One True Theory of Love (19 page)

He scanned the circle of parents, his expression serious. “You can clap,” he continued. “And you can cheer if they score, but I don’t want you to yell anything while they’re playing. Not
good job
or
get it
or
throw to so-and-so.
They need to listen to me, to do what I tell them. Beyond that, they need to figure out how to play on their own. If they’d just stay in their positions, we might actually win once in a while. Can everyone agree to this?”

All the parents nodded. “Good idea, Coach,” Catherine said.

Meg upped her one. “
Great
idea, Coach.”

Ten minutes into the game, the boys were playing their positions admirably. They hadn’t scored yet, but neither had the other team. It had been a hell of a week for Meg and she actually found it pleasant to be relieved of the burden of cheering. She sipped her coffee and spaced out a bit until someone spoke into her ear, startling her.

“Who’s winning?” It was Clarabelle.

“Hey—hi!” Meg said.

“Henry invited me,” Clarabelle said.

“Good,” Meg said. “I’m glad.” She wasn’t, of course. She’d been delaying the moment her mother and Ahmed met, since Clarabelle so rarely had kind words to say about anyone. “How are you today? Heard from Dad?”

“Pfff,”
Clarabelle said. “If I never hear from him again, it’ll be too soon.” She eyed Ahmed. “Is that
him
? Your man friend? You never said he was so handsome.”

Meg looked at her mother in surprise. “Thank you. He’s exactly my type.”

“Exactly your new type,” Clarabelle clarified.

“Right,” Meg said.

“He looks almost Mexican.”

“Well, he’s not.” Meg sipped her coffee and shifted her attention back to the game in hopes of preserving the fragile peace between them.

“Oh! Did you see that?” Clarabelle said. “Henry almost got it in! GO, HENRY!”

“Shhh,”
Meg said. “We aren’t supposed to cheer.”

“Not cheer? That’s ridiculous!” Clarabelle raised her voice to a yell. “Over there, Henry! To that big kid over there—number twelve!”

Ahmed’s head snapped around. He looked from Meg to Clarabelle, who smiled broadly. “I don’t think he’ll reprimand me, do you?” Clarabelle said this out of the corner of her mouth as she waved to him. Meg shrugged at Ahmed apologetically. He gave her a wink and turned his attention back to the game.

When her cell phone rang, Meg was glad for the interruption. She fished her phone out of her pocket and flipped it open. “Hello?”

“Meg, it’s Jonathan.”

Meg gasped. Had she really just been glad for the interruption?
I take it back,
she thought desperately.
I take it back and then some.
Helpless, she watched as Henry made a great shot, scored a goal and ran straight to Ahmed for a high-five slap. For the first time that season, their team was in the lead.

“Meg?”

Stop saying my name
. Meg walked away from her mother and tossed her coffee cup at the garbage can, missing it. “How did you get this number?” If a voice could be icy and shaky at the same time, hers was.

“I have my ways.” Jonathan’s tone was supposed to be teasing. “How are you today?”

She’d been a hell of a lot better a minute ago. How was she supposed to answer that—
instantly soul-withered by the sound of your voice?

“What do you keep calling me for?” she asked. “And why now?”

“We have some unfinished business,” he said.

“We had unfinished business ten years ago,” Meg said. “Now there’s nothing between us.”

“Except our son.”

Meg gasped. “How dare you even refer to him as your son?”

“We need to meet.”

Meg’s blood ran cold as her eyes seized upon Henry, whose hair curled at the ends just like Jonathan’s, whose long fingers and blue eyes were his, his, his. That was what Jonathan was after: the boy whose name he dared not speak. All of a sudden, Meg was sure of it.

“No,” she said.

“Come on, Meg,” he said. “Please.”

“Funny, your use of the word
please
,” she said. “It never worked when I used it on you.” She’d begged him that last weekend.
Please, just tell me what I did wrong. Please, let’s try to work this out. Please, don’t make me raise this baby by myself.

“I’ll never let you near my son,” she said.

“Who do you think gave me this number, Meg?” Jonathan asked.

“I have no goddamned clue.” Her heart pounded in terror. There’d been an implication in his question that she didn’t like one bit.

“Henry called me last weekend,” Jonathan said. “He’s the one who asked me to get in touch with you.”

“He wouldn’t.” Meg felt light-headed. Dizzy. In danger of floating away. “He doesn’t care a thing about you and he knows you’re not worth our time.”

“He called me,” Jonathan repeated.

“You’re lying,” Meg said. “That’s all you are—a liar.”

“I’m coming to Tucson over Thanksgiving, and we need to meet,” he said. “There are some things I need to say to you in person.”

“Are you in some sort of twelve-step program and you’re at that stage where you’ve got to apologize for your past transgressions? Because if that’s the case, consider yourself forgiven and leave me the hell alone.”

“
Am
I forgiven?” he asked.

“Are you in a twelve-step program?”

“No.”

“Then hell no.” Meg flipped her phone closed, turned off the ringer and stood dazed, looking toward the Catalina Mountains. The innocent cotton-candy clouds crushed the mountaintops where she’d once hiked, camped, made love with Jonathan. Three military planes from David-Monthan Air Force Base, so clean and competent, cut through the sky overhead that belonged to the park. Had Jonathan
really
just said that her son, the flesh of her womb, had placed a phone call to her mortal enemy?

