Page 27 of Kill Your Darlings

Wendy was slowly waking up and Thom was watching her while stroking her arm. When her puffy eyes were fully open she smiled

up at him, then something changed in her expression, and she said, “Where is he?”

“He’s fine. He’s in the nursery. I can...”

“Oh,” Wendy said. “For a moment, I thought... He’s fine, though?”

“He’s fine. He’s perfect. How are you?”

“Tired. In pain. But happy.”

“I think I’ve never had so many emotions at once,” Thom said. “How is it possible to love someone you’ve just met so intensely,

and then to feel this much terror that you are going to screw it up? Also, I’m so fucking tired.”

“You need to sleep.”

“I will.”

Wendy shifted herself up a little onto her pillows. She smelled like a combination of milk and sweat. “What do you think of

the name Edgar?” she said.

“As a rule, not much. Are you talking about renaming Jason?”

“Did we officially decide on Jason?”

“I thought we did. I thought you did.”

“Yeah, I guess so. It’s just that for some reason he’s an Edgar now that he’s born. I don’t know why.”

Thom and Wendy had probably spoken five hundred boy names out loud to each other in the previous months, but as far as he

could remember, he’d never heard Wendy mention the name Edgar. “Is it a family name?”

“No.”

“So is it because of Edgar Allan Poe?”

Wendy looked surprised, her pale eyebrows rising a fraction. “I suppose it is. I just always loved the name. Do you not love

it?”

“No,” Thom said. “I don’t love it. Besides, I’ve been thinking of him as Jason. I thought we both had.”

“Oh,” Wendy said, and Thom realized that she was half asleep, or else talking in her sleep, or maybe just really out of it

from the birth and the drugs.

“How does it feel to be a mom?” he said.

She seemed to really think about it, biting her lower lip like she sometimes did when she was reading, and said, “I’ve been

a mom for a long time.”

“Have you?”

“It feels like it. And you’ve been a father for a long time.”

“About twenty-four hours.”

“See what I told you. A long time.” She smiled up at him, her face free of makeup, still rosy with exertion, and for an instant

it was like she was fourteen again, unchanged by all the years.

Someone swung open the door behind him and Thom turned to see that a nurse had poked her head into the room then quickly retreated.

When he turned back to Wendy he saw that she had fallen back asleep.

He left her and wandered back out into the hallway of the maternity wing at Cambridge Hospital. In the waiting room he found

Diane, his mother, alone, flipping through a Yankee magazine. His father had never been able to sit still for more than about ten minutes, which meant he was probably roaming the halls, or going to check on the car.

“How is she?” his mom said, looking up from the magazine.

“Out of it. She just fell back asleep.”

“You must be tired too.”

“I can’t sleep. Where’s Dad?”

“I told him I needed a cranberry juice, because the cafeteria doesn’t have it. So he’s out on a scouting mission.”

“Good one, Mom.”

“Should we go look at your son?”

Together they walked down to the nursery, where Jason/Edgar was swaddled and sleeping in a clear plastic bassinet. There were

three other babies in the room with him, and Thom had a brief out-of-body experience imagining the different lives of these

humans who would forever share a birthday. And he thought of himself, swaddled and helpless, in Concord, New Hampshire, on

February13, 1968, on the same day that Wendy had been born, somewhere in Southern California, the two of them fated to meet

fourteen years later. Thom must have swayed a little on his feet, because his mother slid an arm around him that felt more

like physical support than emotional. “I didn’t much like babies,” she said.

“No?” Thom said.

“I like them when they start to talk. Your father was different, though. He was surprisingly good with both you and your sister

when you were newborns. He loved comforting you, walking you from room to room. I remember he used to put your sister in the

car and drive her around in order to get her to sleep.”

“But when we started to talk...”

His mother smiled. “Yes, that’s when he lost interest.”

Thom looked at his son, had a brief panic that he’d stopped breathing, then saw slight movement that caused a flush of relief to spread throughout his body. God, he loved that boy, whatever his name was.

As though she were reading his mind, his mother said, “So it’s officially Jason? Or is that still up for debate?”

“Ninety/ten,” Thom said.

“What’s the ten?”

“Wendy just mentioned the name Edgar when I was with her in her room. First I’d heard of it.”

“Edgar. Good God. Sounds like an old man’s name.”

“We’ll stick with Jason,” Thom said.

“You should go outside and get some air. It’s beautiful this morning. See if you can find your father.”

After looking into the hospital room and seeing that Wendy was still asleep, Thom did go outside. It was morning rush hour

and the sidewalks were filled with people moving with purpose, their faces grim and determined. Why weren’t they happy to

be alive? he thought. After all, it was a new millennium and the predictions that the world would end had turned out to be

greatly exaggerated. The world still ticked along. Films were being made and books were being written. Babies were being born.

The air was cold but the sky was cloudless, its radiant blue full of promise. Thom ducked into a convenience store and bought

a pack of Camel Lights, despite having promised Wendy that he was done with smoking. He crossed the street to a small square

park with three empty benches and chose the sunniest one. He lit the cigarette, taking too deep of a first drag, then exhaling

the blue smoke into the sunlight. It had been a few weeks since his last secret cigarette, and the nicotine raced to his head,

making him feel buoyant in the sunlight. But after he’d smoked the cigarette down to its filter, he put the rest of the pack

on the arm of the bench, the matches on top of them, and walked back to the hospital.

His father was back with his mother’s juice and Wendy was awake again. He wondered if she could smell the smoke on his clothes, but she didn’t say anything. Instead she asked, “How’s little Jason?”

“Wrapped up like a burrito.”

“Oh, good.”

One of the nurses popped her head in and said, “Mom’s awake, I see. Want to see your baby?”

“I do,” Wendy said, shifting herself farther back so that she was sitting up.

The nurse—her name was Shannon, and Thom had secretly decided she was the prettiest of the several pretty maternity-ward nurses

they had dealt with—left to get Jason.

“Any new names for our baby?” Thom said.

“What do you mean? For Jason?”

“Don’t you mean Edgar?”

Wendy looked confused, so Thom said, “About an hour ago you woke up and said that you thought his name should be Edgar.”

“Did I?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Maybe. A little bit. But I thought it was some kind of dream.”

“You also said that we’ve been parents for a long time.”

Something crossed her eyes. Amusement, maybe, with a little bit of fear. “It feels like it, doesn’t it?” she said.

“I suppose so. So you haven’t changed our baby’s name?”

“No, he’s Jason. Jason Edgar Graves.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Jason Bergeron Graves.” Bergeron was Thom’s maternal grandmother’s maiden name.

“Okay, good. It’s settled then.”

“It’s settled.”