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No.
Fuck. No.
I rewind to that night in my mind. I had drunk a few beers, but I wasn’t intoxicated. And I didn’t fuck up when I put that condom on my dick. I did it the right way.
“Are you here because you think it’s mine?”
“I know it’s yours.”
I was at my buddy’s house for a cookout when Charlotte showed up with her friends. We had talked for less than two hours when she let me fuck her. She acted clingy afterward, so I disappeared as soon as she went to the bathroom.
I know. Total dick move.
“How can you be sure it’s mine?”
“There’s a narrow window for when I got pregnant. You were the only one I had sex with during that time.”
“You told me you were on birth control, and we used a condom.”
“Maybe there was a hole in it. Maybe I got a defective batch of birth control pills. I don’t have an explanation for how it happened. I only know it did happen, and now I’m pregnant with your baby.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“Of course, I’ve seen a doctor. I wouldn’t come here and tell you this if I weren’t positive.”
“Fuck.” I cover my eyes with my hand and shake my head, wishing, begging, pleading for this nightmare to go away. “Fuccck!”
“I know you don’t want this. Believe me, I didn’t either when I first found out. But I’ve had time to think about it, and I’ve decided that I want to keep the baby. I want you to be in its life. I want you to be a father to him or her.”
A baby joins two people forever.
I don’t want to be joined to this woman for the rest of my life.
I only want that with Frankee.
Only twenty minutes ago I was on the sofa inside of the woman I love, telling her that I want to be married to her. Want to put a baby inside of her as soon as she’ll let me. And she said yes.
But now all of that is going to be ruined. Because of a one-night stand. One fucking mistake I’ll never be rid of.
If this is true, Frankee is going to leave me when she finds out I’ve gotten another woman pregnant.
“You aren’t saying anything. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that this is going to cause me to lose the one thing I love most in this world.”
“I’m sorry for that. But please believe me when I say that I didn’t choose this. It just happened.”
If I’d been solely dependent upon her telling me the truth about the birth control pills, I would definitely be questioning the authenticity of that statement, but I was the one in control of applying the condom. It was from my stash. It isn’t possible for her to have sabotaged it.
This is a hugely unfortunate fuck-up.
“Do you have a father?”
Why does that matter? “Yes.”
“Are you close to him?”
“Yes. I’m close to all of my family members.”
“I don’t have that. I never did. I grew up without a father. I only saw him a handful of times in my entire life. And it was very painful. I could never understand why I wasn’t good enough for him to love me. My mother tried, but she was never able to convince me that there was nothing wrong with me. I don’t want that for this baby.”
I understand. No child should grow up feeling unworthy of a parent’s love.
“Do you want to be a part of our baby’s life?”
Our baby. Nothing about hearing her say that feels right.
“I’m not trying to be an asshole, but I need you to give me time to absorb this reality. Because right now my mind is spinning. I can’t answer any questions about what I want.”
“I don’t think that makes you an asshole at all. I understand you need to absorb it. And that’s fine. We have time to figure out what we’re going to do.”
At least she’s being reasonable.
“Do you expect your girlfriend-fiancée to tell you to turn your back on us?”
“I have no idea what Frankee is going to say.”
She reaches into her purse and takes out a sonogram picture. “This is your son or daughter. Your flesh and blood. Women may come and go in your life. But this will always be your child.”
This is your son or daughter. Your flesh and blood. But this will always be your child. Those words literally nauseate me.
“My due date is February twenty-fourth.”
“How far along is that?”
“Almost thirteen weeks. I know you’re going to do an Internet search the minute I leave, trying to disprove any possibility that you’re the father. When it asks you to enter the last menstrual period, it was May twenty-first. And you’ll see that the dates of conception would be anytime between May thirtieth and June fourth.”
I fucked Charlotte that first weekend in June. I know because Frankee came to work for me the following Monday. I don’t even have to look at a calendar.
“I’m going to ask for a paternity test after the baby is born.”
“That’s fine. I want you to take a paternity test. I don’t want you to ever doubt this child being yours.”
She gets up and reaches for a pad and pen on my desk. “Here’s my number. Call me when you’re ready to talk.”
After she leaves, I sit unmoving except for the beat of my heart and breath moving in and out of my lungs. I’m not sure how long I sit there, but it’s long enough to get a text from Frankee.
Frankee: Everything ok?
No. Everything is definitely not okay. And I cannot face her right now.
Porter: I’m sorry, baby. I’m going to be tied up here for a while longer. Go on home, and I’ll see you in the morning.
Frankee: Ok. I love you.
Porter: Love you too.
I don’t know how in the fuck I’m going to tell Frankee about this.
Her standards are high. I don’t see her being okay with marrying me when another woman is pregnant with my baby.
She’s going to leave me. I know it. She’s going to take off for Austin so fast my head will spin.
And why wouldn’t she? She’s a beautiful twenty-two-year-old woman who has her entire life in front of her. She doesn’t have to settle for a man who has knocked up some one-night stand. She can move on and find a man who isn’t having a baby with another woman.
I can’t talk to Tap or Stout about this; neither know about Frankee and me. And I’m damn sure not ready to tell either of them I’m going to be a father.
Fuck my life.
I call the only person on this earth I can talk to about what I’ve done. “Mom…” I can’t get that one simple word out without my voice breaking.
“Porter. What is wrong?”
“I’ve messed up. So bad.”
“Son, what have you done?”
Embarrassment. Shame. Disgrace.
I can’t believe this is happening.
“I was with this girl months ago. It happened before Frankee.”
I breathe in deeply. Once. Twice. Three times. Pro
crastinating.
“And?”
“The girl just came to see me. She’s pregnant, and she says it’s mine.”
“Oh shit. You have messed up.”
“I know, Mom. I know. Frankee is…” It’s one thing to think the words in my mind, but saying them is so much worse. “She’s going to leave me over this.”
“Oh, Porter.”
“We’ve been talking about getting married and having babies. She’s already told me she wants to. I was going to propose to her soon. And now it’s all ruined. She’ll never marry me when there’s another woman having my baby.”
“Definitely not a motivator for saying yes.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to tell her about it. She’s going to hate me.”
“The one thing you have on your side is that it happened before her.”
“Would that have mattered to you if Dad told you he’d gotten someone else pregnant?”
“I can’t lie. I would have moved on. But times are different today than they were then. Most families are blended these days. It could be something she’s able to accept.”
“I know Frankee. She isn’t going to be accepting of someone else having my child.” She has a very concrete picture of what marriage looks like. And it doesn’t include being a stepmother.
“Do you think the baby is yours?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. The timing sounds like it is, but I won’t know for sure until it’s born and we do a paternity test.”
“I taught you and Cade to wrap it.”
“I did. And I wrapped it right.”
“Do you trust this woman to tell you the truth?”
My mom is going to flip out when I tell her this. “She was a one-night stand.”
“Well, I hope she was a damn good lay because the few moments you had with her are going to be the reason you lose the only girl you’ve ever loved. I am so pissed off at you right now.”
“I know. I’ve messed up bad.”
“When are you going to tell Frankee?”
We were planning to talk to Scott tomorrow after work, but there’s no way we can do that without my telling her about this first. “Soon. I guess tomorrow.”
“I think I know how this is going to end, but please call me and let me know how it goes.”
