by Tasha Fawkes
On the rare occasions where I came home from work and she was off or working a different schedule than her usual graveyard shift, the only position that had been open, and which she kept because it offered greater job security—after all, who really likes working the graveyard shift—I would find her laying on her bed or on the sofa, just staring up at the ceiling, too exhausted to do much of anything.
More than anything I wanted to be able to take that burden from my mom. Someday, my dream was to make enough money to support us both so that she didn't have to work anymore. My dream? If, by some miracle, I could save up enough money, I wanted to open my own bistro. Maybe it was far-fetched, but it wasn't impossible. Nothing was impossible if you tried hard enough and kept your dreams alive, even on those days when you wanted to just chuck it all in. I was determined, so maybe that would be enough. Who knows? Life had dealt us a cruel blow, and while we both tried to make the best of our lives, it was hard. We scraped by every month, but living like this wasn’t exactly living. It was existing. Surviving. I wanted more than that.
I sighed, thinking it would be wonderful if I could actually make a living baking and cooking? I loved creating, experimenting; making an adventure out of combining this flavor with that, or substituting ingredients in a recipe, just to see what happened.
So, every Saturday morning, Mom and I brought our pastries and pies to the local farmers market. Not only was it a chance to earn money, but it was just about the only time we had where we could sit together, socialize, and, well, relax. Not that running a stall at the farmers’ market was easy all the time.
On the heels of that thought came the overwhelming reality of my situation—our situation. Mom and I barely managed to get the bills paid with our weekly visit to the farmers’ market and her job and my odd jobs. We were living on the edge. A canceled farmers’ market due to bad weather or, anything actually, would put us in dire straits.
I tried not to dwell on it, tried not to grow cynical or despondent, but some days, it was hard. Like today. In spite of the gorgeous weather and the refreshing breeze rustling through my hair. I quickly gathered my ponytail, rolled it into a bun, and fastened it with my scrunchy while darker thoughts crept in.
Mom and I worked hard. In addition to baking and selling our pastries at the farmers’ market food stall, I often managed to pick up other temporary jobs: cleaning houses, babysitting, and waitressing. Temp jobs. Jobs were scarce due to the economy, and no one really wanted the hire full-time anymore. Why pay benefits to your employees when you could squeak them by part-time, scheduling part-time or just under the cap for full-time work benefits?
Mom did her best too, but now pushing fifty, she had few prospects for anything more glamorous than earning her living as a nurse's aide. She didn't have a work history, having spent her entire marriage as a housewife, which worked just fine up until the moment my dad shot himself. And you know what made it worse? That he knew that I'd be the one to find him, sprawled out on the floor of the garage next to his car. Me. At least he'd had the decency not to do it in the house. Maybe he figured hosing blood off the cement garage floor would be a lot easier than trying to get it out of the carpet.
Sometimes, I hated my dad. Hated him with every fiber of my being for doing this to us. He had left us with nothing, not even life insurance. I didn't know why it happened. Up until that moment, that horrible moment when I found him on the garage floor, half of the back of his head gone, blood spatter staining the ceiling and pooling around his body… Let's just suffice it to say that I have never forgiven him for, in my opinion, being a coward, taking the easy way out, and leaving my mother and I to fend for ourselves.
Mom and I never really talked about it. I knew it was too painful for her. I didn't think she felt the same way about him as I did. Sometimes when I passed by her bedroom door, I would see her holding a picture of them together, taken just a few months before he died, her fingertip lingering on the glass, a smile turning up the corners of her mouth. I knew she had forgiven him. That's one of the reasons why I never brought it up. I didn't want to spoil her memories of him with my negative feelings and resentment.
I guess in a way that his death did benefit me in some ways. I had grown up independent and self-reliant. Like my mom, I didn't have a lot of friends and wasn't really interested in making any. After high school, my friends had gone off to college while I picked up full-time work as a waitress, at least until the economy tanked. Ever since then, life had been a day-to-day struggle.
