When I met your father, I was married to a man named Douglas Cain. I can’t believe you just heard those words come out of my mouth. If you only knew how often your daddo and I have talked about when we would tell you this. Sometimes, if I drank too much, I’d argue we never should. And the fact I was married to someone before I married your daddo isn’t even the worst of what you’ll hear tonight. I’m sorry, Bela. But this is how it went and this is how it is. I married Douglas young. My name for a brief time was Ursula Cain. I loved the name. It almost made getting married worth it to me, at the time. That’s how young I was. Young and dumb enough to think a good name was worth an eternity pact. We didn’t have much between us, me and Douglas. He thought I was attractive. He was about ten years older than me. We had almost nothing in common exc ept we both went to the same bars and we liked to close them. This means we drank as much as we could until we were asked to leave. I don’t expect you to know what that means, not entirely. I’m just trying to paint a picture of what it was really like back then. I had no goals. No ambitions. No drive. And neither did Douglas, and maybe that’s what we saw in each other. Maybe we saw the bottom in each other and we didn’t want to be found at the bottom alone. So we met and we dated and we got married and there was a whole wedding with bridesmaids and groomsmen and a man who married us and flowers and a cake. I fooled myself into thinking Douglas was the right man for me in the same way people tell themselves they like a job they have no love for. I suppose I felt Douglas was something I had to do. There was no fire in that relationship. No electricity. There was only companionship there at the bottom. And I was too young to be content with living my life at the bottom, the underbelly, rock bottom as some people like to call it. It feels like rock. Believe me. And you can hear the echoes of every dumb decision you make, echoes off that rock. And so... I guess, given the lack of love between Douglas and me, it was only a matter of time before I started cheating on him. There was no conscious decision to do this, understand. I didn’t formulate some plan or write out a list of goals, people I wanted to sle ep with behind my husband’s back. But that’s exactly what I did. And it wasn’t just a little bit, Bela. It was with friends of his. People we knew through his job and some of the stupid jobs I had back then too. There were one-night stands, and ten-night stands, and longer. And all this, Douglas knew nothing about any of it. I don’t think you’re old enough to understand exactly what that last statement illuminates regarding my marriage. But it sheds a lot of light. It says: Douglas and I were so far apart, naturally, that he didn’t even notice the fact his wife was sle eping with his best friends. Some of them in our very house. And while I feel absolutely crazy telling you this, now, and for the reason I am telling you this now, it’s also a glimpse, I suppose, of the world Lois was just referring to. The bad things people do and the bad people who do them and how even your mommy isn’t the bastion of golden purity most children imagine their mommies to be. But again, this isn’t the worst of it and I’m going to tell you the worst of it because that’s why we’re here and because we’re just desperate enough to try anything to protect you from what has become obsessed with you back at our house. So here it is, the worst: I met your daddo in the fog of this rudderless life at a bakery in downtown Chaps, a place that isn’t there anymore. Your daddo was in line behind me and he asked me what I was going to order and I told him and he said he was going to get the same thing because it sounded good. And then we laughed and I realized, right there in Mart Street Bakery, that I wasn’t happy with Douglas and no pronunciation of Ursula Cain could convince me I was. It was the first time I’d laughed without a drink or without pretending I’d found something funny and, more than that, it was such a pure and, yes, innocent, laugh I was nearly startled by the sound of it. I ordered and your daddo ordered and we got to talking outside and I suppose you could say the innocence ended there, as I knew immediately this would be the beginning of yet another affair. And it was. And your daddo and I saw each other on the side for many months as I was still married to Douglas and it even got to
the point where your daddo factored me into his plans when he got his first apartment. We lied to you when we said we met at college. We didn’t. We both went to the same school, but we didn’t meet there. And so whenever your daddo and I have talked about hanging out in college together, what we were not telling you was that these hangouts happened in an apartment in downtown Chaps, a place I visited regularly behind my husband at the time’s back. So, you see, Bela? A lot to be learned tonight. But this, of course, isn’t the worst of it because ever since I saw that thing sitting on your bed that night, I understood I’d become part of something I wouldn’t be able to voluntarily pull myself out of. I understood immediately that my reckoning had come, this darkness would not simply pass, and that I would likely have to do something similar