Chapter 20
What do you say to something like that? Is there even a right way to respond? Unsure of what to say, or even what to think, he asked the only sensible thing he could think of.
“Does he know?”
She responded, equally sensibly, “…he does now.”
His face drew pale as the phone slid from his hand down the side of his face and onto the countertop. He glanced upstairs to his bedroom where Sydney was waiting for him. He felt like he had just been dealt a hand that he hadn’t even sat down to play.
This is not happening,
he said to himself. He slid the phone back to his ear with his head barely held up on his shoulders.
“How long have you known?” he asked.
His voice was low and his words quivered with despondency.
“I found out four months ago.”
“So it took you four months to say something to me!” he stressed. “It’s too late now –”
“For what, Mason…. For me to choose?”
“No, for me to have a choice!” He caught himself from raising his voice.
“And what would that have been, huh? I know exactly what you would have said. Listen to how you sound now.”
“Don’t try to make me out to be the bad guy. You knew about this for four months and what, you expect me to be happy and excited? I have a life I can’t just stop… what do you expect me to do?”
“I just wanted to hear what this conversation would sound like,” she sighed. “I didn’t, and don’t, expect you to do anything.”
“I’m confused.”
“Look, I’m only telling you because regardless of whatever arrangement or relationship we had, I actually care about you.”
“Erika, you are confusing me even more right now. What are you saying, are you or aren’t you?”
“Oh I am, but it’s nothing you have to worry about. Chris and I are good right now, we’re getting married in a few months… and he doesn’t know,” she answered.
“Know what, that you’re pregnant?”
“No, that it’s not his.”
“Oh my God…” His head fell to the counter top. “He thinks the baby is his, and you aren’t going to tell him?”
“I can’t,” she stressed. “He needs this. We need this.”
Her voice began to fill with tears. “I just wanted you to know…that’s all.”
“That’s just great, Erika. I’m really trying to understand what good you thought that would do.”
She didn’t answer him, but he could hear her trying to keep her voice down and her tears at bay.
“When are you due?” He hesitantly asked.
“He’s due April 13
th
.”
“He?” Mason asked.
“Yes, it’s a boy.”
Mason was closer to tears than he had been in years and Erika could hear it. She didn’t want anything from him, but felt he deserved to know the truth for some reason. To Mason, it was a truth worth not knowing. He still couldn’t understand why she felt the need to call him so late to tell him if she didn’t want anything from him. He was afraid, not of her being pregnant or her fiancé finding out, but what it would mean for he and Sydney. There was nothing else to say. No words could make the situation any better. For the next few minutes she talked and he just listened. He couldn’t speak even when she waited for him to say something, his voice mute. After a few seconds passed he still didn’t have anything to say, she hung up the phone.
He walked back upstairs slower than usual. He had to tell Sydney, he thought. There were enough secrets about him that she didn’t know about; this wasn’t going to be another one. He had never been more nervous or afraid stepping into his own bedroom. He climbed in the bed behind her and slid his arm underneath the pillow that she was resting her head on. His other arm reached around her and he held her as tight as he possibly could to keep her near, knowing she would run once he told her.
“Sydney,” he began.
She reached her left hand across the top of his, pulling him even tighter around her. “Thank you,” she said, not knowing she had cut him off. “Thank you for being the man that I needed tonight,” she whispered on the edge of sleep.
“I need to tell you something,” he tried again.
She snuggled closer inside his embrace.
“Tell me in the morning,” she whispered.
He lay on his back, barely covered by the sheets on his bed with one arm resting behind his head and the other beneath Sydney, who was lying on his chest. He couldn’t escape the sound of Erika’s voice, feeling sick to his stomach at the thought. The words
I'm pregnant
echoed in his mind as if they were said in a room full of hollow walls. He was angry, confused, and he was afraid.
He hadn’t spoken to Erika in months. He remembered clearly the last time they were together and the last time he’d seen her. Ideally, between then and when he met Sydney later that morning, the last time he’d planned to see Erika again.
His eyes settled upon Sydney’s face as it rested just beneath his chin. That, above all, was his main fear telling her. It didn't matter how many ways he thought of to say it; it was every bit as bad as it seemed.
When she woke up he’d have to tell her.
Fading into a cloud of guilt and uncertainty, he finally drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 21
He and Sydney awakened to a sky still darkened by night. Before the sun had finished rising they were up and walking out the door to catch their flight.
Mason quickly loaded their luggage in the trunk of his car as Sydney watched through the mirror, arms folded and eyes extremely heavy with sleep. She was too tired to express the excitement that she actually felt about going home for Christmas, and far too tired to notice how quiet Mason had been since they woke up. A few good mornings were uttered as they pulled out of the garage, but not much else. Assuming he was as tired as she was, the conversation that seemed to be missing didn't stand out at all.
She leaned her head against the window, hoping the ride to the airport would help her fall back to sleep, while he just hoped the ride would clear his mind and help him to relax his thoughts.
The streets were like blankets of white clouds. Mason knew a mild storm had been anticipated throughout the night, but this was a lot more than he’d expected. The snow beat against his windshield accumulating flakes faster than the wipers could wipe it away. The heat in the car beat against his face irritating his eyes and causing them to water. It was necessary to defrost the ice from the windshield so he couldn’t do much about it until the windows had cleared a little. It was like staring through fog as he tried to make sure he was still within the street lines. His thoughts weren’t much clearer. Riding through the snow was manageable, regardless of how much snow was falling, but most of the drive for him was spent trying to figure out how to tell Sydney that he was now fathering a child by a woman whom he had never really dated.
It sounds crazier the more I think about it,
he thought. There they were on Christmas Eve, driving to the airport to fly out and spend the holiday with her parents.
As if this couldn’t come at a worse time,
he clenched the steering wheel and pressed through the storm.
