Lucas
I remember very little of the drive from the restaurant to the lake house. I knew what I saw, and I knew how it had made me react, but after that moment, when Natalie had called out for me and I had ignored her, everything went blank. It was not until I had gotten to the house, made myself a strong martini, and settled into the couch that I fully considered what it was that I was feeling.
I was feeling, more than anything, foolish. It was as the old saying went: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Natalie had disappeared on me once, all those years ago, but had since come back into my life and redeemed herself. But had she? After all, she had stood me up on our first date. She had told me then that it had been an emergency, but even that had been vague—had she been lying? And now, here she was, in the arms of some random man, when I thought it was mutually understood that she and I were together.
Maybe my mother and sister were right about her.
Just then, as I was following this train of thought, I heard a rap on the front door, loud and quick. It paused, briefly, and I decided to ignore it, feeling too out of sorts to accommodate any company. But then the knocking resumed, more loudly and with more conviction than before.
“Lucas, it’s me—open the door, please, and let me explain!”
Natalie.
I felt furious just then, as though she had buried me and was now returning to dance upon my grave. It was very cold outside; I contemplated leaving her out there, until she picked up on the hint and left me alone. But she continued knocking, appearing to have no intention of letting up anytime soon, and so I finally succumbed to her request.
I opened the door frigidly. “Natalie,” I said.
She lunged forward, wrapping her arms around me. “Lucas! I’m so sorry for what you saw, I promise you it wasn’t what it looked like!”
“I’m sure,” I said, unconvinced.
But then she looked up at me, with her beautiful eyes, and I saw that she was distraught. Her eyelids were puffy, and trails of tears traversed her cheekbones. She appeared to feel really, genuinely terrible about whatever had happened—and so, perhaps against my better judgment, I placed my hand on her back and guided her inside, closing the door behind her.
Once she’d sat down on the couch just across from me, I took a sip of my martini, then said to her, “I’m listening.”
She inhaled sharply, then began. “Okay, so, first things first, that was my ex, Daniel—you may remember me mentioning him to you.”
I nodded indifferently. “I do.”
“Yeah. So, I hadn’t seen him in years, and honestly wasn’t even sure he still lived here, but as I was getting off work today he accosted me and—” She paused, overwhelmed by emotion. I felt something in me soften, and suddenly I felt guilty for resenting her so strongly. I was about to tell her it was alright, that she could take a moment before continuing, but before I could she finished. “He grabbed me… and kissed me, before I could stop him.”
I felt myself overcome with rage and disgust that this man could bring himself to take advantage of Natalie, and was about to say so, when Natalie continued, “Don’t worry, Halie took care of him,” she said, laughing through her tears. “She hit him in the head with her purse.”
“As she should,” I said, unsure what else I could say in response to this. “So… is that what he wanted, then? To get back together with you?”
“Well, yes and no—I mean, sort of. He wanted to get back with me, but only because someone told him about Sophie…” She gulped. “And he seems to think that he’s the father.”
I sat upright in my seat, suddenly tense anew. “Well, is he the father?”
“Absolutely not,” Natalie responded, almost immediately. “He and Sophie look absolutely nothing alike. I’m more than sure he isn’t the father.”
But then, who is?I wanted to ask, but didn’t. It didn’t seem appropriate just then; it was none of my business, and I didn’t want to overstep. I would ask her at a later time, maybe, when she was less distraught.
“Natalie,” I began, unsure what it was I was going to say. But then she looked up at me, expectantly, and I found myself saying, “I have a story to tell you.”
With the sleeves of her shirt, Natalie wiped the tears from her eyes and nodded. “Please, go ahead. I’m listening.”
I smiled. Even in her lowest moments she had an air about her, a sort of composure, that reminded me why it was that I continued to be so enchanted by her.
“I was married once,” I began. “A long time ago—just over seven years ago, and only for a matter of months—but regardless, I was married to a woman named Gabriella. We were so young, and so in love, or thought we were, anyway, whatever that meant at the time. All I can say is that she made me feel things I had never felt before, and whenever I was away from her for too long, I couldn’t stand it. I needed her to always be by my side. And, for most of our relationship, she felt the same about me. We had plans, so many plans— I was going to take over the family business, she was going to get her degree and become an elementary school teacher. She loved kids, more than she loved anything in the world. And so you can imagine it came as quite a pleasant surprise when she discovered one day that she was pregnant.
“I was over the moon. Granted, I was only a few years out of high school, and being a parent wasn’t something I’d given serious thought to, but I knew that I loved Gabriella, more than anything, and that our child would be just that—ours.And so, we decided to keep it. I did everything I could to prepare: I read parenting books, I bought toys, I even built a nursery… nothing would be too good for our baby, and I needed to make sure she knew that.
“But at last the due date came around— the 27thof October—and I noticed Gabriella was nervous. I assumed it was pre-birthing anxiety, and did my best to comfort her, but she was inconsolable. It wasn’t until the baby came out, and the doctor held him aloft for us both to see, that I understood why—I was not the father.”
Natalie gasped. “My god, that’s horrible. But how did you know?”
“Well, at first it was a strong suspicion—I’m brown, and Gabriella is white, yet there was the baby, darker than either of us. But then she broke down crying, and I could tell even then they were tears of regret, of remorse, not of happiness. The illusion was broken; what life we had built together, or planned to build together, was over. She admitted she had cheated on me, that I wasn’t the father, and we divorced shortly after.”