Baby for the Bosshole

I wince. Full-grown adult or not, Mom still has the power to send shivers of apprehension through me by calling me by my full name.

“I am shocked!”

“It couldn’t be helped,” I say defensively. “She backstabbed me. Instead of talking to me after the party, she submitted a letter of resignation. What was I supposed to do?”

“Talk to her? Nothing was stopping you, wasn’t it?”

“It isn’t that simple. She didn’t just quit. She’s going over to the enemy.”

Mom gives me a withering look. “North Korea?”

“Worse. Marion Blaire.” Mom knows that creep’s weird obsession with “beating” me.

“All the more the reason for you to talk to her, Emmett! She doesn’t know the situation between you and Marion. She was hurt and traumatized at the party. You didn’t tell her about your father’s ridiculous demand for a grandbaby, did you?”

A beat.

“No,” I say, my voice a tad lower. “But only because I didn’t think it was relevant.”

“Of course it’s relevant! Ted is going to be her child’s grandfather.”

“He’ll be interested for, like, two seconds and then move on. I’ll be shocked if he remembers the kid’s name.”

Mom shakes her head. Her expression screams, Where did I go wrong with you? “I know you’re embarrassed about your dad and his behavior. And I understand exactly where you’re coming from. But that doesn’t mean you get to hide him or pretend he can’t affect you anymore. He can and does. If he really meant nothing, you wouldn’t be so resistant to talking to her.”

Why is she trying to make me the villain here? And not just any villain, but a dumb villain. “I already told you why I didn’t talk to her.”

“For God’s sake, Emmett. Marion Blaire is nothing to you. He annoys you the way a fruit fly annoys you. It’s just an excuse not to confront the fact that you don’t want to discuss your father with her, so you’ve decided to shut your mouth about it, even if it means losing her and the baby.”

“But—”

She raises a finger. “Would you have behaved any different if she didn’t quit and only wanted to discuss your dad and what happened at the party with you?”

“Well…yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t have told her to pack her stuff and get out,” I say, refusing to admit she’s right. I don’t give Dad that much power over me.

“Oh my lord. You’re so smart in some ways, but blind in others. If she’d only wanted to talk, you would’ve found a way to gloss over everything. You always do when it comes to the topic of your father. You’d say how everything was fine and offer to talk to your father if it’d make her feel better. But every time you do reach out to him, both of you end up talking past each other rather than talking to each other. And so the exact same issue she had at the party and with your father would surface again and again.” She pauses. “Just like it does for you.”

I stare at Mom. She’s spea

king quietly, but each word hits like a bullet.

“For some reason, you won’t cut your father out of your life, even though you know he’s toxic. I’ve heard you threaten to do it, but you don’t follow through. And he knows that. I suspect it’s because you want to pretend he doesn’t affect you and you’re perfectly fine around him.”

She reaches across the table and holds my hand.

“I know you want to be a good parent to the baby you’ve made with Amy. But being a good parent sometimes means making hard choices, including blocking out people who don’t add anything to your life. Amy’s reaction at the party isn’t unusual. What’s abnormal is acting like your dad’s behavior is perfectly fine. I’m glad she’s sensible enough to see the rot underneath his glitzy, moneyed veneer. Not everyone does.” She sighs softly. “I know the topic of your dad is hard. So I’m not going to say you have to talk to her about it. But if you love her and want to keep her, you need to. Now leave that martini alone and eat your food.”

Back in the office after lunch, concentrating on work proves to be impossible. Mom’s words keep circling in my head.

Is she right? Did I let my pride get in the way of smoothing things out with Amy?

Until I learned she resigned, I did plan on talking to her. But I wasn’t really going to discuss my dad. Just say that he likes to throw wild parties and tell her sorry if she felt uncomfortable. And I was planning on apologizing for Dad’s behavior over finding out that she’s pregnant—saying that he’s been whining about wanting a grandchild for a while and just got carried away in his excitement.

But I wasn’t planning on getting to the root of the problem.

Fuck. Mom is right. Everything I planned was merely glossing over the real issue, and Amy deserves better than some bullshit rationalization. If I’d told her the truth about Dad from the beginning, maybe she wouldn’t have left or taken the job with Marion.

I look out the open door. Amy’s desk is there—its tan surface, clear of her things, somehow reminds me of a desert.