visiting, and we’re trying to watch the game, and it’s the final forty seconds, and the Vikings are down by three, and Wyeth’s screaming, so I’m trying to put the paci in, plug the hole that makes the noise. She comes down in a towel, looking at me and Magnus like, How come two grown men can’t handle one baby? and I guess I was missing.”
“Missing?”
“I was trying to put the pacifier in his ear.” Paul chuckles. “My eyes were on the game. And I say to her, a little snappy, ‘Nothing’s working!’”
“And?”
“And she takes him from me, and immediately he’s quiet, like he knows the milk is coming, like he can smell it. And Eva gives me and Magnus this look, and she says, ‘Nothing never works, boys. You have to try something.’”
“Ouch.” Chloe laughs.
“Yeah.” Paul shakes his head. “She’s right, though. And most often, what he wants is her. I feel responsible; she’s exhausted. On so many levels. It was me; I dropped the dime in this jukebox.” Paul chuckles and pats Wyeth’s bottom ruefully, shaking his head as he says, “Some days it feels more like a pinball machine.”
“What do you mean?”
“Having a baby, way back when—it was my idea. As soon as we were settled, married, I was the one who said it was time to have kids. I’m the only one left in my family.” He waves his hand dismissively in the air between them, and she can see the mists of lingering tragedy hang over him. “It was important to me, to connect with someone, make a life, start a family.”
Chloe catches herself leaning forward in her seat, hasn’t touched her creamed and sugared coffee.
“Sometimes,” he continues, “I think it’s not so much about the right person, more just the right time. When I met Eva…” He trails off.
“What do you mean?”
“My wife walked me through what turned out to be the hardest year of my life. No, she carried me. And all because she saw my last name on the class list and liked the way it sounded with hers. It’s the kind of thing that makes you believe in the hand of fate, God, whatever you want to call it.”
Chloe thinks of friends of theirs, in less-than-perfect relationships, whom she and Dan watched get engaged the past year, and how Dan had scoffed that they were just doing it because of peer pressure, some societal timetable.
“But that’s not us,” they had said to each other.
“So you don’t believe in soul mates?” Chloe asks Paul now, sipping her coffee, thinking, here they are, a man and a woman, talking about relationships and drinking coffee in a Portland café.
“I believe in being the best partner you can be. The rest follows.”
“You mean, ‘Love the one you’re with’?”
Paul chuckles, pushes his chair back, checking the bill the barista dropped on their table. “That makes it sound unpleasant. That’s not exactly what I meant.
“Anyway—” He stands up, digging in his hip pocket for a wallet. “Sorry to go on. Let me pay for your coffee.”
“Please, no!” Chloe fumbles in her little purse.
“I should pay you for the session as well.” He takes the tiny hat shaped like a bear and tugs it down over Wyeth’s head. “You’re a good listener; comes with the job, I guess.”
“Not at all,” she says. They stand uncertainly, both wallets open, and Chloe does not really want it to end. There is so much more she wants to ask him.
“I should get going.” Paul smiles. “The gesture is sort of lost if the coffee I bring my wife is cold.”
“It’s miserable out; can I give you a ride?”
Paul reaches under the baby carrier and produces a small folding umbrella.
“You’re full of surprises.” Chloe laughs.
“I came prepared. Boy Scouts, and a lifetime in Portland. I’m a handy guy to have around.”
“Still, it’s cold.”
“Fresh air’s good for us. And you don’t have a car seat. Hey, would you check, does he have both socks?” Chloe looks at the skinny, fleece-clad legs coming out of the baby carrier; one of Wyeth’s navy socks is dangling dangerously. Paul is saying, “I have new sympathy for pregnant women; I can’t see his feet, let alone my own.”
“Here.” She reaches to tug the loose sock back on his tiny foot, and her knuckles brush against the mounded button fly of Paul’s jeans.
“Oh! Sorry!” she says when Paul takes a half-step back, her cheeks flaming. They both laugh to cover the awkwardness. “Oh my gosh, so sorry, I