Who's Your Daddy?

by Gallagher, Lauren

  He stared into his coffee cup. My question hung in the air, and his silence answered it more succinctly than any word or nod could have. Finally, he released a long breath and nodded. Just a single, slow nod, but enough to confirm what I’d been afraid to hear.

  I leaned back in my chair, exhaling and letting my own coffee cup hold my gaze. After a moment, I said, “For how long?”

  “A few months,” he whispered.

  “Have you been—” I hesitated. “Careful?”

  “Yes, always,” he said quickly.

  “Good.” There were more questions, more that I needed to know and needed to say, but first I needed a moment to get my head around this.

  “Are you mad?” he asked.

  The words reverberated through my mind. Had I found this out in the course of any other conversation, I’d have been furious. I’d have formulated a dozen ways to punish him before the words were even out of his mouth. But in light of everything he knew about me now and everything I’d seen last night, I was just glad to be having this honest, if awkward, conversation. So this is what cold comfort feels like.

  “Dad?”

  I shook my head. “No. No, I’m not mad.”

  “Just disappointed?” There was a hint of humor in his voice, and when I looked at him, his eyes begged me to find that humor. If only to break some of this ice, I managed a halfhearted smile.

  “Something like that,” I said. “Actually, if anything, I was just worried last night. When I couldn’t find you, it—”

  “Jesus Christ, you’re talking to me like I’m a girl, Dad. I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m talking to you like you’re a sixteen-year-old kid,” I said. “Guys can be taken advantage of too, you know. You’re not invincible. What about that chick you were fooling around with? Do you even remember her name?”

  He blinked, then shifted his gaze away.

  My stomach turned. “You didn’t know her name, did you?”

  He set his jaw. “She wasn’t taking advantage of me. I wanted it.”

  “You were drunk. You couldn’t even stand up. Even if you were an adult, you were too drunk to give consent, and if she had a responsible bone in her body, she wouldn’t have touched you while you were like that.”

  “What would you know about being responsible?” he snarled. We stared at each other. Then he looked away. “Sorry, I—”

  “No, you’re right.”

  “What?”

  “You have every right to question me,” I said.

  Once again, he was caught off guard. “I do?”

  “Yes. I’m not infallible.”

  He shifted. “So, why is it okay for you to do this kind of thing, but not me? It’s not like I don’t know what can happen.”

  “I’m not saying you don’t,” I said. “I’m saying Isaac, Carmen and I are better equipped to deal with those consequences if they arise.”

  “Which they did,” he growled.

  “Yes, they did,” I said. “The thing is, being our age, it doesn’t magically make the consequences go away. Tell me, Ryan, what would you and Kristy do if she got pregnant?”

  He blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “Would you stick around?” I asked. “Pay for an abortion? Sign away your rights so she can give the baby up? Stay with her and raise it?”

  “I, um, I don’t know.”

  “Have you talked to her about it?”

  He pursed his lips and shook his head.

  “Then why are you having sex with her if you don’t know what either of you would do if something went wrong?”

  No answer.

  Heart pounding, I took a deep breath. “I know what I’m talking about here, son. And I know this is going to be incredibly TMI, but I think you need to hear it.”

  His eyebrows jumped. “Um, okay…”

  “When Carmen got pregnant,” I said, “we didn’t use condoms. None of us even thought about it.” I hesitated. “Because we were drunk.”

  Ryan’s lips parted. “What?”

  My face burned, and it was a struggle and a half to maintain eye contact. “We all had too much to drink, and…” I waved with one hand. “And I could spend all day telling you all the ways that came back and bit us in the ass, but I don’t think I need to.”

  Once again, he fell silent, looking into his coffee cup.

  “It’s not just you,” I said softly. “This can happen to anyone. It happened to me. I don’t think you want to be in my position right now, do you?”

  He shook his head. After a while, he whispered, “Am I still allowed to see Kristy?”

  I gritted my teeth. Oh, the temptation to tell him I didn’t want to see that girl’s face again as long as I lived. But I took a breath and whispered, “Yes. You can still see her.”

  “Really?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” I said. “But yes, you can still see her if that’s what you want.”

  Closing his eyes, he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “This is really confusing.”

  “What’s confusing?”

  “I just don’t get it,” he said. “I’m not grounded. I’m still allowed to see Kristy.” He shook his head. “What’s the catch?”

  “No catch. You know where I stand, but I can’t control every aspect of your life. You’re growing up. You have to make choices in your own life.” I paused. “And you’ll be the one who has to deal with the consequences, good or bad, of those choices.”

  “You don’t want me to see her, though.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “I don’t want you drinking. I don’t want you going to the Temple. I really don’t want you having sex with Kristy or anyone else until you’re at a point in your life where you can handle the consequences if something goes wrong.” I put my hands up. “But I can’t stop you.”

  His lips parted, and he cocked his head. “What do you mean? You’ve stopped me before.”

  “I’ve put down rules and consequences for breaking those rules,” I said. “But what else can I do? I can’t follow you around all the time. This isn’t a game, son. It’s not a question of telling you what to do and then trying to catch you in the act. If I make a rule, there’s a reason for it, and nine times out of ten, that reason is to keep you safe.”

