by Jen Talty
From the chair, he could see out the window. The lake was no longer a frozen tundra, but he suspected the water felt like a freezer box, even though they were only weeks away from putting the patrol boats in. He had often thought about putting down roots here, buts roots were not his strong suit.
“Thanks.” He took the mug she offered and blew on the liquid, then sipped it, before placing the mug on the coaster. Patty was big on coasters. A habit he’d acquired, and would probably take with him to his next place of employment. “How are you doing today? You don’t seem to be limping too badly.”
“Doesn’t hurt too bad, but it’s been a long twenty-four hours.” She sat on the sofa, tucking her good leg under her, and sipped her cocoa. “Thank you,” she said. “I can’t imagine it was an easy thing to do…to kill a man.”
“I did my job.” He continued to stare out the window instead of at her. He drew in a long, deep breath. Reese McGinn, the emotionally unavailable man, a pile of emotions who could barely form two words together.
They grew silent. Normally, he enjoyed the quiet. Preferred it. Now. This moment, watching her long fingers wrap around the mug as she brought it to her pink perky lips, he wished for noise. Anything. The silence made him feel as though he were about to jump out of his skin. He shifted his position three times.
“I just found out a couple of days ago.” She changed positions on the sofa, lifting her injured leg up, propping her foot on a pillow. “So I’m trying to get used to the idea...”
“Found out what?”
“No questions, just let me get through this. Okay?”
He nodded.
“Yesterday made me realize, again, how precious and short life is, and that life doesn’t always go as planned.”
He stared at her, watching her sip from her mug between words. He had drained his as soon as it cooled, but she took her time. She deserved so much more than he could ever give her. He could be a rock. A pillar of strength. But he couldn’t be a partner. He couldn’t share his entire self with anyone, not even her.
He would hurt her, and he couldn’t live with that.
“My childhood was difficult,” she continued, “and I promised myself I would do things differently. I thought if I planned everything out, I’d have the perfect little family.”
“I’m sure you’ll have everything you want.”
“Let me finish.” She was crying.
He moved to the couch then sat next to her, putting an arm around her. It felt so good just to touch her that he told himself that would be enough. “You’ve been through a lot. No one deals with facing death the way you have easily, and you need to just go through—”
“I’m pregnant.”
“Really, you just…” he heard the words, but his brain was taking a while to decipher the words meaning. “What did you just say?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“Come again?” He shot up from the couch, then walked to the other side of the room with his mouth hanging open. “Did you just say pregnant? As in a baby?”
She rested her cup on the coaster and caught his gaze. Her eyes filled with a mixture of hurt and fear. His gut tightened as if he’d been sucker punched. She was pregnant. He was going to be a father. The last time a woman uttered those words, he’d been overwhelmed with gratitude...but no sooner did he feel joy, than he felt the most agonizing pain he’d ever felt in his life.
A pain he thought he had buried so deep it couldn’t resurface, yet, here it was, hitting him so deep that all he could see or feel was the rage and pain that had been sieged upon him years ago.
“How?” he asked. “I mean, we always used protect…” then he remembered. It only took one broke condom... He started to pace in front of the coffee table, as he’d done outside. He ran a hand across his head. His heart swelled with a mixture of fear, anger, joy, and hope. How could one moment in time cause so many conflicting emotions? He had no idea how to respond. How he really felt. He needed time to think. Just as he turned to tell her that, he walked right into the coffee table, dumping the rest of her cocoa all over her lap, turning her sweats into a chocolatey mess.
“Crap, I’m sorry.” He stood there, staring at her like a fool.
She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “I need a towel.”
He stumbled to the galley kitchen, then grabbed the paper towels. By the time he got back, she’d already gotten a towel from the bathroom.
“At least the sofa is leather, and the floor is hardwood. I need to change.” She disappeared into the bedroom while he continued to clean up the mess, trying not to think.
His baby. At one time, he had wanted a child. Then Jessica destroyed everything.
Now? He wasn’t entirely sure of anything. He’d been so closed to the idea, he never allowed himself even a fantasy of being a family man.
The last time he was only twenty. What the hell did he know? How could he know his soon-to-be bride would destroy the one thing that gave him hope for a better future than his mother, or the man he called Father, had made for him?
He sank to the floor, not caring about the residual wet seeping into his clothes. He had done his best to forget the final words of his mother before she died, and the secret she took to her grave.
Reese had tried to find his real father, but had almost no information. His grandparents didn’t help, maintaining they’d always believed Allen McGinn, who was still rotting in prison, was Reese’s father. Reese had been seven when Allen was convicted of murder.
He’d been devastated. Allen hadn’t been the best father in the world, but he’d tried. The few times he got off drugs, he’d play ball in the yard and take Reese fishing. When he left, Reese was left empty-hearted, with a likewise drug-addicted mother who was incapable of taking care of herself, much less him.
When he was twenty, she died, after telling him the truth about Allen, but never telling him the name of his real father. When asked, she’d said, “You don’t want to know. He would have been worse than Allen.” She slipped into a deep coma and died three hours later.
