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She picks up on the first ring. “Hello?” Her voice sounds like she’s been crying and despite everything, it makes me ache.
“I’ll come home later tonight,” I say. Home. The word slips out of me before I realize it. I just called her house home.
But it’s not the building. Ava is home. Her.
She is quiet for a few minutes.
“Okay,” she says. “I’m sorry. For not telling you.” It’s the first acknowledgment she’s made of the situation. It cracks the tentative truce between us, raising all the bitter emotions again.
I swallow down the urge to ask more questions and simply say, "We’ll talk about that later.”
“But I know that what I did was wrong and I—"
"Later," I insist. “Really.”
She’s quiet again and I can tell she wants to talk some more. But then she says, “Okay.” And I hang up.
The next few minutes, thoughts and images fly through my head.
I love you.I remember what I told her. Those sacred words.I love you. I do.
That’s what makes this so fucking painful. Because I love her, a woman who lied to me for so long.
Karma is definitely a bitch.
And Ava is the mother of my child.
Fuck, this would have all been perfect under different circumstances. Despite who I used to be, I knew if she came to me earlier with this news, I would have accepted it. I would have been fucking ecstatic, actually. I would have taken the child as mine and probably even married Ava. Our story would have been so different.
But it’s going to be hard to forget the betrayal.
Who are you to judge her?The voice of my conscience urges.Like you haven’t deceived people and screwed people over in your life. Who are you to think that you’re better and act like the wounded party in this?
Guilt splits through my outrage. Why am I so mad at her? I can’t deny that I was an asshole back then, and might have been a horrible father too. She was right to be scared.
And only a scared woman would do what Ava did. She raised a child without help. My child went without and Ava worked like a crazy person. When I was there and ready to do whatever I could for my family.
I can’t tell if I admire that or if I find it stupid.
But either way, I’m the one who failed them. Because I should have been there to take care of my child. Because I should have taken better care of Ava and loved her from the beginning.
She is to blame, yes, but so am I.
***
I stop by my home to pick up a few things before going to Ava’s. My mother is waiting there when I arrive.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Since Mohammed won’t come to the mountain the mountain will go to Mohammed,” she says and crossed her hands over her pear-beaded blouse. Her hair falls in dramatic curls around her face, like a silent movie actress. "You've been avoiding my calls."
"I’m not in the mood for this, Mom.”
"But I am,” she says. “I demand to know who this girl is and why you've been keeping her from us.”
“You can’t demand that from me, Mom.” I turn to her, angry, words exploding from me. “You can demand me to buy you a big shiny house or a grand car. Or the best fucking bag known to man. But when it comes to her, she’s off-limits. Do you understand? You don’t make any demands when it comes to her.”
Mom blinks at me in shocked silence for a few seconds. Then in a much quieter tone, she murmurs, “Does she mean that much to you?”
