“Yeah.” My thoughts went to my stomach and my body stiffened at the thought that I was carrying a living person inside me.
There were a few seconds of silence, and I realized that Chris hadn’t hung up the phone.
“Chris?”
“Yeah, I’m still here.” He paused. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“No, I’m not,” I admitted, realizing that there was no point in hiding my fears from him.
“Alexis, you’re one of the strongest women I know. You—no,
we
—can get through this. Things will work out the way they should.”
I really wanted to believe Chris—that I was strong enough to get through this—but I felt defeated and scared for the future. The only thing I could think of at this moment was how I was going to break this news to Damian. No matter how optimistic I tried to be, every time I imagined myself telling him the whole truth, the end result seemed to always be the same: him leaving me.
CHAPTER FIVE
Damian
Eight Years Ago
“Don’t listen to him!” I saw the frantic desperation in her eyes as she looked over at me. “He’s lying!”
I looked over at my father and watched as his face twisted in pain and despair.
“You can stop lying to me and your son now. You’ve been lying to me for at least twenty years and your son his whole life. If there’s even a shred of remorse in your conscience, just stop fucking lying to us.” I felt the blood drain from my face as I watched wide-eyed as my father turned away from my mother and buried his face into his hands.
“How dare you accuse me of this? We’ve been married for almost twenty-three years, and I gave up my career so that I could raise your son.” As I watched the heated conversation escalate between my parents, I was shocked by the contempt in my mother’s eyes.
“Mom? Dad? Maybe it’s best if we calm down a little first. We don’t want to say anything we may regret later. This could all be a big misunderstanding.” I looked frantically between them, and a part of me was waiting for one of them to burst into a fit of laughter and tell me they were playing a prank on me.
But neither of them laughed. Neither of them seemed to hear me. Instead, their eyes were locked on each other, and as the tension grew in the air, they looked at each other as if they saw their enemy.
“I’m not accusing you of shit. I’m stating a
fact
. I was just giving you a chance to own up to your actions in front of your son before I tell him the truth.”
“Damian, don’t listen to your father’s lies! I don’t know what’s come over him.”
“You whore! That’s just it! I’m not his father! And I have proof!”
Sharp pain shot through my chest at my father’s words.
Is it really true? Is he not my father?
“What proof?! You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!” she spat at him as she pointed her finger at him accusingly. “I gave up everything I ever had for this marriage—my fame, my modeling career, my glamorous lifestyle—and for what? For you to work long hours at the office and go on month-long business trips all over the world to meet your billionaire clients while you leave me all by myself in this lifeless house!”
I drew in a sharp intake of breath at my mother’s words. Up until now, I’d never thought she’d been unhappy. She had spent most days shopping, having long lunches with friends at the country club, or going to the spa.
Apparently my father was equally surprised by this revelation. “You didn’t seem so bored when you’re spending my hard-earned money on $50,000 shopping sprees and a brand-new car for our pool boy who you screw on the side!”
I took a step back and braced my body against the wall for support. I had grown up that thinking my parents were happy and loved each other. I had grown up thinking that their marriage was the kind I wanted for myself when I grew up.
This has to be a mistake!
But from my mother’s surprised expression, I knew there was no mistake.
“How did you know about the car?”
My father sneered. “That boy can’t afford a BMW 5 Series on his pool boy’s ten-dollar-an-hour salary. Besides, I’ve seen the way you watch him when you’re laying out by the pool. I run a multibillion-dollar company. I didn’t get there in life by being an idiot.”
My mother pursed her lips and shrugged.
“So did you love him?”
I turned quickly to look at my mom to see what she’d say.
“Him?”
“Yes, Damian’s real father! The one you fucked twenty years ago while we were married!”
“No, I didn’t.” Her answer was short and she didn’t elaborate. She turned her back away from us and looked out the kitchen window into early evening darkness.
I looked at the man standing before me. Behind the anger in his voice, I could tell that he was devastated and beaten down. “You’re not my father?” I asked in a low voice.
