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“White or navy blue?” she asked.
“I’m not sick.”
“White or navy blue?”
“White.”
“Good choice. Get in there, get clean, and I’ll have it ready for you when you get out,” she said.
I stood under the hot water until my skin stung, then got out and got dressed in black cotton lounge pants and a T-shirt. It was essentially a different pair of pajamas, but if I called it loungewear, it made it sound like I was just relaxing instead of that I was trying to hide away from the world in my room. Just as she had promised, Mom had fully remade my bed, and the food she’d brought me was spread out on a tray. I got back in bed, and she settled the tray over my lap. I felt ridiculous, but at the same time it was nice being comforted. Part of me worried my family would judge me and somehow put the blame on me for the whole situation. It was a relief to see their sympathy and know they were really on my side.
The exertion of getting up and taking the shower added to the hot temperature of the water and pressing steam of the bathroom made me feel shaky and woozy. The effects of the alcohol were much more intense now, the pain stabbing through both my eyes and down through the middle of my skull. My stomach flipped and turned, sloshing around and never settling. But Mom insisted I eat. It would help me feel better faster. I knew she was right, but I was glad she sat beside me with a small trash can strategically placed within reach while I ate and tried not to throw up.
When I got down the first sandwich, the sick feeling started to dissipate. The second sandwich made me feel tremendously better and brought out my hunger. I finished the last of the sandwiches she brought me along with the heavily salted kettle chips and a container of pasta salad. The sharp vinegary base of the salad cut through more of the sick feeling and helped bring me back to normal. When I was done, I felt well enough to get up, and Mom and I walked out onto my back deck carrying cups of coffee.
“Have you thought about what you want to do?” Mom asked after a few moments of us staring out over the grass.
“I don’t know,” I told her. “There’s so much to think about, and I don’t know what the best decision is.”
“You have the DNA test in. Soon enough, you’ll have the results and know for sure if that little girl is your daughter or not. You’re going to have to know what you want to do about it. Now is the perfect time how to decide how you feel and what you would want to do with either outcome,” she told me.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be thinking or feeling.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Since the results are still unknown, you can explore the feelings of both outcomes. Think about how you would feel if it turned out she wasn’t your daughter and Kelly was lying to you. Now decide how you would take those feelings and turn them into your next action. Then think about how it would be if they come back the opposite. If you are a father, how do you feel about that and what do you want to do?”
“That sounds a lot like homework,” I said.
“You have to be serious about this, Darren. Your life is different now, whichever way those tests go,” she told me.
“Yeah,” I said, taking another sip of my coffee. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Either way, everything is changed now. Nothing could ever go back to the way it was, but some things haven’t changed. I feel like a complete imbecile even admitting this to you, but I still want Kelly. Even with the lie, I still think about her, and I want to know how we would be together,” I admitted.
It was a hard thing for me to put into words and say out loud to my mother, but they needed to be said. It was the complete truth. I was more than halfway in love with Kelly and thought I was rushing toward having that other half fulfilled. I’d been holding a torch for her for three years. Now those feelings took on a completely different meaning.
I didn’t expect my mother to understand how I felt, to think it was okay to still want her. But if there was one thing I should never do when it came to my mother, it was to underestimate her. Rather than getting upset or telling me I was being ridiculous, she reached over and took my hand. She squeezed it gently and looked into my eyes.
