Chapter 9
Richard
I listened to Katie’s conversation with her mom with growing horror.
Was I hearing this right? Did she say ‘my son’ just now?
And was the kid sick? Katie had a kid? Wait…
could it? No, it couldn’t, could it? She wouldn’t be that cruel.
She wouldn’t keep my son away from me for all these years, no matter how angry she was at me… would she?
I insisted I drive her, because I wanted to see him with my own eyes. I wanted to confirm. It didn’t look like she was in a relationship. Katie’s not the kind of person to cheat, so I really hoped my suspicions were wrong, and her son was the product of a more recent relationship.
But the way her eyes paled at my request wasn’t helping her cause. She practically ran away from my apartment, and it was obvious that she was doing that to avoid me. She didn’t want me driving her. She didn’t want me seeing her son.
I had half a mind to run after her and to force her to explain things to me, but my legs wouldn’t move.
I dropped down on the couch, deep in thought.
I don’t know how long I sat there, confused, my mind racing with thoughts and possibilities, coming up with scenarios of missed opportunities and lost relationships.
But then, I forcefully snapped myself out of the daze I was in.
No, this won’t do. I need to know the truth.
I guess, in her panic, Katie didn’t realize that I overheard her mentioning the name of the hospital her son was going to be taken to.
I need to go there. I felt almost bad for disrespecting her privacy like this, but I can’t help it.
I really need to go. Besides, if my suspicions were right, then Katie has been disrespecting me in the worst way possible for the past 5 years, so… yeah…I need to leave now.
I drove like a mad man. I needed to get there before they left.
I needed to know for certain. I really hope I’m wrong.
If I am, I’m willing to grovel until the end of my days to gain her forgiveness.
I don’t care if she has a son already. I love her, I always have, and I always will, and I’ll love her son just as much.
He has her blood in him, after all. That’s enough for me.
But if my suspicions are right…if she’d done something unthinkable, then…oh God, I don’t know what I would do, or how I would react.
By the time I reached the ER, they were already coming out. I’d almost missed them. Katie had a little kid in her arms, and she was walking beside an older woman who resembled her. That must be her mom. The kid was sleeping on her shoulder, and I couldn’t see his face properly.
They hadn’t seen me yet, and I used that opportunity to observe them.
Katie didn’t seem stressed out any longer, so I guess the fever wasn’t as bad as they thought it was.
She and her mom were casually talking while walking toward me.
They were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn’t notice me standing in their way.
And just then, the boy in Katie’s arms turned his head in his sleep and sleepily opened his eyes before closing them again, and that’s when I knew.
This was my son. He was the exact carbon copy of me, down to the smallest detail.
Of course, he’s my son. Everything made sense now, why Katie didn’t want me picking her up, why she left the city abruptly 5 years ago, and why now she insisted on booking an uber when the easier option would have been to let me drive her.
She was hiding my son from me. She didn’t want me in my son’s life, and so she didn’t tell me. She thought she had the right to make that decision all on her own.
“You did dump her because you wanted to gallivant around the world”, a small traitorous voice whispered in my ear, and I almost growled at it to shut up before I stopped myself.
Wait, is that what she thought too? That I wouldn’t want my own flesh and blood.
That I wouldn’t take responsibility. We were together for 2 years, and that’s what she thought of me?
She thought she could make that decision for the both of us because she couldn’t trust me?
No, that can’t be. She must have been angry at me for the breakup, and so she practically ran.
That must be the only explanation. I refuse to accept that she thought so low of me.
This is ridiculous. Everything about this situation is ridiculous.
This is not how I should find out about my son.
We’d had freaking sex together. We slept in the same bed until a few hours back, and she thought she could keep something as important as this from me. Ahhhh, I’m going crazy here!
I just stood there, my mind racing, coming up with worse scenarios and reasonings for Katie’s doings, waiting for her to notice me. She didn’t, not until she bumped into me, at least.
