldn't possibly part again.

" Here?" she muttered absently, beginning to drift off.

" Anywhere," I said, pressing my face to the top of her head. "I'd go anywhere."

" Okay," she said, her voice small and sleepy, using the last of her waking strength to lightly kiss my chest. "Okay, Arnold."

---

I woke up early, my head hurting and my stomach feeling less than great as well. At first I had no idea where I was, and then it rushed back to me in a surge that made my head pound more painfully – Eugene's wedding, the dinner with Curly – Helga.

I rolled over to find her sleeping soundly, her hands tucked under her chin and her blonde hair falling over her face. I reached over to brush it back behind her ear, and she flinched a little, but stayed asleep. I laid on my side for a few minutes, staring at her. A rush of endorphins flowed through my veins, and the headache subsided a little.

I climbed out of bed, put on a robe and called room service, asking if they could bring aspirin. They told me they would be up soon, and I hung up and crawled back into bed, wrapping around Helga from behind. She yawned, and her arm stretched across the bed, grasping around over the side where I had slept.

" I'm here," I whispered in her ear, squeezing her waist. She rolled halfway over and moaned a little.

" My head hurts," she whined. I kissed her ear.

" Mine too," I said. "I ordered us a breakfast cocktail."

" Hair of the dog?" she asked, sounding a little wary.

" Nope, aspirin," I said, and she smiled.

" Excellent," she said, yawning and rolling over into my arms.

We took the Advil that was delivered, and then laid in bed, neither of us very hungry or able to get back to sleep, and both of us enchanted by the idea of waking up with the other.

" What did I drink last night?" Helga moaned, grinning a little. " I feel like hell."

" You had a glass of amaretto, three glasses of wine, and a number of after dinner drinks," I reminded her, having remembered that part of evening well enough. "And we, um. Did it," I said, childishly. Helga cracked up, and winced, rubbing her temples after she did.

" I know," she said, looking at me and chewing on her lip. "I remember it this time . . . mostly."

" The details are fuzzy," I said, seriously, "But, yeah. I remember it, too. You told me I was good," I added with a satisfied grin.

" I think you may have dreamed that part," Helga said, perfectly matter of fact, before breaking out into a fit of giggles. I pounced on her.

" I'm kidding, kidding," she said, laughing. "You were good, you were SO good," she enunciated, with comic melodrama.

I didn't waste much time before proving her right again. And, though sober, though achy and completely conscious, we weren't awkward with each other, as I had feared we might be. The history between us proved to be less a barrier and more an open door – how could we be awkward, when we had been to hell and back, together and for each other?

We spent the morning together in the hotel bathtub, warm and slippery with bubbles, watching each other from opposite ends. We talked about poetry, and publishing, and avoided the subject of our past and our future. In the moment I let myself believe that this balmy hotel room ease could last forever.

But as we dried of and got dressed a tension grew between us: where to go from here?

" So, what are your plans today?" I asked, buttoning my shirt, no longer able to stand the suspense. If she walked out of my life again – well. I wouldn't let her go as easily as I had in the past, I decided. I would track her down. I would scream at every doorstep in Seattle until I found her, until she let me in.

" I have to get back to Curly's," she said hurriedly, zipping up her skirt. "I promised him that I'd talk to some of his friends who are writers."

" Big fans of yours?" I asked, smiling.

" Something like that," she muttered, not looking at me. The way she was avoiding my gaze made me suspicious – I was afraid she might be trying to get away without a big scene. I had no idea why she'd want to flee, but that fear still lived in me, after what had happened last time. Now there was no Ruth to screw things up, but our truce still felt fragile, tenuous and far too new.

" Helga," I said, my heart filling with a vaporous hope. "What then? Will I see you again tonight?" I didn't want to ask straight out if I would ever see her again – I definitely couldn't deal with one of the two possible answers.

" I – I don't know," she stuttered, looking at me and then glancing quickly away. "I guess – I guess so."

