“Maybe you should get dressed first…” he says,
gesturing at me.
And it’s true. I’m just wearing a T-shirt. His.
And to think I didn’t used to like sitting around the
house half nude all day. I was normally always
dressed and wearing make-up all the time. But
now my life has taken on a new direction and I feel
like a new person.
I feel like myself.
I put on some sweats and a jacket and go to the
door where Patrick is waiting for me impatiently.
“It’s cold down there.” He puts on a hat and
wraps himself up in a scarf.
We pass through the pub which is closed and go
through the main door. We stand on the sidewalk
and stare at the street for a while until I look at him
sideways.
“So?”
“Don’t you see anything?”
I look around again.
“Nothing, except that parking lot.”
He doesn’t answer, and so I look again and in
his eyes, there’s a spark.
“I don’t understand,” I continue, as he takes a
remote control out of his pocket and unlocks the
car that I just indicated.
“What…”
“Surprise!” he says, taking me by the hand and
pulling me over to the car.
“A car? You bought a car?”
“Come on, take a look at the inside,” he says,
squeezing my hand.
I open the door and look around, then look in
the back seat where a baby seat has been installed.
I pull my head out to look at him and see how
pleased he is.
“What about your motorcycle?”
“Sold it.”
“Sold it? But you loved it! I know you hate—”
“Did you think I’d bring the baby on a
motorcycle? What the fuck kind of father would I
be?”
Father.
Five letters that make me cry like a fool.
Patrick squeezes me in his arms and musses up
my hair.
“Ah, my little whiner,” he teases as I cuddle in
his arms.
“Erin…”
I instinctively close my eyes, hoping the person
who just called me magically disappears and lets
me dream in this little world a bit more.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Patrick moves away from me to face the person
who has just shown up before us.
“I tried calling you. I’ve left messages,” Nate
begins, coming close to us.
Patrick shoots me a look.
“He called you? Have you been in contact with
him?” He’s clenching his jaw.
“Patrick—”
“We ran into each other on campus,” Nate
interrupts.
Patrick looks back at Nate although I am pulling
on his jacket, trying to bring him back to me.
“We have to talk, Erin. About what’s the right
thing to do.”
Patrick closes his eyes and I swear I can hear
him counting mentally to ten, or maybe a hundred
before speaking. Then he looks at me and I no
longer see that light in his eyes that was there just
five minutes ago.
“He knows, right?”
I nod, guiltily.
“When were you thinking of telling me?” he
says, raising his voice.
“There’s nothing,” I try to say but Nate, damn
it, talks again.
“We have to talk about the baby. About us.”
“Us?”
Patrick is upset and blinded with rage. He
rushes to Nate and grabs him by the jacket.
“Patrick, please.” I try to break them apart
before the benevolent arrival of Jay.
“What the fuck is happening here?” he yells,
looking at Patrick.
“This asshole was just about to leave,” he says,
continuing to look at Nate threateningly.
“I’m not going anywhere unless Erin comes
with me.”
So Patrick looks at me with his deep scared eyes
and I’d like to be able to calm him but I can’t, not
I was stupid to wait until it got to this point, but I
was happy and I was lying to myself that I could
hide this in some little corner of my mind.
“She’s not coming.” Patrick hands down the
sentence, waking me up from my stupor.
“I … what?” I ask, raising my voice.
Jay tries to get involved and to calm us all down
but I’m already on top of him.
“I go where I want with who I want.” I am
resentful and angry and I understand what Patrick
was telling me about losing control, because he’s
doing it right now. “No one will tell me
otherwise.”
Patrick’s look gets harder still but I face him
with my head up.
“Nate and I need to talk.”
“About what?” he challenges, raising his chin in
anger.
“Our baby.”
I can see his heart falling to pieces through his
eyes and I can also hear the sound in my ears. It’s
deafening, one of those noises that makes you lose
your hearing and your lucidity and makes you
wish you were dead, instead of hiding in a three-
foot deep hole.
We look at each other for a few seconds, and I
already know it’s over.
The light has gone out and the hope is shattered.
I’ve hurt him. Hurt him in the worst way
possible. I’ve just made the biggest mistake of my
life and I can’t take it back now. And I know
apologizing wouldn’t serve any purpose.
