by Dina Silver
I was trying to prepare the perfect thing to say, but my brain could no longer handle the intricacies of all my declarations. “Ethan, throughout this entire ordeal, telling you has been the hardest thing I’ve had to do. Deciding to keep the baby wasn’t nearly as hard as it was to make this phone call. I have been dreading telling you, please don’t hate me.”
“Why have you been dreading telling me?” he scoffed.
“Why do you think?”
“You tell me, Syd,” his voice was hard, and less tired.
“I just…I never meant to hurt you, or put this wedge between us, but there’s no going back now. And I just don’t want to lose you… and our friendship.”
“Our friendship?” he said mockingly. “That’s a joke.”
“I mean it, Ethan.”
He made a noise that sounded like he was blowing into a Breathalyzer. “Jesus, Syd, you’ve dropped a real bomb here, and I’m not really sure what you expect me to say. This is going to take some time to process,” he snickered. “Sorry, I really just…don’t know how you could have done this.”
I stretched the sleeve of my shirt over my hand and wiped my face. “I understand,” I commented wearily. “I’m so sorry, just please don’t be mad at me forever.”
“What do you want me to do?” he posed the question sternly.
What I truly wanted was for him to come see me, wrap me in his long arms and tell me everything was going to be okay. Because he was the only person who could make me believe it. But there I was, ambushing him on a Saturday morning, telling him I’d not only slept with someone behind his back, but I was pregnant, and keeping this other man’s child. What could I reasonably expect from him? What would I do if the tables were turned? Maybe I would find a tiny shred of maturity in my broken heart to forgive him. But it wouldn’t be easy, and it wouldn’t be quick.
“I know this is going to sound selfish of me, and given the circumstances, I’m not sure I would’ve even stayed on the phone with you this long, if it were you in an equally ugly situation. But having to sacrifice you to have this baby will destroy me, so I hope that in time you can find a way to forgive me.”
His lungs must have been nearly empty from all the laborious sighs. “We’re always going to be friends, I just don’t know about any more than that right now. This is a big deal, Syd, and you are going to have one hell of a year ahead of you.”
“I know.”
He left me hanging on in silence for about ten seconds. “I really need to go, so, thanks for the call,” he said, flippant. “Take care of yourself.”
“I will, Ethan, I’m really…”
“Bye, Syd.” Click.
I lay down on my couch and cried for about twenty minutes with no break. The combination of guilt, missing him, and overactive hormones had gotten to me. Once I was able to calm down, I was grateful for his kindness. I feared the worst, yet Ethan showed his true colors once again. He could have hurled a number of despicable words at me, but he didn’t. He was quiet and respectful, and I deserved none of it. He hadn’t even tried to talk me out of keeping the baby. In fact, simply talking to Ethan and hearing the distance in his voice was the only time I questioned my decision.
My next confession wasn’t going to be as easy. Jenna and I had plans to meet up with Kevin, Rocco, and a bunch of other people for our final night on campus. We’d scheduled a pub-crawl with a biscuits and gravy chaser at this restaurant that was a Purdue institution, and served the most sought after biscuits and gravy in the state of Indiana. It was called Triple XXX, also known as Tri-Chi, and they basically gave you a huge platter of sausage gravy, with two, tiny little buttermilk biscuits buried underneath it.
By the time we’d hit our last pub on the schedule, everyone besides me was hammered. I hadn’t had any time alone with Kevin, and I didn’t want to break the news to him when he was three sheets to the wind, so I decided to see if he’d talk with me in the morning. I managed to interrupt a conversation he was having with two other guys, and pulled him aside while we were waiting for our food.
“So, are you headed out tomorrow?” I asked, and noticed Jenna staring me down. She knew I’d been trying to find a way to get him alone and drop yet one more grenade in someone’s lap. She and I tried to come up with a better way to break the news to him, but he’d been impossible to pin down until then.
“Yeah, I haven’t packed much yet, but I’m hoping to hit the road after lunch, how about you?”
“I’m leaving tomorrow, headed to my sister’s place in the city.”
“Sounds good, we’ll have to hook up, when I’m there for training next month.”
Kevin’s father had gotten him an entry-level position with Arthur Andersen, a management-consulting firm located in Chicago, although he’d eventually be transferred to an office in Los Angeles. He had to go through two months of training to learn how to consult other companies on their failures. I couldn’t help but wonder why those other companies didn’t just do the two months of training with Arthur Andersen themselves.
The fry cook/hostess signaled that our table was ready.
“Hey, do you think we can get together tomorrow, before you leave?” I asked Kevin, trailing behind him.
“What for?” he trudged ahead.
“Maybe a quick lunch, or coffee, or something.”
He shook his head. “Don’t think so Syd. Like I said, I’ve got a ton of packing, and I need to be on the road by one at the latest.”
“Maybe you could just stop by my place then, on your way out of town?”
“Doubt it, squirt.”
I tugged at the back of his navy blue t-shirt. “Can you just come by tomorrow, I want to talk to you about something,” I said as seriously as I could without letting anyone else in the group hear what I was saying.
