Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

HER — PRESENT DAY

The air kicks on in the small kitchen, filling the silence with the sound of white noise. Though I hear it, I don’t move, don’t look over. Instead, my gaze is locked entirely on Calvin and the devastation etched there in his features.

“Okay.” My voice sounds shaky and unfamiliar. No positive conversation has ever started with I need to tell you something and certainly not on Friday the thirteenth. “What is it?”

He rubs his lips together aggressively and takes hold of my arm, nudging me backward. “Let’s sit.”

“Let’s not,” I snap. I’m tired. My back hurts. My feet hurt. My hips hurt. This baby is pressing on my lungs and bladder in equal measure, and if he’s about to take the one thing I’ve been looking forward to away from me, I’m not going to accept it with a smile. “Tell me right here.”

His thumbs smooth over the skin of my arms, and I grip on to the wooden kitchen chair to my right for support.

“Why can’t we go?”

Slowly, with a look that reeks of regret, he drops his hand and pulls out his phone. “I got an email today.”

“From the dean or something? We’ve had this trip planned for over a month now. You said it was already approved.”

Scratching his temple, he looks down at the screen, swiping through it before he looks back at me. “It was…” His eyes search mine, seeking answers I can’t provide. A reassurance I can’t muster in my gut. “Look, I had no idea, okay? When I got to work, I had an email from someone who claims…” Another sigh. A puff of air that feels charged with pain. “She says she’s my daughter.”

Ice water splashes across my skin as I stare at him, processing the impossibility of his words. “Your daughter.” It’s all I can bring myself to utter.

He nods. “I guess she found me through the university. I had no idea…” He trails off, and I’m not sure how he was planning to finish that sentence.

“You had no idea she existed or no idea she’d contact you?” I glare at him. If I was talking to my mother, she’d say this is the sort of thing you get when you jump into a relationship with someone you hardly know, but I do know Cal. I know who he is. I know how he loves me.

A year ago, I met him in class, and there was an instant connection. Getting pregnant so quickly wasn’t exactly in the plan, but I wouldn’t change it now. At least if you’d asked me seven minutes ago, that’s what I would’ve said.

Now, I don’t know what to think. Everything feels different. Wrong. Ruined, somehow.

“I had no idea she existed.” He smooths a hand across my back. “I swear to you.”

“But you believe her? You think she’s telling the truth?”

He looks down, running his tongue over his bottom lip. When he looks back up, his nod is subtle. “Her story lines up, yes. There was a girl I dated back in high school, but we lost touch after graduation. I left for college, and she stayed in our hometown. She…” He runs a hand through his hair. “She tried to call me a few times, but once I was in school, I thought the best thing to do was have a clean break. I knew I was never going back there, and I didn’t want to make her think there was a chance for us.”

Reminiscing on his past relationship is about as comfortable as washing my face with sandpaper, but I push forward with the questions anyway. “And where is she now? Have you spoken to her? Confirmed that this girl’s story is even true?” Briefly, an image flashes through my mind—a snapshot in time of our future wedding, his ex sitting in the front row, next to a daughter neither of us knew anything about. How can this be possible? “The woman? Did you try to reach out to her? The girl’s…mother.” My hand goes to my stomach again as I feel our daughter kick. Suddenly, what once seemed so intimate and special about our relationship has been wiped away as quickly as chalk on a chalkboard. A distant memory. Moments ago, I had the unique privilege of carrying his child. Now it’s possible someone else had that privilege first.

With a long breath, he reveals, “No, she, um, she died. But before she passed, she showed the girl pictures of me, told her about me, I guess. And, now that she’s older, she decided to find me. She’s living in Nashville now, too, actually. She said she wants to get to know her father.”

I suck in a sharp breath, processing everything he’s told me in such a short time. “She died.”

He nods, his lips drawn into a tight line. “Yeah. Several years ago, apparently. When the girl was young. I hadn’t heard, but I looked up her obituary after the girl—um, Janelle —after Janelle told me. It’s true, from what I can tell.”

“Janelle is…the daughter? Your daughter?”

His nod, the truth in it, shatters my heart. “I’m so sorry.”

I know sitting with your feelings and being open about everything is all trendy and hip now, but honestly, I’m not that person. I hate being sad. I hate crying. I hate dealing with my feelings in any way if I can avoid it. It’s not totally healthy, I get that, but it’s always served me well until this pregnancy, which seems to have taken the reins on my emotions, forcing me to be vulnerable in a way I never have. Still, I force away the sadness bubbling in my gut like a shaken can of Sprite.

Really, what does he have to be sorry for? It’s not like he lied. This isn’t an affair. He didn’t know any more than I did, but still, I feel betrayed. When his hand reaches forward for my arm, I jerk away on instinct. “What are you going to do?”

“I…” He pauses, rebounding from the retraction. “I don’t know, I guess. I wanted to talk to you before I did anything.”

“But you don’t want to go on vacation anymore, so clearly you’ve made that decision on your own.”

His face wrinkles as he leans toward me, struggling to understand. “I assumed you wouldn’t want to.”

“This is the last trip before the baby comes. And once the baby’s here, we won’t have time for a trip for just the two of us for a long time. No honeymoon. Nothing. I don’t know what the rest of this will mean. I need time to process, but if we’re going to do it, I want to go on the trip that we planned. We can’t let this derail everything. We both said we need this vacation.”

The wrinkles on his face smooth out as he processes what I’ve said. “You still want to go? Together?”

I don’t know. The truth is I don’t know anything, but I refuse to let her win like this. I refuse to hand him over just because this daughter has come out of nowhere to disrupt our lives.

Our daughter deserves his attention, as do I. “Yeah. I do.”

He leans forward to kiss my lips, and I let him, though it’s unenthusiastic.

“And I want to meet her,” I tell him. “Before the baby, but after the trip.”

“Whatever you want.”

It’s funny, though. I don’t want any of this.