“Please calm down.” I had to push air through my own constricting lungs to continue speaking. “Are you on the way to the hospital? I can catch a flight first thing in the morning. Or call in a favor and charter a flight if I need to get to Houston sooner.” My parental instincts took over. I had just scheduled a meeting with ESPN tomorrow for a guest correspondence job for an upcoming Rams game, but I would drop everything for my children.
“Why were you never that way with me? Ready to be there for me like you’re there for Sekani.” Her voice was still raised,though now I recognize the slur in her words. She’d been drinking.
“Wait. Is this about you or my son?”
“A son that I decided to include you as a father,” she snarled.
“Don’t start that bullshit. He’s my blood, looks like me, and I would’ve fought you in court and won. Is there something wrong with Sekani or not?”
Joi retorted irritably, “He’s fine and probably still up with his cousins playing video games at my sister’s house. I’m home alone.”
“Then why are you calling me drunk in the middle of the night?”
“Are you alone?”
I closed my eyes, knowing my answer would wound her. Yet, I had no intention of lying to her. “No.”
“I saw the pic you posted of you and that doctor. I knew there was something between you and her. When did you start that up?”
“Joi. We’re not together anymore. I don’t owe you anything about my personal life. We tried and failed. I’ve moved on. You told me you did last year, remember? Told me you met someone, to get out, and I did. Gave you our home without a fight.”
“I want a baby, Carter,” she admitted. “I want to give you what you asked me for.”
I rubbed my head. “No, you don’t. Now you’re grasping at straws because you finally believe I’ve moved on. We had years to have a baby. I accepted you didn’t want another one and focused on the ones I already had. Don’t come at me in the fourth quarter asking for a baby, we both know you don’t want. Ask that man you had lying up next to you for months, or maybe you're back on pussy again. Either way, stop playing with me. You don’t want a baby.”
“I do. Maybe because I’m thirty-eight and never felt a baby growing inside of me. Hated that I let Chelsea talk me into letting her be the one to carry Sekani when I already knew I would be the better parent. I’ve been thinking that maybe we can get therapy and work out our issues. The three of us had fun when we all lived together as a family, and we can again. Sekani hates that he doesn’t see you every day.”
“I hate it too.” I held the phone tighter. “I stayed as long as I did because I didn’t want to have another child of mine not live with me.”
Joi huffed, “Being with me wasn’t just about Sekani. All the love we shared doesn’t just disappear.”
“It didn’t just disappear. Years of an emotional rollercoaster until the love slowly dissipated. I’m not rehashing us at two in the morning because you’re drunk and lonely. Bye, Joi.”
“You don’t miss me at all?” she quickly asked.
“You broke my heart.”
Joi had demons of abuse from her childhood that all my love in the world couldn’t heal, and since she refused to get therapy, she never learned to trust me.
“You broke mine because you blamed me for the end of your marriage,” she hissed.
“Then there’s no reason to continue this conversation, is there? We both need to be with people who won’t hurt us.” I clicked off the cell and turned off my phone, gripping the marble sink. I cursed loudly. Posting that picture of me and Brooklyn set off questions I wasn’t ready to answer.
Deep down, I knew Joi still loved me, and seeing evidence that I didn’t anymore had to hurt. She realized before I did that we wouldn’t make it and that my past behavior toward women triggered her own trauma and paranoia. I’d gotten her ex, Chelsea, pregnant in college and refused to acknowledge the pregnancy because I also had a set of twins on the waywith Chelsea’s former best friend, Darren. A couple of years later, I ran into Chelsea again, who had lost our baby. Feeling remorseful of my actions, I agreed to give her my sperm so that she and her new love, Joi, could have a family. I never planned to be involved in their baby’s life. But once I found out he had sickle cell like my brother, I asked to be involved and to help. Motherhood was hard for Chelsea, especially for a child who had a painful disease. She started cheating and disappearing. I became a support to Joi as a co-parent. One thing led to another, and we fell in love. All while my wife and children were oblivious to this other life I created.
After Chelsea’s initial rage that Joi and I had fallen in love, she stopped pretending she still wanted to be a mother. Once my divorce was finalized, Joi and I became a couple and Sekani’s primary parents. Though we had good times over the years as a family, and I’d remained faithful, Joi couldn’t forget that at one point, I had been this dude who treated women callously.
Movement in the other room interrupted my thoughts.Shit.Brooklyn heard me.
I stepped back into the bedroom. “New York, you not trying to sneak some of my mac and cheese?” For Thanksgiving dinner, we’d both made small pans of mac and cheese, declaring that our respective dishes were the best. Brooklyn won, though I refused to admit it. However, the fact that I still had a pan and hers was gone spoke volumes.
Brooklyn had wrapped my sheet around her naked body and stood by the bed, holding her phone. “I’ve been called in to the ER.”
“I’m sorry.” I rubbed the top of my head. “I only answered because I thought it was about my son.”
Curious lines crossed her forehead as she approached me. She tugged on my beard. “I really do have to get to the E.R. I’m on-call. We can talk later if you want. You have children, andchildren usually come with Mamas. Right now, I need to go to work. I can catch an Uber.”
I frowned. “In the middle of the night? No, darling. I’ll drive you, and whenever you get off, I’ll pick you up and bring you home since you don’t have your car.”
