Eben bach
To invite it into life." Both of the parents were strained with emotion, Dalya openly crying. In her arms a white blanketed shape. At the party there were many children who found each other and ran nimbly through the forest of legs of the irrelevant adults. Jacob watched them from a table covered in spreads and bagels; he had once acted like them at adult parties any number of times. A man near him re-introduced himself; they had met a couple of times at other gatherings involving Dalya and Alan. His name was Michael and he was Alan's cousin. "Right," Jacob said. "Of course." "What an occasion," Michael said, evenly coating a sliced bagel with chive cream cheese and glancing up for affirmation. "It really is." Jacob knew all about Dalya's childhood and was moved himself by this whole thing. "Are you and Naomi planning on having children anytime soon?" he said. Jacob noticed his hands were in his pockets and took them out. "We talk about it a lot." Michael smiled, holding his bagel delicately with the ends of his fingers. They were both facing away from the table now, side by side, looking out at the crowd. "You know, a person becomes a parent the minute they start thinking about being a parent." "What do you mean?'' "Just exactly that. The minute you start thinking about having a kid, you're already a dad." Jacob breathed in and out. He thought about that. ON THE TRAIN RIDE HOME, the subway heavy with people standing and sitting, Jacob told Naomi about it. "What did he mean?" "Just what he said." Jacob heard the voice of a young child from somewhere else in the car, asking for something. He wondered what it would mean to be hearing it as a father would. T HAT NIGHT THEY HAD SEX. They used a condom. Afterwards, Jacob sleeping, Naomi looked up at the ceiling and thought about how, if they were "trying," they would probably be having more sex, because "trying," when you came down to it, just meant having sex on purpose, without a condom. It would push them to be more intimate, more vulnerable. She looked around the room, which she could see clearly enough. The light of the city found them in the back of the building, through their flimsy curtains. Despite all their wedding gifts from a couple of years ago, there were not so many things in here; there wasn't room for them. Many of the things they owned were in storage in his parents' basement in New 96
FUGUE #30