[July 14]

"You make the best coffee, babe," Eric said as he took a sip and put his feet up on the coffee table.

The house was quiet. Both Garrett and Karen had already left for work. Julie was sleeping unusually late. Andrew was playing with a shape sorter on the living room floor and making little noise. His concentration was fierce. Tami thought him a strangely solemn child, and was always surprised and delighted by his smile or laugh when it did burst out.

Eric was waiting for a classmate to pick him up. Tami needed his truck today to take Julie to her two-year checkup. They were temporarily a one-car family. They had sold Tami's sedan when they moved from Waco, determined to save money over the summer and to buy something more reliable for her before she started work...assuming, of course, that someone hired her. What was taking these schools so long to call her for an interview?

"I'm glad you like it," she said. "Although I just think you're buttering me up so you don't have to make it."

"Is it working?"

"Maybe." She sat down next to him on the couch and put a hand on his knee. "What are you learning about in your program today?"

"I think we're talking about the politics of education, which has nothing to do with making good teachers, but I guess we have to know this stuff."

"What kind of politics?"

"You know," he said. "Various rules. Like no pass, no play. Thanks, Ross Perot."

"I fully supported that law," Tami said.

"When you were 14?"

"Well, if I had been thinking about it when I was 14, I would have. But I support it now."

"It just leads to grade inflation and duplicity."

"You like that word. Duplicity."

"It's a good word," Eric said. He kissed her. "And I think we'll be talking about the Robin Hood Plan."

"The what?"

"Texas legislature might pass an equitable funding law next year. They'll take some of the taxes raised in richer school districts and give them to poorer school districts. What do you think of that?"

Andrew gurgled and squealed on the floor when a star went through the corresponding hole, but then his eyes widened and he resumed his fierce concentration on his project.

Tami leaned her head on her hand and looked at Eric. "Well, I like it in theory," she answered. "Kids shouldn't get an underfunded education just because they have the misfortune to live in a poor district. But if we're going to knock ourselves out to live somewhere with safe neighborhoods and good schools, and we're paying higher rents or property taxes to do it...well, I kind of want that money to go to Julie's school system."

Eric sipped his coffee. "Hey," he said suddenly, "Did you call that woman?"

Tami's veins felt like they'd be shot through with an icy blast. How could she have this conversation now, when he was leaving within five minutes? She couldn't let him go to class with that disappointment on his mind. "I didn't have a chance," she lied. "I'm sorry." She felt guilty as she said it. She never lied to Eric.

"Will you call her today? Please?"

Tami promised she would.

The doorbell rang.

"My ride's here." Eric kissed her goodbye, grabbed his satchel, and took his coffee cup along.

[*]

That night, Tami lay beside Eric in bed, knowing she should tell him about the call, but relieved he hadn't yet asked about it. Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he would never ask again.

"So did you get ahold of that woman?"

Tami closed her eyes.

"Babe? Did you?"

She reached out and took his hand. She laced her fingers tightly through his and squeezed.

She didn't want to. She really didn't want to. But she told him.

Eric's voice was choked when he spoke. "So she's not even curious about me? Not even a little?"

Tami had no idea what to say. Her counselor's training failed her. Real life wasn't like a textbook.

He rolled to his side and looked into her eyes. She saw the pain there, the disappointed hope. It wasn't true that he had only been curious. He'd harbored some fantasy of reconciliation, of being wanted by his mother.

"I'm so sorry, hon." It was all she could think to say.

He lowered his eyes. His words tore there way through his clenched teeth. "My dad's right. I have all the family I need." He raised his eyes to hers and swallowed. Anger and sadness and determination swirled together in the hazel sea of his eyes. "I'm lucky to have you. To have Julie. To have a father who wanted me."

She stroked his cheek.

"This is it," he said bitterly. "I'm done with her. It's the end of the road."

Tami kissed him softly. "How can I help?" she asked.

"By not making me talk about it."

Tami nodded. She kissed him. "Do you want to make love?" She didn't know what else to offer him.

"No." He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. Streetlight cast a tangled web on the drywall above. She cuddled in close. "I don't want to be touched right now, Tami."

