Ben interrupted his own laughter with a sudden, “Hmm.”
“Hmm, what?” Lily said.
“I was just thinking about how exhausted Dez got with the whole sperm donor thing ... God, thatseems like so long ago, doesn’t it, when you and Charlotte were trying to get pregnant?”
“It was a while ago, I guess...almost three years.”
“Yeah. You know, I hate to admit it, but after y’all pulled Dez’s name out of the hat, I didn’t paytoo much attention to all the baby-making attempts. That was back when I was so in love with Chris, eventhough our personalities totally clashed. I was so obsessed with him, though ... oh...my...god!” Ben lostcontrol of the car, swerved, then finally regained control, and pulled over to the side of the road.
“What?” Lily gasped. “Are you trying to get us killed now that this thing’s finally over?”
“No. It’s just ... oh my god.”
“Talk, boy. Talk.”
“I just thought of something. There was this one week when Charlotte was just sure she wasovulating, and you were getting two sperm donations a day from Dez, one in the morning and one atnight. The poor guy was just whipped — he said it was apparently no myth about women being sexuallydemanding. Anyway, I remember one night I had been out with Chris, and we had had a big fight at therestaurant. I was so mad I stopped at Blake’s on the way home and had a couple of drinks, just to calmdown. And of course, you know my alcohol tolerance. I was bombed by the time I got home.
“I found Dez upstairs in bed, glumly examining this empty artichoke jar he was supposed toejaculate into. He had all these boy mags spread around him on the bed, but his face just looked desolate.
‘Benjamin, my boy,’ he said to me. ‘I just can’t do it. I’ve come inside this jar so many times, I feel like Iought to marry it.’ Like I said, I was drunk, and he was exhausted, so I just grabbed the jar from him andsaid, ‘Oh, hell, let me do it.’”
“So the jar of semen Dez brought over that night was —”
“Mine. I don’t believe it, though. I just did it that one time, and Dez did it dozens and dozens —”
“It just takes one sperm, honey.” Lily laughed and threw her arms around Ben, who, for the firsttime, hugged her back with equal force.
As Lily walked up the path to Granny McGilly’s house, the old woman opened the screen door.
Mimi stood in the doorway, wearing a sunshine-yellow gingham sundress, and her face lit up likesunshine as soon as she saw Lily. “Mama!” she squealed and ran barefoot down the path into Lily’s openarms.
Big Ben and Jeanie had told Lily and Ben they could invite anybody they wanted to the big