8. PRESTON
Chapter eight
PRESTON
FARM ANIMALS AND FREAKOUTS
I thought I was a good guy. A man that prided himself on being honest and kind, and fair, which is why I’m so disappointed in myself, because the second I wake up and the reality of what happened last night sinks in, I freak out and run away. It’s not like we could have had the talk with the guys there, anyway. Really, I should have thought about what it was I wanted before I kissed him. All I know is that with Dean I felt safe. I actually felt like everything was going to be okay and I didn’t want that feeling to end. But if that little girl who ripped my hair out is my child, my life won’t just be about me anymore and what I want. I need to sort out this mess before I even think about what last night was. So I keep running.
I run up the driveway, past the mess of fallen branches, scattered hay, and mud, to my van.
“You out of here?” Perry calls from Sally-May’s garden where he’s hammering back in a few fence panels.
“Yeah, I need to make sure the clinic is okay.”
It’s not a lie; I do have to check on the clinic and the animals we have in.
On the drive back, my mind keeps replaying the conversation with the girl in my clinic. She thinks there’s a chance I could be her father, but Isabel would have told me if she were pregnant, wouldn’t she? Even if she found out after I left, she would tell me. I would have come back. I would have stayed. She would know I would have done the right thing.
I turn down Main Street and spot Isabel with her father in front of the general store, and a fire rises inside my gut. I pull over and climb out before I even register what I’m doing.
“Is it true?” I ask as I storm toward her. Her father, Frank, a tall and broad man who was never a huge fan of mine, steps in between us.
“You better be reigning that temper in, son,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. I never spent much time around Isabel’s father growing up. He was always out farming when I was at her house, and I was smart to leave before he got home. On the few occasions we had interacted, he was pleasant, but there was always that bitterness to his words like he didn’t approve of Isabel and me. Still, even then, he was nothing like this gruff man in front of me right now.
“Isabel, you have to tell me the truth. Is that kid…? Am I…?” I ask, my words tripping over my tongue.
“Preston, what are you talking ab…” Realization must set in because she freezes, her eyes grow wider as tears begin to well. “I’m so sorry, Pres,” she says, using the old nickname she had for me when we were together.
“No,” I interject. She’s cupping her hands over her mouth like she can somehow keep the words, the truth inside. “You wouldn’t keep something this big from me. You wouldn’t do that, right, Izz?”
She bursts into tears. “I’m sorry, Pres. I was going to tell you but…it’s just…”
“What? It was so hard to pick up a phone and call me to tell me I had a daughter, for ten years, it was too hard?”
She grasps her father’s arm and clings to him like a frightened child, and in that moment, I realize, she’s terrified of me.
My stomach churns, and my gaze moves past her to my reflection in the shop’s front window. My hair’s a mess from the night in the barn, but the rage in my heart is also right there on my face, and I don’t like what I see. A switch flicks, and I suck in a shuddered breath.
“I’m sorry, I…”
“Look, son—” her father begins.
“I’m not your son,” I snap back, and he raises one brow.
“Maybe not, but this here is my daughter, and I won’t be having her personal life hashed out in the middle of Main Street.”
“We have to talk about this sometime. It’s been ten years. Don’t you think I’ve waited long enough?” I ask, trying really fucking hard to keep my voice low because more than a few people are now listening in. What did I expect? It’s a small town and small towns just love a good gossip story.
“You waited this long, and you’re right, you deserve the truth, but not here. You need to talk about this properly. Come by the house tonight but be leaving that attitude at home.”
Tears streak Isabel’s face, and while I should care that she’s upset, my heart only has room for the pain of the thought that this is real, she had my child all those years ago and kept it from me. Who the fuck does a thing like that?
“Fine,” I concede, turning on my heel and heading for the clinic.
I close the door to the back area and slump against it, sliding to the floor and clutching my knees to my chest.
Isabel had my child and chose to keep that from me for ten years. I have a daughter. Holy shit, I have a daughter. My mind jumps from joy to anger and back a billion times as I try to make sense of it all.