He didn’t look at me in the eye. Instead, he handed me a folded-up piece of paper. “The proof,” he said solemnly.
My mother turned toward me. Her head perked up as her eyes stared at the paper in my hand.
I cautiously unfolded the paper. At the top of the paper was St. Joseph Hospital’s letterhead. This was a letter that appeared to summarize some lab results. I looked from the paper to my father and then to at my mother, who immediately looked away from me.
“What is this?” I asked my father.
“They’re test results I had done.” He sighed as he rubbed his temple with his hands. “Remember a few months ago when we found out my father had a genetic blood clotting disorder?”
“I remember. Genetic thrombophilia?”
“And remember how they took genetic samples from us to test us for this same disorder?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the blood results came back, and according to the results”—he looked at me with pain-filled eyes—“we’re not related. You’re not my son.”
I felt the wind knock out of me as I took in his words.
“You’re not my son.”
His words rang in my ears
“There must be a mistake.” I shook my head, refusing to accept this as the truth.
“I’m sorry, son. That’s what I thought too and called the hospital. The results are accurate.”
I looked at my mother, hoping she could say something that’d prove that the results were wrong. She remained silent as she looked down at her feet and folded her arms.
“Mom? Who’s my biological father?”
“I don’t remember,” she finally admitted under her breath.
“What do you mean?”
“There was more than one guy at the time,” she mumbled.
“How many more?!” my father demanded, his nostrils flared as his chest rose and fell in angry breaths.
“I never kept count!” she shot back.
My mouth gaped open at my mother’s admission that she’d slept with more men than she knew.
“Have you been screwing men during the entire time we’ve been married?” the man I’d thought was my father roared at her.
My mother didn’t answer and looked away.
“I’ve had enough! I can’t take this! I want a divorce!” I watched my father explode in rage in front of me as he grabbed his wallet and keys from the kitchen counter and headed toward the front door. When he got to the door, he spun around and glared at my mother. “I’ve loved you, provided for you, was faithful to you throughout our twenty-three years of marriage. And now I find out—from a fucking blood test no less—that you’ve been screwing countless other men for over twenty years and the son I’ve loved for the last nineteen years isn’t even mine!”
“Don’t blame this on me! You were never home! A woman has her needs too! There’s only so much shopping and spending time at the country club a person can take before they’re bored out of their mind!”
“You disgust me that you can turn your infidelity and lies around and make it my fault.” My father shook his head as he grimaced and opened the front door. “I don’t ever want to see you again. You’ll hear from my lawyer!”
With that, I watched my father of nineteen years storm out.
I slumped back onto the couch in the living room, unable to take in everything that had just happened. I felt the room whirl around me as I realized that everything I’d thought I’d known about my parents and my life had been an illusion built on a lie that had just shattered everything in my life. This moment reminded me of something that had happened when I was just five. I had been playing cops and robbers with Annie, my nanny. I had been the robber and had been running from room to room while Annie chased after me. I remembered laughing in sheer delight as I ran as fast as my tiny feet would take me. While I was running past the living room, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and accidentally knocked over a metal ornament from a side table. The sharp end of the item hit against the floor-to-ceiling window that ran along one side of the room, leaving a small crack. I rubbed my tiny fingers against the glass to feel the crack, and suddenly, the tiny, barely noticeable spider-vein-sized crack began to expand under the pressure of my fingers. Annie rushed to my side and pulled me away just in time as the entire wall of glass came crashing down and shattered onto the hardwood floor.
And as I sat here on the couch in the same living room that the wall of glass had shattered into a million pieces fourteen years ago, I realized that my mom’s infidelity was like that spider-vein-sized crack. No one had known it’d existed but her, and for the last twenty years, we had lived like a happy family. But then tonight, without any notice, that spider vein grew and spread, and before I’d known what was happening, everything I’d thought I’d known about my life had shattered into pieces.
