The Mothers A Novel - By Jennifer Gilmore Page 0,76

magic. I mean, it really could be all of that.”

Ramon said something, but I couldn’t make it out.

“You know you shouldn’t have drunk so much,” I said. “You’ve been drinking a lot lately.”

“Can you not?” Ramon sat up. “For once can you just not do that? Not berate me or criticize me or have a fucking problem? Just this once?”

I could barely understand him, but I could discern the meaning behind what he was saying. I swallowed and sat back. “Okay,” I said slowly.

“Because you know what? I don’t have a father and now you know what?” He stood and stumbled and then stood again. “And now I’m not going to be a father either. No more fathers!” he said, mocking the making of an important speech.

“Ramon.”

“You’re always talking about the mothers,” he said. “But the fathers are here too.”

I stood up. I put my hand on his shoulder. It was awkward for me, as I had become less inclined to show affection. “You will be a father. We will be parents. It’s what you’ve been saying and it’s true.” I brushed the hair out of his face. “Okay?”

He nodded. “Maybe this is just too hard.” He reached down to the floor, where a beer bottle stood. He took a long slug. “Maybe this is too hard for us.”

“Stop it,” I said.

Harriet had left the dank gazebo for the brighter green grass and the prospect of uneaten sausages, and I looked out to watch her approach the blankets of people, leaving mayhem and destruction in her wake.

“Jesse!” someone from within the chaos called out. “You have got to get Harriet out of here!” Children began to shriek.

I looked over at Ramon, snarling into his beer. I took his hand. “We’ve got to save the poor innocent children from our feral animal.”

He laughed, a little bitterly.

“We can find out your dad’s birthday,” I said. “I mean, you can find out anything now, can’t you?”

“I don’t care,” he said. “I guess that’s the point. I can’t even wake up and say, ‘Today is Ramon Sr.’s birthday, how strange not to talk to him today.’”

I nodded.

“There is just nothing that makes me remember him. I don’t live where I grew up. I don’t have a sibling. I don’t have a child. Nothing reminds me of my father.”

His speech had suddenly become clear. I nodded.

“Jesse!” someone else called.

I popped my head out. “I’ll be right there! Harriet, come!” I screamed, more for the people than for the dog, who I knew would not obey.

“Let’s go,” I said, trying to heave Ramon up.

I felt the pull in my arms, the inverse and opposite feeling of Ramon dragging me up from bed this morning. “Please,” I said. “Let’s grab Toto, click our heels three times, and go home.”

19

__

Fall 2010

The seasons were changing; time was just going and going; there was no holding back that stream of sand in the hourglass.

We had no calls in September.

And yet, there is nothing as exquisite as that month. Though I taught at a city school, hardly a university crawling with ivy and ringed by old trees, even here, September was about promise and winning. If spring is rebirth, September is for remaking.

In September we did not hear from a birthmother, but we did get a note from Anita. I got a note, I should say. She and Paula had matched with an African-American birthmother near them, in North Carolina. I hope it’s okay that I’m telling you this, she wrote in the e-mail. I looked over my shoulder to see if Ramon was there.

As kids we were told, There’s room for everyone, don’t worry. Girls, share! my sister and I were instructed. There’s plenty to go around. But of course that’s not true. Now there was nowhere near enough. There were fewer jobs and less food—whole countries were starving—and there were fewer babies than those who wanted the babies. So was I happy for Anita and Paula?

I was.

“Ramon!” I called out when I saw the e-mail. “Come here!” I said.

He leaned over me and I could feel his breath in my ear, and hear it stop.

I looked up at him. His face was so close. I could see his gray-flecked sideburns, and his long lashes touching down to the tender skin below his eyes and then rising up again. He rubbed his eye and cleared his throat.

“You okay?” I asked.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess I just wasn’t expecting that.”

“Expecting—”

“Them to be first. We started at the

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