Surprise Delivery (Page 54)

I feel completely unmoored and adrift right now. I can’t make heads or tails out of what’s going on in my head, and it’s really fucking with me. I know that if anybody can give me some much-needed perspective, it’s my mom. She always knows what to say to get my head back to where it needs to be.

“I’ve learned some things that are going to shock you,” I start. “They shocked the hell out of me and have really knocked me off balance the last few days.”

“I can tell,” she replies. “You seem to be in a darker, angrier place right now. Did something happen with Alexis?”

A wry chuckle bubbles up and out of my throat. “Yeah, in a manner of speaking.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” she says. “You obviously need to get it out, so – get it out, Duncan.”

I chuckle and drain the last of my drink. I get up and pour myself another one, just trying to buy a little time to figure out how to tell her about Aurora. I mean, it’s kind of big news, and I have no idea how to phrase it to soften the blow. As I sit back down on the sofa, fresh drink in hand, I do the only thing I really can do – I tell her the truth.

“I have a daughter, Mom,” I say.

She looks at me, her face blanching, her eyes wide, as the news settles down on her shoulders with all the subtlety of an atomic bomb. She covers her mouth with a hand for a moment, then takes it away, her eyes never leaving mine.

“A – are you certain?” she asks.

I shrug. “Honestly, I’m not certain of anything,” I tell her. “But it all makes sense. I mean, timing-wise, everything seems to line up perfectly. We were together just before I shipped out to Syria, and by the time I got back, she was just about to give birth. I mean, if I’m not the father, it would be one hell of a coincidence.”

“And this honestly never occurred to you before?

I shake my head. “I never really thought about it,” I say. “I saw she was pregnant and thought she was with Brad. I guess I just assumed…”

“My God, Duncan,” she says, her voice a breathy whisper. “Do you know what this means?”

“Yeah, that Alexis has been hiding this from me all this time.”

She waves me off, a wild grin on her face. “It means that I’m a grandmother,” she beams. “At last, I have a grandchild to spoil rotten.”

I stare at her in disbelief. “Seriously? That’s your takeaway from this?”

“Does anything else matter?”

“How about the fact that Alexis has been lying to me for weeks about it?”

“Has she?” she asks. “I mean, did she tell you the name of the father?”

I sit back on the couch and clench my jaw. “No, she didn’t. She always evaded the question,” I explain. “But, a lie of omission is still a lie.”

She shrugs. “I suppose that’s true,” she says. “But what are her reasons for not telling you? Do you know?”

I let out a long breath. “Apparently, she was afraid that I’d hire some expensive hotshot lawyers to take Aurora away from her,” I explain. “Like I would have done that.”

“How was she supposed to know, Duncan?”

“She could have asked.”

“And set herself up for the risk of you doing exactly what she feared you’d do,” she says. “When you were in Syria, she had to deal with being pregnant all on her own. She didn’t know if you were coming back or not.”

“I told her I would be,” I say defensively.

“Duncan, you told me you would be as well, but I honestly didn’t know you were coming home until you called and said as much,” she admits. “That’s a lot of pressure and uncertainty for one person to bear all on their own.”

I run my hand through my hair. This conversation is not going as I’d expected it to go, to be honest. I mean, it sounds petty, but I kind of expected that my mom would be on my side. That she’d be as outraged about not getting the truth of things as much as I am. Instead, it sounds like she’s siding with Alexis.

She laughs softly. “I’m not taking sides, Duncan,” she says.

I cock my head and look at her. “How in the hell did you know –”

“It doesn’t take a mind reader to interpret what that look of frustration on your face is all about,” she explains. “Believe me, I understand why you feel the way you do. I understand your feelings of betrayal and hurt. I really do. But this is a very complicated situation. It isn’t nearly as black and white as you might want to make it out to be.”

“What do you mean by that?”

