When I turned off the TV, Nicole stayed with her head on my shoulder. I savored the feel of her body against mine.
“This is so nice,” I said, meaning having my arm around her.
“It is. It’s great to do nothing for a little while.” I had hoped the “it is” was referring to my having my arm around her, but apparently not.
We continued to hold that position. If it had been any other girl, I would have taken her contentment in having my arm around her as an encouragement for me to do more. But as this was my sister and best friend, I didn’t want to press my luck. Instead, I tried to think of how to probe her feelings toward me.
“How is the search for a dad for Owen going?”
“Rotten,” she said in a deflated voice. “I meet lots of guys who are interested in me right up until they see Owen or I mention him. Did I tell you that three different guys started working out with me in the gym here? One asked me out and I think the other two were about to ask me out. Once I mentioned Owen, I never saw them again. Then there are the guys who don’t care about Owen because they don’t care about me beyond getting in my pants. It’s so depressing.”
“Sorry to hear that.” I wasn’t.
“All I want is some guy to want me and to want to be a dad to Owen. If he wants those things, I’ll do everything I can to be a great wife to him. But I don’t see it happening soon and it worries me.”
“It worries you?”
“Yeah. I was talking with this mom at church who has a boy a little younger than Owen and two stepdaughters twelve and fourteen. She told me that she had planned when she got married to be the mom of her stepdaughters and not have a kid of her own. But whenever she tried to discipline her stepdaughters, they and their dad laughed at her. She told me you can’t always become a mom through marriage. There is so much in a parenting relationship that builds up over the years. She eventually accepted that she will only be a family friend to her stepdaughters and that if she wanted to be a mom, she’d have to have a kid of her own. So I am sure that some day I’ll meet someone who wants me and is ready to settle down, but that might be five or ten years from now. By that time, he’ll never be a dad to Owen and Owen will always be my child, not our child. I don’t want that.”
I was thinking about Nicole’s plan to be a great wife to whoever wanted her and wanted to be Owen’s dad. I wanted both of those things. Was her offer open to her brother? I felt like our relationship had changed in the months we had lived together. Time to test if it really had.
“Nicole, who is Owen’s father?”
“Why do you ask?” It wasn’t an angry voice as I half expected. She sounded curious instead.
“It isn’t important to me. You’re the mom and the dad is out of the picture. I think it will be important to Owen some day. What if something happened to you? Would Owen be able to get all the money he deserves? Would he be able to know who his father is when he wants to know?”
“If something happened to me, would you be willing to raise Owen as your own child?”