Julian and Philip were having a baby. Maybe. They were possibly adopting a boy who was definitely due in three weeks. They had been in this position before, or similar high-stakes insanity. For two years they’d ridden the adoption roller coaster—going to work and living their lives through constant upheaval, maybe having twins in LA in a month, then not, or getting in the car to drive to Philly for a match meeting when a birth mom they’d been talking to for weeks suddenly ghosted, never to be heard from again. Each time their hearts fluttered to their throats and plunged to their feet, destroying them for days, making them oversleep, until they got up a little more bruised each time. But this time when they got in a car—a red Dodge Charger at the airport Hertz in Houston—things felt realer.
“What have we got on the Sirius?” Julian said, attacking the radio dials and scanning intensely. “Whoo!” he hooted at the sound of R.E.M. He pulled out of the parking garage into the bright Gulf sun, quickly accelerating from mouthing the words into a lusty sing-along of “Losing My Religion.”
“Do you think Marisol is ashamed of where she lives?” Philip asked, turning the volume down a few notches.
“Umm, I don’t know. We barely know her. Why?”
“Do you think that’s why she wants to meet us at a restaurant?” Philip shifted in his seat. “Have you noticed, whenever we Skype, there’s—laundry?”
“Laundry?”
“Everywhere. Stacked on the coffee table. In baskets.” Philip whipped his hand around. “Hanging on chairs. Laundry all over.”
Julian considered this. In their calls after Marisol emailed them through their website—eight months pregnant with no plans—he did recall seeing a lot of laundry on her end of the computer. “Well,” he reasoned. “Her mom, two sisters, Marisol, and her daughters living there. Six people. Lots of wash. Whoo!” He jacked up the volume. “Chumbawamba! I love this song. We should get Sirius for our car. What station is this?”
“Adult Hits.”
“Oh.” Julian readjusted his hands on the steering wheel. “We’re adults. We’re about to have a kid; that’s how it works. God, the nerves! We’ve Skyped with her, but face-to-face—it’s like a first date.” He shot Philip a glance. “Remember ours?”
“Do I remember our first date? Both nights. You made me work for it.”
“You wanted to get laid. Tell me it wasn’t worth the wait. At your peril. I think it’s normal Marisol wants to meet in public the first time. I feel good. Don’t you?”
“Worried.” Philip scowled. “From the moment she called. I worry every time with these calls, every woman. You know that.”
“But we’re ready.” Julian grinned and hit the gas. “Aren’t you ready? For this whole awful process to make sense? The coincidence-not-coincidence that we got a call from”—he shrugged dramatically—“Houston?”
“We said in our profile that you’re from Houston,” Philip mumbled.
“A Mexican woman? Who already gave birth to two healthy kids? It’s perfect. She could go into labor any day now. She wants this to work too. It’s like the agency said, and then the lawyer said—you just know when it’s right. Doesn’t it finally feel right this time?”
“Don’t ask me that,” Philip snapped. “I’m a wreck.”
Traffic slowed to a crawl. “This used to be 59,” Julian observed. “The highway. They renamed it since we were here. Sixty-nine now.” He looked out the window at a rusting bridge over the San Jacinto, connecting two forgotten roads. He nudged the car toward the next exit. “We’ll go local the rest of the way.”
Julian maneuvered the car off the highway onto roads he still remembered like the back of his hand, past taquerias and gun shops, guys selling okra out of trucks, falling-down houses one after the next, miles of rotting porches and chain-link fence. As they waited at a red light by a particularly run-down place, Philip gasped. He pointed past an old car on blocks at something swinging in the breeze. Julian squinted. At first it registered as a tetherball with some kind of fabric trailing from it.
“An effigy.” Philip sat up straight. “Obama. Look.”
Julian saw it. A basketball painted black, with a monkey face and two round ears stuck on, pointing straight out. A blue boy’s suit and red tie rippling in the wind below the ball, all of it at the end of a noose. And a sign next to it, hand painted on cardboard and faded by the sun: HANGING AROUND ANOTHER 4 YEARS. A truck honked. Julian looked up at the green light and hit the gas with a shiver.
They had the Obama Talk so often it was like playing chess with the same person—the first few moves always routine. Julian was the skeptic. If Obama was more than a feel-good symbol, he asked, if he was real change, then why, after the people had spoken twice, were there still lynching scenes on Facebook or birther crap spewed by reality stars on TV? To which Phil always answered with a question: are you listening to our president? It’s not about Obama the man; it’s about the people who elected him, because no matter what came next, the genie was out of the bottle. People could change history, one vote and conversation at a time. But that day in the rental car, going local to Royalwood, they drove in silence. Julian thought of Marisol on their Skype calls—her dark skin, and the black guy she guessed was the birth dad, and what their baby boy would look like. He figured Philip had the same thing in mind when he put his hand over Julian’s on the gearshift and gave it a squeeze.
Julian passed the back way into Royalwood, by his mom’s old house, and drove toward the main entrance. It was closer to Bonnie’s, where they were staying, but also something in him wanted to see it again—the wood welcome pillar emerging from the lake, which had such a grand Excalibur feel when he was a boy. It was smaller than he remembered, he thought as they approached, but what really hit Julian was all of the trees missing. Not the silver ones in the logo on the welcome pillar—they were still there above the suburban motto, A LIVABLE FOREST—but the real trees behind the lake. His whole life a thick wall of green stood between the feeder road and willy-nilly development outside the entrance, and the suburb within. It was gone now, thinned to a row of trees through which a new Whole Foods was visible.
