Word by word. Soaking in the moment … taking his time while I try to make excuses for us to leave … (Beat.) And at some point … he glances back at me. At my face. And I try to stay calm, I do … to not panic … but my hands—I’ve thought about this a million times since then … at least that … one million times … if only I hadn’t moved so quickly … my hands darting down to my stomach, covering it. But I do … and he sees this … Tommy does … and follows the movement down, studying me, surveying my body, and it’s then that he sees the gentle rise of my belly … the bags in my hands from Baby Gap and The Pottery Barn … spilling over with lamp shades and blankets and … and he slowly lifts his head and looks at me. Stops speaking entirely and just … stares at me for what feels like … well … forever, I suppose. Ten seconds, maybe, in reality but forever as I see his flickering eyes and his mind working as he counts off the weeks and the months and remembers me whispering things to him, about my life, about Eric and me, about all the difficulties we’ve had with having children … and there, in the middle of the Glenview Mall … he realizes the truth. Whose baby I am carrying and what has transpired between us—why and for how long he has been used and deceived and lied to—he now understands it all. (Beat.) Tommy turns back to Eric and he smiles. Slowly. Baring his teeth. He says, “I congratulate you, sir, on your upcoming arrival.” It couldn’t have sounded more unnatural coming out of his mouth than if one of those schoolboys from the Lord of the Flies had suddenly appeared and said that very same thing. “Your upcoming arrival.” My God! (Beat.) Tommy said “goodbye” very quickly and left … the girl following him off into the maze of that mall … and Eric and I walked out to the car without speaking. (Beat.) Did Eric know? Could he feel it, the truth of what had just happened? Impossible to say. (Beat.) I catch Eric looking at me sometimes, with that … you know what I mean … and I believe he knows. Everything. And yet Eric’s been a wonderful father to our daughter. A daughter who was born prematurely at 6 pounds and 3 ounces and has cried and fussed her way through those first few years of her life … I mean, not when she is in Eric’s arms, no, then she’s just perfect … an angel … but she has never once felt comfortable in my own arms. She’s grown up a fussy child—a fussy eater, a fussy dresser, a fussy everything—and now, in her teenage years … she and I grow more distant with each passing day. For comfort I read articles in magazines that say this is a “phase” and that she’ll “grow out of it” but I have my doubts.