She looked up at me, an obvious apology at the tip of her tongue before she realized who was standing before her.
Her mom let out an obvious gasp, and my face hardened even further.
Her mom knew who I was. Of fucking course, she did.
The whole family was in on the conspiracy to keep my son from me, it seems.
No, I need to calm myself. I’m livid, I so am, but I need to talk to her. I need to get some answers. I can’t just start shouting at her. If I did, I know she’d just clamp down, and it’s going to be hard enough to get her to talk as it is.
“We need to talk Katie”, I told her as calmly as I could, given the circumstances. To her credit, she didn’t seem scared (of me), and a part of me was glad about that. She wasn’t afraid of me, no matter how bad the situation was.
She just sighed, realizing that what came next was inevitable.
She passed Connor (that’s my son’s name…
I overheard them) over to her mom before gesturing me toward an empty corridor at the hospital.
I watched her mom walk away with my son with a longing I didn’t realize I possessed.
I was itching to hold him, to get to know him, to, to… .to just…love him.
I’ll get that chance. I’ll make sure I do. For now, I need to talk to his mom to clear a few things.
I followed her until she came to a stop, and turned toward me.
“When were you going to tell me?”, I immediately asked her, because that was the question on the top of my mind right now.
We’ve started dating. We’ve even slept together once, for God’s sake, and she still didn’t think I deserved to know about my son?
I thought she might try to deny the truth, but to her credit, she didn’t. She knew I knew, and she didn’t want to treat me like an idiot by denying it, and I appreciated her for it. It was too little too late, but still, I appreciated it.
“I don’t know”, she quietly responded, the truth of her statement shining in her eyes.
Huh, she really didn’t.
“So, how would this have worked? Would you have continued to keep me from your house, barely shared anything about your personal life, because let’s be honest, from where I’m standing, that little boy right there seemed to take up most of your personal life.
So that’s how our relationship would have gone.
And for how long? How long were you planning on keeping this up?
”, I asked, gesturing wildly, my plan to be calm and get her to talk out the window the minute she gave me such a noncommittal response.
“Look Richard…”, she started again, and I stopped her right there. I don’t want her useless platitudes. I wanted the truth. I was done with her hiding things from me.
“No”, I interrupted her. “I want the truth Katie”, I told her firmly.
She looked me square in the eyes. We held eyes for who knows how long, but there wasn’t a lick of romantic intention in either of our gazes.
This was a stand-off. But finally, Katie sighed, signaling her defeat, looking away.
That small victory should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.
Nothing about all of this is going to make me feel even remotely happy.
The love of my life kept my son away from me.
She didn’t trust me. Now I have to fight her, and do God knows what else to get access to my son.
Will she push me to go to court, because I will if I have to.
I’m not going to find out I have a child and then just let her push me away again. That’s never happening.
But if we did go to the courts, where would that leave me and Katie and our relationship?
What would become of us? So one way or another, was I destined to gain someone important to me (because that little boy already is one of the most important people in my life, and I haven’t even talked to him yet) while I lost another? This sucks!
I heard her let out a long sigh, and I knew she’d finally decided to come clean.
“I was going to break up with you after today”, she quietly said, and I sighed. This keeps getting better and better.
“Are you serious right now, Katie?”, I asked her, incredulity dripping out of my every word, and I don’t know what happened, but that finally triggered a response from her.
Her head snapped up, and now she was angry.
“Am I serious? Really, Richard? Am I serious? Are you for real? Do you really think you can ask me that question? You left me, remember?”, she shouted.
“Doesn’t mean I wanted to leave my son too!”, I shouted back. It was a miracle none of the staff at the hospital had come to throw us out yet.
“How could I have known? You wanted to fucking see the world, that’s what you told me. You gave me diamond earrings like I was a whore you were paying off”
I dropped my head at that, unable to look at her any longer.
“Katie…”, I started, my tone soft again. God, I felt like such a monster.