"Megan, did you hear me?"
My mom's voice jarred me out of my stupor. I glanced at her, smiling, as if everything was right with the world. "Sorry, Mom, got distracted thinking what a beautiful day it was."
Mom always made sure that she had Friday nights off so that we could have these Saturday mornings. She'd be working tonight. She tried not to take more than one day a week off because we needed the money. Another reason for me to feel bad. I wished I could do more, but because of a lack of a degree, I was pretty much relegated to part-time, entry-level jobs. I had tried going to community college, but my classes just never seemed to coincide with my differing work schedules.
Oh well, maybe later—
"Megan, where is your head today?" Mom laughed, shaking her head. "Can you go get the tub of blueberry muffins? I left them on the back seat."
I smiled and nodded. "Sure." I reached for the keys she extended. She was still shaking her head at me and I smiled, glad that something in my life was stable. As I threaded my way through the increasing numbers of vendors hurrying to finish setting up their stalls before eight o'clock, only ten minutes away now, I thanked God once again that Mom and I had such a good relationship. We relied on each other, leaned on each other, and cheered each other on. Actually, I think Mom and I gave each other therapy of sorts, some stability in our lives that kept both of us sane.
I tried to push unpleasant thoughts from my mind as I reached her small, twelve-year-old Ford Focus, unlocked the car, and reached into the back seat for the tub of muffins. We had a number of regular customers, and Mom's blueberry muffins were always in high demand. Grabbing the tub, I clamped the car keys between my teeth, shut the door shut with my hip, and quickly hurried back to our stall. One of the best things about selling our pastries at the farmers’ market was seeing our customers faces as they bit into one of our freshly baked pastries, pies, or cakes. Their complements were always appreciated and validated my dreams of someday opening a small place of my own.
"Here you go, Mom," I said, handing her the tub. We only had a few minutes to spare, and I quickly checked our goods and their placement on our tables: the old-fashioned red and white checkered tablecloths draped over the folding tables, the faux ivy vines and yellow daisy sprigs decorating the foldable faux wrought-iron shelving that set off clear acrylic pastry cases just so.
If we were fortunate today and our regulars came, and the baseball games scheduled today worked in our favor in regard to foot traffic, we would earn enough to pay half of our rent, maybe even a little bit more. Even our crappy apartment cost just over twelve-hundred dollars a month. It was outrageous. I had tried to talk my mom into moving out of the area on multiple occasions, knowing that further inland, or maybe even in another state, we could get cheaper rent, but she refused.
I knew why. If we moved she wouldn't be able to go to the cemetery every week, like she had done every week since my dad died—killed himself, rather. Four hundred-sixty-eight times to be exact.
I sighed, pasting a smile on my face to greet the first visitors to the farmers’ market, pushing thoughts about what might have been, or what things might have been like if my father hadn't abandoned us just before my seventeenth birthday. If he hadn't decided to chuck it all and put that gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Three
Scott
I was in my office at the Holbrook Property Corporation in downtown, trying to get through at least two inches of paperwork and growing increasi
ngly frustrated by the minute when my phone rang. I was going to ignore it but then decided against it. I'd been on the phone at least a dozen times already this morning, trying to finalize details in a number of projects, put out fires where needed, and of course, the usual approvals, questions, and demands to see documentation. It was never-ending.
I snatched the phone, turned it over, and glanced at the screen. Shit. Kristin. Again. In the three weeks since my drunken stupidity that had enticed me to go a round in the sack with Kristin, she had made her intentions known, to the point where I was starting to call her, in my mind at least, The Barnacle.
I couldn't remember much of what happened that night. I hadn't thought I was that drunk, but obviously, I had been. Oh, I remembered her come-hither look, the open invitation, and intermittent memories of having sex with her. Unfortunately, that sex was pretty much forgotten, so as far as I was concerned, it was more hum-drum than earth-shattering. It'd been a mistake, though I hadn't said as much to Kristin. After I called her a cab to take her back to her car at the club, she had asked for my number. Stupidly, and feeling un-customarily guilty for doing whatever it was that I had, I had given it to her.
