A Necessary End Read Online Free PDF

good-bye.”
    The problem is, I like my life. I love time alone with Adrienne. Last week, we ate kettle corn for dinner with a bottle of wine. Okay, two bottles of wine. I don’t want to kiss that good-bye. Adrienne says this’ll make us better people, we’ll be role models. Jesus. She never used to talk like that either. That kind of stuff made her gag. “Fuck me like a role model,” she would whisper in my ear if she overheard someone using a term like that. Maybe I don’t want to be a better person; I just want to be happy.
    It’s not a long drive home, almost all freeway, and I alternate betweendriving exactly the speed limit and doing ninety. I must look like a schizophrenic. It’s the ambivalence made manifest. I need to know what’s happening right now; I don’t want to know, ever.
    If I get pulled over by a cop and given a fat ticket, it’ll prove I’m not ready to be a dad. Or I can just keep on driving straight to Reno. A poker overnight, the province of the parentless. Show up the next morning and tell Adrienne, “See, I’m not cut out for fatherhood. I’m still a kid myself.” Forty-two, and a kid myself. Even I hear how pathetic that sounds.
    No cops, no ticket, and I get off at our exit like I’m supposed to, like a good boy. Adrienne yanks the front door open, this massive smile on her face. It’s so wide that it’s almost creepy, like that clown from It, the one that lives in the sewer. The house is redolent with spices. “I’m cooking!” she announces. “Leah gets in tonight at eleven twenty-three.”
    I follow her into the kitchen. It’s small but state-of-the-art, all gleaming steel appliances and expensive granite countertops covered with bowls and implements we never use, like a nylon brush. Who is this woman?
    â€œLeah might not be hungry that late,” Adrienne continues, “but the house will smell amazing. First impressions are everything, right? So on a subconscious level, she’ll equate us with domestic bliss. And she’ll want that for him.” Adrienne turns suddenly, her eyes bright and moist. “Do you think we get to name him?”
    I am legitimately speechless. Sagging against the refrigerator, I tell myself I don’t need to speak. I can just turn on my heel and run. Run away from this possessed woman. Go to Reno, and when I come back in a day or two, Leah will be gone, and reality will have reasserted itself, and Adrienne will be my wife again.
    I go into the dining room and sit down. From there, I can look toward the living room, stare longingly at the TV and the night I thought we’d have, or straight into the kitchen, where she’s hard at work, kneading dough. Jesus.
    â€œTell me about Leah,” I say.
    â€œShe’s from Rhode Island. Really sweet girl. Her boyfriend, Trevor, wanted her to have an abortion but she wouldn’t, and he dumped her, if you can believe it.”
    â€œI can believe it.”
    â€œShe said he’ll sign the papers, he’s not attached to the baby at all. So that’s great news. Oh, and she looks like me, and you look like Trevor. Isn’t that amazing?” She doesn’t wait for my answer. “The best part is, she’s due in six weeks.”
    â€œAnd she’s flying out here tonight? Is she supposed to be flying in the last trimester?” If I know that and the mother doesn’t—if neither of these mothers do—we’re in big trouble.
    I see Adrienne’s brow furrow. Then she pushes her hair out of her face with her forearm, and it’s almost like she’s manually smoothed everything over. It’s a-okay now. “This is the one,” she says quietly. “This baby is meant to be ours. He’s even going to look like us.”
    â€œIt’s a boy?” I take a deep breath. If I were going to want a baby, I’d want a boy more.
    â€œLeah doesn’t