She replied, “Because that might make a difference to him.”
Putting my daughter even more in the middle of my messy situation I asked her, “Has he forgotten me?”
She sighed into the phone. Then she said softly as if she didn’t want him to hear her talking about him, “He hasn’t forgotten you.”
“I have to go sweetie,” I said shakily. “I have phone calls to make. Good…goodnight.”
“Mom, are you all right? Do I need to come home?”
I couldn’t do this to Keegan. I couldn’t take her away from her dad. I bucked up. Sucked it up and smiled even though I felt like my heart was breaking.
“No. You stay and enjoy your visit with your Dad. I’ll see you Sunday. Call me.” The words came out with a sob even though I had tried to make the words sound happy.
“I’ll talk with you tomorrow morning,” she promised. “Bye Mom.”
Then the line went dead. Eventually I laid the receiver down in the cradle and went upstairs to my room. Later lying in my bed where once I had slept next to James I found myself thinking what next?
It was time to take control of my life. Deciding what my next step would be was the first of many steps that I needed to turn my life around with or without Kerry McCoy.
#
Five months pregnant, unable to sleep I was sitting on my front porch swing alone at midnight one mid-May evening when the sky was clear and the evening temperature was bearable. Soon the heat of summer would come and I wouldn’t be able to do this. The gentle rocking motion of the swing filled me with peace with my situation and with myself.
. I needed to find myself…at almost thirty-five that shouldn’t be a problem. Keegan strode out onto the front porch.
“What are you doing?” She asked me.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“So you’re sitting out here freezing to death.” Her teeth were chattering.
“I’m not cold. Come here, I’ll share the blanket with you.”
The pregnancy hormones were keeping me warmer than usual. Keegan sat down and cuddled against me with the blanket wrapped around both of us.
“This is my favorite place. It reminds me of my mother’s house, sitting on the swing there with my sisters, my friends and your dad.”
The swing creaked with the rocking motion.
“You haven’t mentioned him in a while. How do you feel about him?”
I shouldn’t be talking to my daughter about this relationship but couldn’t seem to stop myself.
“Keegan, I love him with all my heart. I don’t think that I ever stopped loving him,” I told her without thinking about how that admission would make her feel. I didn’t want my daughter to feel caught in the middle if her father didn’t love me back.
“You know he loves you too. I don’t understand why you are being so stubborn and not talking to each other.”
That is us. Fate. Whatever you want to call it? However you want to label it? We were self-destructing once again. Was this our destiny?
“I need to extract a promise from you that what I am about to tell you will not leave this swing,” I said seriously knowing I had no choice but to tell my daughter that I was pregnant.
“Sounds serious,” she said looking up at me with concern. “I promise.”
“Keegan, my um you know with Kerry…well, Keegan I’m pregnant.”
“No shit,” my daughter replied without surprise. “Nana told me months ago so that I could look out for you. She thought somebody should know.”
“Jesus no wonder. I thought I was doing a good job of hiding it from you and you knew all along.”