The Paternity Test: A Novel

One

3 one It’s not too late,” I said. “You could still ­ change your mind.” “What?” said Stu. “Now?” He ­ glanced down at his watch. “Quar­ ter till. They might al­ ready be there.” We’d rum­ bled down the hill in our ­ rust-corrupted Volvo, my­ parents’ “sum­ mer ­ clunker” we in­ her­ ited with the cot­ tage. Now Stu­ turned and ­ steered us ­ through the nar­ rows of 6A: past the shut­ tered­ ice-cream stand (“C U all next sea­ son!”), the barns with empty clam­ shell ­ drives and slug­ gish ­ whale-shaped vanes. ­ Weathered shin­ gles, the­ gull-gray sky, the ­ browned, ­ static marsh—the sober ­ shades of Cape Cod in De­ cem­ ber. But this was what I’d ­ longed for: a ­ hushed and dull­ ish out­ back. I­ hadn’t set foot in New York since we’d moved. “So call them,” I said. “Say you ­ thought of a bet­ ter place. It’s fine.” With one sure hand, Stu ­ veered to dodge a ­ road-kill squir­ rel; the other hand was fid­ get­ ing with his scarf. “What kind of a first im­ pres­ sion is that?” he said. “We can’t even com­ mit to a res­ tau­ rant?” The Pan­ cake King, where we were ­ headed, had been his ­ bright idea, over­ rid­ ing my sug­ ges­ tion of the Yar­ mouth House or one of our other­ surf-and-turf stand­ bys. Some­ place less ex­ pen­ sive, he’d in­ sisted: “Cheap­ enough so ­ they’ll feel at home if ­ they’re not used to fancy—or, if they are, maybe ­ they’ll think it’s witty.” 4 He’d made a de­ cent case, but it was just con­ jec­ ture. We knew so very lit­ tle about De­ bora and Danny Neu­ man, cer­ tainly not ­ enough to­ safely judge what they might like. And yet here we were, cross­ ing the Cape to meet them, to see if she’d agree to have our baby. Had ever there been an odder dou­ ble date? While Stu ­ tossed and ­ turned about the ques­ tion of where to meet, I was try­ ing to float atop the waves of my own worry: Would De­ bora and her hus­ band see the ­ patched-up, ­ worthy Stu and Pat? Would any of our old fray­ ings show? I ­ didn’t re­ mind Stu—not in so many words—that it was he who’d­ pushed us to­ ward a res­ tau­ rant so silly. What I said (too care­ lessly) was, “Well, ­ there’s al­ ways the Yar­ mouth House . . .” “Per­ fect,” he said. “I knew you’d say ‘I told you so.’ I knew it!” With a stagy ­ crunch of ­ gravel, he ­ pulled to the shoul­ der and ­ stopped. He ­ stabbed the haz­ ards but­ ton, got them clack­ ing. Stu was that in­ con­ gru­ ous thing, a Jew­ ish air­ line pilot, and his man­ ner could be just as oxy­ mo­ ronic. Force­ fully in­ de­ ci­ sive, au­ thor­ i­ ta­ tively whiny. With me, at least, in pri­ vate, that could be his way. Strang­ ers noted his ­ rinsed-of-accent ­ speech, his strin­ gent crew cut, a gaze that­ seemed to own the whole ho­ ri­ zon—the ­ earned-in-sweat antith­ e­ sis of a neb­ bish (a word he’d ­ taught me). But late at night, or dur­ ing sex, when Stu let down his guard, I could see his im­ pres­ sive eyes inch a smid­ gen­ closer, as ­ though he ­ wanted to stare at his own nose. His eyes were like that now. I ­ guessed they were, be­ hind his ­ Ray-Ban­ shades. “Pat­ rick,” he said. “Pat, hon. Be hon­ est. ­ You’re not ner­ vous?” The qua­ ver of his hum­ bled voice dis­ armed me. “Kid­ ding?” I said. “Of ­ course I am. I al­ most puked this morn­ ing.” “Okay. And De­ bora and Danny—you think they feel the same?” Con­ sid­ er­ ing what we’d ask of them, how could they not? I nod­ ded. “Right,” said Stu. “So, ­ please, can’t you let me feel that, too?” The world at large got Cap­ tain Stu­ art Nad­ ler, at the stick. Who did I get? Some­ one neuro­ tic about his ­ choice of lunch spots. 5 “Just let me...