4. Chapter 4

Chapter four

Caleb

Probability of Paternity: 99.9998%

Paternity.

If I said the word enough it would eventually make sense. The more I stared at the results the more they transformed into hieroglyphs. I refreshed the page and triple, quadruple, quintuple-checked my name at the top. I checked the spelling so many times that the letters started to trade spaces.

Stunned, I lowered myself onto the mattress of the hotel bed, sitting at the edge so that if I passed out I'd make a loud thud and maybe someone would hear me and come to my rescue. If not, I'd probably choke and die on my vomit.

Until that moment, this all felt like an elaborate hallucination brought on by psychedelic mushrooms.

I had a daughter .

A little girl.

A teenage girl.

I had created life.

Fifteen years ago.

I needed some water. Standing on wobbly legs, I teetered my way over to the mini-fridge, my mouth full of sand. I swallowed down a whole bottle and opened another. I chugged until I felt like all the bile had been neutralized and settled back into my stomach. Then I felt sick.

How could this be? How could she lie to Kelsey for all these years? To me?

What the fuck would Vikki say ?

She was adamant I not come to New York at all. Absolutely convinced that this was a set-up, which contributed to the out-of-body feeling of it all. I even came expecting it to all be a scam.

I wouldn't put it past Erin to lure me across the country to extort money. She'd fucking forged my signature on arguably the most important document of my life. That I had no knowledge existed! How the hell did she even know what my signature looked like? It was a little off, but not a bad forgery if you squinted a little and assumed I was in a rush.

Actually, I didn't want to know how she did all this.

One look at Kelsey and I saw bits of myself in her features.

She had my mouth, my jaw, my coloring. She had her mother's eyes, if I remembered correctly, but my nose and straight brow shape. Kelsey looked like me and I didn't know how or what to think or feel about that. Now those suspicions were confirmed. She looked like me because she was a part of me.

The existential crisis was nothing short of overwhelming.

I grabbed my phone and stared at Vikki's name. She didn't want kids. She doesn't even really want me, I thought guiltily. We were more of a lovers-of-convenience relationship. We ran in the same circles, and when she needed a place to stay, I opened my apartment to her.

She wasn't going to take this well.

And she wasn't going to keep it a secret. I had no desire to have my phone blow up because nosey friends were seeking some juicy gossip.

My intentions of calling her got lost in translation because my finger scrolled right passed and pressed Juliette New York instead. The phone rang for a merciless three tones before she picked up. "Hello?"

"I'm her father," I blurted.

I heard the rustling of sheets and the creak of a bed as Juliette must have been scrambling to sit up. She spoke incredibly fast, "You got the results?"

"Just now. I can't believe it, but also, I can. What do I—What do I do?"

I heard the quiet inhale of breath as Juliette gathered her wits. "What do you want to do? "

"I want to be her father. I told you that already."

She didn't answer me. We were quiet for a beat. "Am I the first person you called?" Juliette's voice changed, softened somehow even though she maintained the self-assured edge to her question.

"Who else would I call?" Stupid question, but my gut compelled me to call her. I had no one else to turn to even though I had a phone book stuffed with friends and family.

"The lawyer?"

Vikki , I thought. I ignored the gnawing sensation in my mind at the mention of her name.

"So, you're really going to take custody of Kelsey?"

"Yes."

Juliette went quiet for a long while. A silence so heavy it had a presence all its own. A third party listening in on the phone call.

"I'm sorry," I added, not quite grasping what I was apologizing for.

"No, no," she cleared her throat. "Don't apologize. She's your daughter. It's such a shock."

"Yeah. Shock describes the feeling pretty well."

I heard a tiny gasp and instantly knew she was crying, biting back a sob, and probably holding the phone away from her face.

"I'm sorry if I woke you." I heard my voice bounding back to the receiver. She'd put me on speaker phone.

Juliette's voice only quivered on the first two words. "I haven't slept well since Saturday. I only fell asleep after Kelsey went to school."

"I know the feeling."

"I can't believe this is happening," she whispered, as if to herself.

"Me neither. Can we grab lunch?" I asked, offering her some space alone before we had to see each other. "We can forget yesterday ever happened," I added referencing our fight in the parking lot.

It unsettled me to hear the shakiness of her voice as she replied, "Sure. I'm headed to the studio, and you might as well get comfortable with the location. There's a deli a few doors down. I, um," she took a breath, "They have really good food."

"What time does she get out of school? "

Juliette and I continued our conversation in this strangely robotic, emotionless back and forth. As if we were talking about someone theoretical, and not Kelsey.

"Two-thirteen. She has class with me starting at five. She has to eat something and start her homework before she comes. She brings it with her on Tuesdays because she doesn't have pas today."