Philip took a photo.
“What are you doing?” Julian asked.
“Posting to our Adoption Journey page. I haven’t updated the blog in weeks.”
“There are better angles. Prettier spots of Royalwood, if you’re posting.”
“It’s not about the angle,” Philip mumbled and typed on his phone.
The rest of the drive Julian mused on Philip’s resiliency. As much as he agonized over the process, Phil documented every moment along the way. He blogged about birth-mom leads and heartbreak when they didn’t work out. He posted photos of their vacations and cats to their adoption Facebook page and Instagram feed, fashioning the story of their lives for digital consumption, doing what it took to catch the eye of a young woman swiping on her phone. They had both reluctantly accepted that their lives were wide open on the Internet—for any Jane, Jill, or Nigerian princess to try to scam them—but it was Philip who single-handedly invented the Warnerblum family online.
“Here it is,” Julian said, turning onto Bonnie’s block in a fancy subdivision. As they rolled up to her stucco McMansion, he thought of the last time they stayed with her, when they cleaned out his dad’s apartment a few years ago. This visit was different. About the future, not the past. He pulled into the driveway and parked behind a gleaming Lexus sedan. “Wow,” Julian muttered, “that’s the divorce that keeps on giving.”
“And a new guy too,” Philip said, “right?”
“Jeff. Christian Mingle Jeff. A year or so they’ve been together. Oh, a buzz!” Julian dug in his jeans for his phone. “A text from Marisol. She says—” His brain froze. He blinked, and blinked, couldn’t blink away what he was reading. “Oh God.”
“What?” Philip cried. “What’s the matter?”
“Marisol.” Julian took a long breath. “‘Sorry, guys,’” he read haltingly. “‘Don’t know if I can do this. So crazy. Gotta think. I’ll text y’all.’” He shut his eyes and leaned his head on the steering wheel. Dark thoughts crashed over him. Another baby slipped through their fingers. It was never going to happen. They weren’t meant to be parents. And he might as well accept that it was just the two of them and their cats, and Sunday dinners with Ruth and Gerald, because that was all the family they were ever going to have.
Julian hadn’t always imagined himself as a dad. Unlike Philip, who’d wanted kids his whole life, he’d had stuff to work through first. The lasting effects of the air he breathed in his youth, telling gay people they didn’t exist or weren’t a part of the story of life. The way his mom never talked about him being a dad. And his own parents? The hubris to look at each other one day and say, Let’s have a baby? Bring a life into this fucked-up world, and stay together too long for his sake and ironically fuck him up in the process? And yet if they hadn’t, where would he be? On and on his thoughts looped.
But with time and Phil’s nagging, the doubts began to fade. New things seemed possible. He came to believe he was a good person and say it to himself like his mom once did—a person with something to offer a kid, maybe one who was getting born anyway, and maybe make the world slightly less awful? They reached a point, in their early thirties, when the self-focus started tasting like too much sweetness in their mouths. The apartment was renovated. Careers were good. Philip’s nonprofit grew to ten cities. Julian rose to run his project at the ACLU. After many wasted nights on Ancestry.com, trying to track down his mom’s Mexican family, Julian realized that finding a Maria Elena near Laredo was like finding Tony in Bay Ridge or Ira on the Lower East Side. So instead he searched for the warmth of family in the faces of his clients—from Mexico first, then El Salvador, Burma, Syria. When the police swept up men who were driving while brown, or schools turned away refugee kids, Julian never missed a chance to do battle. And each time he stood up in court, before he laid his watch on the table to time his argument, he turned it over to see the words of Lacy Adams Warner that he had engraved on the back: Raise hell. Never shut up. It’s all over before you know it.
Things were fine.
And then one day Julian and Philip woke up, and all their friends had kids.
They went to showers and simchat bats and first birthdays. Julian saw the muted joy on friends’ faces as they nuzzled babies. It reminded him of his mom, the years before school when it was just the two of them. He thought if those memories could move him to tears, there was power in what she did, and he felt not just gratitude but a new kind of awe. It dawned on him that being a dad might be the greatest thing he’d ever do, more than any court case or crystal award on the shelf. Maybe he could raise his head, he thought, reveal his whole imperfect loving self, and be the dad he wanted and never had. He shared this with Philip when he turned thirty-three, along with a lingering fear—that his mom was gone and he couldn’t ask her how she did it, became a good mom. Philip smiled. “What if she couldn’t tell you when she was alive?” he asked. “What if the answers are already in you?”
They tried an adoption agency first, sitting through trainings as social workers described typical scenarios in dreamy nonjudgmental tones. (“Birth Mom did butt shots at a party. Birth Dad held her head while she vomited, and is maybe part Cherokee. Thoughts?”) They waited two years and never got a call. Then one morning a friend tagged Julian in a post with a message, SOOO sorry, and a link to a video from Inside Edition. Deborah Norville had a breaking story about the bankruptcy of a once-respected adoption agency and the shattered dreams of its clients. Just like that, their nascent family went up in smoke. Julian threatened a lawsuit. They cursed lost money and grieved lost time. They winced at sudden sharp memories of hopes—of who their child would be and what she’d become in America, where most days anything still seemed possible. For months they licked their wounds. Then they got an attorney, built a kickass website and Facebook page to show off their fabulous life, and joined the digital Wild West of private baby hunting.
