Lucky Me by Debra Borden

Author:Debra Borden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307421210
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2007-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

between homesickness and existential despair

When we get home I put Eric to bed and tuck him in as if he were a child. He pulls me close and says thanks, gives me a mushy kiss, and then turns and draws himself into the same fetal position Jake assumes when he’s zonked. As I stroke his forehead, relishing the feeling of nurturing him, I have this strong, clear thought: Eric is a good man. I feel lucky to be so sure that he not only loves me but also needs me. This is not a fantasy or an indulgence on my part, it is Eric himself who tells the kids that he “hit the lottery” when he met me. We were on a car trip a few years ago, when he first revealed himself to Lexie and Jake.

“All those years in Spring Valley, in the country, I was pretty backwards. I was kind of a math nerd. Do you know how many hours I spent in that office with Grandma and Grandpa with nothing to do?” The kids did know. Not only had they heard about it, but Eric had taken them there once, which was all it took. After that they begged never to go back. “There’s nowhere to sit, it’s all disgusting,” Lexie said, “and the weirdest people walk in and out of there.”

“Can’t Grandma and Grandpa ever have us to their house ?” Jake had asked.

“I don’t think so,” Eric replied. “They forgot where it is. So anyway,” Eric continues, “we had no small TVs or Game Boys, but there was that old adding machine I showed you, and I used to play with that. I was so bored that I would spend hours adding up sums and subtracting. By the time I was six I was a whiz; I started to think in numbers instead of words. I would go into Grandma’s office and interrupt her and say something like, “I’ve been here for 14,400 seconds today.”

“Oh God, how dorky.” Lexie smirks.

“That’s pretty cool, though,” offers Jake, “you know, how you figured out the seconds and all.”

“Thank you, Jake. I see you’ve developed an excellent appreciation of my finer qualities.”

“So, what did Mom see in you anyway?” Lexie is right to the point.

“Well”—Eric shares a wink with me—“your mother almost didn’t see anything in me at all. I just barely got up the nerve to go speak to her. We were at a party at someone’s beach house in the Hamptons, and when she walked in, she was easily the most beautiful thing in the room.”

“AWWW . . . !” Both kids in unison. I am blushing.

“I mean it. Her eyes and her smile were sparkling like in one of those toothpaste commercials, you know, with the little diamonds bouncing off them?” I look over at Eric to see if he is pouring it on, just to tease the kids, but he is dead serious. “At least that’s what it looked like to me. So there I

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