Chapter 4

The air conditioning at the massage parlor was cranked up high. The girl got the water temperature right, and I sank into the couch and let my eyes drift half-shut.

The new one was from down south, soft-spoken, her voice all sweet and slow, her eyes curving into little crescents when she smiled.

I teased her a little, and she went red in the face while she worked on my shoulders.

The phone in my pocket buzzed all of a sudden.

I pulled it out and looked. My dad.

I didn't want the mood ruined, so I hung up fast.

I glanced at the screen again. My mom's last message read: "If you don't come home now, Sonia's really leaving."

Something started to tighten in my chest.

I set the towel down. Suddenly no way of sitting felt comfortable, and I couldn't focus on anything.

"Something came up, man. I've gotta run home for a bit."

I threw my things together and left. When I got home the door wasn't shut.

The motion-sensor light in the stairwell was on.

The door stood ajar a crack, warm yellow light leaking out through the gap.

The second I pushed it open, my vision went black. A slap landed square across my face, hard enough to send me stumbling a step sideways, my ear ringing.

"On your knees!"

My dad stood in the doorway, his face flushed dark red, his chest heaving, the hand pointing at my nose shaking.

The living room was full of people. My mom was huddled on the couch, her eyes cried down to swollen slits. When she saw me come in, her lips trembled a long moment without a word coming out, then she covered her face and started crying again. My father-in-law sat at the dining table, leaning back, one hand resting on the tabletop, not once looking me in the eye.

"Make him kneel!" My father-in-law's voice was hoarse, worn all the way out like he'd been shouting for hours. "Make him say it on his knees."

My dad kicked the back of my knee, and my leg buckled and I dropped to the living room floor. The tile was ice cold, and the chill shot up straight through my kneecaps.

"How did the Finch family ever produce a monster like you!" My dad's hand was still shaking. "You were so good as a kid. Your mom would give you fifty cents and you couldn't bear to spend it, you'd save it up to buy her a hair tie. How did you turn into this?!"

My mom crouched down in front of me, cupped my face and looked at it, tears dropping one by one onto the back of my hand. "Son, Sonia wants to divorce you, do you understand? Such a good girl, and she just gave you a healthy baby boy. Go beg her, say something soft to her, Mom's begging you..."

Over at the square table, my father-in-law smacked a sheet of paper down and pushed it across. It slid halfway over the smooth surface and stopped in front of me.

Divorce agreement.

Two words, printed, bold, set neat and square across the top of the page.

I didn't take it.

I just knelt there, head down, looking at those words, and something in my head twanged like a plucked string.

"She... she's got no money right now, no job, and she still owes on those payday loans," I heard myself say, the words coming out on their own, my mouth dry. "How could she possibly..."

"Shut your mouth!" My father-in-law slammed the table and shot to his feet, the chair legs scraping the floor with an ugly screech. "When our family married our daughter off, it was never about your money! You still think Sonia can't live without you, is that it? Let me tell you, Eugene Finch, she's done hoping for anything from you. And so are we. Sign it now, sign it and get out."

I couldn't let it go. I picked the divorce agreement up off the floor and set it down, stood, pulled out my phone, scrolled to Sonia's number and called.

Three rings, and she picked up.

On the other end was her breathing, held tight, thick with tears.

"Sonia, you owe all that money, how are you going to get by from now on?" I tried to keep my voice steady. "And think about it, once you're divorced you're a second marriage. The kid goes with you, and out on the street people will call him a bastard. Have you thought about that?"

The line was quiet for a couple of seconds, then came her sobbing, broken and uneven.

"Those seven thousand from this afternoon, you don't have to pay it back," I went on. "And let's not bring up the divorce anymore, all right?"

I'd gone anxious all of a sudden, afraid of losing it all.

But what came back over the line wasn't her agreement. It was her crying, breaking out all at once.

Not that held-in sobbing. This was the kind that comes when a person shatters completely, wailing, heartbroken past bearing, tears pouring out.

"Eugene Finch! I was pregnant ten months! Do you have any idea what my life was like?!"

She cried so hard she couldn't catch her breath, every word torn straight out of her throat.

"From the day you said we'd split everything fifty-fifty over the pregnancy, I didn't dare even order takeout. Sometimes I was so hungry I'd wait for you to finish and pick a couple of bites out of what you left in your bowl. I didn't dare tell my parents. Every time I went home for a meal I ate as much as I could, ate for all I was worth, because I never knew when my next full meal would be..."

"I'm so tired... I'm begging you, let me go, sign it... If you don't sign, I'll jump off this hospital building right now..."

Then a burst of noise and screaming came over the line. Someone was shouting, "Don't do anything foolish, honey," someone was shouting, "Grab her, quick," and the scramble of footsteps and the clang of metal railings all ran together, and the call cut off.

I stood in the middle of the living room, gripping the phone, dazed.

On the coffee table the divorce agreement lifted a corner in the draft, then settled back down.