That’s when things got weird.
There were the financial scammers. The Slavic woman who used to run a day spa, soothingly named Russian Roulette, but was now a bounty hunter and obviously couldn’t work in such a dangerous field while pregnant with their baby. Or the emotional flashers who took up an hour of their time on the phone, normal sounding at first until they started talking about being a sex slave to grandpa or hung by meat hooks in a barn, and abruptly ended the call. The emails from teens across Asia whose parents hated them. Calls from Uganda in the middle of the night. And just when it seemed there wasn’t an honest woman in the world, when nobody was who she said she was and their sense of reality was coming unhinged and the only thing left was to fulfill Ruth Rosenblum’s dream and jerk off in a cup and go all Handmaid’s Tale on a surrogate, right then an email popped up on their website from a Marisol with a 281 number:
hey im 39 weeks u guys look nice.
i have 2 girls
i cant keep this baby. OK call me if u want
They painted on their smiles again and gave “Marisol” a call. She was twenty-two, friendly, calm given the circumstances, with huge dark eyes and lustrous hair—they couldn’t help but notice—and a sane mom who fired off legit questions when she joined their Skypes. She seemed like the real not-crazy deal for more than one conversation. The paperwork checked out with the lawyer. Julian and Philip wondered, one last time, if they could let the bud of trust open and grow. They lowered their shields. Which was why Julian was stricken mute, sitting in the rental car in Bonnie’s driveway a week later, as he read and reread Marisol’s cold-feet text. They never learned. Childless fools who flew to Texas for nothing.
“Jay?” Philip whispered beside him. “We’ve got company.”
Bonnie knocked on the window, bending down inches from his head. She was blond as ever in her late sixties, with her hair blown out and full face on. “Jules!” she called through the window. “What’re y’all doing? Come on in!”
They hugged and followed her inside as she chattered. Julian glanced around the house. Something was different. He used to love coming to Bonnie’s as a boy. Her sons were in high school and never around, and the place was like an empty castle where he could slide in his socks or tumble on the carpet while Bonnie and his mom gabbed. When he came home from college, after Bonnie’s husband left, she had redecorated—a Laura Ashley detonation that left no surface un-floraled. Now he scanned the living room, saw the couch, and put his finger on the change. “Your Beanie Babies,” he said.
“Don’t y’all make fun,” Bonnie drawled. She hurried to the couch and grabbed a Beanie bear and elephant off the top edge, dropping them in a cardboard box on the floor. The past few times they were there, maybe a hundred Beanies covered the tops of the couch and armchairs, the mantel, an army of plush watchers arrayed around the room. They were gone. “You boys were laughing at my Babies on your last visit.”
“No!” Philip protested.
“But I’ve been meaning to put them away, and y’all coming down was the kick in the pants I needed. After the divorce, I liked waking up to something smiling at me when I came out in the morning. But now with Jeff spending the night—I roll over and there he is. Enough about me.” She clapped her hands. “Tell me about the bay-by!”
Julian sighed. They sat down at the granite island in the kitchen and spilled the tea, beginning with Marisol’s text and rehashing the whole two-plus years they’d been trying. In the middle, Bonnie started fussing around in the kitchen. “Go on,” she said gravely, “I’m listening.” She set a bowl of Cheez-Its on the island, poured three Diet Cokes, and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the pantry. She splashed it over their drinks. They didn’t toast. Julian and Philip were crying by then. “Well,” she said at a lull in the story, “your birth mama might text any minute now. I can’t believe this is the end.”
“Maybe it isn’t meant to be,” Julian mumbled. “Kids need families, and I don’t have anyone to give.”
“Y’all got me,” Bonnie insisted. “And Philip’s parents, right?”
“I know.” Julian took Bonnie’s hand. “You were there at the end, with Mom, and gave me away at our wedding. But kids should know where they come from. When your grandkids ask where your sons came from, your sons point to you. There, their grandma. I have some old letters my parents sent. A story my dad told me once about cleaning carpets with his dad. That’s it. Their pasts died with them.”
Julian’s phone buzzed. Philip jumped to his feet.
“See!” Bonnie cried. “What’d I tell y’all? Is it Marisol?”
“No.” Julian sighed. “Facebook message.” He frowned as he read, his eyes widening. He shot a look at Bonnie and kept reading.
“What is it?” Philip asked.
“I don’t know,” Julian said. “He…” He turned his phone around so they could read:
Dear Julian—I almost wrote you so many times you wouldnt believe. But I saw the post on your adoption page today and your here in Houston so now or never. Im your brother. Half brother, the same dad Aaron Warner. Maybe you didnt know, probly not. Its cool your having a kid. I have a daughter, fourteen months. Anyhow just wanna say hi, if you guys wanna meet up with me and Tasha my wife while your here thats cool or whatever. But nice if you want.
Yours truly, Clayton Connors
Philip looked up, his jaw hanging open in amazement. Julian put his phone in his pocket. Bonnie sipped her low-cal Jack and Coke.