to what I’m doing right now if I wanted us to make it to the other side. I got pregnant, Bela, while sle eping with your father. Yes, I got pregnant while cheating on my husband, sle eping with your father in his tiny apartment in Chaps, and I knew I was pregnant even before I missed my period or showed any signs. I felt it immediately. I knew I was no longer one person and that I was now two, and I suppose this is one of the perks of being someone who feels ultimately alone, the ability to sense when you are not alone anymore, sense it better than any social butterfly ever could. I told your daddo right away. And he went with me to the drugstore we used to frequent and we got a test and I tested positive in your daddo’s apartment bathroom and I stared at that test for a long time, doing the math, adding up the numbers, trying my hardest to make sure I knew whose child it was. Because, you see, Bela, just because a person is sle eping with someone else doesn’t mean they aren’t sle eping with the person they made a vow to, and in fact, they’re much more likely to sle ep with their spouse because they are trying to maintain airs, to make it all look like nothing is happening on the side. And so, finally, with that test in hand, I left the bathroom and showed it to your daddo and he said he wanted to ke ep it and I said ke ep what? And he said, My child. And I said, How do you know it’s yours? And so your daddo and I lost our own innocence that day, if such a word applies to anybody in this story that I can’t believe I’m telling you. And I’m sorry that I’m crying now and I hope you can hear the words between the tears and I hope you’re understanding even half of what I’m telling you, but I also kinda pray you don’t understand the other half. Because I might’ve been able to hide an affair from my husband, but you can’t hide a pregnancy, and so the whole world became a ticking clock for me. I could hear it in the clouds, in passing cars, in the house. It was like the house was creaking, leaning into me, telling me I had to talk to Douglas, and I couldn’t just pretend this wasn’t happening like I’d pretended so much before then hadn’t. And just when it felt like I couldn’t stand the sound of all that creaking in the house anymore, I told Douglas about the baby. And he was excited. He was so excited about this baby and I did all I could to hide the fact I’d taken the test in the apartment of another man and I did all I could not to break apart into a thousand pieces as he started coming up with names, as he asked no questions, as he had no idea there was even a possibility the baby might not be his. But I did it. I maintained this unfathomable front. I pretended, Bela. Just like I’ve pretended a lot of things with you. And I’m sorry that I’m crying. But I can’t imagine I’ll ever stop again. I did enough research to learn the earliest I could get a paternity test was nine weeks into being pregnant. What this means, Bela, is that I could take a test to make sure who the baby’s father was. But I would need the blood of one of the men in order to do this. Your daddo offered his up one night in that tiny apartment in Chaps. He got a knife out not that different than the knife he carried just last night when we stood like maniacs outside the upstairs hall closet in our home. And he cut his palm and he bled into a little plastic cup he had in the bathroom. We didn’t sle ep that night because our minds were racing with all the possible futures haunting us. It was like we could see the possible us walking around the apartment, or walking through a future home, other me, other Daddo, and who we might become once we found out who the father of this child was. And in the morning, I went to the doctor’s and they took some of my blood and I gave them your daddo’s blood and I drove home to my house where I lived with Douglas as his wife and I waited for word.
And I waited. And I was so scared, Bela, the most scared I believed it was possible to be before these recent incidents have shown me there’s always more to be afraid of. The phone didn’t ring that day, and I barely sl ept as Douglas sl ept smiling beside me, he with an idea of raising a baby, he with all these dreams and visions of his own, just like your daddo and I dreamed earlier in the day. And while Douglas sl ept I thought about waking him. I saw myself telling him the baby wasn’t his. I knew the exact words I’d use and I even rehearsed them in the bathroom, and worked on my expression, the face I would make when I told him the baby was not his. And about exactly when I had it right, at about the exact moment when I walked back into our bedroom and saw the sun had come up and found it within myself to wake this man, this man who had no idea of his wife’s affairs, the phone rang. And it was the doctor. She had the results of the paternity test. I could breathe again because this would be the moment I’d hear it was your daddo’s child and I, galvanized by this information, would wake Douglas and tell him I was sorry, so sorry, but my life had taken a turn without him. But... Bela. That’s not what the doctor said. The doctor did not tell me the child was your daddo’s. The doctor told me the blood I’d brought in was not the blood of the father of the baby I carried. And so there I stood, phone in