" What's wrong?" I asked, walking to her and putting my hands on her shoulders. I felt them droop under my touch.

" Arnold," she said, after a pause. "There's . . . You don't know everything . . . everything about me, now. You don't know . . . the entire truth about my life since I left you."

" What are you talking about?" I asked, a sharp fear poking at my insides. This would be it: the deal breaker that Ruth had served as in the past. Why the hell couldn't the two of us just be happy? There always had to be something . . . but I told myself that no matter what Helga had done in her past, I would forgive her. I had done some things I wasn't proud of, myself – and I knew she was too true and compassionate to have done anything really horrible.

" Nothing," she said, with a little laugh. "It's just that – last night was so . . otherworldly. So perfect. I'm afraid that when . . . we really get to know each other . . . we'll find out we aren't the same people we were when we were eighteen."

" Thank God for that!" I said, scoffing. "Nobody is the same person at thirty that they are at eighteen, Helga. I don't expect that of you, and you shouldn't expect that of me, either – hell, you shouldn't want that from me!"

" I know," she said, forcing a laugh, kissing my cheek and stepping away. "I'm just being silly – I'm sorry. It's only because I'm scared," she admitted quietly, her back turned. "I want this so much," she whispered. I walked up behind her and laid my chin on her shoulder.

" So do I," I said, wrapping my arms around her. "I'll fight for us this time, Helga. I – I should have fought harder before." I suddenly realized what a fool I had been, not going to her – not doing everything I could until she'd all but slapped a restraining order on me.

" No, don't blame yourself," she said quietly. "I wouldn't have let you."

" Do you believe me now?" I asked, cautious but unable to resist. " Do you believe that I didn't betray you – that it was all a horrible mistake?"

" I don't know," Helga said, pushing my arms from her waist and walking to the door. I instantly regretted bringing it up, but it also made my blood boil that after everything we'd overcome she still couldn't give me the benefit of the doubt.

" It doesn't matter anyway," she said, putting her hand on the doorknob.

" I don't know if I can be with you if you still think I did that to you intentionally," I said, the words falling out of my mouth before I could stop them. Helga crossed her arms over her chest.

" It's not that I could never trust you," she said. "It's just that . . . if I admit that I was wrong . . . I'm admitting that I made the biggest mistake anyone has ever made. And I can't deal with that, I just can't. I'd rather go on believing that you lied to me than . . . admit to myself that I might have been wrong . . . and then have to live with what I've done."

" That's crazy!" I shouted, losing my cool, throwing out my arms. " You ran away because you thought I had cheated on you – it's a pretty standard reaction! We might have lost ten years together, and that's a tragedy, but we're still young, Helga. You didn't ruin anyone's life."

Helga stood completely still, backed up against the hotel room door. I saw the color drain from her face.

" Arnold, I've got to go," she said, her voice small. I frowned.

" Please . . .," I said, but stopped when I realized I didn't even know what to ask of her.

" Yesterday, and this morning," she said, smiling sadly. "Were so wonderful."

" Every day can be like this Helga," I said.

" No," she said. "Things will change. Like before – the fantasy will crumble."

" You can't live like this!" I shouted. "You can't avoid things just because you're afraid they won't live up to your fantasies – I mean, that's life! You can't avoid life!"

" You don't understand at all!" she said, before opening the door and running out into the hall.

" Helga, wait!" I said, following her out. I ran out into the hall just as the elevator doors in the lobby were closing. I ran up to them and watched Helga, looking terrified, being shut inside the elevator.

" Don't go!" I pleaded, just as the doors closed. I cursed to myself as the elevator began to coast down toward the lobby, then I cursed her for being so damn resistant to happiness. What we had last night was not something that you could just cavalierly throw away – who would want to run from this? Was it because she was still angry about what had happened when we were eighteen?