“Bonnie,” Julian said softly. His finger traced a pattern on the granite island. “Mom cleaned out her house before she died. Meticulously. You helped her. When we were cleaning out my dad’s place, we found a photo of a blond woman and boy.” He turned his courtroom eyes on her. “Do I have a brother? Is that why my dad left?” She stared at her drink. “You’re the only one left who would know.”
Bonnie pulled a Kleenex from the steeple of a little ceramic church and patted her eyes. “It wasn’t mine to tell you,” she murmured.
“So it’s true?” Julian asked.
“That he got some woman pregnant?” She grabbed a fistful of Cheez-Its and chewed. “Your mama got a letter saying so. We didn’t know if it was true or just meant to hurt her. She made me swear not to say a word. She was ashamed. But y’all should know,” Bonnie declared. “I was always giving your mama advice, about work and being a mother, trying to help, but the truth is—Lacy had something powerful in her. A strength of conviction that I…” She wiped her eyes. “I miss.” Julian rested his face in his hands. Bonnie sipped. “So!” she said with a perky lift. “Y’all gonna go meet him?”
“No,” Julian snapped. He looked up and saw Philip giving him the I-know-what-you-did-to-your-dad stare. “Why?” Julian said. “What’s the point? We’re grown. It’s done.”
“Jay?” Philip growled. “You spent all that time searching for your mom’s family in Mexico, and now this falls in your lap? He’s your brother. He reached out. We’re here. Our afternoon cleared. I’m not waiting around for Marisol to call. Good enough?”
A few minutes later, Julian messaged with Clayton, settled on a Starbucks near his place in Missouri City, and they were back on the highway. For miles going down 69, Philip scrolled on his phone in ominous silence. “Well,” he said as they curled around Minute Maid Park, “it seems we’re not the only ones with it all hanging out online. No private settings for Clayton. He’s twenty-two. A NASCAR enthusiast.”
“Thirteen years younger,” Julian said. “Makes sense, when my dad took off.”
“In the military.” Philip held up his phone to show a photo of Clayton in camo fatigues, holding a gun in some sandy place.
“Where is that?”
“Can’t tell.” Philip kept looking. “No pictures of a wife or baby. No Tasha in his friend list. Is this a setup?”
“If we die it was your idea.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird? No family pictures?”
“No.” Julian felt his eyes welling up again. “He was too old when you met him, my dad, for you to tell. But Clayton looks just like him. More than me.”
Quietly they drove across the south side, each of them lost in thought. “It all looks the same here,” Philip muttered at one point. “Ugly. Construction everywhere. Is that normal?”
Julian nodded vaguely. “We had this video project in school,” he said. “Texas history. The library got a video camera, and we had to check it out and interview a parent about the city we lived in. My mom hated cameras. She said, ‘Houston is a place where stuff gets torn down, but things keep rising up.’”
“What’s that?” Philip asked, pointing out the window at an abandoned stadium.
Julian looked at the lonely husk of it and remembered one strange night in sixth grade, back in the toughening-up phase. His dad took him to the Astrodome for the wrestling match of the year—a showdown between Hulk Hogan and the flamboyant Macho Man Randy Savage. Aaron watched the WWF from the couch on Saturdays, and though they never talked about it, he must have seen Julian peeping at the muscles and pageantry from the kitchen table. They barely spoke on the drive downtown, so uncertain of how to be together. But inside the stadium they got Cokes and hot dogs, and the crowd hissed at the entrance of the villain in his sequined cape, and Julian was swept into the drama. The men locked arms in a violent embrace. Popcorn and Raisinets flew. Then he was on his dad’s shoulders, chanting at the clotheslines and pile drivers until they bellowed with the crowd as one primal beast—Ma-cho Man, Ma-cho Man—screaming their throats hoarse until the Hulk dodged a body slam and the match flipped and goodness was restored in the form of a blond, Speedo-clad victory strut along the ropes. Afterward, as they walked to the car, Aaron asked what he thought of the Astrodome. He didn’t know what his dad wanted so he said, “It was fun screaming with everybody.” “Yeah,” his dad replied, putting an arm around Julian, “You gotta let it out sometimes or else you’ll go crazy in the head.”
Julian didn’t share any of this with Philip as they drove. “The Astrodome,” he answered. “They warehoused Katrina folks there, kind of its swan song. Condemned now. Always a swan singing somewhere. And then somebody DMs you on Facebook, and you’re driving crosstown and—” He signaled and swiftly changed lanes. “It’s not a setup. Meeting Clayton. But could you do some recon? Go in ahead of me and just watch out?”
“Sure.” Philip frowned. “He saw me, on our adoption page. I should wear sunglasses.”
Julian knew Phil lived for this kind of stuff, but he was too nervous to have opinions about it. “It’s fine, meeting him. Right?” He turned to Philip. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
They followed the navigation off the highway, to a Starbucks in an empty shopping center. Philip put on his Ray-Bans, pulled his US Open cap over his curls, and went in. Julian stared at his hands on the wheel. A breeze drifted through the window, bringing a surge of pine and memories of the last Christmas he spent with his mom. He thought of how the years made the unthinkable happen, had allowed his mom to slip from his daily memory, until the dream of parenting called her back to mind.
Julian went inside and cautiously peered around. Phil was in the corner reading the paper. A skinny blond kid with a buzz cut jumped up from a table, a goofy grin spreading across his face. He looked even more like Aaron than the Facebook photos. Growing up, there was a picture on his dad’s dresser—long ago lost in some move—of Aaron getting a Purple Heart, and except for the acne scars on one cheek this kid in a random Starbucks could have been standing in the photo. “Julian Warner?” he said.