Patrick closes his eyes and when he reopens
them all I can see is blackness, profound and
infinite. Something impossible to come back from.
His heart has been drowned in the darkness of
his soul and nothing will bring it back.
Patrick
Our baby, she says .
And in three seconds I lose everything.
“We met a few weeks ago and I told him the
truth. He had a right to know.”
A right?
He abandoned her.
“I should have told you sooner, but between one
thing and another, I didn’t have the courage plus I
couldn’t find the right moment.”
The right moment to tell me that he was back in
her life? In their life?
“Nate is her father, Patrick. Her … real father,
and I can’t ignore him,” she concludes leaving
what little is left of my heart in tatters.
I raise my hands and walk away briskly without
turning back. Because it’s their baby. Not mine.
Never was. Even if I wished it were mine more
than anything I’ve ever wished for before.
Because I loved them. I love them. Both of
them.
Like I could never love anyone.
Love makes you blind and stupid.
And useless.
I am a useless man.
I go away from her, from this love that turned
me upside down and quenched my thirst and has
now left me dried out and completely empty.
Jay follows me closely, even if he doesn’t say
anything. He gives me space to vent my rage that I
know is about to overcome me and throw me
down.
If I am about to lose control, it’s better that no
one is around.
I open the door to our home and go into my
room, but I know it would be better if everyone
left me alone.
Jay comes in followed by Aaron. They sit on the
bed and I sit on the ground and drop my head in
my hands and just cry.
I cry and cry, all the fucking tears I’ve never
shed, not even when I was a child.
He’s come back and is taking everything with
him.
And I’ve got nothing.
Not the woman I love, not the child I adore.
And not myself, because without them I don’t
exist.
“Buddy,” Jay says quietly as he touches my
shoulder and I cry harder. “Please, Patrick. I can’t
see you like this, I don’t know what to do,” he
says, sounding really worried.
“There’s nothing you can do, Jay!” No one can
do anything!” I jump to my feet. “She has decided.
After all that…”
I can’t do this.
I drop to my knees and continue to cry. And this
goes on for two hours, maybe three before I fall
into a troubled sleep. And when I wake up, I start
crying again, harder still and more desperate
because I realize I’m alone in bed and she’s not
here.
And I cry for another hour, I think, before
falling back asleep thanks to some pills Aaron had
on hand.
I wake up at dawn, with my eyes that burn and
weigh a ton and my head is hammering. I turn my
head on the pillow and find my mother next to me.
“Honey,” she says, with that expression she had
the day my dad left us. “Aaron called me.”
I nod trying to hold back the tears.
I didn’t think I had any left. I underestimated
myself.
“Everything is going to work out,” she
continues, caressing my face. “I promise you.”
“You can’t make a promise that you can’t keep,
Mom.”
“She’ll come back, you’ll see. Give her a little
time. He is the child’s father. She is confused and
insecure.”
“You’re right, Mom,” I say, looking at the
ceiling. “That baby is his. It always was.”
“Oh, love…”
“Please Mom, let me be. I have to sleep some
more.”
She gives me a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll be
downstairs if you need me.” And she leaves.
Then I turn over and drown my face in my
pillow, hoping to deaden these sobs that are back
again to choke me.
I have avoided this kind of situation my whole
fucking life so as to avoid suffering and forgetting
who I am for the sake of loving someone else.
I didn’t have any idea how much it could really
hurt. I wasn’t even remotely close to imagining
what you could feel when someone opens your
chest with their bare hands and rips your heart out
with their nails.
The door opens again and I regret the fact that
in this fucking house there is no concept of
privacy. A man isn’t free to drown in his own
fucking misery.
Rain sits on my bed without saying anything.
She rubs my head and smiles at me sadly. She’s
got red puffy eyes, so she must have been crying
too. Like always.
I sit up a bit to look at her better. Her eyes talk
for her. She’s feeling just as bad as I am.
So I stand up and hug her. I hold her tight until
we both burst out crying again.
“She left,” she cries. “She went to go stay with
her father,” she continues and I squeeze my eyes
shut tight and try to get back to breathing
regularly.
Erin has left, taking every word, every caress,
every kiss and every hope away with her.
And nothing will ever be the same.
I will never be the same.
Erin has left.
Taking the best part of me with her.