  “Then, if you were that worried about Kristy…” He trailed off for a moment. “Why did you let me see her in the first place?”

  “Would you have stopped if I’d told you to?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”

  “I doubt that.” I resisted the urge to nervously tap my fingers. “Look, your mother and I never told you not to see her because we were afraid she’d be even more attractive to you.” I ran a hand through my hair. “The truth is, Ryan, I’ve gotten a bad vibe off her from the beginning. It wasn’t because I didn’t want you dating or anything like that, or that I naïvely thought you wouldn’t want to do any experimenting. It was her. Just, her attitude, the fact that she smelled like pot half the time and was barely lucid far too many times than I was comfortable seeing. She struck me as just the kind of girl who would do what she was doing last night. And I was worried being around her, you’d end up doing pretty much what you were doing when I caught you.”

  “Dad, it’s not like I was unconscious.”

  “You can’t remember how much you drank,” I said. “How do you know you wouldn’t have had more to drink, then ended up sleeping with someone while you were too drunk to know what you were doing? Or what she was doing?”

  “Even if I did, I’ve always been careful.”

  “That’s beside the point. If you’re that drunk, you can’t consent to sex. You certainly can’t make sure you’re having sex carefully.”

  “We always do.”

  “So, if you were really that drunk,” I said, “how would you be sure to use a condom?” Leaning forward, I looked him in the eye. “How would you know Kristy was the one you were having sex with?”

  His eyes widened. “What? What
do you mean?”

  “Ryan, you didn’t even know where she was,” I said. “Did you have a clue what she was doing?”

  He fidgeted. “No.”

  I exhaled. “I found her with a guy a lot older than both of you with his hand under her shirt, so—”

  “What?” Ryan flew to his feet, and his hands immediately went to his head. He sank back down to his chair, groaning and kneading his temples.

  “She was drunker than you were,” I said. “She probably doesn’t remember it any more than you do. And you can’t exactly get on her for cheating when you were getting pretty comfortable with another woman yourself.”

  His face darkened, and he looked away.

  “You were both wasted,” I said. “Too wasted to know who you were fooling around with apparently.” I paused, steeling myself against an answer I didn’t want to hear. “I know you were both drinking, but what else did you do?”

  Avoiding my eyes, he shifted in his chair. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean was alcohol the only thing either of you took?” I paused again. “Look at me, Ryan.” When he did, I inclined my head slightly. “I already know at least part of the answer, so don’t bother lying to me. Did either of you take anything else?”

  Ryan closed his eyes, and with a slow nod, he sent bile climbing up my throat. He took a breath. “We both had some weed when we got to the club. And Kristy…” He trailed off.

  “What?”

  “She likes Ecstasy. A lot.”

  I cringed. I had a feeling she was into that sort of crap even before I’d seen her all fucked up last night. “Were you on anything like that?”

  He shook his head. “No, I didn’t take any. I don’t—” His teeth snapped shut.

  “You don’t what?”

  He shrank away a little. With a sinking feeling, I recognized the full-body cringe. I’d done it in my own father’s presence far, far too many times. Seeing Ryan do it hurt like hell, but it was less because it meant he’d been doing something he shouldn’t have and more because he’d drawn back from me.

  “You’re not in trouble, Ryan,” I said quietly. “I just want you to tell me the truth.”

  He looked at me, probably scrutinizing my expression for any signs I was baiting him.

  “Just tell me the truth,” I whispered. “Please.”

  Finally, he said, “I’ve tried E before, but I didn’t like how I felt afterward. So, I don’t use it anymore.”

  “But Kristy does?”

  He nodded.

  “What else have you done?”

  “Mostly just pot,” he said. “One of the guys had some acid one night, but Kristy got so jacked up on the stuff, started freaking out, so I was afraid to try it.”

  “As well you should be,” I said. “You don’t want to mess with that shit.”

  “You ever done it?” He raised his eyebrows.

  I hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. And I’ll tell you some of those stories another day, but for now, let’s finish with last night, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “How exactly were you planning on getting home last night?”

  He shrugged. “We had cab money.”

  “And what about your mother’s car? Were you just going to leave it down there?”

  He exhaled hard. “Okay, we hadn’t thought that far ahead. But I wasn’t going to drive after I’d been drinking. Jesus, Dad.”

  I showed my palms. “Seemed like a reasonable enough question, don’t you think? I found you both completely shitfaced with your mother’s car parked a few blocks away.”

  “We would have figured it out,” he muttered. “You’re just being paranoid.”

  “Call me paranoid all you want. I’m just trying to keep you safe.” I sighed. “Shit happens, and in places like that with people who are intoxicated and horny? You just never know what can happen.”

  “You’re worrying about nothing.”