“Clayton?”
The kid lunged at Julian. Philip shot from his chair, but he stopped when Julian raised his arms and patted the kid’s back, returning the bear hug he was caught in. Julian pulled away. “Look at you!” the kid said, eyeing him. “Your nice clothes and—it’s redder!”
“What?”
“Your hair. It’s redder than the pictures. And tall! How tall are you?”
“Um. Six-one.”
“I’m six foot. I’m Clay. I got us a table,” he said, talking fast and beckoning Julian. “And coffees. I don’t know how you like yours so I left it black but I can get you milk if you want, you want me to—”
“No.” Julian sat down. “Black’s great.”
“And a chocolate chip cookie and Rice Krispie Treat and brownie. You pick.”
“Thanks. OK. The Krispie, I guess.”
“That’s my favorite!” Clay said.
“Oh no, you take it.”
“No, I—My bad. We’ll split.” Clay broke it in half, handed Julian a piece, and bit into his. He watched Julian as he chewed, grinning. Julian smiled back, a little unnerved. “Crazy!” Clay cried. “Tasha says sugar gets me wound up and I talk too much. Without sugar, too. Are you freaked out? I’m Clayton Connors,” he announced, tapping out his points on the table edge. “Son of Crystal Connors. She met your dad in 1992 in Conroe, when he was working HR for Texaco, and—”
“It’s OK,” Julian interrupted. “I know. I mean, I didn’t know about you, but I saw a picture of you and your mom once in my dad’s stuff.” He sipped his coffee, grasping for words. “Is she still in Conroe? Your mom?”
“No. She died. Lung cancer. A few months ago, right before the holidays.”
“I’m sorry.” He winced, and waited. “Mine too. Cancer. Were you guys close?”
“Yeah.” Clay ate the last of his Krispie and started on the brownie. “Sorta. When she got sick, I graduated early and enlisted. It was good money, and the bills were—” He clucked his tongue. “Lots of doctors. I deployed to Afghanistan. We didn’t see each other as much after that. We went to Disney World when I was on leave. Me and her and Tasha. Mom wanted to go so bad. No energy, because of the chemo. But we did some rides. Epcot. We were close.”
Julian was watching Clay gather brownie crumbs and drop them in his mouth when he had a sudden rush of all the times he felt scared and less than growing up—in the closet in high school, starting at Harvard, meeting the Rosenblums. He thought of Marisol and Clay, babies having babies. He thought he might cry. Clay looked up, eyes full of anxious concern. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “It was hard being far away when she was sick, but I had a blast over there. Didn’t kill nobody. Partied. Met Tasha. She was ROTC. She’s a nurse. Here I go, talking your ear off. Y’all’re adopting a baby. Congrats!”
“Yeah,” Julian mumbled. “Trying to.”
“Isn’t that why y’all came down?”
“It is, but.” He sighed. “The whole process has been harder than we thought.”
“Why, because you’re gay? You know what?” Clay swiped a napkin across his mouth and threw it down. “Wait, aren’t you a big lawyer? Doing your civil rights?”
“Yeah. Courtroom combat, I guess.”
“Then you know people are fucking ignorant. The other day Tasha and I were at Panera Bread with the baby, getting lunch, and this guy and girl are giving us the Look—Tasha’s black, African American, whatever—you know, like they don’t say nothing to you but they give you the Look? And then the girl knocks Tasha with her purse as they’re leaving. So I say to Tasha: ‘home girl with the big butt, twerking like we at a strip club, only God can judge, fuck the haters, somebody loves ya.’”
“Oh. Is that—something you wrote, or?”
“No!” Clay laughed. “Miley Cyrus. I couldn’t write that. People are stupid.”
“Yeah.” Julian smiled. “I don’t think it’s because we’re gay. I think adopting is hard for everybody. Our birth mom got cold feet, two hours ago.”
“For real?” Clay watched him. “Wait, y’all came all the way down here for—” Julian shrugged. “Fuck.” Clay reached over and patted Julian’s arm. “Wanna come see our baby? Vanessa? She’s cute. Maybe cheer y’all up?”
“I don’t—That’s very nice, thanks, but we’re—”
“We’re like ten minutes from here. Tasha wanted to meet y’all bad. I told her we’re meeting at Starbucks because he doesn’t know me from a stalker freak. I been talking about y’all ever since y’all put up that adoption page on Facebook. Your life, it’s amazing.” Clay snapped off a piece of cookie and chewed. “My mom—” he began, staring at the table. “She told me about our dad, and you, when I asked her once. Aaron cut her off. Mom and me. No nothing after she told him she was pregnant, is what she said. So when she was alive, it didn’t feel right to try and reach out to you or … out of respect for her, raising me and stuff.” He looked at Julian. “But I wanted to write you. Find you. For a long time.”
“OK.” Julian took a breath. “Yes. Let’s go to your place.”
“Yeah?” Clay hopped up and stuck his fist out for a bump. “Awesome! Tasha’s gonna be psyched.” He gathered their trash. “Hey, do you see a lot of Aaron these days?”
