A plate, one that my mother had given us for our wedding, splintered into smithereens against the wall just to the left of my ear.

“Jesus, Trisha!” I barked, flinching.

The plate breaking seemed also to break her spirit, for she went from fire-hot furious to a wilted flower drowning in tears.

I pinched the bridge if my nose, warding off a migraine. We had been at it since morning when Trisha, in a new piece of kinky lingerie, asked me to put the condom away.

I went to her now, wrapping my arms around this woman I loved, despite it all.

“Trish, look,” I began. “It’s not that I think you’d be a bad mother. Forget what I said. I was upset and not thinking clearly.”

Her entire body shook as she sobbed into the coller of my Oxford shirt.

“It’s just that, if we were to try again,” I continued, taking a deep breath, “and if, you know, everything went okay this time…” I fought to control my voice. I still had trouble speaking about our last pregnancy, which very nearly killed Trisha and did kill the baby girl inside her. Death by strangulation of its own umbilical cord. “…then I would be 69 when it graduated from high school. I don’t want to be an old dad. I don’t think it would be fair.”

“Fair to who, Rex?” she shot back, pushing me away. “What about me? I’ll be 39 this year! I don’t have any time left, and I… I…” she stammered, and then fell back into the book of my neck. “I want this so much.”

Fuck. This was exactly what my sister, Réa, had warned me about when I fell for a woman 12 years younger. “She makes you feel youthful now, Rex. But what about when it’s her turn to settle down? Will you have grown up by then?” Réa had asked.

Ding dong!

We shot up, standing at alert as if the door bell were an emergency alarm.

“Who’s that?” Trisha seemed worried.

I approached the door while recomposing myself. Fingers through the hair. Fix the coller. Oh fuck, the coller… a black splotch marked the spot where Trisha had cried into my shoulder. Mascara.

“Who is it?” I called with in a jovial tone, over correcting for the morning’s mood.

“Hey Rex! It’s me.” I threw back the deadbolt.

“Oh hey, Réa.” My sister stood on the stoop with a pie tin in hand.

“I made this grasshopper mint pie this morning because you know I’m a stress baker, and I’m just so nervous about this interview tomorrow, but, as you also know, I’m trying to cut calories these days, so I thought I’d…” she stopped when she saw my face. “Oh no.” I couldn’t hide much from Réa. She had always been able to read me like a crystal ball. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said dismissively as I stepped into the afternoon rays and closed the door behind me.

“Hey, whatever it is, little brother, always know I’ve got your back,” she said handing me the pie tin. “I’m always and forever Team Rex.”

“Thanks, sis.”

She gave me a hug, and I breathed in the same almond oil in her long, nut brown hair that my mother had used in hers. The familiarity calmed my nerves.

She pulled away and smiled the crooked smile that we had inherited from our dad and that Trisha had found endearing when we first met. “See ya later, champ.”

I returned to the house to find Trisha at the kitchen table with a mug of tea. I set the pie in front of her and retrieved two forks.

I picked up where we left off. “Look, I’m just scared,” I explained. “Scared of what another pregnancy might do to you, scared that the baby might die, and scared that if you and the baby both manage to survive I won’t measure up as the dad I’ve always wanted to be. Trish, I’ll be 50 next month.”

“I know,” she whispered, taking my hand.

“What if we adopt or foster a kid?” I ventured. “Annie and Tim’s adopted kid fits right into the family. No one would even guess she wasn’t biologically theirs. I just think—

Ding dong!

Trisha rolled her eyes. “What does Réa want now?”

I opened the door, and there was my sister.

Except not.

This was my sister 20 years ago. Same hair, same proportions, same cleft chin, and those eyes…

“Um, hi,” she said, and her voice brought tears to my eyes. She sounded just like my mother. “Are you Rex Nobles?”

I nodded. It was all I could do.

“Okay, this is a bit awkward,” she said, shuffling her feet and smiling that crooked smile. My sister’s smile. My smile.

I heard footsteps behind me. Trisha gasped.

“It’s just that, um, my name is Maheva Rogers, and my mom… Well, she went to a sperm bank about 18 years ago to get pregnant, and the records indicate that, um, well… that you…”

Trisha screamed and collapsed into shuddering sobs. But I couldn’t take my eyes off this teenager on my front stoop.

I extended my hand. “It’s a real pleasure to meet you, Maheva.”