“Like I said, it isn’t happening today. I was only talking with them. I would have told you before I did anything.”
“Well, I’m saying no. No fucking way. We’re having this baby.”
“It’s not your decision to make.”
“The hell it’s not.” I stride over to her and put my hand on her belly. “This is my child. My son or daughter. I fucking love you, Dev. We can do this.”
She swallows. “I love you too, but it doesn’t change anything.”
I choke up. It’s the first time she’s said she loves me, even though I’ve known it all along. I want to pull her into my arms and never let her go. But this is my baby we’re talking about, and at the moment, I’m the only one fighting for it. “Fine. Don’t be a mother. But let me be a father.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’ll raise it alone.”
“You want me to have the baby and give it to you? You said you can’t even be trusted to take care of a dog.”
“This is different, and you know it, and if it’s the only way this will work, then yes.”
“But then I couldn’t… we couldn’t. I couldn’t be with you if you were raising it.”
“I want you both, but it looks like I can’t have both. If you abort this baby, I can’t be with you. If you can’t be a mother, then you can’t be with us.”
“Aaron.” She looks terrified.
“It’s a pickle, isn’t it?”
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re doing nothing right now. We’ll go home and get some sleep. You’ll think about it. I’ll think about it. We’ll come up with something that doesn’t involve this clinic.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
I take her hand. “I don’t want to lose you either.” I kiss her on the forehead. “It’s going to work out one way or another.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Nothing about this is going to be easy, Dev.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Devyn
I stare up at the stars. Why did I agree to this? How can Aaron and I even be in a relationship if we want totally different things? I spent hours staring at the ultrasound photo tonight. Aaron left me alone, but he didn’t leave me. He’s sleeping on the couch or in one of the guest rooms. He probably thinks I’m going to run. Honestly, where would I run to?
“Couldn’t sleep either?” Aaron asks, climbing through the window and onto the roof.
“You keeping tabs on me? I’m not going to run away, you know. Not right now anyway.”
“But you might.”
“I might have to leave. You understand that, don’t you? How could I stay if I have the baby and hand it over to you?”
He lies down next to me on the blanket. “There’s an easy answer, Dev. Stay and be a part of its life. Be a part of my life.”
“My dad used to call me Dev. He’s the only one who did.”
He looks confused. “Your dad? But you hate him.”
“Ed DeMaggio is not my dad. Never has been. I don’t care what the legal papers say. Richard Dunlop is the man I call my father.”
“Ah, Dunlop. No wonder you came up with the name so quickly. Tell me about him.”
“You already knew Ed wasn’t my birth dad, but you probably don’t know that Roseanne wasn’t my birth mom.”
He rises on an elbow. “Actually, I do. I read it in one of the articles I found about you.”
“Richard wasn’t my birth father either. He and Roseanne adopted me when I was six.”
“So Ed was Roseanne’s second husband?”
“Yes. I’ll get to that. I never knew my birth father, and I have little memory of my birth mother. Roseanne told me my birth mother was addicted to heroin. Apparently, she tried to take care of me, but social services kept getting called, and after being placed in dozens of foster homes, she finally gave up her rights to me when I was five, and I was placed for adoption. All I remember of her is a bunny she gave me. It’s the only thing I got to take when I went to live with Richard and Roseanne.”
“That’s got to be tough on a little kid.”
“I don’t remember much, but after I was adopted, everything changed. Richard was an amazing dad. He took me to the ballet and soccer games and taught me to play drums. He kept a set in the garage. Mom hated it, but it was his one vice. I think it was how he escaped her.”
“Escaped her?”
“She was always sleeping. She’d sleep for days on end. Sometimes weeks, only leaving her bedroom to get a bottle of liquor she called her “soda.” Then she’d get a burst of energy that would last a day or two. Those days were my favorite. She’d take me to an amusement park, or we’d ride with the top down on her car, and she’d let me sit in the front seat. But other than that, she didn’t pay much attention to me. I got the idea that Richard was the one who wanted a child, not her. She played along when he pushed her, but when he wasn’t home, we barely even talked. But I didn’t care about all that because he was filling up my life in ways it had never been filled.”
“Sounds like your mom was bipolar.”
“People assumed she was a moody housewife. But a year later, Richard died. He was flying across the country for work and got some fluke blood clot in his leg that traveled to his heart or something.”
“Jesus, Dev. The hand you’ve been dealt. Are you sure you want me calling you that?”
I smile. “It reminds me of a happy time in my life—one of the few I’ve had.”
“What happened after he died?”
“She stayed in bed all the time. I was barely seven, and I had to cook my meals and make my lunch. The bus stop for school was at the end of the block, so I walked. Nobody ever knew she wasn’t being a mother to me. After six years in and out of foster care, I was basically used to taking care of myself.”
“How does a woman like that end up with a guy like Ed?”
“A teacher called social services when I missed the afternoon bus and Mom didn’t show up to get me. After that, she agreed to go on medication. Sometimes she took it, sometimes she didn’t. Then she met Ed, and everything changed. She was happier than I’d ever seen her. He doted on her and tolerated me, but they had a good relationship. As a result, she became the mother I needed, and for the first time in years, life was normal again. Until they had Kasey, their biological child. Mom went back into a depression after having her. Ed hid it from everyone. He was positioning himself for politics, a former district attorney working as chief of staff for some senator. He was afraid if people found out about her, his career would suffer. I’d hear them talking behind closed doors. He begged her to stay on her meds. She would tell him how numb they made her feel. Wanting to please him, she faked taking them, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. We could tell by her behavior.
“I was barely fifteen when I became Kasey’s primary caretaker. We did everything together. She was more like my daughter than my sister. Even Ed knew it. When he decided to run for congress, he announced he was adopting me. I was young, but I saw right through him. He wanted people to think he was a family man, willing to take on a teenager that wasn’t his, and it worked. He was elected.”