"What's pas?"

"Pas de deux. She's in the upper intermediate level on Thursday." I heard the subtle swish of fabric against skin as Juliette dressed and talked. "It's a ballet term for when the boys and girls partner up and dance together."

"Does Kelsey like to dance?"

It was impossible to ignore the fact that I didn't know Kelsey. Anything about her.

Juliette's movements stopped. "She loves it. I love having her. Kelsey is exceptionally talented. She's been with me since she was five."

"Ten years," I said, more for myself.

Juliette sighed affectionately. "It feels like she was in my baby class just last year."

"I've heard they grow up fast…"

"Yes, but I'm just her teacher. I," she stuttered, "I had no idea Erin was capable of…"

Juliette was choking back her sobs. I finished her sentence for her. "Abandoning her? Unfortunately, I can see how she did that. Let's finish the conversation over lunch. I'll see you at noon?"

"Yeah. I'll see you then."

Juliette invited me into her domain because there were cameras in the lobby. I eyed them suspiciously. She was perched at the front desk, her blonde hair in a tight bun, exposing the long line of her neck. She wore a dainty silver necklace with a ballerina charm hanging onto her freckled chest.

"Give me a minute," she silenced me with a flick of her wrist before returning to the furious typing. She sighed and slammed her laptop shut .

I held up our food with a smile. "Hi—"

Juliette silenced me again with a look and an eyebrow raise that had me withering like I was in eighth grade all over again. She clicked a button on her phone, the serious expression morphing instantly to a smile and a customer service voice so practiced and likable I was impressed. "So sorry about the mix-up. All the documents and project specs should be uploaded. Thanks for your help." Juliette hung up as she stood and rounded the corner to her desk.

The air became tense. On the phone this morning, I'd caught her in a vulnerable spot and she'd been amiable as a result. In her lobby, though, with her spine rod-straight and that eyebrow judging my every movement, I felt a little more than a little nervous. I peeked down the hallway that led to the dance rooms, gulped down the lump in my throat, and made my first attempt at small talk. "So, you're the owner?"

"Yes, my dance teacher before me passed it on when she retired. Do you want the grand tour?" Juliette's eyes sparkled behind the sarcasm outlining her question.

"Is that common in dance studio business?"

"Fairly. It wasn't free. I paid for it. But it's common for teachers to sell to students."

I followed her as she flicked on lights to the hallway and pushed open doors that were awkwardly raised off the ground about nine inches. Handmade signs that said Watch Your Step under each door only made sense when she pushed one open and I saw that the studio room floor was raised all those inches. She stepped up, reached around the wall to turn on the light, and read my mind uncomfortably accurately.

"Studio floors are raised to protect the dancers. It softens their landings. Cost me a small fortune for this upgrade, but that's why the floors have a step up and the doors look like they're floating."

For lack of any better conversation, I said, "I've never been in a dance studio."

A smile revealed pristine white teeth and a breathy chuckle. "I gathered that." She continued ahead of me, her voice the same fake customer service one she'd used earlier. It made it impossible to read her. "There are four rooms, and two changing rooms, one for the boys, one for the girls. I have a huge room in the back for all the repertory costumes. I won't show you that, though, the room is an absolute fire hazard. It's embarrassing. I keep saying I'll get around to organizing it and then, well, I don't."

She smiled and opened a small closet she'd converted into a private office space. It was only big enough for a built-in desk and chair on one side and a catch-all area on the other. The only décor was an overflowing box of pointe shoes, a pile of lace fans stuffed in a shoe box, and a laundry basket bursting with cable-knit legwarmers and sweaters.

"This is my hideout," Juliette said flatly. "Also, where I have meetings with parents." She shut the door and I followed her back to the lobby.

"Was the studio always this big?"

"No, I expanded into the unit behind to build out the dressing rooms and costume closet. The goal is to buy out the next unit also, because my waitlist is getting too long." She talked about it as if it were normal for a woman so young to have achieved all this. In a way that signaled to me that she was a perfectionist who had expected nothing less of herself.

I liked that. She was a good role model for Kelsey.

"So, hypothetically Kelsey could buy this from you one day?"

She smiled faintly, the gesture not reaching her eyes. "I suppose she could, if she wanted to."

Juliette

I had bigger plans for Kelsey. She could be famous if she wanted it. I didn't tell him, though. Not yet. I couldn't trust that he wouldn't pull her from ballet altogether for ‘filling her head with ideas' the way Erin had threatened so many times before. She didn't want Kelsey to be a dancer. I couldn't be sure that Caleb didn't feel the same way .

"What do you do?" I asked, leading him back to the lobby. We hadn't even started the hard part of the conversation and I was already exhausted from standing on the tip of a needle that threatened to puncture through my sole.