She slid away.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's not personal."

"I know." She knew, but she hated it. She hated that she couldn't do a single thing for him, not even a wordless, physical thing.

He threw the covers off of himself. "I'm going to watch some game tape."

She lay in bed for half an hour before she couldn't take it any more. He may not need her, but she needed to do something for him. Before she rounded the corner to the living room, however, she heard his father's voice. She remained at the edge of the hall. The faint glow of the TV drifted around the corner. There was no sound but their voices, however.

"So how old were you when you lost your virginity, then?" Eric asked.

"14."

"14! Jesus! That's young, Dad! I didn't lose mine until I was 16, almost 17."

"Really? Not Kimberley?"

"No. Laura. And not until right before my junior year."

"She dated you for an entire year before...uh..."

"Yeah."

"Oh. I assumed y'all were - "

"- Well we weren't. I mean, don't get me wrong, the sex was great once we started having it."

Tami did not need to hear this, but curiosity had pinned her to the wall.

Mr. Taylor chuckled. "Well, son, you had nothing to compare it to. Of course it was great."

"Four girls in high school?" Eric asked. "Really? In your generation? With your Catholic parents?"

"I was a football player. And a damn good one. And I was good-looking when I was young," he said, as if he wasn't now. "They were throwing themselves at me."

"Yeah, but when I was 13, you told me I should wait until I was more mature and that I should only do it with a steady girlfriend."

"Did it ever occur to you, Eric, that I might have learned from my mistakes?"

"You're telling me you regretted all that sex?"

"I didn't regret the sex. I regretted that I stopped dating decent girls whenever I learned they wanted to wait until marriage. I regretted that at least one of those girls I had sex with wasn't ready and that she regretted it."

"You pressured her?"

"Not exactly. But she wanted to please me, and I didn't expend much effort to make sure she was really ready. And I regret that I broke another girl's heart because she thought I loved her, and I just...I didn't."

"Did you tell her you did?"

"No. She assumed. I didn't challenge the assumption, though, because I wanted to get laid. I was not a gentleman. Oddly enough, your mother changed me."

"How's that?" Eric asked. His voice was a little angry and skeptical at once. Tami did not think he had mentioned the call to his father, not the way they were talking.

"She was so different from the other girls. She was so charming and classy and just...mesmerizing. I can't explain it. I didn't see her underside then, and I fell hard for her, but she made me work for her. She was sure of herself, and her family was rich and refined and she was out of my league in that sense. She should have been dating some intellectual, well dressed college boy, not the carpet layer's son, who owned only one suit and still read slowly."

"Karen's refined. I don't think you have a problem with refined women."

"Like I said, she changed me. We were together two years and I learned to be serious about a girl, and I learned to act the part of a gentleman. I didn't just learn to play the gentleman. I learned to like being the gentleman. In my own way. And about that time, because I developed more respect for women, I also started listening to my mother and big sister more. I started hearing the things they'd tried to teach me that I'd ignored."

"Why did you convince her to have me? Why didn't you just let her abort me? It would have been so easy for you."

"Son, I wish I could give you some answer like - I loved you before you were born. But I didn't. I was still half in-love with her. I thought for sure, when you were born, she'd change her mind and stay with me. And when she just walked out like she did...that's when I knew how much I'd been lying to myself about her character. That's how I knew I was in love with an image, with an idol. It wasn't the walking out on me. I can see why I might not have been the ideal match for her. It was the walking out on you."

Eric coughed.

"Becoming your father was the boldest and scariest and best thing I've ever done in my life. You changed me too. More than anyone ever has. You'll see. Julie will change you. Not that you aren't a good man already, but she'll show you all your weaknesses, and she'll make you wish you could be better. She'll make you strive to be better. You'll see."

"I like being a dad," Eric said quietly. "I was so shocked when Tami told me, and I didn't know how I was going to do it, but...I like being a dad."

"Me too," Mr. Taylor said. "To you and to Andrew." Tami heard the scrape of a bottle against the wood of the coffee table. "To being a dad."

The clink of beer bottles drifted to Tami's ears, and she felt guilty for listening in as long as she had. She crept back to bed.