Chapter 3 #2
She nodded.
“Give me some time to process this. Nothing has to be decided today or even tomorrow, right?”
“Right.” Hesitating, she said, “I’m sorry to do this to you—and to us.”
“You haven’t done anything to me or to us. We’ll figure it out. I don’t want you to be upset.”
“When I think about losing you, that makes me upset.”
He hugged her close. “You haven’t lost me.
I’m right here.” He’d come here wanting to talk to her about his divorce being final, their upcoming first anniversary as a couple, the investment he would be making with his brothers and their families.
She’d thrown him for a loop by telling him she wanted a baby.
He had no idea what to do with that information, but he was going to have to figure it out—and quickly.
“There’s no fool like an old fool,” he said later that night over poker at Frank’s house. Big Mac and his best friend, Ned Saunders, were also there.
“What the hell ya talkin’ ’bout?” Ned asked in his typical blunt style as he signaled for two cards.
Kevin, who’d dealt that round, gave him the cards.
Mac chewed on a nasty-smelling cigar while Frank refilled their glasses with whiskey.
“What are you talking about, Kev?” Mac asked, eyeing his cards shrewdly.
“Chelsea wants to have a baby.”
The cards fell from Mac’s hand, and he barely managed to keep the cigar in his mouth.
From across the table, Frank stared at him.
Ned began to laugh, his deep guffaws echoing off the walls in Frank’s small dining room.
Mac spoke first, after removing the stogie. “You, she… A baby. You’re gonna be fifty-three!”
“Believe me, I know how old I am and how old she is.”
After another long silence, Frank said, “Do you want another child?”
“Truthfully? No, not particularly. But I do want her. She’s… Well, she’s the best thing to ever happen to me other than my boys, and I love every second I get to spend with her.”
“You’d be seventy-one when the kid wenta college,” Ned said.
Kevin scowled at him, and Ned cracked up laughing again. “Glad you find this so funny.”
“’Tis funny,” Ned said. “You’d think so yerself if one a us said it.”
Kevin couldn’t deny that, so he didn’t try.
“What’re you going to do, Kev?” Mac asked.
“I have no idea, but it’s all I can think about since she told me this earlier.”
“She’d never mentioned wanting a baby before now?” Frank asked.
Kevin shook his head. “Not to me.”
“That’s kinda unfair of her to drop this on you outta the blue after a year together,” Mac said.
Kevin felt the immediate need to defend Chelsea. “I think it’s a recent realization on her part, that time is running out, and if she’s ever going to do it, she needs to get going.” He fiddled with a pile of chips on the table, the cards all but abandoned since he dropped his bomb on their game.
“What it comes down ta,” Ned said, “is whether ya wanta spend the rest of yer life with her. If ya do, then yer gonna have to be okay with havin’ more kids. She says she wants one, but once she has one, she’s gonna want another so the first one don’t grow up alone. Ya know how women are.”
He did know, not just from his own life, but from his practice. Babies often came in pairs. “Fucking hell. I’ll be seventy-five with kids in college.”
“But you’d have her,” Frank said gently.
“True.” And that was no small thing to Kevin.
“Just thinka this,” Ned added. “Ya could allocate yer life insurance to their college tuition.”
Mac busted up laughing.
Frank, to his credit, tried to at least hide his smile.
“You’re not helping,” Kevin said to Ned, who was taking far too much delight in his dilemma.
“Oh, sorry,” Ned said, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. “Didn’t know I was supposa be helpin’.”
Kevin smiled and shook his head at his brother’s friend who’d become his friend, too, over the last year. They referred to Ned as the fourth McCarthy brother. “What am I going to do, you guys?”
“To me, it comes down to the relationship with Chelsea,” Frank said. “If you can’t imagine your life without her anymore, then the decision becomes somewhat simple.”
“T’ain’t nothin’ simple ’bout havin’ a baby at fifty-three,” Ned said.
“No,” Frank said, nodding in agreement. “That part is more complicated, but it’s a baby, not a bomb. Imagine the joy you’ll experience bringing a new life into this world. Doesn’t matter how old you are. All that matters is that you’d love that child the same way you love Riley and Finn.”
Kevin contemplated what Frank had said. As always, his eldest brother was full of wisdom. “What if Betsy came to you and said she wants to have another child?”
Frank’s mouth fell open and then closed.
Kevin laughed at his reaction.
“I’m a lot older than you are, and besides, Betsy can’t have more kids.”
“Still, what if she could, and she came to you saying she wanted one?” Kevin asked.
Frank pondered that for a minute. “I love her so much, I’d give her anything she wanted, even a baby.”
“Whoa,” Ned said. “At yer age?”
Frank shrugged. “Like I said, it’s a baby, not a bomb.”
“True,” Kevin said, “but at our age, a baby would be like a bomb dropping in the middle of a life that seemed to be going in a certain direction. Until it wasn’t…”
“I just think…” Mac shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Don’t do that,” Kevin said. “Tell me what you think. I want to know or I wouldn’t have told you guys.”
“My concern,” Mac said tentatively, “is you doing something you don’t really want to so you can make someone else happy.
This is a big deal, Kev, as you well know.
You’ve already raised two kids. You know what it takes to do it right, and if you don’t honestly feel that you can do it right at this age, then don’t do it. ”
“Well stated, Mac,” Frank said.
Kevin looked down at the table where the cards and chips were scattered about. “Sorry to ruin poker night.”
“You didn’t,” Mac said. “Who else are you going to talk to about this besides us?”
“Um,” Ned said, “how ’bout his boys?”
The thought of broaching this topic with Riley and Finn turned Kevin’s stomach. They would not be pleased to hear their father was even considering such a thing. “They’ll think I’m a fool.”
“Doesn’t matter what they think,” Frank said. “They’re grown men who don’t want you meddling in their lives. They owe you the same courtesy.”
“Still,” Kevin said, “we all know their opinion will matter to me, even if it shouldn’t.”
Mac put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “Whatever you decide, we’ll support you one hundred percent. Don’t ever doubt that.”
Frank nodded. “What he said.”
Kevin smiled at his brothers. Their support meant the world to him, but he still had no idea what to do.