Page 39 of My Redneck Baby Daddy

"I am thirty-two years old." My voice was shaking and but I didn’t care. "I have a job I'm good at and a house with my name on the deed and a car that's paid for. I haven’t asked either one of you for a dollar since I was twenty-three. I’m not a teenager who got caught, and I’m not gonna stand in my own kitchen and be handled like one."

"Nobody’s handling you. We want what's best for you."

I huffed. "What's best for me, or what makes you comfortable?"

My daddy's mouth closed.

"He hasn't run off," I said. "He doesn't even know yet. And I’m not going to sit here and let you decide what kind of father that man’s going to be based on what his daddy was."

And then I heard it.

That had been exactly what I’d done to him. In this house, over that counter, nine days ago. I’d looked at Bobby Jo Maddox and seen Danny Joe standing there.

I sat back down fast.

"Charles." My mother had not raised her voice one time. "Sit down."

He sat.

"I still have my concerns," she said. "I am not pretending otherwise, and Rue knows I'm not. But our daughter is pregnant, and what she needs from us right now is parents. Not a jury."

My father looked at the table a long moment, and when he lifted his head some of it had gone out of him.

"What do you need, Rue?"

"I don't know yet."

"That's fair."

"I'm going to tell him tomorrow. In person."

He nodded. Then, carefully, he murmured, "And if he don't step up?"

I thought about it. I made myself actually think about it instead of saying the brave thing fast.

"Then I'll still be okay, daddy. That’s how you and mama raised me." I said.

My father looked at me for a second longer than he needed to, and something in his face changed. Not about Bobby Jo. About me.

I called Regina from my driveway the next afternoon and got Hamilton's voice in the background.

"He's home," Regina said. "Hold on."

"Everything all right?" Hamilton asked.

"Everything's fine."

"Rue."

"Hamilton," Regina said, in the voice.

"Fine. Ain't my business." A pause. "But if you're looking for Bobby Jo, he's at the yard. He's been there past dark every night this week."

My chest felt tight at Hamilton’s words. "Thank you."

There was a silence on the line, and I could hear Hamilton putting it together.

"Now hold on a minute," he said. "Is she..."