A Necessary End Read Online Free PDF Page A

the same pithy verdict. Fortunately, Adrienne’s such good company that I barely miss other people.
    Now that I’m standing on the precipice of fatherhood, I find myself recalling a conversation Ames and I had that night. He was marveling at our house, how nothing was on the floors but the furniture. “You have your kid, that’ll change,” he said. “You go out to take a piss in the middle of the night, and it’s this toy minefield. Everythingplays a different song. One wrong step, and it’s a rendition of ‘The’ fucking ‘Wheels on the Bus.’ One time, when Natalie was two, I put weight on the wrong floorboard, and this voice comes out of the darkness and says, ‘Want to play?’ I almost went for my gun, I’m telling you. Had to remember it was the plastic purple octopus. People give you this shit as gifts. Trust me, it’s no gift.”
    â€œSo cleanliness is the first thing to go?” I joked, with a pointed look at his bald spot.
    â€œWell,” he said, amending that with a grin, “the third. After your sanity and your hair.”
    It’s all fun and games until your wife texts you to come home NOW, you’re having a baby.
    Once Ames and I are outside, taking in the view of a parking lot full of lengthy, American-made cars, he shakes a cigarette from his pack and hands it to me. Then he takes one out for himself. I don’t really smoke anymore, but it seems like the best idea in the world.
    â€œShe says she found us a baby,” I say.
    â€œFound? Like in a Dumpster?”
    â€œLike adoption. She must have found a birth mother. She says we’re having a baby.” I hold up the phone as proof. “We just started looking.” Eleven months isn’t that long. I was hoping for twice that, at a minimum. It’s like I want a long engagement and Adrienne wants to elope.
    Ames takes a drag. “Well,” he says finally, “congratulations.”
    I inhale too sharply and start to cough. I would have thought smoking was like riding a bike.
    â€œYou’re going to love it, fatherhood. It’s a pain in the ass, but it’s worth it.”
    â€œIs it really?”
    He squints out at the parked cars, sunlight glinting off their windshields like asteroids. “What’s done is done.”
    I knew it.
    â€œI love my kids, and you’ll love yours. Just don’t overthink things.If you spend your time worrying whether you’re happy, then you’re not. Happiness finds you when you’re not looking.”
    â€œUnless it doesn’t. Adrienne wants this more than anything.” I saw that line before she deleted it.
    â€œAnd you don’t.”
    â€œI want her to have what she wants.”
    â€œThen let her be a mother. Let her do the work.”
    That’s the bargain he’s struck. He’s got an old-school marriage, where the kids are Paula’s domain. There’s no way Adrienne would go for a division of labor like Ames’s family. She plans to keep working, and she wants me to be a full partner in this, as in everything else; she wants me to want that.
    â€œI’ve got to go,” I say. Another text is coming in. Another NOW. Since when do we talk to each other like that? The kid isn’t even here and already I feel like the henpecked husband.
    It’s always easy to spot my car here, the only hybrid Lexus on the lot. Card players favor gas guzzlers, especially Caddies: old Eldorados and new Escalades. Adrienne’s been talking about an SUV. One baby, and we need an SUV. I turn the key in the ignition and remind myself: We don’t have one yet. The text said we’re having a baby. So there’s still time to eject from the cockpit.
    I think of my buddy Rodney from work, what he said after he learned his wife was pregnant: “You know your life is going to change forever, but at least you’ve got nine months to kiss it