The airport was a far more congested than usual.
Some congestion was expected with Christmas only a day away, but this was a little too much.
They walked through the crowd as fast as they could, hoping to not miss the flight.
Mason slowed down to secure Sydney's carry-on bag, which became loose from the handle. Strangely, they were the only ones moving with any sense of urgency.
They looked around and saw people calmly sitting in terminals or eating in the airport restaurants, but no one was rushing to board a plane. ‘Delayed, Delayed, Delayed’, he saw down the board of departures and arrivals. The storm had grounded, if not canceled, a number of flights in and out of Philadelphia.
At that point there wasn't much else to do but sit and wait along with everyone else.
After a few hours of being delayed they finally heard, “
Now boarding flight 917 to Charleston, South Carolina, departing from gate C19,”
over the loudspeaker.
Both Sydney and Mason, startled from the intercom, jumped up to board the plane.
Sydney, still tired, could barely keep her eyes open and fell asleep only moments after sitting down. The plane had even taken off.
Mason was wide awake and although he was extremely tired, he couldn’t go back to sleep.
He buckled his seatbelt, sat back in his seat, and never took his eyes from the window, not even to acknowledge the flight attendant taking their drink orders once they were in the air.
His mind was as scattered as the light snowflakes that broke against the wings of the plane. Looking down at Sydney, who had fallen asleep on his arm, he gently took his hand and pushed aside a few strands of hair that had fallen over her eyes.
I can’t do this,
he thought. His heart beat nervously and his breaths were shallow.
He didn't want to hurt her, but he knew not telling her would hurt her even more if she found out. His hand grazed her face lightly enough to wake her. She noticed the look on his face, but even more so the look in his eyes.
"Are you okay?" she asked, lifting her head from his arm.
Just tell her,
he said to himself. There was nowhere she could go and nowhere he could hide. They were thirty-one thousand feet in the air, and right then -before they touched down in Charleston- was a better time that any. Inside he yelled,
no, I’m not okay,
but no words left his lips.
He took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat.
Hesitant he answered, "Yeah... I'm okay."
Against everything that told him to just tell her the truth, he couldn’t.
What good would it do if she knew,
he asked himself.
He knew he was taking a chance by keeping this silent, but a part of him wasn’t willing to risk the possibility of losing her. It was the only way to keep moving forward with whatever this was that they had going on in this relationship.
Their plane landed in Charleston, South Carolina, early in the afternoon.
“Did they know what time we were coming in?” Mason asked.
“I spoke to my mom and told her, but my dad doesn’t know.
I thought we’d surprise him.”
Mason chuckled lightly under his breath, pulling the luggage from the conveyor belt. “I hope your dad’s the surprise type,” he joked.
He started to imitate Sydney, doing his version of how the surprise would go as he pulled the last piece of luggage from the belt.
"My dad will be fine," she assured him, smiling from ear to ear.
Mason didn’t know much about her father or her mother; everything about this trip was going to be a surprise to him as well.
They walked out of the airport, instantly greeted by the twenty-degree warmer Carolina sun.
It wasn’t hot, but it felt so much better than when they’d left Philadelphia. For Sydney, she was right at home.
"Christmas in the summer," Mason joked.
"Oh come on, it's not even hot!" she laughed.
Mason had called ahead earlier that week to reserve a rental car for the two of them. Waiting for it to be pulled around, he and Sydney sat on a steel bench in front of the rental window facing the street with a clear view of some of what made Charleston so beautiful.
Of all the traveling he had done over the years mostly for business the south was one place he never stayed long enough to experience anything outside of a conference room and, in some cases, the occasional gentlemen’s club.
Sydney was ecstatic to be home, though.
The look on her face was of a longing satisfaction and the way she inhaled that down-south air made it apparent she missed home more than she let on.
She just looked so incredibly happy. In that moment, everything that had been weighing so heavily on him within the last twenty-four hours seemed to just fade away as a distant memory.
This, right now, was all that mattered him and Sydney.
“That is not what I reserved,” Mason mumbled, barely able to speak past the disgust of the car that was slowly approaching them.
Sydney covered her mouth, hiding her laughter at the little compact car they were being handed the keys to.
Bad enough that it was little but it was also bright red with wheels that looked like they belonged on a lawn mower.
She turned her back to the car and faced Mason, unable to look at him for fear of her laughter becoming uncontrollable. “It’s okay, let’s just go,” she urged him, clearing her throat.
He could hear the laughter disguised in her voice.
“That’s not what I reserved,” he said more loudly, gaining the manager’s attention.
“Mason, come on, ‘it’s okay’,” she said again in laughter, rolling the luggage to the car.
“What do you mean it’s okay?
What is this, a Kia?
I can’t even fit in this thing.
The luggage can barely fit in this thing!”
The rental company apparently mixed up his reservation and accidentally gave his reserved SUV to another customer, leaving him with an economy hatchback.
As upsetting as it was, he was all out of options. That was all they’d had left. “You’re driving,” he said, throwing Sydney the keys.
This is so embarrassing,
he shook his head getting into the car.
They left the airport and drove what seemed like endless miles through the city of Charleston.
It was beautiful; live oaks and palm trees line the streets with Spanish moss draped in their canopy.
“What do you want to do right now?” Sydney asked, seeming to already have something in mind.
“Well, this is your Christmas present, so it’s up to you.” He put his seat back as far as he could, which was maybe only an inch or two because of the size of the car.
She laughed, noticing him trying to push it farther but knowing it wouldn’t go. They had a few hours before they were due to check-in to the hotel.
Having not been home in a while, and never with Mason, Sydney thought it would be nice to actually show him where she’d grown up.
Slouched as far back as he could go Mason closed his eyes and just went with the ride.