“Hey.” Patty’s voice snapped him out of his trip down not-so-happy memory lane. “Sorry I just blurted that out.” She sat down on the other side of the sofa as he eased himself onto the couch as well. “Not how I wanted to tell you.”
“You’re sure about this?” He’d done the honorable thing with Jessica, and in the end, got his heart ripped out. Patty wasn’t Jessica. The two women couldn’t be more different. That knowledge did nothing to help him sort through how he really felt. Or what this really meant for him. “How do you feel?”
“I’m a little scared, but physically, I feel fine.”
“Everything that happened yesterday? The baby… its okay?”
She nodded. “I’m not so sure you’re okay.”
He had to agree. “This is kind of a big deal.” He tried to push the negative thoughts out of his head, reminding himself that maybe he was being given a second chance, but a second chance at what? He stood and started pacing again, a nervous habit he’d developed over the years. He tried to stop, but it helped him sort the chaos in his brain.
“It’s a very big deal,” she said. “Unexpected, but it’s a reality.”
Fear squeezed his heart so tight he could barely breathe. He needed time. He needed to think. He needed a stronger drink than hot cocoa. “So what do you need from me?” He knew it was a shit thing to say. A cop-out from manning up and doing the right thing, which would have been to beg her to take him back. To get on his hands and knees and tell her he’d do anything to make this work.
Once bitten, twice shy.
“I don’t really know,” she said calmly. Too calmly, and that made him even more jittery. “I’m not asking for anything. Your involvement in this baby’s life is up to you. I understand you’re planning on moving, and that’s okay. I’m not asking you to be something you’re not.”
“But I am going to be a father.” He struggled with anger and old fears. He wasn’t used t
o this emotional shit. He’d thought it died the moment Jessica aborted his baby. “We’re going to be parents.”
She nodded.
He stopped pacing in front of the picture window, put his hands on his hips and said nothing. A million things rattled his brain, but he just couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that this could really be his reality. A family. Yet, she wasn’t asking him to be a father. She’d just, and quite flippantly too, stated that his involvement was up to him.
“You okay?”
He found his tongue...sort of. “I’m… I want to be with you. With our baby. I just wasn’t…wasn’t… Well, it’s not what I expected, but…” why couldn’t he just blurt out the words?
“We have time to work out the logistics.” She stood, and limped toward the door. “I think we need to both let this all sink in.” His brain registered that her hand shook as she placed it on the door handle, but he wasn’t sure what that meant. She was saying one thing, but her body was telling him something else.
“You want me to leave now?” He managed to shake some of the cobwebs from his brain and organize his thoughts. The break-up. Not wanting to break-up, but not being able to commit, or even express he didn’t want things to end. Now, a baby? A baby that he knew, at the bottom of his heart, with everything he was, he wanted.
And loved.
And she wanted him to leave. Holy shit. Did he actually think those thoughts? He’d been torn about the break-up, and then seeing her with a gun to her head, well, he knew then he wanted to get back with her. But a baby? Him a father? “I know I’m not handling this well, but I think we’ve got a lot to discuss. And plans. We need to make plans. I mean… a baby. That’s big deal and we’ve got—”
“I think you need some time to think about all this.” Her words and tone were even. Too even. Patty had never been your stereotypical overly emotional female, but some emotion right now might actually be nice. Instead, he got stoic. A little voice in his head reminded him that she had a tendency to keep her own emotions close to her chest.
“No,” he nearly yelled. “We should be talking about where we’re going to live and things like that. I mean, we’re going to have a baby together.”
“We are, but for one, it’s not going to happen for a few months, and two, I’m going to be living right here. For all I know, you could be in Buffalo this time next year.”
“I can’t believe you just said that. That you could think I would just walk away.” How could she act like it was no big deal, and he could waltz in or out anytime he wanted. That wasn’t going to happen. If he was going to be a father, he was damn well going to be a father, hook, line, and sinker. He gave Allen kudos for at least trying. Reese could do more than try. He took in a deep breath, calming his nerves. He didn’t want yell at her, though he did want to take her by the arms and either shake her till she came to her senses or… “You can’t do this alone.”
“Oh, yes, I can,” she said, as she stood taller. Prouder. As if he’d somehow insulted her intelligence and capabilities. “You’ve made it clear the entire time I’ve known you that you’re not a family man, and I accept that. I don’t want to change you, or trap…” her words trailed off with a slight tremor.
“A baby changes everything.” He reached out and took her hand. Tentatively, she held it for a moment and then pulled it away, clasping her shaking hands together. Her trepidation saddened him. What little emotion she showed through her body, terrified him because he was… the way he’d treated her from day one… was the reason she couldn’t trust he’d stick around. Do the right thing.
The right thing doesn’t always turn out to be the right thing. He was going to have to get that voice out of his head.
“I don’t want you to do this out of obligation.” Her brown eyes softened as she stared directly into his. “Please, take a day or two think about all this. Then we can talk. Please? I think we both need it.”
