Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner

Author:Jennifer Weiner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Contemporary Women, Infertility, Mothers, Medical, Reproductive Medicine & Technology, General, Literary, Parenting, Fiction, Motherhood, Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9781611731453
Publisher: Atria
Published: 2011-07-11T07:00:00+00:00

After work, instead of going home, I took the subway to my father’s office down on Wall Street, taking the elevator up to the thirty-second floor, where he and his assistants worked in glass-walled rooms that had floor-to-ceiling views of the Hudson River. When I was little the office had been smaller, and he’d just had one assistant, who kept a stash of caramel squares in her desk drawer and let me bang on an unplugged keyboard while I waited for my dad. I hadn’t been to his office in years, maybe not since high school, when I’d ridden the elevator flush with triumph, clutching my college acceptance letters. Now my dad’s assistants had assistants . . . but he didn’t keep me waiting for nearly as long as my mother had before waving me into his office.

“To what do I owe the privilege?” he asked.

He looked good, better than I’d seen him in years, his skin flushed, his hair recently cut and neatly combed. I thought he’d lost a few pounds—since the scare with his artery, he’d been trying to stick to a low-fat diet. He was on new medication for his cholesterol, plus a bunch of vitamins that India had researched. The last time I’d been over there’d been turkey meat-loaf and oven-roasted vegetables instead of the usual roast beef and mashed potatoes, but he’d been a good sport about it, and India had smiled proudly when he’d asked for fat-free yogurt for dessert. She’s good for him, the voice in my head said, and I told it to be quiet. Just because she could make a turkey meatloaf—or, more likely, tell the chef to make one—didn’t mean she wasn’t going to hurt him, or that she had his best interests at heart.

I took a seat opposite my father’s desk and opened my mouth to tell him: Don’t have a baby with this woman . . . or maybe just to remind him of the good times we’d had. Dim sum brunches in Chinatown, dinners at Daniel to celebrate each of our high school graduations, heading to the Hamptons on Friday afternoons, the five of us in a helicopter, smiling with anticipation, feeling that swooping sensation in our bellies as the city fell away beneath us.

“Bettina,” he said. “What’s up?” As he sat there looking at me, eyes crinkled at the corners, I noticed a new picture among the familiar shots of the five of us, over the years—Trey with braces, holding a striped bass he’d hooked in Montauk; Tommy with his first guitar; me at my debut, in a white lacy dress that seemed, in retrospect, specially cut to display my bony clavicles, dancing with my father. The new picture sat in a silver frame right next to his oversize computer monitor, and my heart sank when I saw it: him and India, under a canopy of lilies and roses, saying their vows.

“What’s up, hon?”

I couldn’t deny it. He looked happy... happy in a way I hadn’t seen him looking since my mother had left .

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