My mother stands up and walks to the sideboard. She pours herself a glass of scotch and swallows half of it down right where she stands. She waits a minute, drains the glass, and pours herself another one. Only then does she return to her spot on the couch across from me. There’s a light in her eyes I don’t think I’ve ever seen before and a smile that’s pulling the corners of her mouth upward. I look at her curiously, as she’s not one to drink hard liquor, usually. She only keeps it around for me.

“Just a little nip to keep my thoughts straight,” she winks.

I nod and raise my glass. “To keeping our thoughts straight.”

She smiles as we both take a moment to indulge in a sip. There’s a silence between us, but I can feel the energy of excitement radiating off of her like heat off the sun. Her excited energy is palpable and crackling. She really is over the moon about being a grandmother – but, she also knows that she has to help me get my head on straight about this before she can really let the excitement out.

“You sure you can give me an unbiased perspective?” I ask, chuckling low. “I mean, you are pretty damn excited about this.”

“Of course I am. I’ve wanted to be a grandmother for years,” she laughs. “That doesn’t mean that I can’t still give you good advice.”

“No, probably not,” I say.

“What I meant about this not being the black and white situation you think, is that you have to look at it from Alexis’ perspective,” she says. “When you have nothing, you fear everything.”

I smile. “That woman fears nothing,” I say. “She’s as fearless as you are.”

“Outwardly, perhaps,” she says. “Inside is a whole different story though.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were too young to remember anything about how we started off, Duncan,” she says. “You grew up with privilege and a wealthy family.”

“I know that, Mom.”

“But, when we first started out, your father and I had nothing,” she says. “There were months we had to go without just to get by. Most days, we had to scrounge up every penny just to get food on the table. It was a constant juggling act. The stress was unbelievable.”

I know most of this already, but I’m not seeing how she’s connecting it to Alexis, other than the obvious parallel – they had little financial security, much in the same way Alexis does.

“When we were broke, we were constantly terrified, your father and I,” she goes on. “And our biggest fear was that somebody with a pile of money and unlimited resources would be able to swoop in and devastate us. We feared that some rich person would take everything we held dear. Until we actually struck gold, we lived in constant terror all day, every day.”

“But she has to know I’m not like that,” I protest. “Why couldn’t she trust me enough to know that?”

She shrugs. “When you have nothing, and your baby is your whole world, you live in a constant state of fear – rational or not, Duncan. Believe me, I was there. I think I know exactly what she is going through,” she says. “And it has nothing to do with you. It isn’t a reflection of her trust in you or her love for you. It’s a simple reflection of the fears she’s dealing with.”

I sit back and finish off my glass. Intellectually, I understand what she’s saying. I get it. And because I grew up, like I did, I can’t ever really understand what Alexis is going through. I can’t relate to her fears. Growing up, I knew that there was nothing for me to fear. I knew that we’d always be able to hire the best lawyers, and we’d always be able to come out of any situation just fine. At least, that was the belief I had as a child.

That’s not a belief Alexis grew up with. She didn’t grow up with the same security or assurances I did. For her, any setback could be devastating, and she doesn’t have the resources to fight a high-powered legal team. Hell, she doesn’t have the resources to fight a low-rent team of ambulance chasers.

Still, it hurts me deeply to think that she didn’t believe she could talk to me, free of judgment and that she just automatically assumed the worst of me.

That is the part I’m going to have the hardest time reconciling in both my mind and heart.

“Do you love her?” she asks.

I pause for a moment but then nod. “I do,” I confide. “She’s – everything I’ve wanted in another person. She’s amazing to me.”

“Then don’t let her go,” she says. “And don’t reject her for something like this. We so rarely find that person who really connects with us – who becomes part of our soul. What you have is a rare gift. One, not everybody gets. Don’t throw it away.”

I purse my lips and nod, not knowing what else to say. I mean, I know in most respects, she’s right. I’m just having a hard time dealing with the fact that Alexis has been lying to me this whole time. It stings like nothing else I’ve ever felt before.