his cheeks basically quivering in what she knew was rage.
“Can’t you stay out of my business?”
“Hey, you came in here.” Cleo stood, walked around her desk, and leaned against the front of it. “Also, since we’re on the subject . . .”
“We weren’t on the subject.” Lucas crossed his arms, just like he used to as a toddler whenever he was gearing up for a fight.
“Fine, well, we are now, and I don’t know what’s going on, but you can’t be ‘with,’ or whatever, two girls, Lucas. You just can’t.”
“God, you are so lame.”
“I have never pretended otherwise.”
“If I had a dad around, I could ask him.” Lucas’s hands moved to his hips, even more defiant now.
It had been percolating since MaryAnne’s op-ed, this rebuke, the sting of how maybe Cleo fucked up and it could have been different with his dad, but still, it smacked her across the face. It was his default way of fighting, going right for her most vulnerable part, and he wasn’t wrong: she saw his dad’s name there, on the list, a reminder. Cleo tried to spend every moment she had while not working (and, admittedly, much of her time was spent working) with Lucas, putting Band-Aids on scrapes, reading bedtime stories before she returned to her office to review drafts of legislation, attending as many soccer games as she possibly could (so most, though not all), and, until a few years ago, he’d taken her at her word: that it had always been just the two of them, and they didn’t need anything, anyone else. He had been curious, sure, about why other kids had present fathers, but he hadn’t been pushy and he hadn’t been bothered. That changed around twelve, right about when puberty set in, and Cleo had to talk to him about all sorts of things that neither of them particularly wanted to discuss but discussed anyway. Body hair. Erections. She even broached masturbation once, but it was a bridge too far and ended quickly.
But she told him, clearly and with some finality over dinner one night—Cleo knew they were going to get into the heart of it, so she came home early to cook spaghetti and fresh marinara (his favorite and really one of the few things Cleo knew how to make)—that his dad didn’t want to play a part. The same line she used when the press had raised it in her first congressional run. And because Cleo took people at their words, she said to Lucas, she had honored what his dad said and reminded him that impregnating someone is not the same thing as being a father. Besides, she added, both when he was twelve and anytime he raised it after that, we are not the type of people who chase down others who spurn us. We never will be.
Cleo never felt good about it, this discussion and some of the mistruths she represented in it, but Lucas trusted her, and for the most part, that was that.
“Your having a father wouldn’t change the fact that it’s not fair to Marley Jacobson if you are FaceTiming Esme!” Cleo managed tonight.
She thought of her list, tucked in that top drawer, and remembered why she locked it. Because of this discussion. Because of Doug. Because how that night was such a massive clusterfuck of regret, even when, of course, it couldn’t be. Of how Lucas would feel if he saw it or understood it or had any idea the panic that she felt not just when she woke up and realized she’d had unprotected sex with a guy she really barely knew (it was Cleo’s only one-night stand both before and since) but also when she realized—ten weeks later—that she was pregnant.
Cleo’s period had always, always been reliable. To the afternoon, to the time of day. It was so reliable that she gave it no thought. At that point, she’d had so much else on her plate. Her grandmother was gone, her parents obviously too. She was focused on making dean’s list, on her law school acceptances, on completing her honors thesis. It didn’t even occur to her that her period was late, because it was one of the few things she could count on. Almost two months later, she woke up in a deep sweat, as if her body were literally waking up to a realization that something was changing, and she ran to the twenty-four-hour CVS down the street from the apartment she shared with two