“Oh no,” Julian blurted. “No, I haven’t seen him since—he visited us in New York a few years ago, but that was—”
“He’s like not even online. Like nowhere.”
“I know.” Julian nodded emphatically. “He never was, has been, um, I just—” He pointed to the corner. “Let me tell Philip where we’re headed.”
“He’s here?” Clay whirled around. His oversize button-up billowed out of his khakis like a pirate shirt. Philip lowered a corner of his paper and peered mysteriously from behind his shades. “Get over here!” Clay cried, bounding to him and going in for a hug.
Julian watched from a distance as Clay laughed and slapped Phil’s back.
“What’s he like?” Philip asked as they followed Clay’s boxy old Corolla. “He’s cute.”
“He’s sweet,” Julian said in a measured tone. “He’s had a hard life. He joined the military to pay his mom’s medical bills. She died last year. He thinks our dad’s still alive.”
“Did you tell him?”
Julian shook his head. “It was right at the end as we were getting up.”
Philip whistled. “Classic doorknob syndrome. In therapy? Waiting all session till you’re going out the door to drop the bomb. You have to tell him.”
“It seems like so long ago. Clay would’ve been—sixteen when he died? All these years, thinking about our dad. You’ll see when you talk to him. You want to protect him. Marisol didn’t text you, did she?”
“No,” Philip said. “You?” Julian shook his head and drove.
Clay turned onto a street of faded little houses and parked in front of a tan one with a scratchy yellowish lawn. There was a metal security grate on the front door. He jumped out of his car and gamboled to theirs like a puppy. “Ready?” he said. He threw his arm around Julian’s shoulders and led them up the cracked sidewalk. “Tasha?” he called, poking his head in. “We got company!”
They walked into a tight living-dining space. Julian heard some musical racket as his eyes adjusted to the indoor light, and then he saw a baby from behind pounding on a toy piano in the shape of a smiling kitty cat. There was a huge flat-screen TV on a stand with a PlayStation, and an oily-looking couch and two folding vinyl lawn chairs filling out the room. Dolls and crayons and picture books everywhere.
“Oh my goodness!” a woman said, standing at a small kitchen peninsula. She wore glasses, and her hair short and natural, and pink velour athleisure wear. “Julian? Philip? Y’all came!” She rushed over and hugged them. She was shorter but definitely heavier than beanpole Clay beside her. “Hi! I’m Tanishia.”
“Hi, Tanisha,” Julian said.
“Ta-nee-shee-yuh,” she corrected, a little bookish. “Four syllables. Call me Tasha. Get the baby, Clay. Come meet y’all’s niece! It’s a mess, sorry, if I knew y’all were coming or Clay called ahead to—Clay, get Vanessa.”
“No worries,” Julian said. “We surprised you. It’s that kind of day, full of—” Julian stopped short, speechless at the sight of Clay hoisting a gorgeous baby onto his hip.
“Full of surprises,” Philip picked up the thread, “like this one—hello, Vanessa!” Tasha smiled as the baby reached for Philip’s wiggling finger. “Good girl,” he cooed. Julian could see the way Tasha looked at Philip, the way everyone did. He had lost the slight banker gut since his Morgan Stanley days and leaned down. “She’s fourteen months?” he asked.
“Almost fifteen,” Tasha replied.
“Watch this,” Clay said. He swung Vanessa sideways and stretched her out and played her like a guitar. She shrieked with delight.
“Did you get the diapers?” Tasha asked. Clay’s face clouded, mid-strum. “What did I tell you?” she blew up. “The one thing you’re supposed to do?”
“I’m a little busy today!” Clay snapped, handing the baby to Philip.
“All week!” Tasha yelled louder. “I told you and now we’re out! You want me to watch the baby, work, and get the diapers—”
“I want you to shut up—”
“—how would I—”
“—on the biggest day of my life!”
“I’m done!” She threw up her hands. “Gimme a man who can bring home diapers!”
“Fine!” Clay shouted. “Get yourself a Third Ward baller with a truck full of Pampers!” Over her shoulder Clay saw Julian and flushed red. “Sorry!” he cried, scratching his head and turning away. “Sorry, sorry. TV?” He grabbed the remote and turned to Julian entreatingly. “Y’all wanna watch something? A movie? News?”
“Oh,” Julian said, stepping back onto a squeaking object. “I’m good.”
“Toys,” Tasha muttered, “all the freaking—excuse me.” She knelt down, pulling a rubber duck from under Julian’s foot, and started gathering toys. Clay turned on the TV, and in it drew him, a supplicant to some flat oracle. Vanessa played with the cord on Philip’s hood.
“Y’all want some lemonade?” Tasha asked, crawling around the couch.
“Sounds great!” Philip said.
“Turn that shit off,” Tasha muttered on her way to the kitchen.
“It’s not shit,” Clay scowled.
“It’s Fox News,” Tasha said, getting out cups. “I don’t know about y’all,” she called to Julian and Philip, “but I’m an Obama Mama, with a brain, and that’s garbage.”
“You’re a nurse?” Philip asked.
“Sometimes,” Clay cut in, “Fox News is asking questions nobody else is. Malaysian Air Flight 370? Disappears over the Indian Ocean? Two hundred bodies still missing? People don’t disappear like that. A black hole? Conspiracy?” He shrugged like probably.
“Scary.” Philip nodded.
