29. Michael
For a solid minute, I couldn’t move. I stood there in my boxers staring at the door Sarah just left through, wondering what the heck just happened. Her daughter was mine? I rubbed my forehead and tried to make this all make sense. She had kept Emily from me as a means to protect my career? But why? How could she not know that I would have done anything for her? Had I given that bad of a first impression, or did she just think that little of me?
I snatched my slacks off the ground and slid them on as quickly as I could, then grabbed my shirt and raced toward the door. With any luck, I could catch her before she got too far away. There was no way she was dropping a bomb like that and then just walking off.
I stubbed my toe on the coffee table and yelped in pain, limping as I opened the door. The brisk breeze chilled me instantly as I stepped onto the porch and looked in both directions, but I didn’t see her. So I raced to the street as I slid my arms into the crumpled sleeves of my button-down, and in the distance, several blocks away, I saw her walking.
“Sarah!” I shouted, not even caring if the neighbors heard me. “Sarah!”
I could barely make her out. She turned in my direction and stopped, and a black sedan pulled up. I moved toward the car quickly, my bare feet pounding the sidewalk. If I were only closer, I would be able to tell what expression she had on her face. I was angry and flustered, hands shaking as I ran them through my hair, and all I could think about was how hurt I was that she had kept this secret.
The car sped off down the street, and I saw Sarah looking out the rear window. She was crying, wiping her eyes, and covering her mouth as she watched me chase the car, but after a half a block, I knew it wasn’t stopping. I had no clue where she was going, either, or I’d have gotten in my car and chased her. But by the time I got back to my place, got my shoes, wallet, and keys and got in the car, the Uber would have been gone. So I watched it turn a corner and disappear.
The amount of anxiety my body was feeling was ridiculous. My entire torso shook with violent tremors. I felt like I was shivering from the cold. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. My vision was blurred. I made my way across my lawn, getting my socks soaked with dew already this evening. Never in my life had I been hit with such a bad physical reaction to any situation.
I stumbled through my front door and had to sit on the couch just to catch my breath. My mind raced with all manner of thoughts, anger and frustration, fear and shock. And somewhere under all of that, the same ember of happiness and hope still remained. I searched for it, finding the tiniest thread of that feeling I’d felt only a few moments ago, and I tried to hold onto it so it didn’t get lost in the sea of emotions coursing through me. I thought Sarah was pregnant, and for that brief moment, it made me the happiest man alive. I had to keep that feeling in mind, the one that brought me so much happiness. I had to.
When my hands stopped shaking long enough to hold my phone, I tried calling her. Four times I rang her, one right after the other, and she didn’t pick up. Each time, it went to voicemail, which meant she’d likely turned her phone off. After blurting out news like that, who could blame her?
I finished dressing slowly and decided I couldn’t just sit here. I’d just received world-changing news. I needed some air, or a drink, or a long talk with Sarah. Definitely a long talk with Sarah. Which was why I decided the only logical thing to do was to drive to her parents’ house and sit down and talk with her. If she wasn’t home when I got there, I would wait, and I didn’t care how angry that made her father. I now understood why he screamed at me and said things that made no sense. He’d known about this all along.
The drive across town gave me time to think and calm down, but walking up the sidewalk toward the house, I began to shake again. The last thing I wanted was another confrontation, with her or her father. I deeply loved Sarah, and it hurt that things had blown up. I blamed myself for being irrational and letting my temper flare. Normally, she was able to calm me, but she had so much on her mind, even she snapped. I should have stayed calmer, and I should have told her about the promotion sooner. She’d figured it out somehow, and that was why she’d blown up.
I knocked and waited, and moments later, Sarah’s sister opened the door. On her hip, a young girl with warm, dark eyes and a smile that matched my own clung to her. My heart melted instantly, the urge to reach out and touch my daughter almost too strong to resist.
“I, uh…” Sarah’s sister mumbled. Her eyes were wide in surprise, and she backed away, looking around the room frantically. “Dad?”
“Yeah,” he snapped from somewhere in the house, and then I watched him round the corner and approach the door. He had a stern look on his face and a newspaper rolled up in his hand.
“Christ,” he mumbled, and I felt the sentiment, but I never took my eyes off Emily.
“May I come in?” I asked, and Emily looked straight at me. It was startling how much she looked like me, and I realized exactly why Sarah never wanted to show me pictures. I’d have had questions she couldn’t answer.
“Take her upstairs,” Mr. Bennett rumbled, and his younger daughter grimaced at me before turning and heading toward the steps. Emily watched me, though, curling her fingers up and down in a timid wave. It made me smile as Mr. Bennett said, “Come in.”
My feet felt like lead as I stepped into the house. It was like walking into the 90s, wallpaper and a plaid sofa, Berber carpet and a wood-burning fireplace. It was cozy and well-kept, but my eyes trained on the back of the child’s head. Dark hair like mine swayed as she bounced on her aunt’s hip.
Mr. Bennett walked over and sat in his recliner and gestured at the couch, so I sat adjacent to him and wrung my hands in my lap. I felt more like a child who was about to be scolded than a thirty-eight-year-old man whose partner just confessed that she’d hidden a child from him for almost five years. Her father was a monstrous man, looming, dark eyes staring into my soul. And his words last week made that much more sense now. He thought I’d run out on her when she was pregnant with Emily when in fact, I hadn’t known at all.
“Why are you here, Doctor?” He scowled at me, and I could tell he wasn’t in the mood for small talk at all. That was good, because I wasn’t either, though being in this man’s presence had managed to squash a lot of my anger which may have otherwise come out in shouts or wild hand gestures.
“I want the truth. Sarah just… Well, she just told me something that shocked me to my core, and I want to know what’s going on.”
“Well, then you know about as much as we do. Where is Sarah? She said she would be at your house.” The older man’s scowl only deepened. “I think you should be talking to her.”
I rubbed my forehead and my chest constricted. It felt like a snake wrapped around me and was suffocating me. I didn’t want to wait for answers until she got back from wherever she went. I wanted answers now. I needed to know why she would hide such a huge secret from me, then come back into my life and not tell me.
“With all due respect, sir, I’ve waited a very long time to learn I have a daughter, and I would like to know what you know. I don’t know that my heart can take this much longer.” My hand shook as I brushed my hair back and looked him in the eye. Such a formidable man, he intimidated me, which acted like a governor over my reactions. I was thankful for that.
He huffed out a sigh and sat back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. “All I know is that Sarah never told you she was pregnant because she knew you were up for a job out of state. She said she could never put a roadblock in the way of your career because of a moment where you both made a poor choice. She accepted the blame and the responsibility because she cared about your future.”
Hearing the same story out of his mouth that I heard Sarah herself say was a double-whammy. Sarah had really accepted all the blame and responsibility to ensure my future wasn’t derailed because of our night of passion? Why would she do that? It didn’t make sense. I would have done that for her. Even sitting in this chair, I’d still do it. But she had so much ahead of her too.
“I don’t know what to say…” My mind was boggled, unable to think at all.
Until the front door opened and Sarah burst in looking panicked.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, and I stood to face her. We all froze and stared at each other, not sure what to say. All I could do was stare. She did all that for me? How could I be mad at her?