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“And you two, what do you do?”
Vern was the sales director at a furniture business in town and Ava worked at a PR company. Her job sounded interesting, and we had a lot to talk about. After Vern went home and John went to bed, the two of us sat down to unwind. I told her about my life, the drama around the pregnancy and Matthew.
“No wonder you were so quick to get out of there!” she laughed.
“It felt like a good time to take a break,” I admitted. “I’d always wondered about my father, what he was like.”
“And how do you find him?” she asked.
I was honest. “I guess it’s hard not to like him, in spite of everything.”
“That’s true,” she said. “Mom used to say it was the music business and mixing with the big names, all the partying. All the drugs and the drinking, there were so many women and I guess dad really likes the ladies.” She rolled her eyes and I laughed.
“Is there anyone in his life now?”
“Not that I know of,” she said. “He’s had a health scare with high blood pressure. I think he is trying to be healthier. But I’d be very surprised if he tried to mend his ways now. Dad’s a bit of a bad boy, always was.”
“Don’t tell him about the pregnancy yet,” I said. “I’ll get round to it, eventually.”
“You’re keeping it?”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
I knew what she meant. With Matthew’s mother making it difficult and us not exactly being a model couple, not to mention how young I was and only starting out in my career; it didn’t seem like a good time.
“It’s hard to explain,” I said. “But it’s this idea of a new life, growing inside of me. It has to be a good thing, you know?”
“Can’t you just get a puppy?”
I had to laugh, I really liked Ava, she was direct and funny in a way that was not unlike me. We had taken to each other and when she invited me to lunch the next day, I was keen to go. John gave me a lift to town and said he’d pick me up afterwards. I asked him about the blood pressure scare but he waved my question away.
“Oh, you know the doctors… They have to make money somehow.”
“You’re not taking it seriously?”
“You’ve got to live before you die, and I can tell you I am not done living yet!”
“Don’t you want to be around to meet your grandchild?” I patted my stomach, which was beginning to show.
“You’re pregnant?! Holy cow!” he seemed delighted by the news. Both his children had not shown any signs of settling down yet, he said, and he hit the steering wheel a few times, making me laugh at his exuberance. It was hard not to like him. John Vickers may not have been great husband or father material, but he was a force of positivity and good humor. You couldn’t help wanting to be around him and enjoying his company.
Later in the car, when we came back from my lunch, he said, “Look, this is all new, our father-daughter thing. I don’t know what the set-up is with the daddy, but I would like to help.”
“That’s, uhm, real nice of you,” I said. “Things are complicated but I’m all right.”
“I didn’t have the opportunity to be a father to you, but I’d like to be a grandfather, if you’ll let me?”
“Definitely,” I said.
I thought of how I’d enjoyed Ava showing me around her office, introducing me to her colleagues as her sister, the way everyone here had welcomed me. There was none of the suspicion and distrust that I’d seen from Matthew’s mother. I wondered if we would ever be able to get past the moment where she had offered me money to disappear from her son’s life, taking her grandchild with me.
I tried to find sympathy for her, but it was hard.
Matthew had painted a picture of a woman who lived for the memory of her dead husband, unable to see her son for the person that he was. I understood him so much better now. Inside, he was still a wounded boy, hiding his true self because he didn’t know how to heal himself, how to pick himself up and move on. All he knew, was how to circle the wagons and close the doors, keeping people out.
It sometimes felt like he wanted the baby almost as much as I did, and I knew he would help me take care of it. But I didn’t know if he could stand up to his mother and what she would do if he tried to resist her. She had a kind of hold over him and I knew that it had been only the two of them for so long, and even in this unhealthy set-up, this was what Matthew knew.
