Around Our Heads

The next day after work, Chris and I looked for the address we found on Google. The building was a tall office downtown. It was mostly windows, and they all had a silvery greenish tint to them. Chris and I parked the car on the curb, and then he took my hand and led me inside. The lobby had marble floors and shiny chrome elevators. There was a woman behind a desk answering phones and a janitor mopping the floor on the far side of the room. Chris went right to the directory.

Mycek, Gazarra, and Wodecki was the name of the company that we found online. And their office was located on the ninth floor. So we got on the elevator and stood there silently for a minute.

“Are you nervous?” he asked me on the way up.

“Yes,” I replied.

“I’m with you. We’ll be okay.” I just nodded and gave myself another mental pep talk.

When we got to the ninth floor, it dinged smoothly and let us out. There was a small foyer with the same marble floors as the lobby and a potted plant. There were two glass doors that had the company name etched into the glass. Chris opened the door for me, and I stepped into the office that smelled like lavender and candles. Everything was made of muted tones of greens and grays with modern-styled furniture. The woman behind the desk was as talk, sleek, and pretty as the building.

“Welcome to Myceck, Gazarra, and Wodecki,” she said in a polite and well-trained voice. “What can I help you with today?”

“We’re here to see Jacob Gazarra,” Chris told her.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No.”

“One moment, and I’ll see if he’s available for a walk-in.”

“Thank you.”

“You can have a seat, and please help yourself to some water.”

We nodded and sat down on the gray suede couch with the mint green pillows. I think Chris was nervous too. Neither of us looked like we belonged there. We were both wearing jeans. He was wearing his favorite Batman shirt, and mine was starting to be too small. My stomach was poking out, and no matter how many times I tried to pull my jeans up over the bulge, it just kept popping out and showing my skin anyway. We didn’t seem to be the sort of couple who would walk into a fancy office to meet with a lawyer. Or at least if we realized how fancy it was, we would have dressed more suitable.

The woman picked up her phone and spoke so quietly we couldn’t even hear her words. Her voice was like liquid, smooth, and so soft it was barely noticeable. The place was definitely meant to inspire comfort. I almost wanted to lie down and fall asleep. There were even little slices of cucumber in the water cooler. The window across us looked out over the city and the bay, but the room was so quiet that it looked like a muted TV screen.

“Mr. Gazarra will see you now,” the woman told us. We both stood back up. “You can follow me.”

She was tall and walked in her high shoes like it was no problem. Her skirt was very professional and went to her knees, but it was one of those tight-fitting high-waisted pencil skirts, and it made her ass look amazing. I couldn’t help but wish I had an ass like that. And I couldn’t figure out why the hell Chris would ever want to be with a girl like me when I was clunking along behind glorious ass in sneakers and big ass glasses. But he didn’t even seem to notice. As he was busy pulling a loose string off his Batman shirt.

She led us down the hall to a room with “Jacob Gazarra, attorney,” on the door in the same fancy script. She popped it open and let us in.

The office looked just like the outer office. Everything was designed in the same muted tones. There were potted plants and bookcases stuffed with leather-bound books and small little globes. There was one window in the room, but it made up the whole wall and looked out over the bay so that the bridge was visible from the seats. A man was sitting behind the desk in front of the window, and I knew immediately that we’d come to the right place. He had smartly cut brown hair with strips of gray and green eyes. I could see myself in him, or I suppose, I could see him in myself.

“Hi, come in,” he said as he stood from his desk and extended his hand. Chris shook first, and I shook weakly after him. “Please, have a seat.” So we sat down on the comfortable gray chairs, and the woman quietly disappeared like smoke. “What can I help you with today?” Chris looked at me.

“Um…,” I started. “Basically—we just came to talk to you.” He blinked a few times.

“I guess we can start with introductions. My name is Jacob Gazarra, but you can call me Jacob.”

“I’m Chris Mclean,” Chris told him. “This is my fiancée, Marley.” Then he looked back at me and blinked a few more times. I could see the wheels turning in his head, but I played with my fingers nervously.

“Marley,” he finally said, as if he was testing the sound of my name. I cleared my throat.

“It’s just—there are a few things I wanted to talk to you about. A few things I think I deserve to know.” He nodded slowly.

“How did you find me, Marley?”

“I asked my mom for your name.” He nodded again.

“What made you decide to speak to me?”

“I um….” I was really nervous. Chris reached out to take my hand, and I squeezed him and held on like he was my anchor. He really was.

“It’s okay. I’m here,” he told me. So I nodded and reached into my purse. I pulled out the same birthday picture of Avery and slid it across his desk with shaking figures. He picked it up and looked it over.

“Her name is Avery,” I told him. “She just turned three.” He leaned back in his chair and bit his thumbnail as he looked it over thoughtfully.

“She’s beautiful, Marley,” he said. I nodded.

“Thanks. I also um—I have this for you too.” I gave him the ultrasound picture. He looked that one over too. “We don’t know what it is yet. Well, he does. I don’t. But I thought you might like to know—that um—you have grandchildren. And I don’t know. I thought it might be nice to know if there are any genetic disorders I should look into.” He was silent for a moment as he thought over what I said.

“Marley,” he started. “When I saw you several years ago, you were very angry with me.” I nodded and looked back at my lap. “You said that I hurt your mother.” I nodded again. “What exactly did she tell you about me?” I looked back up at him.

“Um—not a whole lot, actually. It nearly killed her to give me your name. She’ll probably never talk to me again,” I explained.

“She told you that I assaulted her?” I nodded. He went silent again. Then he sighed and stood up. “There’s something I’d like to show you.” We watched as he went to his bookcase and picked up a square wooden box and a picture frame. He brought them both to the desk and sat down.