I didn't typically feel guilty after sleeping with a woman. After all, I never forced myself on them. Still, she was my dad's business partner's daughter. For that I did feel guilty. And stupid. I shouldn't have done it, plain and simple.
I had tried to be polite, to gently disengage, giving her more than enough what I considered reasonable clues that I wasn't interested in a relationship, but she was either determined or dense. Now she was calling me again. If I answered, I knew there was a fifty-fifty chance that she would gripe that I hadn't called her in the last few days. If I didn't answer, she'd keep trying. She was always the one calling me, and she never let me forget it.
Why didn't I just tell her to go fly a kite? Jump off a cliff? Leave me alone? I wasn’t sure. But man, she was getting annoying. I sighed and killed the call, not interested in trying to explain myself to her, or listening to her complaints. What the hell had happened that night to give her the idea that we were a couple, or that she had a right to call me without an invitation, or to have any expectations from me?
Had I done something to lead her on? Had I said something inadvertently that had given her that idea? I resolved then and there that at the end of my workday, I would call her. I would tell her to stop calling me, that I wasn't interested in dating or anything else. We had fucked once—I thought—but that was it. It was a one-night stand. No strings, no promises.
I had just returned my attention back to the paperwork when I heard a commotion from outside my office. I glanced up at my closed office door and frowned, and then groaned when I recognized the voice. It was Kristin, her voice raised just outside, demanding to see me. My receptionist, Melanie, was doing her best to calm Kristin down and have her wait, but the next instant my office door opened and there she stood, framed in the doorway.
Three years younger than me, she was good-looking and had a great figure, no doubt about it, but what the hell? This was like stalking behavior, and I wasn't—
"Scott, I tried to explain to your secretary that it's urgent that I see you."
I stared for several seconds, startled. Then again, she had always been spoiled, pampered, and catered to by her family. I should've known that the more I tried to ignore her, the more determined she would be, but this was beyond acceptable. I frowned and gestured for her to shut the door. She did so, and rather loudly, standing in front of it, arms crossed over her chest, eyebrows pulled down, her mouth tight with anger.
"You hung up on me."
I glanced at the phone beside my desk blotter and looked back at her. "I didn't hang up on you, Kristin. I killed the call. I'm very busy, and can't—"
"You and I need to talk."
She strode toward the set of chairs in front of my desk, her knee-length navy blue skirt and cream silk blouse swaying gently with her movements. She plopped down into one of the chairs and knees together, feet off to one side, stared at me. I might as well get it over with. "Kristin, I've tried to tell you, gently and more than once, that I'm not interested in developing a relationship. It's not that you're—"
"Too late for all that," she snapped.
I frowned. "What?"
"I'm pregnant."
At first, I didn't understand. I mean, I understood the word, I just didn't understand how it applied to me. Don't get me wrong, I knew how it works, but I always wore a cover. I felt a cold sensation rush through me. Hadn't I? I tossed my pen to the blotter and leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest. Trying to remember. Drunk or not, I always used protection. It was habit. Not just against pregnancy, but against possible STDs. So, what happened? I frowned, uncertain.
"I'm two weeks pregnant, Scott, and I'm sure it's yours."
I lifted an eyebrow, eyeing her. "What makes you so sure of that?" I wasn't going to admit to a damn thing until I got more information.
"I haven't been with anyone else for months," she said simply, her right shoulder lifting with a slight shrug.
As if her comment wouldn't turn my world upside down. What did this mean? What did she want? I narrowed my eyes. Could this be true? "You sure you're pregnant?" I asked, my mouth dry. "After all, you could just be late."