  “Am I? Which explains why I’m counting down the weeks until my best friend has either Isaac’s baby or mine?” I said. He flinched, his lips contorting with disgust. I had no doubt this was too much information for his taste, but the time for comfortable discussions had come and gone, so I kept going. “If she’s willing to lay a hand on you while you’re that plowed, how do you know either of you will remember—or bother—to use a condom? If you’re not one hundred percent lucid, so that you know damn well that proper protection is being used, then…” I trailed off, letting him add it all up in his head.

  He shifted and stared into his coffee. “I still think you were worried about nothing.”

  My chest tightened with frustration. In my mind, I grabbed him by the shoulders and launched into a tirade, demanding he quit being stubborn and start listening. In reality, though, I took a long, deep breath. Maybe it was time for a different approach.

  “While we were looking for you last night,” I said quietly. “Your mom spent a good chunk of the time on the phone. Do you know why?”

  He shook his head.

  I swallowed hard. “Because I asked her to call every hospital in town to make sure you hadn’t shown up in an emergency room. I was scared out of my mind, Ryan, and so was she.”

  “Dad, come on.” He smirked. “I can take care of myself. It wasn’t like I was out fucking with a gang or something.”

  “No, you weren’t,” I said. “But I think you’re forgetting what I do for a living. I haven’t told you a lot of the things I’ve seen, and if you knew half of it, you’d understand why I get worried sick whenever you’re out of my sight.”

  Ryan blinked. “You…do?”

  My face burned a little and I forced back the lump that tried to rise in my throat. “Son, I’ve seen people who’ve been killed just going out to the grocery store. The day you got your driver’s license? All I could think about was a car full of teenagers that rolled into the river a few years ago.”

  He swallowed.

  “Yeah, I’m probably overprotective,” I said softly. “And I probably worry more than I should. I really am just trying to look out for you.” I forced my voice to stay steady. “Honestly, this age is terrifying for me. You’re going out into the world. Driving, dating, all the things that scare the hell out of me. I want to protect you, but I don’t want to shelter you, and it’s tough to find that balance. You’re going to experiment. You’re going to screw up. You’re going to get hurt. That’s part of life. It’s just my job to try to keep you as safe as I can while still letting you stumble your way through life the way the rest of us do.”

  He neither replied nor looked at me.

  “Look,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t want you to go out and have a good time, Ryan, or that I’m trying to convince you not to party, or that sex is a bad thing, or anything like that. Maybe I’ve just failed at articulating that, but I never wanted you to think it was.”

  “So when is it okay for me to sleep with someone? When you approve of her?”

  “No,” I said. “If that was the case, you wouldn’t be here, because your mother’s parents sure as hell didn’t approve of me.”

  He allowed himself a soft laugh. “Okay, so when?”

  I leaned forward, folding my arms on the table. “When you can honestly tell yourself that you can handle the consequences if something goes wrong.”

  “Like getting her pregnant,” he said quietly.

  “Exactly.” I chewed my lip. “This situation with Carmen hasn’t been easy, Ryan. It’s been more difficult than you can imagine for all three of us.” I paused. “I won’t lie. I’m scared to death about Carmen’s baby.”

  He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

  “Because I know what to expect this time around,” I said. “I know what it’s like to be a parent now. Maybe not a great one, but I’ve done it enough to know it isn’t easy. And the thing is, we’re all adults. There’s three of us, three paychecks. Money isn’t an issue. But it’s still
terrifying for all of us.” I paused, drumming my fingers on the table. “In a few months, the hospital’s going to send the three of us home with a completely helpless human being that will be under our care. Feeding, clothing, raising, educating, the whole works. And especially after I’ve been through it once, it’s fucking terrifying.”

  Ryan gulped but didn’t meet my eyes.

  “You’ll be seventeen in six months,” I said softly. “Now, I want you to imagine six months after that. When you’ll be thinking about graduation, applying for college, thinking about eventually going to law school, all of that.”

  Cocking his head, he said, “Okay…”

  “Now imagine, right in the middle of that, someone telling you that you’re going to be sent home in a few months with that helpless human being.”

  He blinked.

  “You’re still a kid, but now you have that responsibility on your shoulders. For the next eighteen years, but also the rest of your life. There’s no going back, there’s no pawning it off on anyone else; you’re going to be a father.” I paused, and when I was sure it had sunk in enough, I went on, and I didn’t try to stop my voice from wavering. “That was me, Ryan.”

  Just as I’d hoped it would, those four words found their mark. He straightened a little, his fingers tightening around his coffee cup.

  “I wasn’t even a year older than you are now,” I said softly. “You think I had the faintest clue what I was doing in life, never mind being a parent?”

  Avoiding my eyes, he shook his head. “No, I guess not.”

  “I definitely didn’t. And with you…” I paused, collecting my composure. “I swear, I’ve done the best I can, but I don’t know what I’m doing any more than you would in the same position. This is your first time being a teenager. It’s my first time raising one. I’m not perfect, son, and my God, I have fucked up plenty of times with you. There were times when you were little, I was happy just to get both of us through the day alive. Even now, sometimes I’m just stumbling through it and hoping to God I don’t screw up.” I let the words sink in for a moment, then said, “Am I making sense? With any of this?”