“Mr. Gazarra, your three o’clock is here,” the smooth voice spoke from the intercom. He pressed a button and leaned over it.

“Have them reschedule, Angie. I’ll meet with them on my lunch break if they’re willing to wait,” he told her.

“Yes, sir.” He handed over the picture frame, and I took it in my hands. I was looking at a picture of two men and two women. One of them was a younger Gazarra. One of the women was my mother. She was holding a bottle of champagne and smiling. They all were. Her blonde hair was long, and she was thinner and younger.

“What’s this?” I asked him.

“That’s the picture we had taken when we opened our first firm together. That’s me and my partners Anna Myceck and Richard Wodecki. Your mother was our first receptionist.” I looked down at the picture and felt nauseated. Then I handed it back over and didn’t meet his eyes.

“I didn’t know that she worked for you.” He nodded and opened the brown wooden box. Then he sifted through some old photographs and handed one of them over. This one showed him and my mom, but he had his arm around her, and she was smiling. “I don’t understand why you’re showing me these,” I told him.

“I didn’t hurt your mother, Marley. You were conceived consensually. An accident, undoubtedly. But not through an assault. We had an affair,” he said very calmly. But I felt all the air get sucked out of my lungs, and Chris took my hand again.

“You’re telling me that she lied to me?” My voice began to waiver.

“Your mother was already married to Avery Johnson when we opened our firm. They already had a son together. Our relationship only lasted a few months in secret. She called it off when she found out she was expecting you. She didn’t know if the baby was his or mine. So she quit her job, and I didn’t hear from her until months later. She called to inform me she’d had you, and you were undoubtedly mine. But she told me she wanted me to have nothing to do with you, and I could never call or see you.

“Of course, my initial reaction was to fight that and gain joint custody. But she was determined to keep our affair a secret, and I figured it wasn’t likely to last. But then I lost contact with her and the more time passed, the more I realized it would probably break your heart to have you discover Avery Johnson wasn’t your real father. I didn’t want you to have to deal with the shame of what we’d done. I didn’t know that she’d lied.

“I’ve thought about you a lot over the years, and when you were older, I decided I wanted to look for you. I could tell you the truth, and I figured you were old enough to handle it. When I came to see you that day, I wasn’t expecting you to react the way you did. You caught me off guard, and I was speechless for the first time in my life. I decided that you didn’t want anything to do with me, and I wasn’t going to force you to listen to me. Not for my own selfish gains. So I left and hoped you’d someday ask questions and come looking for me.” I put my face in my hands and sobbed. Chris patted my back.

“Why?” I asked. “Why would she lie about that?”

“She didn’t know you were mine until you were born. I’m going to go ahead and guess that she told the story in an attempt to cover her tracks. It probably just got out of hand.” I shook my head.

“This isn’t fair.”

“I know, Marley. I wish things had been different between us. I wish that I could have been there for you.” I sniffed for a minute, and Chris kept patting my back as they waited for me to get it out.

“I need to talk to her again,” I said.

“That’s probably a good idea. Here.” He handed the box over to me. “These are for you. I kept them because I wanted to ensure I had them, and my wife didn’t want them around.” I took the box into my hands. Inside were more pictures of him and my mother. They seemed happy together in every photo. There were even a few of them kissing. I sniffed.

“So you’re married?” I asked him. He nodded.

“For almost five years. Her name is Diane,” he explained. He showed me the picture on his desk of a fashionable-looking lady with dark hair.

“She looks nice.”

“We just had a daughter too. Well, she’s almost a year old now.”

“I have a sister?” He smiled and nodded.

“You do. Her name is Iris.”

“Iris—wow. That’s pretty.”

“I’d love for you to meet them, Marley. Diane already knows about you, and I would love to meet Avery.” I nodded and sniffed.

“We can figure something out. I just need to talk to my mom about a few things first.” I sniffed a few more times, so he handed over a box of tissues. I had to use them to clean up my face. “I um—Chris and I are getting married. I guess I’ve just been thinking about family a lot. So that’s why I wanted to contact you. I don’t really know a lot about myself. Gazarra? What is that? Italian?” He smiled.

“Slavic. I’m a first-generation American.”

“Slavic? I’m Slavic? I never would have guessed.”

“Half, I suppose. I’m not really sure what your mom is.”

“My mom is a mutt. I don’t even know.”

“Well, now you know where you came from. Your family has a very rich history.” I nodded and shook myself out.

“Crazy,” I said.

“So tell me about yourself. I know nothing about you,” he asked. I shrugged.

“I work for an independent comic book company. A few blocks from here, actually.” His eyebrows rose.

“Really? What do you do there?”

“I just work in a cubicle. It’s nothing fancy. Chris and I have Avery, and we live in the city. Getting married soon and expecting another baby.” He nodded.

“I’d really like to catch up with you. We should have dinner sometime. Here.” He handed over his card. “Call me when you’re up for it. I’ll talk to Diane tonight, and we’ll figure something out. She’s great. She’ll be delighted to meet you.” I nodded.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll do that. We should probably get back home and let you get back to work. I appreciate you taking the time to meet us. I’ll call you.”

“Excellent. I’m really glad you came to see me.” I forced a smile.

“Me too.” We all stood up, and he shook Chris’s hand.

“It was nice meeting you, Chris. Properly this time.” Chris nodded.

“You too,” he replied.

“And Marley, I really hope to hear from you soon. Thank you for bringing these pictures to me.

“It wasn’t a problem, and I promise you’ll hear from me soon.”