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His eyes flickered as he was clearly counting back approximately nine months from December third. Hope crossed his face, and I wanted to slap him for it.
“According to my doctor, approximately May third,” I said sharply. “I’m sure you can remember what exactly we were doing on May third.”
His mouth opened, then closed, and his eyes dilated slightly. Yes, he remembered. So did I.
“She was almost two months early,” I added, if only not to imagine the way Xavier’s big body looked over mine naked. “Spent two weeks in the NICU before they sent us home. She was a fighter.”
I didn’t elaborate more, though I could have. You can’t really explain the trauma of birth to someone who hasn’t been there, and you really can’t explain the terror that comes when your new daughter weighs less than three pounds, can’t eat or even breathe on her own, and has to live in a plastic box for the first two weeks of her life. It was touch-and-go there for a few days.
Xavier stared at me while he processed everything, those blue bullets tunneling through me. I resisted the urge to avoid his gaze and toe my sneaker into the sand. This was my daughter. I wasn’t ashamed of her when I arrived at the hospital alone to a bunch of pitying looks from the nurses and doctors. I wasn’t going to be ashamed of her now. I’d take whatever was coming for my choices about raising her the best I could.
“So she’s…she’s mine?” he asked finally.
He asked like he felt he had to. I supposed he did, but it still felt like a slap in the face.
“Of course she’s yours,” I snapped. “I wasn’t the one who was engaged to another woman while we were sleeping together. I was a virgin when we met, in case you forgot. Did you think I was lying about that?”
He blinked repeatedly, looking rather like a fierce, oversized owl. Clearly, he didn’t remember that minor detail. Or else he was still in shock from the previous disclosure.
Yes, Xavier, she’s your daughter.
Yes, that means you’re a father.
Yes, yes, yes.
“How could you keep my own—my own daughter—from me?” He started out shouting, but by the end, his deep voice cracked.
My hands folded into a tight fist over my heart. For some reason, all the heartache, the frustration, the isolation of becoming a lonely single mom at twenty-three—all of it throbbed anew.
So, while I felt for him, I was also angry all over again.
“It’s not like you’re that easy to reach,” I said lamely.
Xavier’s head snapped up like it was pulled on a string. “Oh, really? What, with my massive public profile, five email addresses, multiple assistants, social media accounts, and so on?”
“I think you’re forgetting that you weren’t using the same name, you asshole,” I retorted. “You may be Xavier Parker now, but back then, to me, you were Xavier Sato. Not that I would have cared any more than I do now, but on top of not telling me about being engaged, you also neglected to tell me who you actually were.”
“Sato was my mum’s name,” he sputtered. “I only took on Parker for the business. I told you that last night.”
“Yes, you told me. The point is, I didn’t know then, did I? So how could I have reached you, huh? I didn’t really have loads of energy to track you down as a new mom. You know, between recovering from birth, learning to breastfeed, trying to find a job, and taking care of an infant by myself.”
“Fuck that. You had my number. You don’t think it would have been so hard to drop a quick message? ‘Hey, Xavi, great shag last month. Those eight inches really did it for me. In other news, you’re gonna be a dad.’”
“You know what? Fuck you,” I snapped, surprising even myself. Four years of being a mother and then an elementary school teacher had rendered my language G-rated most of the time. If this was an indication of what Xavier brought out in me, my instincts were right from the beginning.
“Fuck me?” he repeated, dumbfounded.
“That’s right! Fuck you. That heartlessness right there? That’s why I didn’t contact you. Because what child needs a father who thinks about women like that? Who shows up at their door the morning after they make out just to ruin their lives and threaten their family!” I grabbed at my hair hard enough that the elastic band holding it back snapped, tossing my sleep-tangled curls all over my face. God, I had barely even begun to process the things he had been yelling once I opened the door. “Fuck!”
“That’s horseshit, and you know it,” Xavier retorted right back. “I have a right to know about my own daughter, Francesca.”
“And I have a duty to protect my baby girl from anyone who could hurt her!” I threw back at him.
“What?” He looked absolutely flabbergasted. “Why in the fuck would you think I would hurt her? My own flesh and blood?”
“Because you hurt me!” I fairly shrieked, startling a flock of pigeons and a few people walking their dogs by the waterfront.
“Everything all right?”
