Brand New Human Being by Emily Jeanne Miller

Author:Emily Jeanne Miller [Miller, Emily Jeanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The evidence—Owen’s pants and shoes—has been destroyed, or at least washed, and is banging around in the dryer by the time Julie gets home. I meet her in the front hall, take her messenger bag, and lean down for a kiss. She presents me with her cheek. “Have you been drinking?” I ask, catching a faint whiff of alcohol on her breath.

“At the office,” she says, going through the mail. “We had a toast.”

“To what?”

She takes off her jacket and drops it on the stairs.

“Was Hart there?”

“Don’t, okay?” She kicks off her clogs. “Who’s the sitter?”

“Sam,” I tell her. “She’s in the kitchen, making Owen’s food.”

She drops the mail, mostly catalogs and solicitations, in the trash, which is technically an umbrella stand. “We can’t be late,” she says wearily. “I’m supposed to be hosting this thing.” She starts unbuttoning her blouse as she heads up the stairs.

I’m dressed already, so I go into the kitchen to join Owen and the babysitter, Bill’s daughter, Samantha. A sweet and formerly sweet-looking girl I’ve known since her birth, Sam has, over the past year, dyed her hair black, installed a silver spike in her right eyebrow, and had a multicolor, winged dragon-thing tattooed over the majority of her back. I know this last bit because despite the fact that it’s November, she’s wearing a tank top with tiny straps and standing in front of the stove with her back to me, stirring a pot of noodles, which causes the dragon-thing’s spread wings to flap up and down. For a moment, I remember her as an infant. She was the first baby I ever held. I can still remember the wonder I felt, holding an entire human being, a whole life, in my hands. She’s smart as a whip, anyway, and great with Owen, which is good; on looks alone, no way Julie would let this person within fifty feet of our son.

“What does your old man think of that?” I ask.

“Of what?”

“The graven image on your back,” I say. “The tattoo.”

“He thinks it’s gross. But he thinks everything’s gross on girls. He has like fifteen tattoos, but he didn’t even want me to pierce my ears. He’s a total hypocrite.” She cuts the flame and carries the pot to the sink, where she dumps the pasta into a strainer and turns her face away from the sudden cloud of steam.

“I think it’s cool,” Owen pipes in. He’s sitting at the table holding a crayon in each hand, one blue, one green. There’s a pad of paper in front of him, on which Sam has drawn the letters of his name for him to color in.

“Why, thank you, Owen,” she says. “That means a lot.”

She puts the pasta back in the pot and pours in some sauce. I’m having trouble taking my eyes off her back. “Didn’t you have to get his permission?” I say. “I mean, they wouldn’t just go ahead and do—that—to a teenager without a parent’s okay. Would they?”

She shrugs. “My mom came with me so it wasn’t an issue.

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