She reached into her purse and retrieved one of those pee pregnancy sticks and tossed it onto my desk. I glanced down at it, thankful that had it landed right side up because no way in hell was I going to touch it. I saw the blue plus sign with the word Positive emblazoned in the viewer space. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one who usually shirks from responsibility, but this was a first for me, and I wasn't going to jump in feet first.
"That could be anybody's pee stick, Kristin, and you know it.”
"You need to do the right thing, Scott."
Did she expect me to pay for an abortion? Pay her off? "And what do you mean by that?" I finally asked.
"You need to marry me."
Her reply stunned me, and that's an understatement. I was stupefied, speechless, shocked to the core. I sat forward in my chair, elbows on the blotter, and leaned toward her, anger burgeoning. "Kristin, you can't be serious. We don't even know each other—"
"You knew me enough to fuck my brains out three weeks ago, didn't you?"
I didn't say anything. I couldn't. So many emotions racing through my mind prevented me from landing on more than one thought for a millisecond before jumping to something else. My heart pounded. My mouth felt dry. I tried to cover my shock as best as possible, tried to keep emotion from my voice, but it was difficult.
"Before I do anything, Kristin, I want official documentation, from an obstetrician."
She made a pouty face as I stared at her. She met my gaze, but I sure as hell wasn't going to marry anybody, and especially not her. Based on what? Not only that, but I needed some time to think this over, to process. What I really needed was a stiff drink.
"I knew you were going to say that." She reached into her purse again and pulled out a sheet of paper.
She handed it to me and I took it, albeit reluctantly. Slowly, I opened the letter, scanned it, and felt my stomach somersault. It looked official. Confirming a positive pregnancy test.
"What about a paternity test?"
Her mouth dropped open, eyes wide with surprise. "Are you calling me a liar, Scott?" Her eyes filled with tears. "You're the only guy I've been with in months! You have to believe me!"
I tried to keep my emotions in check. Tears? Really? And why did I have to believe her? As I remembered it, she came on to me, although I guess it didn't really matter the outcome. I mentally kicked myself, acknowledging that I had used extremely poor judgment.
"I'm not interested in marriage, Kristin," I said. "If you take a paternity test and it is determined that the baby is mine, I will help provide for its care, but that's it. You know very well that we were both drunk—"
"I wasn't drunk, Scott. And I'm
not going to go through this alone. I mean it."
I sighed. "This is a lot to take in," I said, speaking softly so she couldn't hear the desperation in my voice. "Give me a couple of days, all right? Let me figure this out. We can discuss options—"
"Options? If you're even considering asking me to have an abortion, the answer is no. This is my baby! Our baby, and I'm going to keep it.”
I couldn't believe this was happening. Kristin, at just over twenty-two years of age, shouldn't be having a baby. She could barely take care of herself on her own. If it wasn't for her parents’ money, she probably couldn't. Still, if the baby proved to be mine, I would do the right thing—up to a point. But marriage was off the table.
"I have a meeting to get to in about five minutes," I lied. "I need to process this. I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"
She softened, only slightly. "You promise?"
I nodded. "Yes." I stood and walked toward the door, opening it. She sat in the chair for several more moments, then reached forward and grabbed the pee stick and the letter, shoving them both back into her purse as she stood. Then, straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin, she strode past me, casting a dark glare at my receptionist as she did so. Moments later, I heard the ding of the elevator, the doors swish open, and then she was gone.
I turned to my receptionist. "Melanie, I need to take an hour or so. Reschedule my three o'clock and come up with the appropriate excuse, will you?"
She nodded and returned her attention to her computer. I didn't even bother going back into my office. I took the stairs down to the lobby and at the bottom, before I exited the stairwell, called Craig. After several rings, he answered.
"Hey, Scott, how's it hanging?"
"Not too good," I sighed. "I know it's only two-thirty in the afternoon, but can you meet me for a drink at Flanagan's? It's kind of an emergency."
