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Sabrina barged into my office, door swinging wide.
“We have to talk,” she said in a whirl of perfume and fur as she walked over to the armchair and dropped herself into it.
“I’m busy, Sabrina.”
“This is about Ben. You have time for him, don’t you? Or are you too busy for him?”
“Don’t you dare make it sound like I’m not a good father. You didn’t bring your lawyer today.”
“I thought we could talk about all the extras involved.”
I raised my eyebrows. I doubted we could get to a point where we agreed about anything without a lawyer, but there wasn’t a hard and fast rule that we had to have someone present at all times to mediate.
“What do you want?” I asked with an exasperated sigh. I sat back in my chair––might as well get comfortable. I had a feeling it was going to be a long afternoon.
“I want to know when I can meet him. You’re keeping him away from me, Aaron, and I don’t appreciate it.”
I shook my head. “I told you, I need to prepare him for this. You’ve been absent from his whole life, and you may want to march in here and make demands, but I won’t subject him to this. Have you even thought about how Ben would feel about this? You can fuck up things for me all you like, but it’s my job to protect him.”
Sabrina narrowed her eyes at me. “Why do you have to keep making things so difficult? I’m not asking for a lot. All I want is to be in my son’s life.”
I laughed bitterly, shaking my head. “You’re not asking for a lot? That’s a hell of a lot after you abandoned him. You’re not asking to just meet him and see if he’s okay with you being in his life. You’re demanding all kinds of visitation and custody arrangements that none of us are comfortable with.”
“He’s my son, Aaron. Can’t you understand that?”
She turned on her emotions again, and soon she would start with the waterworks, too. She’d always been this manipulative, using emotion to get what she wanted. She’d always been so fucking good at it––when she’d cried, I’d always wanted to give her what she wanted. How had I put up with that? It was hard to imagine why I’d been so heartbroken when she’d decided to leave me for someone else. I’d really dodged a bullet––my life with her would have been a living hell.
“Actually, I can’t understand that,” I said after thinking for a beat. “I want you to explain to me how it is that you’ve been gone for so long, and why you think you should come into his life now. You’ve been here all this time.”
“I haven’t been here all this time,” she clapped back. “After I had him––”
“And ditched him.”
“––I went to Europe for a while. You have no idea what post-partum depression can be like. I was ready to finish it, Aaron. I didn’t have what it took to keep living, and I couldn’t do that to him. I knew he needed someone.”
“You were depressed?” I asked.
She nodded.
“And you went to Europe.”
“I thought a change of scenery would help me, and Louis said that it would do me good––”
“Louis Everett?” I asked, putting the pieces together. “The guy you left me for.”
“Yeah, he was very gracious about how I felt and understanding when he knew I couldn’t do it all. He wasn’t ready to be a father either, and––”
“Hold up,” I said, shaking my head. This story got more and more convoluted the longer she talked. “You were pregnant with my child, and Louis encouraged you to leave him on my doorstep so you two could go to Europe.” My mind spun. “Was it really about depression?”
Sabrina hesitated. “We were so young, Aaron. We didn’t have what it took. Do you know how many sacrifices I would have had to make, how much I would have had to give up? And Louis, he would have had to fill the shoes of a role he never asked for, and––”
“Don’t,” I said, exhausted. Sabrina kept trying to make it seem like she was a victim of her circumstance, but the only thing she’d ever been was selfish. She hadn’t wanted to do what it took to raise a child, so she’d done the easiest thing, and she’d gotten rid of Ben.
“You’re upset with me,” she said.
I shook my head. “Actually, I’m not. I understand.”
“You do?”
