The Morning After, Give or Take a Few Years

Precisely when it had no business to do so, rain decided to pour from the heavens. Sophie should have expected just as much from Seattle, but the days of the preceding week had been surprisingly mild and sunny, and no warning of rain had come from the weatherman on Channel 17, Accurate News Now. Rob Wren’s exact words that morning were, “Break out the sun block, people, we’re going to need it today!”

Trying to huddle further under the overhang of the roof, Sophie looked up and down the street. The suburb was dismal in the grey early-spring rain; located just outside Seattle, each house seemed to be based off the same model, down to the shingles on the roof and the color of the siding. In each driveway was roughly the same type of car: small, environmentally friendly, and professional; there were no minivans.

Sophie glared up at the dark rain clouds above her, tugging her wet coat tighter around her body. In a remarkable show of self-restraint, she managed to bite her tongue just hard enough to keep from cursing the weather and Rob Wren to herself; keeping her dirty mouth firmly shut was a skill she had learned early on in her five years of parenthood. A couple steps away from the front door, a small boy with an oversized yellow slicker was splashing in a puddle on the sidewalk, his thick brown hair plastered to his forehead. Sophie sighed and pushed the wet hair out of her own eyes, reaching down to press the doorbell once more.

She had been standing at the door for a good fifteen minutes, ringing the bell once every few moments. It had taken her half a month of phoning old friends and looking through dozens of online directories and phonebooks to find this house, and after sitting through a five hour bus ride up to Seattle with an overactive five-year old, Sophie was not willing to give up without a fight.

A slight tug at the corner of her damp coat attracted her attention, and she looked down into the large blue eyes of her son. “Mommy? When can we go inside? I’m cold,” he whined, snuggling up closer to her denim-covered legs for warmth. She smiled apologetically at him, and crouched down so that she was eyelevel with the five-year old.

“I’m sorry, honey. No one is answering. I’ll try one more time, and then we can go home. Is that alright?” Still pouting, the boy nodded his head vigorously. “Good boy,” she said, ruffling his wet hair until he childishly batted her hand away. Resuming her standing position, she reached out to press the doorbell but, at the last minute, decided to knock instead.

After a few seconds of waiting after the knock, she heard dull thuds resounding in the entranceway beyond the door. Her heart sped up in her chest, and she grasped the boy’s hand in her own, thousands of worst-case scenarios flying through her mind. Turning to her son, she whispered, “You’re going meet your father today, honey!” The little boy grinned up at her, clutching his mother’s hand tightly, though he understood very little of what was going on. Looking up as she heard the door open, Sophie felt her jaw drop and the breath caught in her throat.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

-

Her back was straight, shoulders rigid, as she sat on the edge of the couch across from the strange man who opened the door. The man had led her into the living room, which was decorated tastefully with modern patterns and had various pictures scattered over the walls, and had invited her to have a seat on the cream-colored sofa. On the other side of the living room, playing happily with some thing or another, her little boy was oblivious to the silent tension that was building between his mother and the stranger.

Taking advantage of the continuing silence, Sophie studied the man who opened the door. Seemingly unaware of the mounting tension, he was sprawl out across the loveseat that was positioned in front of the couch Sophie was sitting on. While she was no good at estimating age, she guessed him to be at least ten years her senior; his shaggy dark hair was streaked with grey, though he had few age lines around his eyes and mouth. Though Sophie noticed he was staring back at her with a bemused look on his face, she refused to initiate a conversation.

“You must’ve been standing out there a while,” the man said after one awkward moment too many. He surged forward to lean his elbows on his knees, interweaving his fingers as he smiled at her. “We’ve been meaning to get that bell fixed since we moved in here.”

Somewhere farther back in the house, a door slammed. Sophie tilted her head slightly in the direction the slamming had come from while the man didn’t move at all, intent on staring at her in the hopes of hearing her response. Minutes later, after the sounds of closing doors and muted mutters, a tall, lean man with a towel on his head came into the room, vigorously rubbing the towel and clothed in nothing more than a pair of ratty jeans. After one last rub-down, the man yanked the towel off, revealing a head full of blond hair and bright blue eyes. She, if possible, sat up straighter and felt her heart beat quicken.

“Hey, Bobby, what’cha doing out here?” the blonde asked the man on the loveseat, a grin on his face, showing no evidence that he realized that there were guests in the house. When the man didn’t answer, just kept staring at her, his shirtless companion turned to look at the couch, and froze.

“Sophie?” he asked, clearly shocked. She gave him a small smile.

“Hey, Troy.”

The stranger looked between them, and then relaxed, slumping against the back of the loveseat once more, grinning up at Troy. “This one of your exes?” he asked, not at all jealously. Sophie let a smile crack at that.

“Well, no—I mean yes—uh …” Troy stopped himself, ruffling his damp hair as he searched for the right words.

“We’re old friends,” Sophie said; Troy grinned at her in gratitude before sitting down on the loveseat next to the older man.

“Wow, it sure has been a while, hasn’t it?” he asked, partially in awe. She gave him a grim smile, something that would have looked so out of place only four or five years ago, but seemed to fit her now; single parenting did that to some people. Troy paused before adding, “It’s been, like, four years since we last saw each other…”

“Five, nearly six,” she softly corrected, allowing herself to relax a bit more, sinking into the soft cushions of the couch. Troy looked genuinely surprised.

“That long, huh?” he murmured, more to himself than for anyone else’s benefit. The sudden clang of metal hitting glass brought everyone’s attention to the small brown-haired boy, who was looking both startled and immensely guilty as he pointedly looked away from the trophy that had fallen from one of the shelves on the living room. Sophie remembered that particular trophy; Troy had won it in the eleventh grade for basketball.

“Who’s the kid?” Troy asked, looking between Sophie and the five-year old, silently noting that they both had the same shade of brown hair. Sophie looked back at child and smiled softly.

“That’s Jacob,” she said, getting up and walking over to the young boy, whose arms were now held above his head in the international signal of ‘Pick me up.’ She grunted as she felt her muscles straining to heave the growing boy into her arms; she was far too young to be getting too old for this.

“Are you babysitting him, or…” His voice trailed off as Sophie sat back down on the couch with Jacob in her lap.

“No.”

“So, he’s….?”

“Yes, he’s mine.”

“Oh.” Troy looked positively dumbfounded. The man seated beside Troy on the loveseat stood up then, using Troy’s knee as leverage. At Troy’s glance, he said,

“Just getting something to drink. I’ll bring out some water.” Troy nodded, and the man walked out of the room; both Troy’s and Sophie’s eyes followed him.

“So,” Troy began as the sound of slamming cabinets filtered in through the kitchen, glancing at her left hand, “you’re married, then?” His eyes widened as Sophie shook her head. “You—you know who the father is, though, right?”

Sophie nodded and sighed. She placed her hands under Jacob’s arms and lifted him off her lap. Turning him to face Troy, who was looking at her in a mixture of horror and realization, she said,

“Jacob, meet your father.”