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I’m almost finished re-programming a safe at the house of a client Silas sent me to work on. Exhausted from lack of sleep and running on empty, all I want is to go back to the woman still passed out in bed. My unofficial old lady. I remind myself to keep focused on this wealthy client’s safe. I don’t want to be forced to come back because of some mistake I make on account of counting down the seconds to get back to Molly. This is routine work, a simple diagnostic check that I perform by hooking up my laptop, entering a few codes, and switching out a few wires if needed.
But nothing feels routine about today.
Silas came along with me this time, which is strange. He’s downstairs with the client, discussing new security features that she wants us to install soon. Silas knows how to help clients see that we’re more than capable of meeting all their needs. From the sounds of this particular job, the work is extensive and costly. This reprogramming piece I’ve just started is just the beginning. I’ll definitely need to make a few return trips with an installation team if this pans out. Glad for the grunt work here in front of the safe instead of negotiating terms with the client, I throw myself into the job.
“Pssst!”
“What?” I glance around me, but no one’s there. I’m pretty fucking sure I was alone on this floor of the client’s massive house. Great, I’m hearing things now.
“Hi. Do you want to play hide and seek with me?” says a little girl’s voice.
That wasn’t a hallucination. I look toward the door and catch the tip of a small, blonde pigtail before the child it’s attached to hides in the hallway.
You’ve got to be kidding me. I haven’t had enough sleep for this shit. A kid.
I’m going to have a goddamn kid.
Like that one.
Or maybe a boy.
I walk to the door, to see what I’m up against. A tiny little girl, maybe five, is hiding behind her hands, her curly pigtails bouncing around her face. She has a massive case of the giggles. Yes, I need overtime pay for this. Big time. I swallow, trying to remember the last time I saw, let alone interacted with a child. I don’t recall when that was. Just another reminder of how intimidating this fatherhood thing could end up being.
“Play with me?” The pint-sized girl peeks out between her itty-bitty fingers and flashed a wide gap-toothed grin.
Suddenly, a new realization hits me like a ton of bricks.
One of these days I’m going to have one of these.
A real-life kid.
A little girl or boy. One who can turn out to be just as messed up as his old man.
I probably shouldn’t be a father. I’ve already fucked up my life.
Too bad I don’t get a say in the matter.
“I got to get back to work. Uh, bye kid.” I hurry down the hallway toward the nearest bathroom.
Hurling in a client’s bathroom is sure to be frowned upon, but that doesn’t stop me from doing it. When I think I’m done, I grip the sides of the toilet, hoping. Maybe Molly’s test result is really a false positive. If it is, we can go back to our normal, to living as though we only have ourselves to take care of, and I don’t mean as a team, but as independent individuals. Wishing for our fucked-up definition of the usual feels better than the idea of impending terror due to a brand new little human being who poops, spits up, whines, squeaks and cries for hours at a time, and needs me.
Something about that thought makes me pretty confident I can’t get away with spending all my free time downstairs in the clubhouse soothing myself with whiskey while Molly is upstairs tending to a child. I should know. Maybe this is a ‘sins of the father’ kind of deal, seeing that I was abandoned by my father before I could remember. My past increases the odds that my kid will turn out truly fucked up as an adult. I have, because of my past, so all the wishful thinking in the world may not help my child to escape his fate. What’s sad is the idea of having a child in my life sounds better and better as I weigh the options. Then it looks worse and worse.
I’m almost glad it’s not my decision to make.
Returning to the job I was hired to do, I put it out of my mind as long as the time it takes to have what I’m sure is another panic attack.
