Sin City Baby

I felt my kids press into me as I wrapped a protective arm around them.

“Glad I could help.” I said, flatly.

“How—are things?” Sarah asked.

“Good,” I said.

“How’s your company doing?”

“Just fine.”

Her eyes fell to the kids again and I searched her stare for any sign of remorse or guilt, or maternal feelings of any sort. I felt the kids press deeper into me as Sydney gazed up at her. The little girl was the spitting image of Sarah, except she had my eyes. Thankfully, Daniel looked just like me, not an ounce of his mother in his features.

I wondered if they knew who they were looking at. Was there some sort of innate bond between a mother and her children that made them gravitate toward one another? Because it wasn’t like I kept pictures of her around the house or anything.

Sarah was a selfish child, at best. My mind could always come up with more fitting words to describe her, but I chose not to go down that rabbit hole given she was the biological mother of my children.

She’d abandoned us when being a mother became too much. It had taken all of the convincing in the world for me to get her to carry them and give birth instead of terminating her pregnancy when we discovered her birth control had failed.

She looked at her children with such apathy. It made me sick.

“I’m glad you’re doing well,” she said, her eyes finally returning to mine.

“Daddy? Who is this?” Sydney asked.

I watched Sarah’s face falter for just a second as I drew in a deep breath.

“No one,” I said. “Just someone I used to know.”

“No one,” Sarah said, breathlessly.

The look of hurt in her eyes took me by surprise. It wasn’t like she wanted to be a part of our lives. What the hell had she expected me to say?

Hey kids this is your mommy. But you don’t remember her because she never wanted you and ran off and left you never to be seen again.

No, ‘no one’ was exactly who she was to them.

And to me.

"Wow, I think that might actually be the meanest thing anyone has ever called me,” she said.

I took a breath before I replied. “People who abandon those they are supposed to love don’t really get—”

“You knew I didn’t want—”

I stood up from the golf cart and completely shielded my kids from her.

“I knew exactly what you wanted. But what I expected you to do was step up. Grow up. To own up to the path your life took and stand by me. But you didn’t. You’re the one who chose to leave, and that’s on you. We haven’t heard from you in years. So you don’t get to be upset that they don’t know who you are. It’s a privilege to be in their life, and it wasn’t one you wanted to have.”

I spoke with a low voice, hoping to fuck my children couldn’t hear what I was saying.

“Well,” Sarah said. “Good seeing you, too.”

“Have a nice trip,” I said curtly.

I watched her walk away before I sat back down with my children and quickly drove off to the other side of the island, trying to find us a different place to eat.

Thankfully, being four years old came with a short memory. They were already over the awkward encounter by the time we pulled up to the seafood place overlooking the ocean. Their eyes lit up and smiles spread across their faces, and the tension from this already tumultuous day slowly began to subside.