25
Erin
“Honey,” my dad calls out as he knocks on the
door of my room. “Can I come in?”
I don’t answer and after a few seconds he comes
in anyway.
I am lying down on the bed and hugging a
pillow. I have been in this position for more or less
ten days, four hours and thirty-six minutes. Ever
since I hurt the man I love and let him go.
I made a mess.
I have to admit that when I saw Nate again,
when he found out about the baby and he said he
was ready to start over, I did have a moment of
doubt creep into my brain. I don’t know why,
maybe because I was confused, my hormones are
crazy, and because Nate is the baby’s father and
even I didn’t tell him the truth right away, it was
just a question of time before I had to. After all, he
did have the right to know.
The only thing I didn’t want was for him to stay
with me to try to save something that was already
over just in order to give the baby some stability.
I wanted to tell Patrick about this situation with
Nate, but he’s been so wonderful in these weeks,
so attentive and caring that day after day I started
to set aside that idea about going back with Nate,
as if the conversation never happened, as if he
didn’t exist and wasn’t really this child’s father.
Because I wanted with all my heart for Patrick
to be the father.
“Honey, Nate is downstairs.”
Nate.
He comes every day to visit me. He’s trying to
make up for lost time. He’s available and attentive
but there is no love in his eyes, or his words
because I am not in his heart.
As much as he tries to be what I wish he was, he
isn’t Patrick.
And he never will be.
No one will ever be Patrick.
“Should I send him up?” asks my father after
hesitating since I haven’t answered him.
“I don’t feel like talking to him today. Can you
tell him I’m resting and I’ll call him tonight?”
“Erin…”
“Please, I don’t want to see him. Not now.”
“Honey, that boy is the father of this child. He’s
ready to take care of both of you. He wants to give
you a house; he wants to create a family. Nate
loves you.”
“He doesn’t love me, Dad.”
“Oh my dear. Affection? Love? All these
evocative words? What’s important is that you’re
together, you understand each other. Try to give it
a chance, please honey, just try to compromise.”
“Love isn’t a compromise.”
“My child, life is a compromise.”
“Well, with him it wasn’t, it wasn’t any of this,”
I say, sitting up. “With him everything was
wond
erful and…” And I can’t finish the phrase but
the tears are at the door.
“Is everything okay, here?” Mom says, poking
her head around the doorway, listening and ready
to intervene. She’ll be staying with us for a bit.
“I’ll take care of it,” she says, indicating that my
dad should leave us alone.
My father nods and they exchange a glance of
mutual comprehension. Luckily, my parents
remained on good terms after the separation; they
are friends and in the past they have always agreed
about the decisions made together for my sake.
My mom comes in and sits on the bed.
“Have you eaten? Shall I bring you something?”
I shake my head and rest it on the pillow,
turning on my side.
“You have to eat.”
Strange how all that appetite I had has just
vanished.
“Erin, Nate is a good boy. Even if he made a
mistake. He’s ready to take on his responsibility
and stay with both of you.”
“I beg you, Mama. Not you too!”
“Let me finish … I was saying, he’s the father
of this creature, biologically speaking, but you
know, it’s not blood that ties people together. It’s
easy to love blood of your blood. Who comes from
you and brings with it the family line,” she talks
while caressing my hair. “You know what isn’t
easy at all? Falling in love with a creature that
hasn’t come into this world yet, loving her with all
your heart and soul, waiting for her arrival with
anxiety and trepidation, loving her mother as if she
were the only woman on earth … These are things
that not many could do, you know? It’s hard to
love someone that reminds you your entire life that
they didn’t come from you, but from someone
else, and yet, there are some people that are able to
do it. Those are the people, Erin, that you
shouldn’t let go of.”
I turn towards her and flood my pillow with
tears.
“That man loves you, Erin.”
“I’ve ruined everything.”
“You made a mistake, it’s comprehensible. You
were confused and scared and didn’t know what to
do.”
“I know what you’re trying to tell me, Mom,
and I appreciate it. But Patrick isn’t the father of
the baby even if I wish that he was with all my
heart. I have to face facts and give Nate a chance.”
“Oh honey.”
“Patrick deserves to live his life and find
someone that hasn’t gotten pregnant by the first
guy she sleeps with and dumps all the