10. Graham
GRAHAM
I thought the answers would quell the panic in my chest, but I have the answers and a full night of sleep, and I only feel worse.
I mean, of all the people with whom to be producing a child, something I never wanted in the first place: a woman who eats popcorn in bed, seeks financial advice from the homeless, is being “gifted” shit worth thousands of dollars, and who still doesn’t seem entirely sure she even wants the kid.
There’s a piece of me that thinks it would be better not to know, but better for whom?
Not our child, who’d then be raised by Keeley alone, with no supervision.
She probably thinks she can let him sleep in a pile of designer dresses in her closet and feed him Skinny Pop when he cries.
Maybe she’d ask “Mark” to check in on the baby during the workday if she was feeling extra responsible.
And how the hell am I supposed to fix anything when I live three thousand miles away?
When I get back to Newport, my mother grins at me from her seat at the kitchen table.
“ Someone had a late night,” she teases, undeniably pleased.
She’d begun to worry I’d always be alone, something I’d assumed as well and was fine with.
Trust Keeley Connolly to fuck up every one of my carefully laid plans.
I cross the kitchen to the coffee pot. If I admitted where I’ve been, she’d be thrilled.
She’d dance across the kitchen, then hire a skywriter to shout it to the rest of Newport.
But I’m not going to tell her she’s got a grandkid on the way when I have no fucking clue what Keeley’s going to do between now and the next time I see her.
“Anyone special?”
“No, Mom. It wasn’t a big deal.”
Her smile wavers and I get a sudden glimpse of the worst days of my childhood. And possibly a glimpse of my kid’s childhood too.
I won’t fucking stand for it.
I tell my mom I need to pack. I’m already calling my lawyer by the time I hit the stairs.
“I need you to write something up for me,” I tell his voice mail.
Maybe Keeley isn’t the same as my mom, but she might be even worse.
And I’m not fucking living through that again. Neither is my kid.