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Her touch anchors him. “But why? Why not tell me?”
“Because.” She carefully pulls her hand away. “This was my mistake, not yours. I let it happen. And this isn’t 1955, when people who didn’t plan to be together, who weren’t meant to be together, ended up getting married. I can do this. It will work out.”
Is it really that simple? Lincoln feels as if he’s floating away. He’s adrift in a vast and bottomless sea.
“Besides,” Amy continues, “you want to go to New York, you are going to New York. I need to be here, in Chicago, where my family can help. There are lots of single mothers in graduate school.”
The turn to the practical gives Lincoln something to cling to. “Have you told your parents?” he asks. He knows Amy well enough to know abortion was never an option.
“Of course. I’m not doing this alone.”
“I’ll help in any way...” He lets the comment dangle when he realizes how hapless he must sound.
Amy comforts. “Everything’s fine. Really. I love my obstetrician. She says th
e baby and I are going great.” With an effort, a hint of the life she’s carrying, Amy pushes herself up and stands beside the sofa. “And, now, you really must leave. My mother’s coming, and we’re going shopping for baby clothes.” She lifts her arms, palms up, in happy wonder. “There’s so much preparation! Today we’re hunting clothes, tomorrow a crib. There’s a sale at Land of Nod.”
Also with an effort, Lincoln heaves himself up out of the soft cushions. Light-headed, his legs rubbery, he shuffles behind Amy to the door. He has so many questions, so much to digest, to work through. But he knows he must flee—he desperately needs the bracing slap of the cold spring wind to get his mind back in focus.
Amy is not quite finished with him, however. “I don’t want you to think I’ve done this casually, John,” she tells him. “I’ve thought about it a lot, talked about it a lot—with my parents, my doctor, even a family friend who’s a lawyer. Everyone but the priest.” She laughs. “It’s better this way.”
Lincoln offers a dazed nod.
“Don’t worry,” Amy continues. “I won’t hide you. When the baby wants to know who her daddy is, I’ll tell her—tell her nice things. Maybe she’ll even want to come to visit some day. But you’ve got no obligations.”
Even in his muddled state, Lincoln realizes he has gleaned a spot of information. “Her?” he asks.
“The baby’s a girl,” Amy says, and her face blossoms into a huge smile.
When Lincoln remains speechless, Amy goes on, “That’s one reason why I was so upset about getting outed about the book. I don’t want my daughter to be wandering around the Web one day and reading about her mother being a pornographer.”
Lincoln thinks he’s solved another mystery. “So you steered Marissa Morgan and the other bloggers to me?”
“Of course not,” Amy scolds. “I’d never do that. Marissa found me, but I wouldn’t talk to her. It was Kim, the Pistakee receptionist. She kept nagging me while I was still there, so I finally let her read the manuscript. She loved it, and she always wanted to talk to me about it. She had a friend from Iowa in the production department at The Reader. And Kim’s the only one clueless enough to talk to a reporter.”
“Kim,” Lincoln repeats. Of course.
“But five minutes after I left your apartment, I was thinking about the baby,” Amy continues. “I didn’t even know why I came over.”
Drawing from a last, buried repository of bravado, Lincoln says, “Maybe you came over because you wanted to see your baby’s father.”
Amy’s smile disappears and she opens the door, ushering him out. “I like you, John,” she says, “but I don’t want to spend my life with you.” Just before she closes the door firmly behind him, she adds, “Have fun in New York.”
33
LINCOLN LEAVES AMY’S building and turns right, heading east. He has a dim understanding that if he turned left in his condition, he’d probably just keep walking, one foot ahead of the other, over and over, across the despoiled prairie until he tumbled off the bank into the Mississippi itself. Pointed east, though, after a few blocks he comes across Halsted, a familiar artery, and he takes a Number Eight bus home.
Back in his apartment, Lincoln occupies himself by inventorying what he’ll be taking to New York, making a list on a yellow legal pad. There may be enough that he needs to hire a moving company—Malcolm House will pay. Books, stereo, clothes. A few pieces of furniture—maybe he can even reclaim some items from his old apartment. Mary owes him that much. But soon he wearies of the exercise. It can’t distract him from rerunning his conversation with Amy, and it doesn’t allay his sense of loss. Finally, searching for a way to ease his restlessness, he takes a look at Vijay Sharma’s latest offering (might as well do the guy a favor, since he launched Lincoln’s online career), and reading the absurd but heroic adventures of the Indian private eye, Lincoln finds a way to make the hours pass.
In midafternoon Flam calls. He wants to know how the trip to New York went.
“Well, they offered me the job,” Lincoln reveals.
“No shit. That was quick. I’m impressed.”
“Thanks.”
“You must be feeling pretty good.”