“I am the baby’s father.” Reese took in another long, slow breath, practically counting to ten, but it did nothing to calm his nerves or lower his blood pressure. “It’s not fair to keep a child’s father from him.” Reese ran a shaky hand across his face. His entire body shook. “And I don’t think it’s fair to keep a father from knowing his child.”
“I’m not keeping anything from you,” she said, her voice reassuring, but she stood there, holding the door open, waiting for him to leave. “I’m also not forcing it down your throat. I’ve always accepted who you were, and I respect that. If you want to stick around, then that’s really wonderful. I welcome it. I just don’t want you making any rash decisions. I’ve had a couple of days. You… need time.”
Her calmness and rationale was going to be the end of his already frazzled nerves. Even if she did make valid points, but he chose to ignore them. “I’m not making any rash decisions. We need to think about living together. Maybe buying a house.”
She shook her head. “You’re talking crazy.”
“You’re the one who’s talking crazy.” How could she be so calm? So calm and strong, as if she knew she could do this all without his help? Or wanted to do this without his help.
As if she believed he’d bail. “That’s our baby.” He pointed to her stomach. “Yes?”
She nodded.
“Then we’re going to be a couple. A family.”
“Are you suggesting we get married?”
He cringed. He wasn’t opposed, but it was complicated. Too complicated. She had no idea how complicated.
“I didn’t think so,” Patty said.
“I’m his father.” The word father echoed in his ears like the drum in a marching band. It was just a word, but as he’d learned once before, words could destroy a man.
Jessica had done exactly that to him.
“I think living together would be a good start.” Boy, was that a loaded proposition. He meant it, but the conversation was derailing, and he wasn’t helping matters.
“We don’t love each other, and I will not be in a loveless relationship, much less a marriage. I saw what that did to my parents, and they did me no favors by staying together as long as they did.”
“I’m not asking you to be in a loveless anything.” He strode toward her. “We haven’t even given ourselves the chance to be anything.”
“We both know what this was, and neither of us pretended it to be anything more.”
“We have no idea what we could be together,” he pleaded.
“I don’t need you to be honorable,” she said, handing him his boots. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if I weren’t pregnant. You’d be doing your thing, and I’d be doing mine.”
“I don’t know about that,” he admitted. “I thought about us getting back together. I thought about it every day for the last two weeks.”
“You never told me that,” she said. “And resuming a fling,” she said. “Isn’t the same thing.”
“Maybe not, but it would have been a start. You tell me you’re pregnant, and then tell me to leave, without giving me a chance to figure all this out.”
“That’s why I want you to leave. Give you a chance to figure it all out. You need some time to deal with whatever you’re feeling, because frankly, you are all over the map.”
Okay, so he did have to give her that. “So are you. You’re acting like this doesn’t matter at all. No big deal. You’re having our baby, but I don’t have to do anything.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek. “It matters very much. I just don’t want you to feel trapped. I don’t want you to have any regrets. I want you to spend some time with the idea that I am… that we are, having a baby. I’m not shutting you out. I would never do that. But I can’t have ‘this’ conversation while you’re so riled up.”
“So, I go think about this for a few days, then we have a discussion about it all.”
She nodded.
“Okay,” he said. He paused, contemplating kissing her or something, but then opted to heed her advice. He did nee
d time, but not because he needed to think about what he wanted, but more about what he had to do. He went down the stairs, thinking hard. The closer he got to his truck, the more terrified he became. Not about being a father. About being a good father. And how could he even begin to try to build any kind of life with Patty when he was still married to Jessica?
He needed a drink.
2
Patty hadn’t slept well in days. No amount of hemorrhoid cream was going to get rid of the black circles and puffiness under her eyes. Between the shooting and Reese’s totally out-of-character behavior, Patty found herself completely off-balance. Her hormones were out of whack to boot.
She wasn’t sure how she’d expected Reese to act or what he’d say, but suggesting they live together had not been it. Honestly, she’d envisioned two possible outcomes: the “how dare you try to trap me” scenario, or the “you’re on your own, babe” scenario. Not the “I’m going to stick around and be a father, and we’re going to be a family” scenario, though she had dreamed of that. That he’d come home form a long day at work, scoop up his baby, and coddle him or her with words of love and admiration. Then, later, when the baby was asleep, he’d whisper in her ear how much she meant and how grateful he was to have her in his life. Maybe he’d even say those three little words that were almost impossible for him to say, and mean it.
It was a nice dream.
That dream scared her the most. Her father had been head over heels in love with her mother. Her mother didn’t carry the same torch, but for the sake of family, they got married when Patty came around. Patty had no idea why her mother stayed for almost sixteen years, but one morning, out of the blue, she and her dad woke up, and Mom was gone. She’d left a note: Can’t be a wife and a mother. I was never cut out for the job. Patty wasn’t shocked, and neither had her father, but he’d been devastated. He’d done everything under the sun to try to make his wife happy.
To this day, Patty barely heard from her mother, though Debbie Cantell’s Facebook page showed her living large and enjoying every minute of it. Her father spent a decade being drunk and depressed. Only in the recent year had he been trying to clean up his life.