I stomped back into my room and slammed the door behind me. The logical part of my brain was telling me I should give up on this woman. She was either crazy, or simply couldn't let go of the past. But the romantic in me, the sympathetic little kid, the eternal optimist – those parts were telling me to hang on to her for dear life, that she was worth saving, that things would work out if I just tried harder.

I tried sitting around my hotel room – I still had another day before I had to check out of the hotel, and I had planned on spending this day touring the city museums with Julie. But Julie was long gone, and I was hardly in the mood for looking at art – I was having a hard enough time concentrating on the crappy daytime television shows that I was watching, slumped in a gloomy posture on the bed. All I could think about was Helga – how frustrating she was, and how wanted her back there with me, frustration and all.

Finally, I gave up on getting her off of my mind. I thought of the mistake I had made when I was eighteen – not going to her right away, not doing everything I could, but instead moping about selfishly while she snuck out of town. I found a phone book in the drawer on the table beside the bed, and I pulled it out and found the entry for Thaddeus Gamelthrope. I called Curly's house and the phone rang four times before an answering machine picked up. I cursed to myself, then hung up the phone.

I felt defeated for a moment, then decided I would just go over there in person – crashing their little writers' party or whatever the hell was really going on. I would sweep her off her feet. I would tell her it was now or never – though of course I wouldn't mean it. I would wait for her. But she didn't need to know that yet. I wanted her to feel the urgency of the situation like I did – that every minute we spent apart was laughing in the face of all that we had learned: that we shouldn't be apart, couldn't, and had to rectify all that we'd missed by spending every moment of the rest of our lives together.

So it was in an intense romantic fervor that I marched downstairs, hailed a cab and sped off toward Curly's house. Curly lived in Santa Ana, and the drive was long and beautiful. I pressed my forehead against the dirty glass of the cab window, counting the minutes until I could make my plea. Maybe the first of many, maybe the last – depending on how effective it was. It was hard to tell, with Helga, what would win her over at any given minute.

The cab turned into a dingy, older suburban area, and we drove down a street past cracked sidewalks and Latino teenagers who were washing their cars. Finally we came to a house near the end of the street – it was small but sunny and charming, painted a very light blue, and featuring a largish, sagging porch near the front door. There was a boy sitting on the stairs playing with a Gameboy, and I was surprised – I tried to remember if Curly had told us last night that he had children. I told the driver to wait for me, just in case this was the wrong house.

As I walked up to Curly's house I decided the kid on the stairs couldn't be his – he did wear glasses, but he was blond and looked nothing like Curly. Probably a neighbor's kid, I thought, approaching the porch. The kid looked up at me as I walked toward him, watching me with suspicion. He looked to be about ten years old – seeing him made me think of Helga and I as kids, everything that had happened when we were ten years old. All of that seemed like someone else's memories, now.

" Hey," I called, walking over and standing at the bottom of the stairs.

" Hey," the kid answered flatly, holding his Gameboy in his lap and staring at me.

" Is this Curly's house?" I asked, looking around – sure enough, there was the old 1978 Bonneville Curly had driven in high school – now sitting at the end of his driveway, propped up on cinderblocks, three wheels missing.

" Yeah," the kid said. I waited for more, but he just stared at me, blinking behind his glasses.

" Um, is Helga Pataki around?" I asked, feeling embarrassed all of a sudden.

" Yeah, she's here," he said, standing. "Want me to get her for you?"

" Yeah, please," I said, a weird feeling growing in my stomach. "Who are you?" I asked, almost involuntarily, after the kid had turned to go for the front door of the house. He turned back.

" I'm Edward," he said, before turning back around. He pulled open the screen door and went inside, and I stepped up onto the porch, waiting, my hands shoved into my pockets. Something was off. I couldn't put my finger on it, but suddenly I felt like I shouldn't have come.

And then Edward's shout rang out through the house:

" MOM!" he called, and I heard his footsteps thundering up stairs.

