The Baby Connection

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“I should have verified, I guess….” She cleared her throat, looked away, then back. “See, the thing is—” She blew out a breath. “Okay, I’ll just say it. I got pregnant that weekend.”

“You what?” His brain glitched, shorting out his thoughts like so many bad fuses. “You got…? But you told me—”

“That I had birth control handled, yeah. I thought I did. It’s a long story. I was between methods, but I wasn’t supposed to be able to get pregnant in the first place. I’m not a careless person and I felt really stupid about it, so…” She paused. “Forget all that. The point is…Daniel is your son.”

“My…son?” He felt as though someone had shoved him hard. He took a step back to stay upright. He looked at the kid in Mel’s arms with the same round curls he had, its color halfway between Mel’s black and his brown. The kid even had his dimple, he realized with a jolt.

As if on cue, the little boy reached out his arms, straining for Noah.

“You can hold him,” Mel said, as if to reassure him.

Noah accepted the kid—small, but dense, a solid weight on his good arm. The little boy patted Noah’s cheeks. “Da-da,” he said. “Da-da.”

Noah’s jaw sagged. “He knows?”

Mel burst out laughing. “D is one of the first sounds babies make,” she said. “He calls everything da-da—me, the dog, my mother. Cheerios even.” Daniel leaned toward his mother, so Noah handed him back.

“Oh, okay. Good.” Did he mean good? Good that Daniel didn’t know Noah was his father? That sounded bad. Damn. He was in deep weeds here.

“You must have thought I was an asshole ignoring you like that.”

“But you didn’t. You wished me well and said I’d do great.”

“I meant with your job, Mel, not…that. Christ, you were having a baby. That I…uh…caused.” He cleared his throat. “I should have been there.” He seemed to be walking on ground that could disappear beneath his feet.

“No. That’s the point. I didn’t consult you about what you wanted. I didn’t need you.” She hesitated. “I mean, I didn’t want you to feel obligated. I knew you never wanted kids. And I took full responsibility on my own.”

“Okay. I get it. I just… Hell.” He was stranded in a weird limbo. He always knew what to do. Here, he was stumped. “So, how old is he?”

“Almost a year. His birthday’s the twenty-fifth. He’s small for his age—he came a little early—but he’s very healthy.”