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“He’s my-”
“He is not yours.” Eleven year’s worth of frustration escapes in four shouted words. “You have done nothing to deserve him. And if you ever want more than a couple hours worth of supervised visits, which is all you’re getting from now on, you’ll stop treating him like a starter project for the family you really want.”
“God, you’re a hypocrite. You think I haven’t seen those articles about you and your new boyfriend? My fucking colleagues printed it out and stuck it to my desk. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was?”
I can only hope it was anywhere near as mortifying as what I went through when John started parading the ‘only woman he’d ever loved’ around town.
“Tell me,” John continues, voice a foreboding kind of cruel. “What’re you gonna do if this one doesn’t love you? Spread your legs so he doesn’t leave? Try to trap him? If it didn’t work the first time, babe, I doubt it will now.”
My knees buckle as a wave of pure hatred hits me, sending me to the ground with my back against a tire. I wish I was stronger; that I could listen to John’s vitriol without it hurting. That I could hear his words and know they’re not the whole truth. But, fuck, a hundred years could pass and it would never get any easier to hear someone I thought I loved—someone who at the very least meant something to me at one point in time—be so cruel. All I can do is cling to my anger, to my love for my son, and silently manifest something very large falling on John’s head.
“You get once a month, John. That’s it. You don’t deserve more. You don’t deserve anything, actually, and if you try to take more, you will never see August ever,ever, again. If you don’t like it, you can call those lawyers you love threatening me with. Maybe they’ll make you pay child support for once in your pathetic life.”
The start of an enraged roar is all I hear before hanging up. My phone thuds to the ground. I cradle my head in my hands, tuning out the indignant hollering coming from the car’s interior.
Is this what it’s gonna be like with Cass? Custody battles and traded insults and constantly warring over our kid? Provided he wants our kid.
ProvidedIwant our kid.
If it’s going to be like it is with John, I don’t. I’m not doing it like that again. The lack of help, financial and otherwise, I can live with but the father flitting in and out as he pleases? No. That’s not happening. I will not let that happen to another kid of mine.
I won’t.
13
SUNDAY
Happy birthday,here's a plastic stick I peed on.
Happy birthday, you're a father.
Happy birthday, you’re still a fertile, virile young man.
Hundreds of terrible ways I might tell a man I barely know about the fetus in my belly flit through my mind. None of which I plan on using today.
“Remember,” I squeeze August’s shoulders, hip-bumping Willow as we gather on the front porch of the very man in question. “Don’t say a word.”
Copying his aunt, August pretends to zip his mouth shut and throw away an invisible key, oblivious to how lucky he is to only have one secret to keep today.
All day, I’ve been sick to my stomach. For once, morning sickness has very little to do with it; it’s the thought of spending hours lying—oromitting, as Willow likes to call it— to so many people. Lying to the family of the father of my child.
Potentialchild.
I keep doing that. Thinking of it as a real tangible thing with a real tangible future. Like a subconscious decision has been made and I guess, if I really think about it, there has. But my week of thinking isn’t up. And I figure Cass deserves to not have his entire life flipped on its head on his birthday.
I know from experience how much that can suck.
Willow is the one who reaches for the doorknob, following Luna’s strict instruction to let ourselves in. “It’ll be okay,” she says as she twists it open, the same thing she’s been saying for days.
I don’t share my sister’s optimism. I’ve been looking for every opportunity to get out of this, coming up empty-handed at every turn. But I certainly don’t show up empty-handed; loaded up with grocery bags full of Tupperware full of every baked good I could possibly conjure up with the ingredients in my cabinets, I am a stress baker epitomized. When we step into the open-plan home of my dreams, I get a sudden but desperate hankering for something sweet. Because what is stress baking without subsequent stress eating?
The room is so loud and busy, our arrival goes unnoticed. Spotting his friends in the fray, August is off like a shot. Willow isn’t far behind, already at ease because that’s who Willow is. I, on the other hand, linger near the door like some kind of cookie-hoarding, extremely meek dragon.
It takes me all of thirty seconds to realize we’re the only non-family members here. Except for Gideon, maybe, but considering the bar is ‘kids who call Cass uncle,’ whether or not she qualifies is a little up in the air. Latching onto her familiar face in a sea of strangers, I start towards her.
I don’t get very far before I’m intercepted.
“Are you Sunday?”