"I'm in tech development." Caleb dropped our sandwiches on the counter. We allowed two stools between us, sitting as far away from each other as possible. I didn't like looking at him, let alone being touching distance to him.

He'd followed me just a step too closely as we toured the studio, as if we were long-time friends instead of complete strangers. It was unnerving. The same way he stood too close outside of my car the day before. I felt his arm press against my shoulder as he looked into my office, that's how close he stood.

I glanced at him and felt an uneasy flutter of attraction. Actually, I liked looking at him too much and that was a problem. Caleb was a handsome man by all measures. He was lean and trim, and his eyes held a kind of wide-eyed wonder as his gaze dragged over me. He wore a tight tee and jeans under his coat, and the way he splayed his legs apart and bounced his knee nervously was making me nervous in return. I didn't like how I noticed the way his forearms flexed as he unwrapped his sandwich.

I still clung to the hope that he would give up Kelsey to me. That the initial shock of finding out he was a father would wear off and he'd see clearly that he was not equipped to be her dad. I hoped he'd see how much I knew about her and how she should decide who should be her guardian. That was my goal.

I needed to focus on the goal.

"How should we tell her?" he asked, wiping his lips with a napkin.

"She already knows. There's no way she wasn't checking her email all day."

"I was refreshing the page every ten seconds," he murmured.

I had to swallow down my apprehension.

This was happening too fast, and I was too conflicted between what was right, and what I wanted. Caleb was now the most important person in Kelsey's life. I should treat him that way, even though I wanted it to be me.

Caleb continued, "I don't know how she's functioning at school right now. It was such a shock that I almost passed out."

"She doesn't want to raise any suspicions. Kelsey doesn't like being in the middle of any kind of scandal."

"When I tell you my life's been boring up until now, I mean truly. College, work, family, friends. Nothing like this." Caleb had an almost wistful tone. "This feels like an out of body experience. I'm about to move in with and get to know my daughter." Caleb swallowed and glanced at me. "Why do you look so surprised?"

"I was afraid you wouldn't stay here."

"Well, I'm not going to move her to California. She's been through enough, don't you think?" Caleb tilted his head and raised his brow.

"What about your job?"

Caleb shrugged in the easy way of a man who had absolutely no idea what he was in for. "Eh, I'm good at my job. I'll work remotely."

"And your life back there?"

"I haven't thought that far."

No surprise. I shook my head and rolled my eyes at him. "Well, this doesn't seem like the kind of situation you can just play by ear. You need a plan."

"Maybe Kelsey will want to move to California after the school year is over. Who knows? I'm pretty sure my life can wait a few months while we get to know each other and sort it out."

Delusional , I thought. He is delusional.

Actively reminding myself that I had to keep my enemies closer, I mustered up some pity. "Kelsey is a very quiet girl. Stays out of any drama that goes on in here." I gestured to the dance studio. "She doesn't talk about her emotions, or what's going on at home."

In the viewing window reflection, I noted the way he dropped his lunch and turned his whole body to face me, even though I spoke out into the lobby, unable to meet his gaze. "I know she's good in school because her friends tease her about it. Kelsey is an exceptional student here. She helps me out a lot in exchange for tuition." I gestured to the viewing window of the classroom primarily used for the youngest students. "I knew there was some trouble at home. Erin and I didn't have the best relationship."

"So why didn't you do anything about it?" Caleb cut me off.

"Excuse me?" Indignation flared red in front of me.

"If you knew Erin was trouble, why didn't you report it?"

My jaw hung open at the sheer audacity. "Report what? Please, tell me what I should have reported! You know," I scoffed, folding my arms across my chest, "this is rich coming from you."

"I didn't even know she existed. If you knew Kelsey was in trouble, why didn't you say something? It's a simple question."

As if it were at all that simple! He talked to me like it was the most obvious and matter of fact thing to extrapolate based on a handful of details about a student's life that their own mother could abandon them without a trace or remorse.

Erin was such a piece of shit that she hadn't even warned Kelsey (and her secret social media account had a post from last week on a beach with a big pink drink in her hand).

"Let me fill you in," I said, uncapping the disdain I had for Erin—no, for all of this. The venom in my tone felt deliciously satisfying as it coated every word. "There was nothing to report. She had no bruises. No signs of abuse. You can't report someone for having too many boyfriends and not paying enough attention to their daughter. What would I say? Hey, Erin didn't come to her recital, she's neglectful? Respectfully, you don't know anything about any of us, so don't you dare come into my space and accuse me of anything! I did what I could given my limitations as her teacher. I crossed multiple boundaries for her over the years, but you wouldn't know that."

