The Sperm Donor’s Daughter and Other Tales of Modern Family Read Online Free Page A

enough.
    That night I made Jessica a bed in a wicker laundry basket and slept on the covered porch off the kitchen. The stove light was on and the shadows of the blinds threw slats of black across my face. I’d been asleep at least an hour when I woke to see Paul standing over me, laying another blanket on top of me. His face in solitude was softened and kind. I reached my hand up to him. I don’t know why—to be thankful, to be cozy, to pat him. The waking state is always that of a child; we ask the world to make us safe. His expression changed suddenly. He smiled quick and pained as if he had just taken a splinter in his foot. When he leaned over, it was not to take my hand. He kissed me on the mouth with his mouth open. A flick of tongue and I turned away. His expression was at once fright and rage. He didn’t know what to make of the woman’s face barred in shadow. He wanted to pry the slats apart with his hands and have me out, have himself out … no telling on whose side the bars lay. His retreat was hasty, angry, and silent.
    In the morning, Monique brought me orange juice and sat on the bed with the baby in her arms. Jessica rooted around on the flannel yoke of Monique’s nightgown for an opening, making sounds like a little warthog as she searched for a nipple in fistfuls of flannel. We traded orange juice and baby, then I got Jess settled and sucking. Monique looked over her shoulder then down at her tawny feet, spreading and unspreading her toes as though she had something to be embarrassed about. We were both watching the doorway. There was so little time. Then she spoke.
    â€œI still wonder if I’m gay, Nellie. Do you?”
    Her expression was so totally earnest, I winced inwardly. I would have liked to touch her, but I didn’t want it misconstrued as taking advantage of the moment. I had an urge to put Jessica back in her arms so she could feel the comfort of warm nestling against her, but the baby was firmly latched onto me. The urge to comfort nearly over-rode the need for a careful answer.
    â€œIf you’re asking whether I still love you, I do. But I don’t wonder anymore whether I’m gay or not,” I answered.
    â€œWell, you have a reason to be.”
    â€œDoes one need a reason?” I asked gently.
    â€œNo, I didn’t mean that. It came out wrong.” She shook her head.
    â€œDon’t you think some people just fall in love with a person and gender is secondary?”
    â€œMaybe, that would explain loving you then Paul.”
    She took my hand off the coverlet, pressed it between her own. “My Nellie Isabelle.” She liked to use my combined names—her soft S and piquant L rounding the sounds till they lingered in her mouth. We smiled softly in separate directions. I knew how difficult it was for her to make declarative statements about love; for her it shifted the meaning from feeling to vow with betrayal implicit. She was grateful I created an opening for indirect expression.
    â€œWill you love a man again?” she asked after a moment.
    I balked at the question. I felt a sudden urge to pack. I had to laugh at myself, at the way Monique always pinned me with my own weighty generalizations. I did laugh.
    â€œMonique, when you ask that question, my impulse is to lie … it’s such a reflex by now. I’ve faked it for the outside world so often.”
    â€œBut I’m asking you really.”
    â€œWell, I loved Carson, so it’s possible. I can’t say. The thought of hurting Jessica might prevent me. She has no father and then suddenly I have a lover?”
    â€œYou never know, maybe he could be a father to her.”
    I withdrew my hand and put both my arms around Jessica. My voice was strident. “Why are you trying to make me so happily ever after with a man? Would it be reassuring to you?”
    â€œYou don’t like Paul, do you?”
    â€œI’m not predisposed to like him, but