He’ll want to see Amy. I push my chair back, then stand up.

“You sure?” asks my mother. “I can get the door. Take care of Amy.”

“No. I’ll get it.” Amy slaps the tray on her high chair. My father doesn’t look up from his food. It’s him. I know the sound of his car, that dirty red ‘81 Mustang that belches and knocks everytime he parks it.

When I get to the door, I turn on the light in the foyer and glance over my shoulder towards the dining room. My mom is feeding Amy a spoonful of peas. The door bell rings again. I turn on the porch light, then open the door. Vince is standing on the cement porch, leaning to his left. I flip the lock of the storm door. I don’t want him barging into the house. “What do you want?” I grab the knob on the inside door with my left hand.

“Karen, it’s me,” he says, tugging on the handle.

“I know,” I say. Then I flick off the porch light. I don’t want to see his face, to see it plead or scowl at me.

“Can we talk?” he asks, moving his hand to his hip.

“About what?”

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

“Could you at least come outside?”

“No. I’m eating dinner.”

“I wanna see you.”

“You can see me now.”

“Yeah. I guess,” he says. “Ha, my hair is still longer than yours. You haven’t grown it back. I thought you would by now.”

Three months after the birth of Amy I cut it short because I was puttin’ it in a pony tail a lot because I didn’t have the time to brush, condition, wash, blow-dry, curl, or shape my long hair. And afterwards what did that asshole ask? Why’d you cut your hair when you used to look so pretty with it long? It was too much work, I said. It’s just hair, he said. Nevermind, I said. I don’t understand why you’ve stopped making yourself pretty, he said.

I look down at my right foot as I twist it a few times on the gray tile that covers the floor in the entryway. “That’s why you’re here?”

“Well, I just thought...” His voice trails off. He looks down at the ground and moves his black hi-topped covered foot over the long crack of the porch. It’s been there since we’ve lived in the house. I remember when he bought those shoes at Athlete’s Foot. He’s never been much of a jock. He played football freshman year but not after that because, he told me, the coaches were assholes. I believed him. But if he couldn’t follow a coach’s directions on the field I shouldn’t have been surprised that he couldn’t listen to me when it came to Amy.

“Just thought what?” I ask. Through the screen I can make out his barrel shape. The shape of his body on mine that night in his bed, drunk and stoned, the Motley Crue poster behind him on the wall and we were out of condoms and I said to myself just this one time can’t hurt, feeling too good and wanting him inside me and more and more and more...my shirt, his shirt, my bra, my breasts, his tongue, our zippers, and oh...It used to be so good between us. I caress the doorknob.

“I’ve been thinking, you know. Doing a lot of thinking,” he says, nodding his head up and down like he’s trying to convince himself of something.

“About what?”

“I want to take you out sometime.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Why not?”

The clinking sounds of forks and knives on plates as my parents eat pot roast with peas and mashed potatoes.

“We’re in the middle of dinner,” I say. He’s trying to look past me, towards the dining room. Probably trying to see Amy. I glance over my shoulder. My parents’ heads are down and Amy is drinking from her spill cup.

I turn back to Vince and grip the knob. Leave now so that I don’t have to reheat my dinner in the microwave. I’ve also got a paper for English to work on. It’s due in two days. But I have to work the next few nights in a row so this is the only free night I’ve got to work on it. Wait, I have to give Amy a bath. Work first before more work. It’s all work now. I thought I knew what work was. But then I had Amy and learned otherwise. I wish Vince would learn otherwise.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve known. I just thought...I wanted to see Amy, too,” he says.

“No, you can’t.”

“Please, Karen. Just this one time.”

I roll my eyes and close them. Everyone tells me I should just be done with him. I love Vince. I hate Amy’s father. Then I open my eyes and say, “Please don’t do this.” I don’t know how much longer I can stand here. In a perfect world it would be okay. In a perfect world I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant, and then I wouldn’t have Amy the little wonder of my life.

“I’m not doing anything. You’re the one who’s doing all this,” he says.

“You haven’t changed,” I say.

“How do you know? You won’t let me show you how I’ve changed.”

I lightly tap the doorknob. Should I ask him to give Amy a bath so that I can have some time to do my paper? Or will I have to show him how to do that? Then it’ll take that much longer. No. Not tonight. No time. Not for him. Not for me. Not for Amy. What does Vince know of my time?

“You say you’ll give me a hundred dollars a month and then I get 50 and then another month I get nothing. Then next month you give me 75 dollars.”

“I couldn’t afford a hundred.”

“And I’m okay with that. But don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You could’ve just called me up and said, ‘hey, I budgeted wrong. I can’t give you as much as I thought I could. But here’s what I can give you.’ Did you even come up with a budget?”

“You just want the money!” he nearly shouts. “That’s all I am to you. Well, I got news for you: to Amy I’m her father.”

I lean towards the screen. “Then be a father. Don’t just say it.”

“I am.”

“You can say it all you want. But that doesn’t make it how it really is. You have to follow through. You can’t not come around for three months and expect to be a father. Whether it’s money, time, or doing the work. You haven’t followed through once.”

“That’s not true.”

My head is hurting. I put my hands to my temples and rub. It helps a little. But not much. “You were stoned at Amy’s first birthday.”

“Is that what you told your parents?”

“No.”

“No wonder they hate me. You’ve been telling them all kinds of bad things about me.”

I grab the knob again and tuck my right hand into my pocket. There’s some loose change left over from buying lunch at school. I was in a hurry and didn’t have time to make a lunch this morning. “I loved you despite what other people thought. But you’re lying to me. Again.”

