Page 44 of Life Out of Order

“I don’t think anything good ever came of saying yes to that.”

Gomez perseveres. “Why are you no-contact with your folks?”

None of your business, I think. “Why do you ask?”

“Just, watching you in there, when Alba and I were disagreeing. You shut down—you walked out of that room in your head about ten minutes before you physically got up and left. You reminded me of some of the kids I represent. Not the ones who get taken away from their parents; the ones who have to tell the judge which parent they want to live with, and why.”

“Fortunately, I was spared that particular humiliation.” He waits for me to say more, but I wait him out.

“Yeah, well,” Gomez says. “When they asked me, I picked my dad. I didn’t see my mom again till I was twenty-three, a week before she died.” I realize that I’ve never wondered about Gomez’s childhood; he spends so much time taking care of other people that it’s impossible to imagine him needing parents, being a kid. He smiles one-sidedly at my startled expression. “My mom was a wild child. Beautiful and bonkers. She and my dad were high school sweethearts. They were both seventeen when I was born. They split when I was seven. She ended up becoming a Deadhead; we used to get postcards from all over, whenever the band was touring. She died when I was in law school, before I met Charisse.”

“That sounds hard,” I say. “How did you get from there to here? I feel like I ought to feel less—damaged than I do.”

“Charisse is my exoskeleton. And our kids keep me sane, along with Alba and their friends. After Henry died, we tried to step up for Alba and Clare. Alba’s like a daughter to us; that’s why she’s so rebellious.”

I’ve never thought of Alba as rebellious; she’s pretty reserved. When she’s with the Gomolinskis she’s mostly amused or exasperated. I say, “I would like to have kids. I’m not sure how Alba feels about that, though.” Gomez doesn’t reply. I look over at him and he’s just frowning and smoking. “What?”

“Eh,” he says. “I’ve stumbled in where I shouldn’t be. You should talk to Alba.”

“I mean, yes, I should, but is there anything I ought to know first?”

Gomez sighs. “Alba’s mother nearly died more than once, trying to have a baby, because of the whole time-travel thing—multiple miscarriages, lots of blood loss. She and Alba decided it would be too risky for Alba to get pregnant, and Alba had a tubal ligation when she was sixteen.”

“Oh. Okay. So. No kids.” I feel hollow, and hurt; she should’ve told me herself.

“There are lots of ways to have a family,” Gomez offers.

“Sure. Yeah.” We sit without speaking. Finally I say, “The way things are going, maybe it’s not a kindness to bring children into this world. That piece of paper y’all were waving around in there, nothing about that seems encouraging.”

“No. True. Hey,” Gomez says, “does the knowledge that there is such a piece of paper make you more or less inclined to bust your ass trying to prevent climate change?”

“Everything Alba’s ever told me about the future makes me more inclined to embrace day drinking,” I assure him.

“Maybe she’s right, and it wouldn’t help to show it to anyone. When I first understood what she was telling me back then, I went into overdrive trying to figure out how to stop it. But I guess it would hit different people differently.”

“Maybe you’re more optimistic than we are. Knowing Alba has reinforced my natural fatalism. We’re fucked, oh well, what’s for lunch?”

Gomez shakes his head. “Come on. You don’t really think that way, do you?”

“On a good day I believe that we can undo the damage, or at least stop before we reach the point of no return. But then I figure if the future’s so wonderful, Alba wouldn’t mind telling us about it.”

“No,” Gomez says. “Alba disapproves of time travel; she believes it damages people. She won’t tell us how it all turns out, wonderful or not.”

“Then why ask her to meet with Extinction Rebellion?”

“As Raymond Williams said, ‘To be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing.’” Gomez sighs. “I thought her sense of civic responsibility might kick in. Sometimes it does, you never know.”

I imagine Alba sitting by herself in the Gomolinskis’ kitchen, waiting for us. I imagine invisible lines extending like iridescent slugs’ trails from Alba into the ominous future, and I’m grateful that she is silent, sphinxlike, about what that future might be. “She must feel very alone.”

“Yes,” Gomez replies. “We should go in.”

Later, Alba and I are dozing, tucked neatly together into Joe’s old bed after having sex almost silently so as not to be overheard. I am nearly asleep when Alba says, “What did Gomez say to you?”

“Hmm?”

“You were out there for ages. Then you both seemed sad all evening, like someone died and you didn’t want me to know.” She turns her head so we are staring into each other’s eyes. “What happened?”

I’m alert now. “Um. I’m not sure how to ask you about this. We were talking about the future; knowing the future and whether that’s a good thing. We were talking about having kids. I mentioned that I would like to have kids some day, and Gomez told me that I should ask you about that.”