Only with this spider vein crack, Annie wouldn’t be able to rush to my side and protect me from getting hurt by the shattered pieces. The truth had come crashing down on me. It had destroyed my life. It had destroyed me.
***
Present Day
I stepped on the gas when I merged onto Interstate 80 and felt the power of the engine roar into life.
“Damn, they don’t make engines like this anymore!” I said to myself. I leaned my seat back as I enjoyed the vibration of the engine against me. Buying a vintage car was the last thing I’d thought I’d ever do, but when I saw a ‘For Sale’ flyer for this 1967 Ford Mustang in the bar yesterday, I’d felt like I had to have it. It was a spontaneous thing to do, and I’d needed something to help me blow off some steam. I’d been frustrated and on edge for the past two weeks and I’d needed a distraction.
I rolled down my window and brushed my hair back as a gust of cold morning wind hit against my face. I focused on keeping my mind clear. I’d been trying to think about anything
but
her. I shifted in the driver’s seat and switched the radio to a classic rock station, blasting the music up so loud I couldn’t hear myself think.
But it was hopeless. It didn’t help. There was one and only one thing on my mind: Alexis. I groaned in frustration when my mind drifted back to her.
She had plagued my mind ever since that text two weeks ago. Since Italy, I’d had some time to think. I was torn between who I’d thought she was with the possibility that she was exactly like my mother. My mind screamed that all the signs pointed to the same thing: Alexis was pregnant with Chris’s child. The secret texts and calls between Alexis and Chris, the call Alexis had had with the doctor’s office about an upcoming appointment to find out some test results, the fact that Chris was the name of Alexis’s most recent ex-boyfriend, the fact that I hadn’t seen Alexis drink a drop of alcohol in the last two weeks, and—my hands punched the steering wheel in anger at the last thought—the fact that Alexis hadn’t let me fuck her for several days now.
Even though I knew all this, I couldn’t shake this feeling that I had it all wrong. I couldn’t seem to accept that Alexis was with Chris and had played me for a fool. No matter how my head laid out all the facts, my heart rejected the thought that the first and only woman I’d ever had any sort of feelings for would hurt me like this.
But your mother was able to fool the man you thought was your father that she was faithful for over twenty years!
a voice screamed inside.
Don’t be as stupid as that man!
I shook my head, trying to get rid of that voice. I stepped farther down onto the gas and beelined through the Saturday morning traffic. I’d been waiting for her to tell me the truth about Chris and what she’d been hiding from me. I wanted to be patient with her because a part of me didn’t want to believe that she was anything like my mother. But I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to hold on to my patience.
My blood began to boil as my mind raced with images of Alexis and Chris together. It wasn’t until I parked in front of my bar that I realized my knuckles were bone white from gripping the steering wheel too tightly. I knew I needed to see Alexis. Thinking about her with another man was bad enough, but not having sex for the last three days was pushing me into a state of frenzy.
I jumped out of the car and ran up the steps to the second floor. I knocked on Unit 205.
A minute later, Alexis opened the door, and I saw the deer-in-headlights expression on her face.
“Hi!” she exclaimed in a high-pitched voice.
“Hey, baby!” I pulled her toward me and kissed her on the forehead.
“Did we have plans to hang out this morning? I wasn’t expecting you.” She smiled at me, but it wasn’t that warm smile that caused my stomach to flip—the smile I’d loved so much that caused a cute, tiny dimple to appear right above the left corner of her soft, pink lips. This smile was empty.
“No, we didn’t have plans, but I wanted to see you. Why? Are you busy with something?” I casually looked over her shoulder, half expecting Chris to appear behind her shoulders.
Stop being so fucking paranoid!
I tried to reason with myself. Since Italy, Alexis and I had spent most of our free time together. I’d also asked Beth, one of the bartenders at Damian’s, to keep an out on when she came and went from her apartment building. I told her that Alexis had an ex-boyfriend who had taken advantage of her in the past and I was concerned for her. So far, Beth hadn’t seen anything suspicious.