Free Aftertaste by Meredith Mileti Page B

hands, and chewing big wads of bubble gum we knew they were pretending was tobacco. Surrounded by their grubby, ice cream–smeared siblings and their tired, happy parents, we would cheer loudly and zealously for the losing team.
    I can remember thinking back then that Jake was the sort of person I could imagine one day coaching our child’s team. And from there it wasn’t too much of a stretch to picture him in a tie and jacket, kneeling close to the stage in order to snap a photo of our budding little Mozart knocking out “Twinkle Twinkle” at her first piano recital. Seeing the naked pleasure on his face as the chubby shortstop finally managed to catch the ball, watching him cheer with such utter abandon for a bunch of sweaty little kids he didn’t even know, it had been easy, I suppose, to mistake his zeal for reserves of untapped paternal warmth. It never occurred to me that he could cheer with such abandon precisely because they weren’t his children.
    Could I somehow have foreseen Jake’s reaction to parenthood? Surely there must have been some clues, some evidence that Jake would have behaved as he has, but no matter how many times I replay scenes from our pre-Chloe marriage, I cannot find them. Was there some terror lurking in his past, some way in which his own parents had failed him that could explain his reluctance to connect, even in some small way, to his daughter? If there was, he hadn’t shared it with me, and I could not divine it.
    Jake’s father is a distant man, but not an unfeeling one. Jake’s mother is a sweet, pleasant woman. But we didn’t see them much. I really don’t know Jake’s parents particularly well and, in fact, have only spoken to them once since the split. They have never shown much interest in Chloe, which of course irritates me, but I suppose not all grandparents are kid people, especially those who fancy themselves too young, too fit, and too much on the go to be saddled with such an elderly moniker and all of its encumbrances.
    But, if I thought I could look for clues in Jake’s past, then I also had my own to contend with. If something in Jake’s past was keeping him from being a father to Chloe, then what of mine? I had loved being pregnant, relished every ache and kick. I gave up wine with dinner and drank milk by the gallon. I endured the discomfort of long days on my feet in the kitchen, not to mention an aching back, so consumed had I been with wanting Chloe. But where had that come from?
    Certainly not from my own mother, a woman who could count among her many accomplishments speaking fluent French, making a perfect soufflé, and drinking a fifth of Seagram’s daily. No, credit for my being any kind of a decent mother goes to my father, who did his best, who braided and brushed my hair at night, who read to me and coached my softball team, who made sure I practiced the piano and that my homework was done. Parenthood isn’t something you can force on a person. Had my father realized this too? Had he wanted me enough for the two of them? Had I wanted Chloe that much?
    I feel a pang of guilt at the thought of my dad, whom I haven’t called in over a month. He has left me two messages in the interim, short ones, to the point and without one whit of guilt-inducing rhetoric embedded in them. He isn’t the type to call often, but I know he’s been worried about me lately. He is, by nature, a solitary guy, a widower and a professor of theoretical physics at Carnegie Mellon University, one who would rather contemplate the mathematical irregularities of the universe than hold a conversation with a fellow human being. Yet, he’s solid and stoic, ready to be helpful so long as it doesn’t involve an overly emotional response.
    I’ve done my best to spare him the details of my separation. My humiliation would have embarrassed him, and, as for the sordid details, I’ve never really progressed