Originally posted in February of 2008. A story that came to mind when I saw a guy sitting in one of the computer cubicles on my way up the stairs. He had long hair and his head in his hands. His laptop was open in front of him. The desktop background was a blurry picture of a young woman and a toddler. Both were laughing. He wasn't in it.
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It could be his wife and kid. Or his two younger sisters. Or his best-friend and her daughter that he thinks is his but she never says. "How can it be yours, James?" she asks. "We never did it." But sometimes he can almost imagine they have, and he can vaguely recollect a party and her tears and his urgent need to make things better. Those days he shakes his head as his brain tries to remember the porch swing and the cushions by the back fence and all of the other things that he can't quite remember happening but can't convince himself didn't.
Sometimes he just wants to know. Is she his? Does Blair actually carry his blood in her veins? Is that his smile turning up around tiny teeth? Did he help to form the tiny hands and tiny fingers and tiny toes? He can't remember even though when he looks at her he feels something. Something like recognition. Like a part of him has come back.
But she swears that she doesn't remember the father. That it was drunken revelry weeks after the party with the tears and the comfort. "We never did it, James. I'd remember, I mean, you're my best-friend..." And she trails off every time, her face blanking as maybe she tries. She must try to remember; Blair's father is not faceless. But she shakes her head each time, clearing whatever memories her brain is bringing up.
He can never ask if she remembers a porch swing and laughter in the grass.
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