I never thought of what he did as ruining my family. Sure, it was a really shitty thing to do, cheating on my mom for some fun at a polo party one night when he was away, but I never chose to see him directly as the villain. In fact, I saved that title for my mother. I couldn’t resent her for leaving my dad, but I could resent her for leaving her daughter. It scarred me too deeply to consider that I wasn’t enough to make her stay. My dad was the only person in the world I could say I loved, and I held on tightly to that. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not. How is your mom, by the way?”
“How’s yours?” I shot back without realizing it.Shit.I hadn’t heard about his mother in years. I had no idea where she was; just that she was a world traveler.
Jack didn’t answer. He just shrugged.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” I closed my eyes and silently cursed myself.
“It’s fine. She’s traveling in…God, I don’t even know where she is now.” Jack ran a hand through his golden locks.
“Oh.” There was that guilty feeling in my gut again.
“Like I said, it’s fine,” he replied sharply. Our conversation felt immediately cut off by the tension that rose from his tone. I inhaled a breath and stared out the window for a few minutes before gaining enough courage to speak again.
Maybe we were kindred souls, Jack and I. The connection that our mothers were absent and elsewhere comforted me. Like two sparks in a tube, connecting as one.
“I haven’t spoken to my mom since she left us thirteen years ago.” I didn’t mean it as a pity statement. Jack deserved to hear the truth.
“Shit…” Jack’s head dropped before he focused back on the road. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
“I’ve come to terms with it. I don’t hate her, but I think that’s why I can’t resent my dad for what happened. He’s all I have.”
“That’s not true anymore, Maggie.” Jack’s right hand left the steering wheel to grasp mine. “You have two more people in your life who will stay with you no matter what.”
“Two?”
“Me,” he slid his hand over to my stomach. “And this baby.”
My heart caught in my throat.Two. Jack and our baby. I hadn’t even considered that I carried a living being that would love me. It made my skin tingle with gratitude.
“I really appreciate you, Jack.” My voice was raspy.
“Me too.” There was a slight moment when his eyes left the roadto meet mine, when it felt like it really could be Jack and Maggie. Not just Jack and Maggie because of a baby.
It was the lack of discipline and self-control that scared me the most. Between the two of us, control over our feelings, our actions, our desires…it wasn’t guaranteed. Navigating an entirely new path of life together brought people close. Bonded them forever.
The only way to go about it was to put up a massive wall between us…physically, of course. We needed to get to know each other as well as possible before the baby came, but I refused to let myself get into any situation in which I felt compelled to do anything with Jack.
Luckily, the tension between us subsided throughout the rest of the drive. Jack and I made infrequent small talk through the hours, but the overwhelming feeling of unknowingness overtook me again. I felt like I needed an entire document full of information, plans, and processes for everything. There were doctors I needed to call to begin appointments throughout my pregnancy, possibly another source of income to find to support those appointments, and everything I needed to buy for the baby. I needed to make a list of everything I needed to do when I got there…God, there was so much.
Jack must have sensed my anxiety because he reached over the console to grasp my hand. My eyes traveled down to meet our intertwined fingers and lingered for a moment before I dragged my gaze to his face. “You okay?”
“No,” I confessed breathlessly. “Jack, there are so many things we’ve barely thought about. And there are a million more that we haven’t even talked about.”
“Then let’s talk about them. You got a notebook?”
Indescribable relief fled through my body. The fact that Jack was entirely serious about taking responsibility and stepping up as a father lifted the pit further out of my stomach. I reachedfor my bag on the floor behind my seat and pulled out the same notebook I had planned to write a list of what to do with the baby I had no idea how I would handle a few days ago. It was baffling how much could change in less than a week. I flipped past the page without a second thought and titled the top of a new page: “Baby Plan.”
“Okay, what’s first on the list, Baby Mama?”
I chuckled. “Baby Mama? Is that my new name?”
“May as well address you as such. You’re carrying a damn good one if it’s my DNA.” Jack followed with a smile. He was trying to build me up, and I appreciated him for it more than he knew. Deep down, he was probably as terrified as I was, but he was performing the same charade of putting on a strong face for his partner. The shift of our relationship in the last few days was wild. Jack went from my fling to my boss, to my partner and future co-parent.
I swear my life was a soap opera.
“Well, I want to figure out the overall plan. We’ll be here for most of the pregnancy, so I’ll find an OB for my doctor’s appointments. I was thinking of finding some sort of part-time work to pay for the appointments and all the baby stuff we have to buy.”