He turned only his head around, looked down at me, gave me a perplexed look, and then studied my face. “Call me in the morning,” he said and took a seat at the other end of the table.
Jenna made her way over to me. “Did you just tell him?” she asked as we both pulled out rickety wooden chairs from the table and sat down next to each other.
“No, I asked if he’d come by my place in the morning, before he leaves town.”
“And what’d he say?”
“He said to call him in the morning.”
“Oh my,” Jenna said, shaking her head. “One more plate, extra sausage!” she leaned back and shouted to the fry cook.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
My nerves were in high gear the next morning, so I kept on the pair of sweats that’d I’d slept in, and just threw a cardigan over my white tank top. I’d spent a week trying to find the most civil way to break the news to Kevin, but there was really only one way to say what I had to say. It was a tough thing to sugar coat.
I called him that morning like he asked, and wiped the perspiration off my forehead when I heard a knock at the door two hours later. As I opened it, he was standing there, hands in his pockets, dark circles under his eyes, and not looking nearly as friendly as he did joking with his buddies over a plate of sausage gravy the night before.
“What’s up?” he asked gruffly.
“Come on in,” I gestured and stepped back from the doorway.
“I’ve only got, like, ten minutes,” he said looking around. “What’s up?”
He seemed very uncomfortable and it felt like a rain cloud entered the room with him, you could almost see the fog. His edginess surprised me; I’d expected him to be cold and aloof after hearing the news, but not before.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“No thanks,” he said and sat on the edge of my coffee table.
I looked at him, as he was checking his watch. He was not going to make it easy for me.
“Well,” I started, and had a seat at my dinette set, a few feet away. “I just wanted to talk to you before you left.” He was still looking down. “I have to tell you something,” I swallowed.
“What is
it?”
I cupped my hands together, and then unsuccessfully tried to make eye contact with him. “I’m pregnant.”
He let the words dangle before he spoke. “I thought that’s what you were going to say.”
He never looked directly at me, and I was quickly schooled in the meaning of painful silence.
I rubbed my hands on my thighs to wipe off the perspiration. “I’m sorry to lay this on you right before you leave, but I thought you should know’,”
He shook his head slowly. “What are you doing about it?”
“I’m going to keep it,” I answered and kept my gaze focused on him.
He laughed. “Don’t I have any say?” he stood up. “Assuming it’s even mine.”
“It’s yours.”
He started to walk behind the couch towards the door. “So great, you’ve got your little mind all made up, huh? That’s it? ‘Hey Kev, I’m having your baby without your consent…just thought you should know” he whispered the last part mockingly.
I had no response.
He shook his head with greater force and continued. “So, you’re saying this is my kid, then we both made the same mistake, right? Why the fuck don’t I get to choose then? Who died and made you in charge of my life? You’ve got some nerve, Syd.”
I had no response.
He began questioning me again, and finally looked at my face. “What do you want from me?”
His eyes were unrecognizable, and his expression filled with rage and detest.
“I don’t want anything from you, Kevin,” I pleaded, as if someone was pointing a gun at me. “We’re friends, we’ve been friends for a long time and I thought you might want to know,” I said softly.
“Well guess what, Syd, I don’t want to know,” his tone grew crueler. “I don’t want to know you, or your kid, okay,” he paused. “So leave me the fuck out of it!”
I watched him snatch his keys off the coffee table and head for the door. I wanted to scream after him. I wanted to clamp onto his bicep, spin him around and look into his eyes. “It’s me, Sydney!” I wanted to shout. “I’m your friend, Kevin. I never meant to hurt you with this, you must know that!”
Instead I said nothing as he shook his head and stormed out.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
grace
A little over three years had passed since I learned the identity of my real father, but I had yet to see or speak to him. And although my desire to do those things hadn’t lessened, the desperation had faded. As I grew older, my few attempts at reaching out to him through my mother became more futile and discouraging.
My mom first told me about him when I was ten or eleven years old, after I threatened to run away if she didn’t fess up. She’d described him as a friend, a guy who was amongst a close-knit group of college pals.
“What did he look like?” I asked with eager ears.
“He was very tall, and handsome, and had a lot of dark wavy hair,” she told me.
I pictured him like Hugh Jackman, and Mom smiled when I told her that.
“What was he like?”
She said his name was Kevin, and that he was strong, helpful, funny, but with a dry sense of humor, and was always one of her favorite people during her college years. But that had all apparently changed when she told him about me.
“What happened?”
She didn’t give me very many details, other than he was unhappy with the news, and chose to end their friendship.
“Why?” I asked, guilty for ruining her relationship with him.
She shrugged. “I really don’t know, sweetie; he was young, and didn’t want to deal with having a child, I guess.”
“What did he say?”
Mom adjusted her posture on the park bench where we sat and looked away from me. I was old enough to know there were things she didn’t want to talk about, but I couldn’t tame my curiosity.
“He said that I would have to raise you by myself, which I had intended to do anyway, but he wanted me to understand that he wasn’t able to take part in raising a child together.”
“He didn’t want to marry you?”