Caleb winced against the attack. "I'm sorry. I thought maybe there were signs. I'm trying to make sense of it."

"Join the club," I snapped, taking a swig of my soda. "I've been asking myself why since I found out. You know, I never would have called you if Erin hadn't left you everything. I would have just taken her in myself. No questions asked. Even though she's not my blood." I threw those last words in to hurt him.

He flinched. Damage done.

I should have stopped there but I wasn't finished. I couldn't stop the assault. I couldn't control the hurt he caused when he accused me. In some feeble, reckless attempt at proving myself, I continued. "Nobody would have ever even known because it would be just like Erin to not show up to Kelsey's high school graduation. The lawyer said I'm nobody, but who are you?"

Caleb's jaw flexed, and he looked away. "I'm her father. She's my daughter," he said quietly after several seconds.

She's the product of your sperm . I wanted to say it. I had to bite my cheek and stuff my sandwich in my mouth to shut myself up.

He has custody. He has everything, I reminded myself. I couldn't be on his bad side because, if he wanted to, he could take Kelsey away. That was not, absolutely not , what was best for her. This whole ordeal required a level of trust that I couldn't wrap my head around. I needed to be strong for her. I'd given in to the temptation to hurt him. It was enough. I had to stop.

I had said enough. Too much.

I stole a glance at Caleb, who had also lost his appetite. The sound of wax paper crinkling as we wrapped up the rest of our sandwiches echoed in the empty lobby. Caleb's knee continued to bounce as he frowned down into his hands. What I would have given to know what he was thinking during that prolonged, painful pause. We sat, enveloped in the hurt we caused.

I began to feel very ashamed of myself. It was one thing to think everything I had said, another to give those thoughts a voice.

Caleb's dark eyes punctured the swollen wound between us. "I know what you're thinking… that I don't—that I'm not cut out for this. That I don't know the first thing about her. You've said as much and you're not wrong." The rhythmic canter of his admission paused, anxiety and shame squeezing my chest harder. "There's no reason either of you should trust me. There is no reason I should trust you to help me either, especially now that I know exactly how you feel about the situation. This is our reality now, and I'm not walking away. I know you want me to."

He paused again, and I couldn't predict what he would say next. Nothing about this was predictable and I was flailing. Leaping blind-folded onto stones to cross a churning river. I'd fallen in and was muddy with my lack of empathy for Caleb.

I wanted to trust him. I wanted the water to wash away the dirty feeling of distrust.

I thought of Kelsey, and how she must be drowning in her own lake, with no stones to offer reprieve. None but me. She'd come to me. She'd chosen me. And that made me ache to hold her close. To be the rock and sandy shore she had reached for. Kelsey was safe in my home. This I knew for certain. Caleb… he was the other side of the river. The unknown. He could be made of quicksand that would trick and devour Kelsey.

I wanted to believe that he was like me. I wanted to trust that—

Caleb cut through the tumultuous quiet again. "You saw my background check. I'm a pretty open book, too. All these assumptions you're throwing at me—I get it—but maybe get to know me a little. I know she means a lot to you. I can tell from the way you hate me."

"I don't hate you," I started, but now it was his turn to hold up a hand and shut me up.

"If you have the manual on how to navigate this, please share it. But you don't. So, yeah, I'm going to play it by ear and do my best. We can either get along, or not. I thought, with the results, you were going to be more welcoming," his voice trailed.

I bristled because he was right, and I was ashamed, and I had no control of myself. "You seem to have it all figured out, then. So why come to me at all?"

"I don't know. You're involved here, to some extent, and I thought," he stood, "I thought we'd form an alliance." Caleb rubbed his jawline and shook his head.

"You heard the lawyer. I'm no one. "

"Sure, legally, but she came to you when she realized her mom wasn't ever coming back. So, to her, you're everyone. It would be in her best interest if we got along." Caleb stood and tossed his garbage in the bin. "Look, you have my number. Let me know just how involved you want to be in her adjustment. But you're not replacing me. I really mean it when I say that, had I known about her all these years, I would have been to every fucking recital. Front row with a blow horn. Thanks for the deli recommendation."

He left me with a sense of dread and unfinished business. A torturous concoction of emotions that I couldn't define or confine. I took to washing the studio mirrors and floors to get away from the nagging feeling that I should pick up Kelsey from school. Shield her from having to face him in her home so soon.

But for whatever reason—maybe it was the steadfast, piercing eye contact—I believed Caleb when he said he would have been there for her.

Somewhere around two o'clock I texted him a truce. I'm sorry I said those things. Let me show you where the pick-up line is at the high school.

Caleb responded instantly. Forget it ever happened. I'm sorry, too. Need a ride?

Yes, we should show up together. I'm still at the studio.