I’ve got to always do the mature thing now. I can’t be a teenager even though I am one, want to be one. Was it love or the idea of being in love? Even if we’re not adults, for Amy’s sake we need to act like adults. But he wasn’t okay with doing that. Wish he would’ve been honest with me upfront, when I found out I was pregnant. It would’ve hurt more back then. And maybe I would’ve given Amy up for adoption, like my birth-mother did me.

He shifts from side to side. His arms fold and unfold and fold again. “I was happy. It was our daughter’s first birthday!”

“Why can’t you just accept that this is how it has to be?” I turn the knob back and forth a few times, clicking.

He tucks his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. He looks west. Towards the school. Where we met. Where we used to kiss inbetween classes, pass notes, make plans, laugh with friends, laugh with each other. Like when he used to imitate Vince Neil of Motley Crue. Smokin’ in the boys’ room...everybody knows that smokin’ ain’t allowed in school. Gettin’ stoned wasn’t allowed in school either. That didn’t stop us. Nothing stopped us. Not parents teachers friends rules cops monitors. The street lights are flickering on; the last bit of the day is about to disappear.

“But I’m making some decent money now,” he blurts out. Better than before, that’s for sure; five dollars and 45 cents an hour unloading trucks and pulling stock at Venture.

“We can’t live off what you make,” I say, shaking my head.

“I know we can’t right now. But that can change. It will change. I’m trying to become a manager...Did you at least get my last check?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Good,” he said. “Do you see? Things’ll change. It doesn’t always have to be like this.”

“It doesn’t work.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here. I–”

“No. I mean it won’t work.” I take my hand out of my pocket and rub my right temple again.

“Why?”

“It just won’t.” I rest my hand on my hip. My left hand is getting sweaty holding the knob.

“But she’s my daughter, too.”

“You can’t get fucked up every weekend,” I say. “You can’t be doing that anymore and be around Amy.” That night when we were smoking pot and drinking Lowenbraus, then smoking hash, and then he and Jimmy and Tracy and some of the others pulled out the coke. Vince got so wired he couldn’t fall asleep and swore he’d never do it again. But it was just like everything else with him; lots of enthusiasm and loud promises that within a few weeks drifted into a sort of hazy laziness. And he was back to Lowenbraus and coke and hash, saying he liked it too much and besides he knew better now how to handle it.

“I know,” he says. “It’s not like every weekend. I mean, we can still have fun. It doesn’t mean we can’t have fun anymore.”

“I know what you mean.”

“So? What do you say?”

“I’m graduating in a month,” I say, leaning against the door with my shoulder.

“I know. That’s why I think it will work.”

“Why do you think it will work?”

“I just know it. It will. I can do this. We can do this.”

I wipe my sweaty hand on my jeans and grab the knob again. “I don’t think so.”

“Why?” He throws his arm out to his side and it falls with a slap of his hand against his jean-covered thigh.

“I just don’t, Vince.”

“You still love me, right?”

“Yes. But it doesn’t matter.”

He puts his open right hand to the screen, making a tiny thunderous sound. I take a half-step back. He’s strong. He could easily pop out that screen. “And I still love you. You know that, right? You believe me, right?”

“Yes,” I say. It’s as if the air that carried the word had escaped from my lungs. How many chances should I give him? How long should I wait for him to change? What’s fair? To him? To me? To Amy? There was a time when I had the time to show him what I needed. But that’s gone. He didn’t take advantage of when I was learning, too. Can he catch up?...How much time will he need to catch up? I’m so tired. Long day today will make tomorrow seem longer. Every minute I stand here is a minute that could be used for something else. I can shut the door. Slam it. If he doesn’t leave then I can call the cops. Or have my parents call the cops.

“So Karen let’s work it out,” he says, putting his left hand to the handle on the storm door. His face is completely dark, except for his lips. They’re barely visible through the screen.

“Vince, don’t make this any harder for us.”

“So all you want is my money.” He pulls his hands away.

“No, Vince. That’s not...” I squeeze the knob.

“What do you want? Do you want me to stop hanging around with the guys?”

“That’s not it. It’s not your friends. That’s never been what it’s about,” I say.

He steps back. His arms flail out. “What do I have to do? I’m trying everything I know.”

An airplane flies low overhead, just taking off from O’Hare, its turbines whining. I step forward, pulling the door with me. After the plane passes I say, “Vince, we’ve been over this too many times. The feelings aren’t enough. I need more than the simple fact that you love me.”

“I don’t understand. How can you say that love isn’t enough?”

“It just isn’t.”

“Amy’s not going to know who her father is.”

“Yes, she will.” I put my right hand to the inside of the doorway and lean a little, pulling the door a little closer.

“Some day, when she’s old enough to understand, she’s gonna know that truth about all of this. I can promise you that.”

“Yes, she will.”

It’s completely dark now. The street lights have come on. During the summer, when I was little, my parents always told me I had to be home as soon as the lights came on. If I was at the far end of the block when the street lights came on, I would run as fast as I could and burst through the front door all out of breath and say See, I’m home in time. And my parents would say they were proud of me. I drop my right arm to my side and say, “Look, I’m tired and all I want to do is finish dinner and then I have a lot of work to do.”

“You going to the prom this year?” he asks.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t go last year either, remember?”

“Fine. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

I can hear him take each step as he walks off the porch, scraping his feet. I switch off the light in the foyer. Without the light I can see pretty clearly through the screen even in the dark with the glow from the street lights. I can see his long hair bounce and sway on his down-hanging head as he walks towards his car, hands in his pockets. When she’s old enough to understand, it’ll be my job to explain what I can about her father. I hear the tinkle of the keys. He pulls open the door. Vince gets into his Mustang, shuts the door, and starts up the engine. It sputters a few times. Maturity, didn’t have the maturity. He backs the car out of the driveway. On the street, he doesn’t gun it like I expected him to, driving off at a regular speed. West. Not towards home. Wonder where he’s going. I shut the door.