The Year of Fog Read Online Free PDF Page B

haven’t even kissed me yet.”
    He put his hands on my waist, pulled me in, and unsteadied me with a long, slow kiss that left me wanting more. “There,” he said. “Now that we’ve crossed that hurdle.”
    “You sound like Alvy in
Annie Hall
,” I said, “that scene where they’re walking home from their first date and he kisses her just to get it over with, so it won’t be awkward later.”
    “That’s my favorite Woody Allen film,” he said. “No, second favorite, after
Crimes and Misdemeanors
.”
    We just looked at each other for a few seconds, smiling awkwardly, and I had that surprised, happy feeling you get when you realize you’ve connected with someone.
    “Seriously, though,” he said. “What about kids?”
    “I can honestly say you’re the first man who’s ever asked me that on a first date.”
    “I like to get things out in the open.”
    “Sure, I want to have one someday. But I don’t hear my clock ticking, if that’s what you mean.”
    He kissed me again, longer this time, one hand pressing into the small of my back while the other cupped my elbow in a sweet and familiar way. It had been a year since I’d broken up with my previous boyfriend. The relationship had ended badly, with late-night phone calls that went on for months. As Jake kissed me, I felt some wall inside me crumbling.
    He took my hair in his hands and flipped it over my shoulder. “Say you were to meet an intelligent, funny, handsome guy.”
    “Know any?”
    “Say this guy had a daughter. Could you still fall for him?”
    I searched his face for some sign of a joke, but there was none. “You’re serious.”
    “She’s five years old. Her name is Emma.”
    I remember clearly the image that flashed through my mind just then. It was a silly image of Jake and me and a little girl. We were in a park, and I was pushing the child on a swing. Her hair flew out behind her as she rose higher and higher. I found something pleasing and surprisingly comfortable in this idea of a ready-made family. Then I realized the picture was incomplete. “Her mother?” I asked.
    “Lisbeth took off a couple of years ago. She met some guy in a band, got caught up in a weird scene. Then one day I came home from work and she was gone. That was probably the worst day of my life. By then, things were pretty bad between us, but I still loved her. Or maybe I just thought I could rescue her, help her go back to being the person she was when we met.”
    “Where is she now?” I asked.
    “I don’t know.” Jake paused. “I didn’t hear from her for several months after she left, then there was a rash of phone calls asking for money. About six months ago, she called in the middle of the night all weepy and apologetic. She claimed she was clean, the guy was out of the picture, she missed me, she wanted to try again. The sad thing was that she never once asked about Emma. I think Lisbeth always thought of motherhood as a burden, something that held her back.”
    “What did you do?”
    “I told her to stay away, that we were doing just fine without her. By then I’d told Emma that her mother wasn’t coming back. Maybe I hadn’t completely gotten over Lisbeth at that point—I’m not sure you ever entirely get over someone you really love—but I knew she wasn’t good for Emma, and I didn’t want her in our lives.”
    He smiled then, a shy smile that stood in contrast to the side of him I’d seen that night. “You know, I actually haven’t dated much since she left. Have I scared you off?”
    As we stood there, his hands on my shoulders, the chocolate-and-coffee taste of his kiss lingering in my mouth, I realized this was not the casual date I set out on a few hours earlier. I touched the faint scar on his chin. “How did you get this?”
    “Mike Potter. I was nine. Vicious playground battle.”
    I stood on my tiptoes and kissed the scar, then took a deep breath. I’d never before dated a man with a child. I wasn’t sure what the