It’s not that I didn’t want to be a dad one day. I did. I thought I would be. When I met the right person, I figured we’d adopt or do the donor surrogate thing. I don’t know anything about children, human ones, anyway. I can pull a calf simply fine, but I have next to no experience with real human children. What if this kid is like the murder twins? How do I manage that? How does anyone manage that?
The puppies finally register my presence and whine at the edge of their enclosure.
“I know, I know,” I say, pushing myself up and grabbing the bag of kibble from the cupboard. “I’m late for breakfast, but to be fair, it’s been a really weird twelve hours. I helped deliver a calf, fell asleep in Dean’s arms, then ran into my ex who just told me that she had my child ten years ago and kept it from me,” I say as if they have any clue about what I am talking about. I fill up their bowls, feed the parrot and bunnies, too, and then head upstairs to check on Fluffy. Fuck. I’m a dad.
***
I pull in front of Isabel’s father’s house and sit with the van idling for a minute, tightening my grip on the steering wheel and relaxing it over and over as I try to steady my racing heart. I’ve been spiraling between clients all day, only pulled out of the rambling thoughts when a new emergency pushed them briefly aside.
The more I thought about being a dad, the more I’m sure I can’t go into tonight all rage monster like today. Not if I expect Isabel to encourage a relationship between me and my daughter. Fuck, even thinking those words has me buzzing. My stomach is in knots at the idea of meeting her. Well, meeting her properly. What a shit way to meet your father, pulling out his hair for a DNA test. Not exactly a story you’d want to tell the grandkids.
My fingers tighten on the steering wheel. Why does she need the DNA test? Did Isabel tell her I only maybe was her dad. Did Isabel cheat?
It’s like I’ve been kicked in the gut by a horse. I can’t breathe. Isabel’s house starts to go out of focus, and I blink repeatedly, trying to clear my vision.
What if Isabel isn’t sure who the father is? Confirmation would only be needed if there was a chance that there was more than one person who could be the father, right?
I try to focus on the light from the setting sun cresting over the mountains in a warm glow behind the house, and as my breath starts to steady and the glass begins to fog, I remember the man Isabel was with when I visited. Maybe she met him right after I left. “It doesn’t always have to be the worst-case scenario,” I tell myself.
I loved Isabel. I know that I did. While my awakening to my attraction to men came after leaving this small town behind, the love I had for her was real, and the idea that she could have betrayed me hurt more than the thought of her bringing up a child, our child, without telling me. I never said I was a rational thinker.
In truth, I sort of see why she might have kept it from me. We were young, and I had big dreams of leaving this place to experience the world, other places, other animals, and sure, I always said I would then come back when, or if I was ready to take over my dad’s clinic, but a child would have derailed those plans. Shit, they would have completely blown them out of the water. I wouldn’t have gone to vet school. I would have stayed. I would have married her and that would have been my life. Could it have worked in the long run? Given the fact that I am very much a gay man and the love I had for her was the only love I ever felt for a woman, probably not. But then again, lavender marriages work for some people.
“Okay, rational thinking time. What is the best and the worst outcome tonight?” I ask myself. It’s a trick I picked up back when I was in high school. Whenever I had a decision to make or was worried about something that was coming up, I’d think of the worst and best outcome. It wasn’t so that I could try to stop the bad or make the good happen, it was more a way to prepare my brain for the possibilities, which would help me to handle whatever did come.
“Best, this child is mine, Isabel didn’t cheat, she and the child both want me in their lives and I can start learning what the hell it means to be a dad. Oh, and my mom gets to be a grandma.”
That thought brings a smile to my lips and a warmth to my chest that settles my racing heart, just a little.
“Alright, now the worst outcome. Isabel cheated, and the child isn’t mine.”
I let the words sit in the cooling air of the van.
“No. Worst outcome, the child is mine but wants nothing to do with me, Isabel and her family stop me from getting to know her, and Dean… he thinks I ran out on the child before they were born and hates me.”
