lie to you guys,” she had told them one chilly October evening as they sat on Chloe’s overstuffed floral couch, rain pounding on the dormered windows of her cozy Troutdale office. “This one is not rock solid. Let’s just wait and see. They say they are still on for our meeting at Pizza Hut next Thursday, and we’re supposed to work on the birth plan. Who’s in the delivery room, who cuts the cord, who holds the baby first, all that jazz.”
And then a week before her due date, Amber’s mother had called Chloe to say they were keeping the baby, would raise it themselves, thanks for the food and everything.
“Yes.” Paul doesn’t say more now, peeling back the covers. It had surprised him how quickly he had gotten on board with the concept of adoption. Selfishly, he relished the idea of bringing a baby home like a puppy—no, that’s not fair, something more difficult and precious, a baby monkey, maybe—and adjusting only to one new variable without having to factor in Eva’s recovery, the waves of hormones, and her changed body (how he loved her old flat stomach with the soft, fine blond hair around her perfect oval belly button!). But when adoption was presented in the specific, in the form of the gum-smacking Amber, Paul can admit to himself that he was shaken. He had felt such relief when it was over, no longer worried about their half-wit, sleepy-eyed Baby Huey of a daughter who would be knocked up at age twelve herself, nature’s triumph over nurture.
Paul gets into bed, wraps around his wife’s back, rubbing the bumpy landscape of their baby, their son, growing in her belly. “Shhh…” is all he says. Somewhere downstairs, Henry the cat lets out a plaintive meow. “Shh,” Paul whispers.
3
The Famous Chloe Pinter
CHLOE
The Cherokee’s engine whines as Chloe drives uphill toward home, a run-down former fraternity annex house she and Dan rent in Portland Heights. Beside her on the seat is the second cooling Fred Meyer bag with mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and green bean casserole. She flips her cell phone open, no messages, her stomach queasy from her trip to the apartment complex. Her boss will hit the ceiling if Jason and Penny fall through, after all the money the agency has spent on them. Chloe puts the phone back in her purse but leaves it turned on. It may be Thanksgiving, but as the Chosen Child’s only domestic case manager, she’s still on call.
Chloe looks at her hands on the steering wheel, the loose ring with its fake diamond slipping around her left ring finger. They stopped shaking when she crossed the Burnside Bridge, her heart rate evened out once she turned south on Vista. They have no car—what’s Jason Xolan going to do, follow her by bus? Despite the assault charges on his record, she’s not afraid of him. Yet. He is simply a man cornered by circumstances, dependent on a woman, and that can be a dangerous sort of animal. This is familiar territory to Chloe; there is one of these waiting for her inside at home.
Inside the dark living room, Dan is sulking in front of ESPN, bundled in a DaKine sweatshirt and thick fleece socks. Last week he put clear packing tape along their old windowpanes, complaining of the draft, but he still walks around hunched over like he is bracing against an icy draft as he scales Everest.
“Hi, babe.” She takes off her coat and drapes it over the arm of the couch he is curled on.
“It’s fucking freezing in here, and I’ve got the thermostat turned all the way up.” Dan doesn’t have a car, has to ride his bike home from the bus line, almost four miles uphill, every night.
“You should have called me—I could have picked you up tonight.”
“I thought you said you had to do a dinner thing with someone.”
“I did. I’m done.” Chloe squints at the thermostat, walks over, and holds her hand over the register. “It’s blowing cold; did you check the pilot?”
“Yes,” he snaps.
“Well, did you call the landlord?”
He doesn’t answer.
In the breakfast nook she sets a table, tries to pry him away from the TV. “Honey. Dinner.”
“No turkey?” He walks in and leans against the doorframe, purposefully lifts his sweatshirt in a stretch to expose his delicious rows of sinewy abdominals.
“I got this on the agency credit card when I was getting a dinner for some birth parents—thought Beverly would question more than one turkey.”