hand, as my husband sl ept proudly, rightly believing the baby to be his. Mommy stops talking, and her eyes are puffy from crying and Daddo is staring hard into the fire. Your daddo is not your father, Mommy says. Not your biological father. You father is a man named Douglas Cain. A man who, when he discovered I was indeed seeing your daddo, when he followed me one night to that tiny apartment in Chaps, when he knocked on the very door of that apartment, suddenly wanted nothing to do with me, nothing to do with the marriage we had, and nothing to do with the child within. And it was that night, after Douglas left, that your daddo said he would raise you, Bela. That he would be the father to you that Douglas no longer wanted to be. The night he chose to be your daddo. I’m standing up and I didn’t even mean to. I don’t remember deciding to stand up. And I’m so sorry I’m telling you this now, Mommy says. And I’m so glad I’m telling you this now. So that maybe the world will stop creaking and the sound of this clock can finally go away, and the only reason I’m telling you this now, when you’re way too young to hear it, is because your daddo and I were told it might help get rid of a monster, by r eplacing it with another monster, one there’s absolutely no way to get rid of, and here I am, feeling worst of all for trying to get that monster to like you less, because even now, even right now, I don’t want anything in this world to like you less than it does Bela, not even a monster, I don’t even want what we found in our home to like you less because I want everything in this world and any world to love you. I’m walking through the sand. I don’t remember deciding to walk. Lois is telling me to stay near and she’s asking if I’m okay and she’s telling me it’s okay to cry, it’s fine that I’m crying but I don’t remember deciding to cry. Is this innocence revoked? Daddo says behind me. He’s talking to Lois. I turn to look at him, but I can’t look at him because suddenly he looks like he’s in disguise to me. The fire plays with his face and it makes it look upside down and I don’t understand what Mommy just told me and why did she say it at all? Yes, Lois says. I believe it is. Then we’re done, Daddo says. No more talking. Please.
Mommy is crying and I’m crying and Lois is telling me it’s okay and she’s next to me now and she’s got her hands on my shoulders, but I push her off and I start to run along the beach to where we saw the dog so far away and I think how Mommy said animals are innocent and I think she doesn’t understand that animals are the smart ones. Animals are the ones who know everything and Mommy and Daddo don’t know anything at all. Bela! Lois shouts. And I hear Mommy and Daddo behind me too. And they’re all running for me because we can’t be alone anymore because Other Mommy can grab me and she can ask if she can go into my heart and they’re trying to make her like me less but all they did was make me like everything less and so I’m running and hoping to find that dog so I can tell it that Mommy and Daddo don’t know anything, but now there are hands on me, hands in the dark, and I say, Other Mommy! But it’s not her. It’s Mommy. And Daddo and Lois Anthony too. And they’re all in the dark with me and the fire is so far away! I ran so far away. And the wind is loud and the water is loud and all of them are on their knees in the sand and they’re talking to me and crying and we’re all crying and I can hear either Mommy or Daddo or Lois or all of them saying, Yes, this is innocence lost. And I don’t like it! I don’t like it one bit! Why are they taking it away from me? Why are they making me feel so bad? Why won’t they let me be happy? Bela, Mommy says. Bela, Daddo says. Bela, Lois says. And I say, No! No! It’s not true! You’re all lying! But they tell me again it is true. And they all hug me and try to block the wind but through them I can hear it. I can hear the dog. Crawling up the beach. It’s far away but I can hear it. Yes. I can hear the dog crawling where the lake and the beach are married and I can hear it breathing and I don’t wanna tell Mommy and Daddo anything anymore because they’ll just turn it into a lie. Bela, Daddo says. Bela, Mommy says. Bela, Lois says. And I say, Other Mommy isn’t here. But I don’t think that’s true, and I just want to lie to them like they just lied to me. Yeah. I want to tell them lies and make them believe stuff that isn’t true because all they ever did was lie to me. Other Mommy doesn’t want me anymore, I say. Other Mommy is gone. Lies. I can lie too!
Other Mommy doesn’t want me anymore. Other Mommy didn’t follow us here. Other Mommy isn’t crawling on the beach. Bela, Mommy says. Bela, Daddo says. Bela, Lois says. And they’re all so sad! It’s okay, I say. We’re okay! Because I can lie too. Because I won’t tell them I can see her, yeah. See her on all fours up the beach. I won’t tell them I can see her between Mommy and Daddo, I can see her dark hair in the moonlight, I can hear her breathe and can smell her like she’s as big as the lake. It’s okay, I tell them. We’re okay! Other Mommy doesn’t like me anymore. And they cry. And they hug. And I lie. Other Mommy is gone, I say. Forever. It worked. She’s gone. And I’ll ke ep telling them that. I’ll ke ep telling them. I’ll ke ep telling them LIES!