My eyes sting, and I know for sure that is the worst outcome that could come from this. I remind myself of the best outcome and add in the dream that I find the right man, and we live happily ever after with a bunch of animals and grow old together surrounded by lots of grandchildren.
The porch light comes on, and Frank Mores pushes open the screen door.
“Are you coming in or are you going to stay out there all night?” he calls, and I take a final steadying breath and climb out of the van.
“Good evening, Mr. Mores,” I say, and I’m surprised how much my voice sounds so much like it did when I was a teen coming to pick up his daughter. The nerves swell in my stomach, but I try not to pay them much mind as I reach out my hand for him to shake. He grips my hand firmly.
“Come on in, boy. Isabel’s in the front room.”
“Thanks,” I say, but he doesn’t release my hand. Instead, he pulls me closer to him, his whiskey breath in my ear.
“I know you’ve got a good reason to be mad, boy, but this is still my house, and I won’t tolerate disrespect. Are we understood?”
His grip tightens just a fraction.
“Yes, sir,” I reply with a curt nod.
“In ya go then,” he says, finally letting go of my hand.
I slip off my shoes at the stand and walk through to the front sitting room. Isabel is there with her mother. Her eyes are red, cheeks stained with tears, and her mother’s arm is slung over her shoulder, tapping gently. To look at her, you’d think she’d been crying all day. She could have been. When I saw her this morning she started to cry, maybe she never stopped. She holds her gaze on the old cane coffee table and that urge to protect her, to make everything okay rises up and I want to rush to her, to tell her everything will work out, but I stop myself, because that’s teenage Preston’s voice urging me on, and right now, I need to stay focused. I need to see what end of the outcome scale I land on. Or where in the middle.
I sit in one of the large green chairs opposite them. My foot bounces, and I prop one ankle over my knee to try to keep it down.
“Did you have my child?” I ask, my heart racing again.
Her head nods slowly, and her bottom lip quivers. The fire builds inside me, but I can’t let it surface. Sure, I do have a right to be angry here, but all that will accomplish is scaring Isabel and giving her reason not to want me around my child. A child I’ve already lost way too much time with. So I repeat that thought in my mind and take another breath.
“I want to hear you say it, Izz,” I tell her, and she looks up from her lap, fresh tears falling from her eyes.
“Yes, Poppy is your daughter.”
Her words are like an echo in an empty cave, vibrating through me as the air grows cold.
“Why?”
“I didn’t want to hold you back, Pres.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make.”
She weeps, clutching her hands in her lap.
“We wanted a different future.”
“I wanted you.”
“You left.”
“You broke my heart,” I say standing and pacing the room. It’s far smaller than I remember. I cross back and forth a few times, trying to think of what I would have done if she had told me. Would I have been able to convince her to still come with me? To have a few months of travel before returning to Bellerelle to have the baby and start our life, or would I have delayed, possibly forever my plans to see the world and marry her?
“It broke mine too, to see you go,” she sobs.
I stop in front of the small fireplace on the far wall. It’s lined with photos and I pick up one of Isabel and Poppy sitting on a picnic rug under an orange tree, smiling and happy, and a calm washes over me.
“Can I meet her?” I ask but before she can reply Poppy announces herself.
“Hi Preston,” she says from the doorway, and Isabel quickly wipes her eyes and forces a smile.
My throat goes dry and my heart is stampeding as I step toward Poppy. I’m not really sure what I should do here. Can I hug her? I feel like I want to, but she doesn’t know me, not really. What the fuck do I do?
“Hi Poppy,” I reply kneeling in front of her, which I suddenly think was a stupid idea because she’s now more than a head taller than me; but she smiles and steps closer, lifting her hand out for me to shake.
“I’m glad it was you,” she says as I grip her tiny warm hand in mine. It’s impossibly soft, and I’m worried I’m squeezing too hard, but she’s still smiling down at me, those big eyes, wide and welcoming, just like her mother’s always were.
“Me too.”