“ER nurse,” Tasha said. “I graduated from Booker T. here on the north side, and studied nursing at Texas Southern, then two tours in Afghanistan, where I met this joker.”
“Do your parents still live in Houston?” Philip asked.
“No. My mom passed, and my dad’s incarcerated, where he belongs.”
“TSU.” Clay sidled up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “My college girl.” He kissed her neck. “My cougar.”
She rolled her eyes and poured lemonade. “I keep telling this one he should get his BA.”
“I’m in school,” Clay said, giving her a bite. “Getting my associate’s in HVAC. Three semesters, quick, done. I’m IRR, so I could get called up anytime.”
“That doesn’t mean think short-term about your education,” she persisted. “Just because you might get the call.”
“There are benefits you can—” Philip smiled. “Sorry, I’m sure you know, but there are scholarships for veterans pursuing four-year degrees. This is what I do all day.”
“What do you do?” Tasha asked.
“He runs a group,” Julian jumped in, “that offers financial planning for veterans.”
“Veterans Financial Network,” Philip said, laughing as Vanessa explored his nostrils.
“Wait.” Tasha took the baby and gave Phil a cup. “We got a thing in the mail—VFN?”
“Yeah,” Philip said. “We just started working with the VA here in Houston.”
“Damn.” Clay’s eyes widened. “You run the whole thing?”
“Come sit,” Tasha said. “We got some talking to do. Clay, get those cups. Y’all take the couch; we’ll take the chairs. We’re renting this place for now, not forever. So, Philip, are you here for work, too, or just seeing y’all’s baby mama?”
“Just—to meet her,” Philip said. “To finalize our match.”
“What’s she like?” she asked.
“Tasha,” Clay scolded.
“What?”
“It’s OK,” Philip said. “She’s a little nervous today.”
“She bailed,” Clay said.
“No!” Tasha pulled the baby closer on her lap. “She’s not—Y’all aren’t gonna—”
“We’re hopeful,” Philip said. “That she’ll call.”
“She’d be crazy not to,” Clay said. “Who wouldn’t want y’all as parents?”
A wave of something bittersweet washed over Julian.
“We don’t know a lot about her,” Philip continued. “Which is crazy but sort of how it works. Her name is Marisol. Her mom brought her and her sisters over from Matamoros when they were kids, and they settled in Houston.”
“Gulfton.” Julian nodded. “Not far from here.”
“What else?” Philip said. “She thinks the birth dad’s black, but he’s not in the picture.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Tasha frowned. “Y’all got any black friends in New York?”
“Hey!” Clay cried, fiddling with his phone. “Do y’all ever FaceTime with Aaron? I figured we’re together, we could—” He studied Julian’s face. “Or maybe y’all don’t have that kinda thing going on. Never mind.”
“Um.” Julian set his cup down on the carpet by the couch. He turned to Clay in the chair beside him. “I don’t know how to start. Aaron left me and my mom, too. Around the time you were born, I think. I was thirteen. I saw him two more times in my life, at my mom’s memorial, and then a few years ago. He came to New York to tell us he was sick. He died. We found that picture of you and your mom when we were going through his—”
“When?” Clay asked. “When did he die?”
“Six years ago.”
“Was he here in Houston?”
“Yeah. Over by Greenspoint Mall. I didn’t know your name. If I’d known about you, how to find you, I would’ve. Tried. I’m sorry.”
Clay sat still. Then he rose and went out a door off the kitchen, shutting it behind him.
“Rushhh,” Vanessa murmured, looking at the door. “Dada rushhh.”
“I am sorry,” Julian said to Tasha, “to be the one to tell you. Our dad never had much online. I can see why Clay would’ve thought…”
Tasha shook her head and jiggled the baby on her knee. “He knew Aaron might be gone. I told him so many times: it doesn’t matter what you find out, if you meet him or not, what matters is us, this baby, now.” She looked from Julian to Philip, her eyes red behind her glasses. “We look like a mess. I know.”
“No,” Philip insisted.
“We fight or whatever, but we’re so in love. He’s a good man. A great dad when I stay on him. And smart, you wouldn’t guess it, but—”
“Yes, I would,” Julian said.
“He could do so many things. He’s that romantic type, you know? Passionate. Like his mom.” A pounding started on the other side of the door. “Could y’all watch the baby?” Tasha asked, hurrying her to Julian. “He’s got his man cave in the garage, whenever he’s feeling—” Something crashed. Tasha sprinted out the door and shut it. Muffled sounds of arguing floated into the house. Vanessa wriggled on Julian’s lap.
“OK, baby,” he said. “Where do you want to go?”
He put her down and held her hand as she toddled to the garage door. She lay both her palms on it and pressed her face against it. “Rushhhhh,” she said. Then she toddled to the front door and looked out the window. Julian and Philip followed, finally hearing the tinkling sound that caught her ears.
“The ice cream man?” Philip said in his baby voice. “What do you think, Vee?”
Julian picked her up and they went outside. “Do you think it’s OK?” he asked Philip. “Giving her sugar?”
Philip looked back at the house. “All relative, I guess.”
Julian hoisted her up. She pointed at a Creamsicle. The three of them sat on the lawn and ate ice cream in the late afternoon sun, Julian helping Vanessa balance the stick in her tiny hands. He marveled at the lovely combination of her parents—her blue eyes, bronze skin, dark, tight ringlets jutting out joyously in all directions. Julian wondered about where she’d go and the things she’d see, the as-yet-uninvented tech that would be her given world and his glorious obsolescence. He kissed her cheek and told himself to hang on to this moment, which would end.