The next time there was a break in the game, Henry grinned at her and made a peace sign. She stared at him as if he were a stranger. If he’d really called Jonathan, there’d be no peace in their household that day.

T
hey won, 1-0.

Because of Henry’s goal, his team won. Henry was the hero, and Meg could barely stand to look at him. She led her mother over for introductions. “Mom, this is Ahmed,” she said. “Ahmed, this is my mom.”

Ahmed warmly shook Clarabelle’s hand. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

“You, too.” Clarabelle seemed mesmerized by his eyes. “I don’t know why my daughter has insisted on hiding you away from us.” Henry tugged on Clarabelle’s sleeve and whispered something to her. “Would you like to join us for Thanksgiving dinner?” she asked when she straightened. “We’re having it at my other daughter’s house.”

“Ho, ho. Hold up,” Meg said. “Mom? Can you take Henry to the car and I’ll meet you there in a few minutes?”

Clarabelle, sensing Meg’s mood, led Henry off without protest. As Meg watched them walk away, she felt light-headed again. Loose. Worthless. As if she could blow away in a slight breeze and no one would even notice.

But Ahmed noticed and took her gently by the arm. “What’s wrong?”

She looked at him desperately, drowning. “Pretty much everything.” How could she tell him that Jonathan had called, and not only that, but it had been Henry who’d asked him to? Henry hadn’t betrayed just her. He’d betrayed Ahmed, too. Ahmed, who’d been more of a father to Henry in the past couple months than Jonathan had been in ten years.

Ahmed would remember the moment she delivered this news for the rest of his life.
You know how crazy you are about my kid? Well, it doesn’t matter how great you are with him. It seems he’s more fascinated with his father, who’s ignored him for the past ten years.
Meg owed it to Ahmed to tell him right. Without anger. Without sarcasm. With compassion. And so she decided to hold off.

“My parents separated last night and it’s hitting me like a ton of bricks,” she told him. “I don’t think Thanksgiving is going to be especially thankful this year. I think it’s going to be hell, actually, and I’d rather it not be your first official introduction to my family.”

“Poor Meg.” Ahmed pulled her close. “Tell me what I can do for you.”

“I just . . . Damn it.” She stopped as tears sprang to her eyes. In a world that didn’t seem to reward it, Ahmed was so very kind. “I just wanted us all to be happy. I didn’t want anything to get ruined.”

Ahmed pulled back and took her hands. “No pity parties, Meg. There’s a happy ending ready and waiting for us, like an apple on a low-hanging branch and all we’ve got to do is stretch the tiniest bit and it’s ours. Maybe a happy ending’s waiting for your parents, too.”

He honestly believed it. Meg could see it in his eyes. She didn’t feel nearly as hopeful.

“But that’s what ruined Adam and Eve,” she said. “Reaching for the low-hanging fruit. Wanting more than they were entitled to.”

W
hen Meg arrived at the car, Henry was up in a nearby tree, while Clarabelle watched him from below.

“Okay, Henry,” Meg said. “Let’s go.”

“Hold on.” Henry reached for the next branch. “I want to climb higher.”

“We’re leaving now.” Meg turned to her mother. “I told Ahmed I’d prefer that he not come for Thanksgiving. Henry doesn’t run the show, and I really need you to talk with me before you issue invitations. We’re not welcoming Ahmed into the family quite yet.”

“Yes, we are,” Henry called down.

“Get in the car, Henry.”

“I
said,
in a minute.”

“The car won’t be here in a minute.” It took Meg about fifteen seconds to get to her car, and as she unlocked it, she saw out of the corner of her eye that Henry
still
wasn’t coming. They were a mere six blocks from home, and Clarabelle was there and wouldn’t let Henry walk alone, and damn it, he was being such a brat. She was going to leave him. Teach him a lesson for a change. Make him take her seriously. Meg got in, buckled up and started the ignition before he even looked over. He held up two fingers, for two minutes. She put the car in reverse. So sure she’d wait for him, he sat leisurely on the branch dangling his legs.

When Meg backed out of her spot, Henry finally jumped down and started over. Meg inched forward a few feet. When she saw that Henry had begun to run, she considered whether she should keep going and really teach him a lesson or if she should give him a break. Not that he’d cut her any breaks lately. Far from it. But still. She stopped for him and stared straight ahead, shunning him at the same time she was chauffeuring him.

Henry got in, buckled up and waved goodbye to Clarabelle. “Hey, Mom? Mom, Mom, Mom? Can we go for ice cream?”

“Are you kidding?” Was it even conceivable that he didn’t know she was mad at him? Or was he just so sure her forgiveness was a given?

“Can we?” he asked.

“No! When I say it’s time to go, we go.
I’m
in charge.
I
make the decisions.”

“I thought we both made the decisions,” Henry said.

“We aren’t a democracy,” Meg said.

“But I thought we were a team.”

“If we’re a team, then I’m the coach and you’re the player,” Meg said. “You don’t tell Ahmed how to run the practice, do you?”

“That’s different.” Henry kicked the back of the seat. “Why didn’t you say anything about my goal? You saw it, right?”

“Of course I saw it,” Meg said. “That’s how I spent my Saturday morning. Out of all the things I could have been doing, I chose to stand in the cold and stomp my feet and watch you and cheer for you and
be there
for you. And, yes, congratulations. It was a very nice goal.”

“Thank you,” Henry said. “When we get home, can I play pool in the clubhouse with Violet?”