When I get back to the hotel room, I’m hoping that Henry will be working on his schoolwork with Carly. Alone.
No such luck—my parents are sitting right next to them in the little living room of the suite, my father reading, and my mother sketching in a leather-bound notebook.
They both look up as I enter the room, wearing the “I Heart Chicago” t-shirt, sweat shorts, and flip-flops.
“Where have you been?” Mama asks, eyebrows raised. She obviously thinks I was abducted by a tour bus and forced to sight-see all morning long.
My father is more suspicious. His eyes flit to the high-heeled sandals I’m carrying. At least I had the sense to throw out the torn dress. Still, he knows a walk of shame when he sees one.
I’m not going to play their game, though. I’m a grown adult. I don’t have to report back like I used to when I had a curfew. If I want to stay out all night long, that’s my business.
Ignoring my mother’s question, I say, “Carly, when you’re finished with that paper, I’m going to take Henry out. So you can have the rest of the day off.”
“Well, thank you,” Carly grins. “I saw a sushi place down the road that was calling my name.”
She’s a lovely girl—freckled, friendly, always willing to accommodate my strange schedule. She’s good to Henry, and I’ll be forever grateful to her for that. But at the end of the day I’m her boss, not her friend. Sometimes having her around just makes me miss Serwa.
“What should we do?” Mama muses. “We could all go to the park together!”
“Sorry,” I tell her gently. “I need to spend some time alone with Henry today.”
“Oh,” she says. “Of course.”
“We could take him tomorrow, though,” I say.
“Tomorrow would be perfect.” She smiles.
I go into my own room to change my clothes.
My heart is beating rapidly. I’ve pictured having this conversation a hundred times, but it was always just theoretical—on some day in the distant future. Now that day is today.
Henry is already dressed. He’s wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt, with a Lakers cap crammed down over his curls. He hates doing his hair, so he’ll wear a hat instead any chance he gets. His clothes don’t match exactly, but they’re pretty close—he’s getting better at picking outfits for himself.
I can’t believe that this autonomous human I made is already getting his own preferences in colors and patterns. He loathes the feeling of blue jeans, and almost exclusively wears shorts or joggers. His feet look enormous in his sneakers. We already wear the same shoe size.
The sight of him hurts my heart. I love the way he slouches, the way he walks, his little sleepy half-smile.
This is what I didn’t know about having kids: it’s like falling in love all over again. You love everything about that little person. They are more crucial to you than your own self.
I also didn’t know that having Henry would bind me to Dante more than anything else. Every time I look at my son I see parts of Dante—his height. His hands. His dark eyes. His intelligence. His focus. As Henry gets older, I have no doubt his voice will deepen like Dante’s.
Henry is the greatest gift I’ve ever received. He’s the best thing in my life. And it’s Dante who gave him to me. We created this boy together—to my mind, the most perfect and beautiful human ever made.
This feeling is totally one-sided—Dante doesn’t even know we have a son together. But I’ll be grateful to him all my life for Henry.
I won’t ever have a child with another man. I knew that as soon as Henry started to grow up. I saw how handsome and strong and determined he was. I felt this bizarre sense of destiny, that I’d created the most incredible son on the planet. The wonderfulness of Henry is proof that Dante and I were the perfect match. I could never have a baby with anyone else.
These are insane beliefs, I know that. But I can’t help the way I feel. Dante was the one for me—the only one. And whether we’ll ever be together again or not, nobody else will take his place.
How can I express this to Henry, in its simplest form?
He deserves to know his father. He deserved to know him all along. I was wrong to let it go on this long.
Still, after all this time, I’m not prepared. I don’t know how to explain any of this to him. And I’m fucking terrified.
I take Henry down to the waterfront. We rent a couple of bicycles, and we cycle along the lakeshore for a few miles. The path is full of joggers, walkers, runners, cyclists, skateboarders, people with scooters, strollers, even rollerblades.
I let Henry go ahead of me. The rented bikes are simple three-speeds, with wide handlebars and banana seats. It’s hard to keep up with him while he’s pedaling madly, the wind in his face. His hat flies off his head and by some miracle, I manage to reach up and snatch it out of the air. Henry grins back at me, calling out, “Nice, Mom!”
When I see an ice cream stand up ahead, I tell him to stop. We order cones, then take them down on the sand to eat. Mine’s strawberry cheesecake. Henry ordered vanilla, like he always does.
Henry licks his cone, which is already starting to melt. It’s not warm out, but it’s sunny.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” he says.
“How did you know I wanted to talk?”
“ ‘Cause you wouldn’t let Grandma come with us.”
“Right.” I take a deep breath. “Do you remember how I told you that your father lived in another country?”
“Yeah,” Henry says, calmly.
I told him that a few years ago. Henry had just started at the international school in Madrid. I assume the other kids asked him about his father, because he came home and started asking questions, too.
“Well,” I say, “He lives here. In Chicago.”
Henry glances over at me, curious. He doesn’t seem alarmed, but I can tell he’s interested.
“He’s here now?” he asks.
“Yes. Actually . . .” my heart is hammering. “You saw him the other day. He was the man that came to our hotel room.”
“That big guy? With black hair?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
Henry’s still eating his ice cream. I’m watching his face, trying to interpret how he’s taking this news.
He looks surprisingly unsurprised. Henry is extraordinarily calm. He doesn’t often show strong emotion. I think he feels it, inside. But outside he’s still water.
“Who is he?” Henry asks, at last.
“His name is Dante Gallo.”
“Did he come to the hotel to visit me?” Henry asks, in mild confusion.
“No,” I say. “He doesn’t know about you, yet. I guess . . . I guess I wanted to talk to you first.”
Henry finishes the ice cream on top of his cone, and starts chomping the cone itself. Our conversation isn’t dampening his hunger any.
“Do you want to meet him?” I say.
“I already met him.”
“I mean, do you want to talk to him?”
Henry considers for a minute, chewing.
“Yes,” he says, nodding.
“It might change things,” I say to Henry, biting the edge of my thumbnail. I haven’t touched my ice cream at all, and it’s melting out of the cone, dripping down on the sand. I shouldn’t have bought one for myself—I’m too anxious to eat.
“Change what?” he asks.
“Just . . . you might go to visit him sometimes. Or stay with him.”
I know that concept might seem intimidating, and I don’t want that to influence Henry’s choice. But at the same time, I want to be honest with him. Telling Dante about Henry is opening a Pandora’s Box. I can’t predict what will come of it.
Henry considers.
“He is my dad?” he says. “For sure?”
“Yes,” I say. “He definitely is.”
“Okay then,” Henry shrugs.
I sigh, my shoulders releasing from their tense position. That part is done, at least.
When Henry was little he used to ask me questions about his father: What’s his favorite color? Does he have a dog? What does he look like?
Now he asks me a different sort of question.
“Why doesn’t he know about me?”
“It’s complicated,” I say. “You know I was very, very young when I had you. Your father was young, too. We were in different places then. Now . . . now we’re older. Things have changed.”
How much have they changed? Which things are different, and which have stayed the same?
I hope the answer is that Dante changed, and I changed, but the way we feel about each other has endured . . .
I’m afraid. Afraid that when I tell Dante the truth tonight, that will be the end of any chance we had of rekindling our relationship.
All I can really hope for is that he can love Henry despite it all. Because Henry deserves that, even if I don’t.