It took me a second to put one and two together: I had asked for Helga, and the kid had said he was going to get her. And he had said 'Mom.' God, Helga had a kid! I was shocked, and kind of pissed of that she hadn't told me. Was this what she had meant when she had said this morning that I didn't know everything about her? Why would she think her having a kid would bother me?

And then I put one and two and three together.

My knees gave out, and I stumbled backward, catching myself on the porch railing, which creaked under my weight. My breath caught, my heart stopped, my vision blurred, the landscape of Curly's neighborhood rushing at me and making me want to vomit.

No. No. It was impossible.

But then Edward jogged back down the stairs, and came out onto the porch again, letting the screen door slam behind him.

" She's coming," he told me, oblivious.

I couldn't speak, of course. I stared at him: ten years old. Blonde. Dark green eyes staring out at me, with growing unease, from behind his little wire-rimmed glasses.

I was staring myself in the fucking face, looking at this kid.

Better yet: and slowly dawning on me, as to save me from completely dropping dead on the spot:

I was staring at my ten year old kid.

" Holy shit," I whispered, my vision blurring again, but this time because my eyes were filling with tears.

" Are you okay?" Edward asked, wearily, backing up.

I couldn't even begin a thought process. Inside me vague feelings began to surface: relief, shock, disbelief, joy, pride, horror and then it came: rage. Rage. Helga. Pure, unfiltered rage at Helga.

She had lied to me. She had kept our son – she had –

I sunk down onto my knees on the porch, unable to even come up with qualifiers for the fury that was burning through me.

There was no way she could be that evil, I had to tell myself. There was no way the woman I had loved for so long could have been so heartless, so calculating, so completely selfish and terrible.

And then I saw her: standing behind the screen door, looking out at Edward and I. At my son and I. I looked from her to him, and back to her again. She had a look of pure sadness on her face, but I didn't buy it for a minute. I shook my head, slowly at first, then rapidly, furious.

" No, no," I said, trying not to start weeping but unable to help myself. "No, you couldn't have." I started backing down the stairs, desperate to get away, but finding it hard to make my legs work.

" Mom?" Edward said as Helga walked out onto to porch, uncertainty and fear in his voice. Helga glanced down at him quickly, then back down at me.

" Please," she said, quietly, on the verge of tears herself. But her tears were worth exactly shit to me now. "Please," was all she could say.

" How could you, how could you," I chanted, over and over again. I wanted to really lose it, to really tear into her, but I didn't want to scare the kid – my kid – OUR kid – any further.

" Arnold, you don't understand," Helga cried, walking down toward me, keeping her voice quiet because Edward was listening. "I was going to tell you. It was the whole reason I came to California, to tell you, because I didn't know how –"

" Shut up," I said in a hissed whisper, remembering something, remembering her anger, the way she had lashed out at me in the hospital that day, out of hurt.

But no. She had never known hurt, never known betrayal. Not like this. What she had felt was not even close to what I was feeling.

" Why don't you just shut up, Helga," I snarled, my lip trembling as I tried to restrain myself. Before I could completely fall apart I turned my back and made myself walk away, practically limping with the pain and shock of what I had just realized.

" Arnold, wait!" Helga was saying, but I ignored her. I climbed back into the cab that was waiting for me, and took one last look at the house, at Edward, who was standing on the porch, confused, watching me go.

I tried to get past how angry I was, which seemed impossible, but I tried to as I looked at my son, who was perfect, and beautiful, and, God – alive.

" Wrong house?" the driver asked, sounding pretty confused himself. Helga was standing in the middle of the driveway, hugging herself and crying.

" Yes," I said, my voice strange, harsh and crooked.

We drove away, and I couldn't help myself: as the cab sped off down the street I whirled around in my seat and again looked past Helga, at Edward. Crying, I decided that I never wanted to see Helga again, but, though I had only laid eyes on him for a few minutes, I already missed the sight of my son.