Clay and Tasha came outside, his left hand tucked behind him, and sat down. “Sorry,” Clay said, looking around sheepishly. Tasha adjusted a bag of frozen peas on his knuckles. “Worked it out on the Sheetrock. Oop!” He leaned toward the baby in Julian’s lap, wiped an orange dribble off her chin, and licked his finger. “She loves her some Creamsicle.” His face softened as he watched his daughter. “We take care of her, and she just keeps growing.”
Julian’s phone buzzed. His heart shot into his throat. “A text from Marisol,” he said soberly to Philip. “‘I fucked up,’” he read. “‘Sorry. Still wanna meet? Call me.’”
“Call her!” Tasha brayed and grabbed the baby.
Marisol picked up on the first ring. “Julian?”
“Hi, Marisol. I’ve got you on speaker.”
“Hey, Philip,” she said.
“Hi! We’re here with Julian’s brother and sister-in-law and their baby girl.”
“You got a brother in Houston?” Marisol asked.
Julian looked at Clay. “Yeah. His name is Clayton. How are you?”
“OK. Um. Sorry about before. I musta freaked y’all out. I got scared and—yeah.”
“I know,” Julian said.
“Not about y’all. Y’all’re funny and chill. It’s, like, the world. This baby.”
“We are too.” He took Philip’s hand. “Scared.”
“But I wanna do this,” she said. “If y’all do. It’s the right thing.”
“Yes,” Julian said. “We want to too.”
“My mom made food. Empanadas and chicken. Y’all wanna meet everybody?”
“At your place?” Julian asked.
“Yes!” Philip cried. “Of course! We need to know everything about you and your mom and sisters and everybody. We should know everything—for the baby, right, Jay? Everything.”
“Yeah,” Julian said, looking at Clay. “Or more than our parents did. Are you sure, Marisol?”
“Yeah, come over. We’re gonna be family. And my sister thinks y’all’re cute. Both y’all. But, like, Philip.”
Clay giggled and rolled back onto the lawn. “He is cute,” Julian said. “Text me your address. We’re in Missouri City now.”
“Hey, Marisol?” Clay cried, bolting upright. “Why’d you pick them?”
“Clayton!” Tasha shot him a furious look.
“Maybe now’s not—” Philip began.
“She thinks we’re nice,” Julian mumbled anxiously.
“Like, me and Julian’s dad? He was a real piece of—” Tasha swatted him. “Something,” Clay continued. “But you get to pick your kid’s dads. I know Julian’s freaking amazing—he’s my brother—and Philip too. But for you. Why them?”
The phone went quiet. “I don’t know. I guess, the way they talk about each other, in the profile, like in love. And the pictures of traveling, where the baby’ll go. Um. And Julian’s work? That case helping the immigrants in Arizona? I googled him. You, Julian, sorry, TMI. There’s all this news about it. They seem like good people.”
“OK!” Julian interjected. “Great. Marisol, we’ll be there in a half hour. Without Clay.”
“OK. See y’all.”
Julian hung up. Philip wrapped his arms around him while Tasha cheered.
“See?” Clay said as they struggled to their feet. “I knew she’d call. Things work out, right?” He thumped Julian’s chest. “Sometimes?”
“Yes,” Julian replied.
“So.” Clay kicked at a dandelion. “Y’all coming back much after this?”
“For the delivery, which is any day now. And then however much Marisol wants. Once a year, maybe more, depending.” Julian sighed. “A lot of memories, coming back here.”
“More to come,” Clay said timidly.
“Stay with us,” Tasha suggested. “We got an air bed. And the cousins, you know.”
“Thanks,” Philip said. “It’s nice to have somewhere you’re welcome.”
“Pictures!” Clay whipped out his phone. “Selfie alert, let’s go.” They took some group shots, and then Clay insisted Tasha take some of just him and Julian. “Look at that,” Clay said, showing Julian a photo afterward. “Us. We look like, when you pull socks out of the drawer that don’t match but close enough, so you wear them anyways?”
“That one’s nice,” Julian murmured. “Will you send it to me?”
“Yeah.” Clay watched him. “Keep in touch. I got so many questions.”
Julian nodded. “I don’t know if I have answers.”
“You’re something. Say bye to Uncle Julian,” Clay said, grabbing the baby and waving her little hand. “Bye-bye, Uncle Julian.”
“Uncle Juuuu,” she spluttered.
“That would be me,” Philip said. “Uncle Jew’s over here, Vee.”
They hugged goodbye. Clay held Julian a long time when it was their turn. His grip was so firm Julian could feel it in his core, along with the waves of their breath combining, traveling down to his feet and anchoring him on the lawn. He squeezed Clay back.
Julian and Philip got in the car and buckled up.
“Do you want to see them again?” Philip asked. “Next time we’re in town?”
“Yeah. Or this time. We’ve got another day.”
“Yeah.” Philip smiled. He looked up at the road ahead. “You ready for this?”
“No,” Julian said. “You?”
“No.”
They turned and waved one last time at Clay and Tasha and Vanessa standing in the street. Then Julian and Philip pulled down the block and drove to meet their birth mom.