She shook her head. “No, honey, we weren’t dating at the time,” she looked away again and batted her eyes before turning back to me. “I know this is hard to understand, because it’s obviously not the best idea to have sex with someone you’re not in a loving relationship with…but sometimes things happen that are out of your control, and this was one of them.”
I scratched my head. “It was an accident.”
“You were not an accident, but, I had not planned on being pregnant and unmarried at such a young age.”
“So, I was an accident.”
Mom’s head dropped back slightly, and then she sat straight and her neck made a crackling sound before she smiled at me. “No, you weren’t an accident. You were absolutely meant to be in my life, it was just the means in which you came to me that were unexpected.”
It sounded reasonable, but accidental nonetheless.
“Do I have any sisters?”
She grinned knowingly; I had always wanted a baby sister. “I don’t know much about Kevin’s life today, but I do know that he is married, and has two daughters.”
My heart beat faster at the thought of him and his family. I wanted so badly to go to their house and spend time with them. I wondered if I looked like him and his daughters, and what his wife was like. I wondered if she would be nice to me, or if she even knew I existed. But instead, I was asked to be content with the information my mom had given me, because apparently, Kevin had also asked to have no contact with me whatsoever.
I looked down at my lap that day at the park, embarrassed. “But that was a long time ago,” I said to my mom. “Maybe he wants to see me now, and doesn’t know where to find me,” I suggested, my voice filled with hope.
“Let’s head home.” She stood and grabbed my hand, but gave no response to my theory. Leaving me to assume he knew exactly how to find me, he just didn’t want to.
Right before I was about to start my freshman year of high school, I met a girl who had a similar, screwed-up situation like mine. She’d moved in two blocks from us, and was transferring to my school starting in the fall. Her name was Chloe.
Chloe was gorgeous, and all I could picture when we first met was her walking through the halls in slow motion with the wind in her hair as every prepubescent male within a stones throw turned to stare at her. She had long wavy brown hair, down to the small of her back, and almond shaped eyes, the color of smoky quartz. Her teeth were straight and pearly white, and you could see almost every single one of them when she smiled. I asked her if anyone ever told her she looked like Julia Roberts, and she said yes.
We met one day as she was jogging past my house and I was outside shooting hoops in the driveway. She had a very confident air about her, and approached me almost immediately.
“Excuse me,” she said.
“Yes?” I let the ball bounce away from me as I walked toward the end of the driveway.
She extended a long, toned arm. “I’m Chloe, just moved in over on Queens Lane, and I heard you might be the same grade as me.”
“Incoming freshman?” I asked as we shook hands.
“Yup, good to meet you, your name is…”
“I’m sorry, it’s Grace, nice to meet you, too.” We stood almost eye-to-eye, which was a refreshing change. Most girls my age were still at least five to six inches shorter than me, causing me to slouch like an ogre and walk the halls with slumped shoulders. But on Chloe, the height was much more graceful and swan-like, and she wore it like a crown. “Where are you from?” I asked.
“My mom and I moved up from Miami, to be closer to relatives.”
“Just you and your mom?”
“Yeah, my dad left when I was young,” she said casually.
Her honesty and misfortune made me instantly attracted to her. I knew at that moment we’d be friends.
“I’m sorry to hear that, how ol
d were you?”
“It’s fine.” She walked towards the ball and bounced it gently until it got higher off the ground. “I was two, hardly have any memory of him.”
“Do you ever talk to him?”
“Nope.”
She seemed so cavalier about the whole thing. There was no indication she harbored any anger or bitterness. No signs that her mother had lied to her as a young girl, or that her entire existence was the result of a drunken mistake. Her mom was probably straightforward with her from day one, and let Chloe digest the news of her father’s absence over the years on her own terms. I envied her disposition.
“What about you,” she started. “Your folks still together?”
“Yes, but my dad is not my real dad.” The involuntary, full disclosure shocked me, and I looked away as soon as I said it, feeling shy. I usually avoided discussing my familial situation with kids my own age, but I felt comfortable with Chloe.
“Are you adopted?” she asked and bounced the ball to me.
I took a shot and made it. “I’m adopted by my dad, because my mom is my real mom. She had sex with some dude in college, and had me. Then she married my dad, when I was two.”
“Your adopted dad?”
“Correct.”
We both laughed. “You’re almost as messed up as me,” she said and slapped me on the shoulder.
“I was thinking the same thing,” I smiled.
We shot hoops for about an hour before she checked her cell phone, flipped it closed and told me she had to go.
“I’ll see ‘ya around, Grace,” she waved and jogged away.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sydney
I left Purdue for good with a packed car, and drove the two-hour drive to downtown Chicago. My plan was to stay with Kendra for two months (since my mom declined to offer me my old room), and then get my own place before I was scheduled to start my new job, at which point I would be a little over four months pregnant.
Kendra lived in a renovated building that was a converted chocolate factory, and I was thrilled to see that the lobby had bowls of complimentary candies at all times. I wiped the sweat off my brow, hit the number three button on the elevator, and she was there waiting for me.
