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In that moment, they are a picture-perfect family. Father, mother, son, all enviably adorable, with another child arriving soon. A girl, Russ told me as we drank beer on this very patio two nights ago. Seeing the three of them together, at ease and happy, reminds me of what I could have had—but chose not to.
It was me who didn’t want kids, although for a time I’d thought it was something both Claudia and I agreed on. I remember everything about the moment I realized I was wrong, from the ecru walls of the restaurant to the scent of the grilled salmon that had just been placed in front of me. A zingy mix of lemon and woodsmoke. I was reachingfor my glass of wine when Claudia, out of nowhere, said, “I want to have a baby.”
I froze, my fingers still wrapped around the stem of the wineglass, unable to respond.
“Ethan, did you hear me?” Worry had edged into Claudia’s voice. She knew her words were like a hand grenade tossed into our marriage. Now she was bracing herself for the explosion.
“I heard you,” I said quietly.
Claudia leaned forward, uncertain. “And?”
“You told me you didn’t want kids,” I said, which was the truth. After a month of dating, right before it got really serious, we decided to lay all our cards on the table. The biggest one—the make-or-break one—involved not wanting children. “We agreed on that.”
“I know. We did. And I was fine with that. I really was.” Claudia looked at her lap, where I assumed her hands were bunching her napkin under the table. A nervous tic that I knew so well. Until that moment, I’d thought I knew everything about her. “But for the last few years, I’ve started to think that maybe I do.”
“What changed?”
“Me,” she said. “I’vechanged. At least, my thinking has.”
I sighed then. A sad exhalation. Because my thinkinghadn’tchanged, although it was clear Claudia hoped it secretly had.
“You’re upset,” she said.
Yes, I was. But not with her. I couldn’t be mad at Claudia for feeling the way she did. I was scared about what it meant for our marriage.
“I’m surprised, that’s all.”
“I know,” Claudia said. “And I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I guess I thought it would pass. But the longer I’ve thought about it, the more I realized I want it. I can’t stop thinking about our legacies.What we’ll leave behind when we’re gone. Right now, that’s nothing. But if we had a family…”
Claudia’s voice trailed off, forcing me to fill the void. “Wearea family. You and me.”
“No, Ethan,” she said. “We’re just us.”
Then she started to cry, right there in the middle of the restaurant, and I knew that our marriage was in deep trouble.
I’m wrenched from my memories by the appearance of Russ’s mother emerging from the house wearing a floppy straw hat and clutching a trowel caked with dried dirt. In her seventies, she still moves with effortless grace.
“Hi, Mrs. Chen,” I say, just like I did when we were kids.
“Hi, Ethan,” she calls back before continuing to the gladiolas waving in the breeze at the patio’s edge. “Are you remembering to water your mother’s flowers?”
“Yes.”
A lie. I haven’t watered anything—inside or out. Still, it pleases Mrs. Chen, who nods and says, “You’re a good son. Just like my Russell.”
Russ cringes at the compliment, which makes me wonder if he’s thinking about his older brother, Johnny. The bad son. The son who might have eventually become good if he hadn’t died of a drug overdose when Russ was nine.
That was the first great loss on Hemlock Circle.
“Hey, I thought of someone else you could ask about the baseball,” Russ says. “The Wallaces.”
“Why?” I scoop up the ball Benji had thrown/dropped, confused why Russ thinks I should go to a house on the other side of the cul-de-sac. Especially since the only person there now is gruff Vance Wallace.
“Ashley’s back. She and her son moved in last month.”