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Mom was the one that had me get it all checked out. She must have known, because she came to me with a story of how her own pregnancy had been. I couldn’t say that I was ready for all of what she said, but there wasn’t much more that I could say to stop it. When she came up right, I think I looked at the pink little mark on the stick for an hour. She thought it was funny and asked me if I didn’t know how babies were made. I just looked at her.
“Mom, this isn’t funny, at all.”
“No, this is great news.”
I scoffed at the very idea of it. There was no way that this was good news. This was ridiculous. I couldn’t believe that she would see anything at all good about this. Obviously, she didn’t know what she was talking about. This was a disaster, plain and simple.
“It’s Frank’s.”
She nodded and said that she figured as much. “I really liked him, you know, even your father did. I think that you have picked a good one, Amber.”
She said it with such conviction, rubbed my arm and I swear, that just made me lose it even more. Mom had no idea what she was saying or what those words were doing to me.
“He left mom. He saw the state I was in after I was tortured, and he left. He took one look at me, and I guess, I wasn’t perfect anymore for him, so he left. I don’t think he is coming back and having a baby that will never know his father is never something that I wanted to happen.” I really hadn’t seen it going this way. I’d always known that I was going to have kids, but the way I wanted it to go down was very different than reality. It always seemed to end up that way.
She just smiled and said that things were going to work out just fine. She said everything would work out the way it was supposed to. “Do you really think you are going to be able to tell him and Frank would not want to be involved?”
She knew his real name, I’d told her enough about what happened. As much as I liked to believe that she was right, I still wasn’t sure.
“Your father knows, Amber. I don’t know if you knew that or not, but he does.”
I agreed that it didn’t help, and I wondered what dad thought he knew. Did he know about Frank or was it the pregnancy? I didn’t have the guts to ask mom which one.
“What did he say?” I asked finally, curiosity getting the best of me.
“He said that if Frank didn’t do the right thing, he would take care of him. I think he wants to shake him loose. You know how your father is. He is always a bit more violent than he should be. I don’t even think he means to.”
“Well, I don’t want him to do anything to Frank. If he doesn’t want to be with me, he doesn’t have to be, even with a baby on the way.”
Mom just shook her head and said for someone so smart, I really didn’t see things sometimes. I guess she was saying in a not so nice way that I had no idea what I was talking about. Maybe she was right, I didn’t know.
“I saw the way he looked at you when we came to see you, Amber, you can’t fake that look. He has real feelings that he cares about. You can’t walk away from that.”
I scoffed and felt the bitterness that I’d been fighting down start to rise up. “You should have seen the way he looked at me, Mom. He walked away from me and if he was feeling anything, it was nothing good.”
* * *
Mom left with hope,but she never did see the full picture. She saw everything as romantic, but that wasn’t how I felt about it all. Frank or Baron or whatever, he was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. The way he looked at me, I didn’t know if I would ever be able to forget it. I wish I could, but there was just something in his eyes that I hadn’t liked at all.
The more pregnant I became, the bigger the baby got in my stomach, the worse my mood. I knew that Frank was going to have to be told, I knew that, but I also dreaded it. What if he hated the idea of it and made the mood of the pregnancy even worse? I had to take care of myself and stay away from stress, but that was truly harder than it sounded.
Dad came by and he tried to give me a pep talk that was going to make me feel better. I’d finally left their place. I was back on my own and trying to get back into the swing of things. Mom wanted me back with them, and I knew that once the baby came, there was a big chance that I was going to go there. But for now, I was supposed to just await its birth and be happy. How could I be happy when my relationship with the father was in such bad form? It didn’t make sense to me, and it didn’t feel like a good idea.
Dad though, he wanted to know what was wrong, and I just kind of looked at him. Had he not being paying attention? He should know.
“I am carrying a baby and the dad doesn’t want to have anything to do with me, Dad. I don’t know what I am supposed to do with that. I feel awful about it. He doesn’t even know…” My voice trailed off when dad gave me this look.
“We are talking about Frank, aren’t we?”
I agreed that we were and he just kind of waved me off like it was no big deal. Was I missing something? It didn’t seem right that he was all calm about it. I wasn’t calm, not at all.
“Yes, Dad, we are talking about Frank,” I said with a clip to my tone. Dad said that he was going to blame the baby on that, and I told him to go right ahead. I wasn’t going to say if it was wrong or not, but he should know. It was the wrong thing to say.
“Well, if this is all about Frank, then there is an easy solution, Amber, isn’t there? You just have to tell him and see what happens. You have to give him the chance to do the right thing.”
“I have tried to contact him, but he doesn’t want to see me.”
Dad said that he wasn’t sure what happened, but Frank still loved me, and I had to believe in that. I’d never taken my dad for a romantic, but I should have. I knew that he would do anything for my mother. Of course, that was the kind of love and care that I’d looked for myself. I saw my dad give it to my mom and it was beautiful. Of course, I wanted to be loved like that.
