Free The Paternity Test by Michael Lowenthal Page A

change.”
    “Right,” said Stu. “Scared shitless. The bullies always are.”
    That led to a talk about Iraq and foreign wars, which then devolved to topics much less serious: Brazilians vs. Americans, the stiff-hipped way we gringos danced; Portuguese and its nasal tones, its word for knife, which sounded to us like fuck .
    We didn’t mention babies again—only just to say we’d think things over. We weren’t skirting the topic so much as giving it room to breathe. That was definitely the mutually reached Rx: lots of breathing.
    Eventually we arrived at a reassuring silence. Our third cups of coffee had been drained.
    “So, I guess that does it,” Danny said. “What do we owe?”
    Stu said, “Please! Don’t worry. Taken care of.” Earlier, per our plan, he’d settled with the hostess, on the pretense of going to the men’s room.
    “You’re sure?” said Danny, reaching for his wallet.
    Stu took Danny’s arm and returned it to his side, and both of them seemed startled by the contact, then relieved. “More than sure,” said Stu. “It’s our pleasure.”
    The parking lot was breezy with the front edge of a storm. A small jet, seconds away from landing at the airport, strafed us with its wholehearted roar. We pledged again to mull things over (“Why don’t we say a week?”), after which we’d talk some more, decide.
    “Well,” said Danny. “Back to work. And plus, the sitter’s waiting.” He shook his car keys: ting-a-ling-a-ling .
    “Oh!” said Stu. “The sitter! We should reimburse you.” Now he was the one reaching for his wallet.
    Danny’s expression hardened. He jabbed his keys at Stu. “This isn’t just for the money, you know. That’s not—we’re not desperate .” He unlocked a midnight blue, late-model Explorer. (He must have traded up from his old pickup.) “The main thing,” he said, “is to make Debora happy.”
    “I’m already hap,” she said—her accent cut off the y . She spread her arms in what could have been a gesture of impatience, or an imitation of the plane that had roared past. She took my hand, and then took Stu’s, and held us. “ This is hap.”
    The way she said it made me think of “hap” as something tangible: a substance to hold on to or to lack. You could be full of hap (as I guessed I was, just then) or have the stuff withheld from you. Hapless .
    Nothing more to say, really. Nothing short of everything. We lingered in the swirling wind, sweet with coming snow. Debora shivered and seemed totally tickled by the reflex.
    I hope the baby gets her smile, I thought.

six
    When Danny asked, “Did you plan on this ?” he’d left this undefined: Being gay? Needing to hire a surro? I had parried by making my dumb joke. But late that night, when Stu had gone to bed, I sat alone—just me, in the quiet of the cottage—and tried to frame an answer to his question.
    The truth was, through high school, and even more in college, I had held the expectation of having kids the usual way. My oversized attractions gummed things up.
    I was always attracted to girls. Certain girls, sometimes: this girl over here, that one there. But boys I was drawn to categorically, essentially. Offer up a boy—almost any boy at all—and I could find something in him tempting. The ropy grace of one, the frailty of another; leg hair or its unexpected lack. A feature and its opposite could equally entice me because, in the end, it wasn’t boys’ particulars that moved me but their fundamental maleness .
    When guys started pairing off with girls, I was pragmatic: I kept pure my love for boys, awaiting my ideal, meanwhile having fun with girls (why not, if they were willing?), to quell my most on-the-surface urges. Mary Beth O’Donnell, daughter of a fireman, who asked to slide along my arm, as if it were a fire pole. And then Rachel (what was her last name? Something-berg? Bloomberg?), who liked my blond hairs against her dark ones. A long string of Pancake King