“About?”
“Why don’t you set the gun down first, honey.”
He has just walked in from a hunting trip and Ben has brought the fields in with him, that damp delicious smell of mud and buckshot and unshaven husband. He props his shotgun against the corner wall and takes the seat beside Becca at the kitchen table, exhaling in an almost meditative way as he settles into the chair.
She tring-a-lings two fingernails against her coffee mug.
“I haven’t been entirely honest with you lately.”
“How long is lately?” Ben asks.
“A few months.”
There is a thick manila file folder on the placemat between them and Ben is doing everything he can not to see it.
“Don’t do this babe,” he pleads.
“What?”
“There’s someone else.”
“First of all don’t babe me and second there is no one else. No one. Well, hold on, actually there is but it’s not like that. It’s not what you think. Thirdly . . .” This isn’t at all how she imagined things would go. All of that preparation, all of that practice, and already she’s lousing it up. Isn’t it, what did Willa say . . . upside-down . . . she’s so nervous? After visiting two prisons, after coaxing a jailhouse confession, Becca’s more frightened of this little chat with Ben.
“We can fix this, Becca. I can . . .”
“Ben . . .”
“. . . don’t tell me any more about it. I don’t care. I’ll, I . . .”
“. . . be quiet a second . . .”
“. . . can change. I will . . .”
“. . . I have something to say.”
She takes his hand in hers and it’s shaking, both of them are shaking, and this is when she understands: he’s scared. For the first time in perhaps her life Becca feels more powerful than her husband. And she likes it. Likes it maybe just a little too much.
“I want to adopt Caleb, that little boy from the shelter.”
Calmly now, she’s no longer trembling, Becca tells all about the last two months, everything she knows. Opening the file folder, she shows him the poor boy’s photograph, that sad lost soul—it’s an old soul, don’t you think?—shows him the transcripts from Abigail’s language lessons, Caleb talking about the house of horrors he called home; shows him the parental release she has prepared for Willa—the girl hasn’t agreed to this yet but she will, you’ll see—the background checks they’ll need to submit and the petition they can make to the family court, they can file it next week, all she needs is Ben’s approval. His approval and his signature.
“Caleb’s father is a Choctaw Indian, so it could get complicated,” she says. “But we could start by fostering the boy. Billy hasn’t agreed to any of this yet but I believe he will. And if he doesn’t, take a look at the birth certificate. Willa never put the father’s name on the form. So Mr. Gomez, the attorney I told you about, he says we can make Billy prove his paternity. There’s a chance Billy might not even be Caleb’s biological father. If he’s found guilty, and he will be, the whole thing should go more smoothly.”
“This is the kid being tried for murder?” he asks.
Becca nods.
“What if he gets out?”
“He won’t get out.”
“You can’t know that.”
“He did it.”
“And you know this how?”
“Billy told me.”
“You went to see him?” Carefully now. “In the county jail?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“He knows your name? He knows what you look like?”
“And yours too. He has to meet us, Ben, if we’re going to raise his child.”
“I’m . . . I . . .”
“You’re speechless.” She laughs. “It’s about time.”
Ben shrugs out from beneath his DayGlo orange hunting vest, restless now, pulling at his undershirt collar.
“This isn’t what I thought . . .”
She leans across the table, caressing her husband’s hot chubby cheeks, leans in to kiss him deeply on the lips. It’s a long, passionate kiss and when she pulls away Ben is better.
“I don’t think I can do this without you.”
“But . . .”
“But I will.”
“It’s funny because at the office I’m always wishing kids on my worst enemies. Hoping it will throw them off their game.”
“But you don’t mean it.”
“I don’t mean most of it. What about our retirement?”
“What about it? We could retire five times over and you know it.”
“I need to understand why. Why this kid? Why now? Isn’t the volunteering enough?”
“Whatever time we have left I want it to count.”
“Becca, I haven’t even met the kid.”
“I can fix that.”
“I’m not saying yes.”
“You’re not saying no.”
“I don’t know what I’m saying.”