My Brother, My Wife, and Their Son novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Form

Cedric overhears the plan to put him on the boy's papers as father and finds his signature already on the form.

I did not go into Mom's hospital room.

I sat in the waiting area with Maisie asleep across my knees until a doctor came out to find me.

"Mrs. Marsden is fine," he said. "She was worked up and she fainted. Just try not to upset her again."

My chest loosened a little.

She was still my mother, whatever else she was.

I looked at the closed door at the end of the hall and felt tired all the way down.

Mom stayed three days.

In that time Colby and Jasper kept out of my way.

Regina did not call me once.

Maisie asked about her mother every morning, and every morning I told her Mommy was busy.

On the fourth day Mom was discharged, and that evening she phoned.

"I'd like to see Maisie," she said. "I'm still weak, Cedric. Don't make me ask twice."

I thought about her fainting on the floor in front of the elevators.

I took Maisie by the hand and drove across town.

I told myself I would stay ten minutes.

The front door was open an inch when we got there.

Voices carried out from the kitchen.

I put Maisie on the stairs in the hall, gave her the tablet from my bag and my earbuds, and found her a cartoon.

Then I stood in the dark of the hallway, under the row of photographs, and listened.

"Regina," Mom was saying, "isn't it time Jasper had his Social Security number?"

"You're right, Mom."

Regina's voice was easy and warm.

"It's just that Cedric..."

Dad's mug hit the counter hard.

"Cedric will do what he's told. I worked in the county records office for thirty-one years. I know exactly how the birth record has to read."

"It has to read father," Mom said. "A boy that age can't have a gap in his papers. It would follow him to school."

"It would follow him to every school," Dad said.

I stood very still in the hallway.

They did not mean Colby's name on the line.

They meant mine.

They meant that a boy born from my wife and my brother would go through his life as my son, on paper, so that nobody who ever looked him up would see a scandal.

I walked into the kitchen.

All three of them turned.

Dad was at the table with an open folder in front of him.

Regina stood by the sink with a dish towel in her hands.

None of them looked ashamed.

They looked interrupted.

"Where's Maisie?" Regina asked.

"On the stairs. She can't hear you."

"Cedric," Mom said, with a gentle voice she had never once used on me. "Sit down. We were going to talk to you."

"You were going to talk to Regina. Just now."

"We were going to talk to everyone," Dad said.

He closed the folder halfway.

I held out my hand for it.

"Show me."

Dad stared at me.

Regina's towel went still.

"You won't like it," Dad said.

"Show me."

He pushed it across the table with two fingers.

It was a state form, four pages long.

At the top, in neat block capitals, someone had typed JASPER MARSDEN and the date of his birth overseas.

Under Father, it said my full name.

At the bottom of the last page was a signature line with a pen signature on it, and the date was from last Tuesday.

I read it once.

I read it again.

It was a good copy.

The O had the same loop I put on it when I was in a hurry, and the tail on the W ran out the same way.

It was the handwriting I used on every permission slip and every card I had ever signed for my mother.

"I never signed this," I said.

Regina looked at the floor.

Mom looked at Dad.

Dad took off his reading glasses and set them on the table.

"Nobody needs your signature, Cedric," he said. "It's done."

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