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“I was, but I changed my mind. I picked up a couple of bottles of wine. I figured we could order pizza. So, what’s up?” I asked, pulling a bottle out and hunting for the corkscrew.
“I’m pregnant,” Kitt said.
“Jackson, where’s the corkscrew? You’re pregnant? I never knew you wanted kids.”
“I didn’t. This was an accident.”
“Oh. Have you told the father?” I noticed Jackson squirming in his seat and staring at the tabletop as if it held the secret to the meaning of life.
“Yes. He knows.”
“Oh, OK. Who is he?”
“Jackson.”
“Jackson?” I repeated, pulling the corkscrew out of a jumbled drawer in triumph.
“Jackson is,” Kitt blurted.
I returned to the table with the open bottle of wine and two glasses. “No wine for you, Missy, not in your condition,” I said teasingly, waggling a finger at her. “Jackson is what?” I asked sitting.
“The father. Of my baby. Jackson is the father of my baby.”
“You donated sperm to her?” I asked looking at him. “Without telling me?”
“No,” Kitt said, even though I hadn’t addressed her.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “You’re pregnant and Jackson is the father? How did that happen?”
“Oh, sweetie, I know sex ed was lacking back in Smallville, but surely, they managed to cover the basics of how babies are made—”
“Jesus Christ, Kitt!” Jackson snapped, then to me, “Oren—”
“You’re sleeping with my husband?” I asked Kitt in disbelief. Then to Jackson, “You’re sleeping withher?”
Jackson moved his hand suddenly as if out of reflex he was reaching out to steady me. I stared at the rose-gold Breitling on his wrist—his “everyday” watch—the one I’d given him for his fortieth birthday. I can’t explain why, except I felt if I concentrated hard enough, I could not only stop its Swiss movement but force it back in time five minutes, to the time before life as I knew it ended, pushing us to the other side of this apocalypse. I’ve always disliked winter when everything warm and colorful has gone and there is nothing but frozen ground below and windswept sky barren of warmth above; it had never occurred to me that I would die on a winter evening and be left to rot on a pyre of ice.
Jackson caught himself, pulled his hand away, then excused himself to go to the bathroom. He looked like he was about to cry or vomit. I watched him leave then, turning to Kitt, said, “I don’t understand how this happened.”
“Of course you understand how this happened,” Kitt said. “You’re not that naïve.”
“I thought you were supposed to be a lesbian.”
She shrugged. “I sweat with women. I sweat with men.”
“So, you’re what you young people call fluid now?”
“I guess. You know I’ve always wanted what you had.”
“I knew that, yes. But I didn’t think you literally wanted what I had as inmy husband.”
She shrugged again. Jackson returned.
“I’m tired,” I said, standing. Sighing wearily, overdramatically, I knew, I added, “We can sort this out tomorrow. I’m going to bed. You can see yourself out,” I added, looking pointedly at Kitt. Turning to Jackson, I asked rhetorically, “You coming?” quite as if the impossible hadn’t just happened and he’d never accompany me to bed again.
When neither of them said anything, I felt as if I’d stepped back a little, outside myself, looking at us in a mirror. The mirror cracked; out of the crack emerged Kitt with her swollen, pregnant belly, Jackson at her side.
“Blue Moon?” I said, unsure of him for the first time in my life. “Blue Moon?”
