into the wee hours of the morning … well after her last message to Mark Damsky had been sent and responded to. They’d met in Alcoholics Anonymous, Mark and Betsy. A surprise to Elle, considering her mother had never once acknowledged ever having had an alcohol problem, even while she was on her death bed dying from cirrhosis of the liver. Mark had been a recovering alcoholic and had led the group, having recently celebrated ten years of sobriety. He’d been Betsy’s mentor before becoming her lover, and by all appearances, things had been going great, until Betsy pulled a Betsy and bailed. He’d tried contacting her—calls going unanswered, meetings going unattended. He’d assumed she’d fallen off the wagon again.
Elle read Mark Damsky’s messages with Luke by her side, asking questions to fill in some of the blanks his story left behind and answering the few that Mark posed to her. For some reason even he was entirely uncertain of, he’d been thinking about Betsy and decided to try to find her online. Although married—happily, he’d assured Elle—he couldn’t quite shake his curiosity, wondering whatever had become of the woman he’d fallen for so many years ago; the woman he wanted so desperately to help. And it was during his internet search that he happened upon Betsy’s obituary. And Elle.
When he found Elle’s social media account, all he wanted to do was send her a message to give her his condolences and share with her his story of his time with her mom. But then he saw her. He noticed that her nose was his nose, and her jawline was his jawline. Elle looked a great deal like Betsy to anyone who saw them together, but as much as she resembled her mother, she also bore a striking resemblance to Mark Damsky … and Mark Damsky’s daughter. Some light internet stalking later, Mark had been able to discover that Betsy Sloan’s daughter had turned thirty-three this year—the same number of years it had been since he last saw Betsy Sloan.
“We’ll need … to do a … paternity test,” Elle said, after several minutes of confoundment.
Luke rubbed her shoulders, equally as dumbfounded. “I’ll try to get something arranged through the hospital. We’ll need a third party to control the testing. He’ll submit his swab and you submit your swab and then we’ll know.”
Elle nodded. “And then we’ll know.”
“Or, and hear me out on this,” I interjected, “we could all go on the Maury-You-Are-The-Father-Povich Show.”
“Then, after the results come in, we could head on over to the Jerry Springer set and throw some chairs around; you know, pending the outcome and all,” Peter added.
“See, Peter agrees. And then later, we can drive back to New York and crash at my place. Really make a day of it. Hell, you could even bring maybe-your-father with you.”
With the way Elle and Luke were staring at us in total silence, I knew they were nowhere near in the mood for our lighthearted commentary.
“Or we could try it your way, party poopers.”
*****
I was thankful for the events of the night before because they kept me too preoccupied to think about how nervous I was to be heading to the fair with Peter to meet Jackson. It felt silly to me, to be nervous to make the acquaintance of a second grader, yet here I was. My hands were clammy, my shoulders so tense they ached. Peter was a regular Chatty Cathy on the ride over, which I took as a clear sign his nerves were presenting themselves.
“Jackson has been pumped for this fair. It’s all he’s been talking about for the last week. He’s been bouncing off the walls. He’s seriously so geeked he’s been driving me crazy.”
“Peter?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think Jackson is excited for the fair?”
“I thought I just …” Peter snorted as he caught on to the joke. “It doesn’t happen very often, but I tend to ramble when I’m—”
“Nervous?”
“I prefer the term grossly excited.”
“I’ll see your ramblings of excitement and I’ll raise you an embarrassingly gross amount of perspiration.” I wiped my clammy hands on the hem of my shorts for at least the fifth time that afternoon.
We pulled into the gates that led to an otherwise barren field, presently being used as the parking lot for the county fair. When we reached the front of the line, Peter paid the attendant for our parking and turned into the improvised parking lot.
“Amanda said to meet her by the merry-go-round,” he said as we walked