Leah sets her mug on the carpet and stares at me. I can see her reconciling seven years of friendship and conversations and everything she thought she knew about my life. She helped methrough my pregnancy. She was at the hospital. She held Mercy before my parents did. And the entire time, she thought the father was some guy I didn't want to talk about.
"Emily…"
"I know," I grumble, feeling shame push color into my cheeks.
"Seven years?"
"I know, Leah."
She pulls her hair back into a knot at the base of her neck and then sighs hard, stretching her legs out. As hard as this is for me to talk about, it has to be difficult for her too. She's learning something about me I should’ve told her years ago. She might need as much time to process this as my parents do.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I was scared. He was gone. Nobody could reach him. His CO told his parents he'd been moved to a classified unit, and that was it. I didn't even know if he was alive." I take a sip of the tea which burns going down. "By the time Mercy was born, it had been so long that telling anyone felt worse than keeping it quiet. So I just kept going."
"And now he's back… Oh, God."
I wince and set the mug down, hugging the pillow to my belly for a moment. I'm feeling sick to my stomach now, embarrassed and ashamed. "And he's asking questions," I mutter.
Leah frowns at me. She's starting to understand why I'm stressed out and I've been snapping at everyone at work for weeks now. "What kind of questions?"
"How old she is. Whether she's his." I stare at the water stain on the ceiling above the kitchen. I've been meaning to tell Dad about it for months. "He asked me point blank and I lied. I told him she was six and a half."
"She's almost eight, though…" Leah's eyebrows rise as it dawns on her how much this has affected my reality.
"I know what she is, Leah."
I sink back into the cushions and let my head drop behind me. I've needed to get this off my chest for a while. Until Jaxon came back, I never had a care in the world. Maybe I was a fool for using Nan's money to buy the building here in Beaufort and I should’ve bought somewhere else, but inevitably, he was always going to find out.
"So, what happened today?" she prods gently.
"He showed up at the farmer's market and started talking to Mercy. I panicked… Mercy, well… Mercy’s a smart kid and didn't let me get away with my lies."
Leah closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose.
"I just blurted it out and he got so mad." I'm crying again, swiping at my cheeks angrily.Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?
"What did he say?"
"He said he doesn't believe me," I grumble, and I know he has no reason to believe me. I've done nothing but lie since he got home. Like the night we had sex in the guard shack and I told him it meant nothing and shouldn’t have happened. It did mean something. I wanted it to happen, but now what?
Leah opens her eyes and looks at the bookshelf next to the TV where Mercy's kindergarten photo sits in a yellow frame on the second shelf. The goofy grin. The two missing teeth. She looks so much like me in that picture that most people never look past it. But her eyes are different. The shape of her brow. I've always known whose face is there looking back at me through her.
"What are you gonna do?" Leah asks.
"I have no idea. That's why I texted you."
Leah sits quietly, waiting for me to say more, but I feel trapped in my head. Jaxon could demand a paternity test, try to take Mercy from me. But with a history for disappearing and an anger problem like he's got, no court in the land would give him full custody. Besides, will he even stick around?
"I just don't want him to have anything to do with her. He really hurt me, you know?" When I look into my best friend's eyes, I know she's going to challenge me. She frowns and her shoulders drop as she leans forward, resting a hand on my knee.
"Babe, you can't do that. Mercy deserves the chance to see her dad, and besides, you don’t hate him that much… I know you're hurt, but you have to do the right thing." I hate that she's right and that she's using common sense. It's not fair. He's the one who ran out, leaving me alone. Now he gets to swoop in and pretend to be some wounded hero when he is the reason I was alone to begin with.
"It's not fair," I groan before I curl up into a ball on my side.
"I know, babe," she says softly, rubbing my calf. "But we'll get through it, okay? You and me… And maybe your parents too. You'll see… It'll be okay."
I know she means well, but her little pep talk is anything but encouraging. If she thinks letting Jaxon in will be okay, she's wrong.
