12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

When I got ready to leave, someone caught the elevator and held it open at the last minute. It was unfortunate that when the doors opened again fully, it was Rich standing there. “Aviva,” he offered my name as a quiet greeting as the doors shut once more and sealed us in the box together.

“You couldn’t wait for the next one?” I asked.

“I wanted to walk you down to your car and make sure you got there safely. I swear, I didn’t know all this was going on. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What good would that have done?”

“I could have stopped them from this madness before you got hurt.”

“I got hurt the minute you walked out on our dinner and cleared your things out of my apartment without saying anything to me – like a coward.” Before he could say anything in response, I thought better of that. “That’s not true. I got hurt in the very beginning, when you lied to me about who you were and whether you were available. The pain from that moment was just a delayed reaction that hit me when I was slapped in the face with the truth.”

He sighed. “You’re right. I panicked and handled everything wrong. I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t mean anything now, but I choose you. I want you Aviva, still do, if you’d have me.”

“You have got to be kidding me!” I growled at him. “After everything you have put me and your family through, you think I’d ever look twice at you again as anything other than someone I loathe? It’s bad enough you’ll be in my life forever because of our daughter, the last thing I want to think about is another romantic fling with you until you get bored with me and go looking for the next best thing, same way you did with your wife. Besides, I don’t have a whole lot of faith in you being a standup father to our child, considering how you barely are present for the two you already fathered.”

“That’s not my choice,” he insisted rather loudly.

“You’re their father, if you acted like it, your wife would welcome the relief of splitting parenting duties, especially since she’s pregnant and doesn’t have the energy to keep up by herself right now. I would know. Some days are overwhelmingly exhausting for me even without two other children to chase after all day and night.”

He seemed stunned by that. “Let me guess, you never gave her a break when she had the others either. You probably felt super neglected that she was always too busy with them, or too tired to do for you, when you felt needy. It’s crazy because if you ever thought about your wife, and giving her just a little bit of a break, she would have done more for and with you. She was just too freaking tired and didn’t have anything left in her tank.”

“I didn’t…” It was all he managed to say before he shook my recriminations off. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Wouldn’t you?” I chuckled because he didn’t even see how his actions already proved his worth. “You already left me high and dry. You have never once asked what you could do for me since finding out I’m carrying your child. You’ve only asked me to do things for you – like forgive you, be with you, forget about all the lies you told me and how you left me with not even a word about what was going on. You’re a selfish prick. I used to think you were such a wonderful man and now I’m wondering how I could have ever deluded myself so much.”

When he seemed ready to argue, I held my hand up to him. “One day, someone is going to have to explain to my daughter how she came to belong to such a broken family. If by chance the baby Mel is carrying is yours, I will have to explain to my daughter how it came to be that she was born a month before the child you had with your wife. The burden of explaining that to my child without looking like a home wrecking whore will fall on me. Mel will have to explain it to her child. They might end up resenting one another. And we have to find a kind way to do all this explaining so that their image of the man they will know as their father won’t be tainted more than it needs to be. They don’t deserve to know you’re the selfish bastard who did this to all of us because you couldn’t control yourself or tell the truth. They’ll figure that out for themselves just by the way you treat them. I suggest you get your priorities straight and stop worrying about who is doing what to make you feel good, and instead focus on the people who count – your children. They’re the only ones you have a shot in the dark at keeping in your life in a meaningful way, make it work.”

After my confrontation with Rich, I went to go see my mother. She was the one thing holding me together and I wondered how much longer she would be around. Her health had been deteriorating faster than expected. It made me wonder if she would even be around to see my daughter born and that was an impossible concept to wrap my head around. She was the last of my family, besides the baby I carried. My heart ached just thinking about not having her around to ask questions. What if the baby woke in the middle of the night screaming and I couldn’t get her back to sleep? Who would be there for me to ask if I should take her to the doctor or if I was just panicking because I was a new mom who couldn’t stop worrying?

“Hey Mom,” I called out as I walked into her house and smelled beef stew cooking. “Something smells absolutely divine in here.”

I heard her chuckle from where she stood stirring a pot in the kitchen. “Figures, food would lure you back home. Probably smelled this all the way from that stuffy office job of yours.”

“I love my job. I love your beef stew more.” I leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek. It felt cool to the touch. “You need to rest your bones, though. I’ll take over from here.”

“Of course you will, now that I did all the hard work. I’ll let you this time because it looks like you need a win, today.”

“Actually, I had a few.” I told my mother about the day I had and she listened without saying a word.

“About time he admitted that he was the one at fault. The coward should have done it the first day. Still, don’t you think it would be better to have the baby’s father in your life in an official capacity?”

“Are you suggesting that I should marry him?” My mother pursed her lips and rolled her shoulders back as if gearing up for a fight. “Then I’ll remind you that he’s already married, a coward, and I don’t want him. He’s proven himself to be unworthy. My daughter will be better off if he refuses to see her, to be honest.”

“That’s probably true. No telling what kind of hussy he’ll go for next.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

She made a noise and swished my words away with the flick of her hand. “The man can only make so many step ups in life before word gets around. I figure he had a good thing with that wife of his before he screwed it up and then he had a good thing with you. It proved too much of a good thing, since he didn’t tell the truth about the wife. He can only date down from here because no good woman will want him. Tainted goods,” she declared and slapped her hand down on the table as if passing judgment with a righteous gavel.