Getting Her Back

“What?”

“Yeah,” she says, “it’s like you know that you’re lying, so you make sure that you don’t look the person in the eye so they can’t tell. It’s fine, and it works on Mom. But not me. So which part of that was a lie? The fact that you’re trying to have a baby or the fact that you’re working with a clinic?”

I sigh. “I’ll tell you, but only if you promise not to tell Mom.”

Celia grins. “You of all people know that I love to keep secrets from Mom.”

“And dad,” I say, “and everybody else in your life. Face it Celia, you just like secrets.”

She looks away, and takes a sip of her water. “I won’t deny that.”

“Fine,” I say, “I am trying to get pregnant. But I’m not using a clinic because I can’t afford it.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Honestly, that’s not the part I thought it was going to be a lie. I thought you had just told Mom that you’re trying to get pregnant so she would stop asking about grandchildren.”

“You’re not exactly wrong. I did tell her that to get her to stop asking, but I didn’t want her to know how I’m actually doing it.”

Celia gives me a look. “What? Are you using a turkey baster?”

“Ew,” I say. “No. There’s an app, for people who want to get pregnant. They vet the guys and it’s kind of like Tinder, then you meet up with them and…”

Celia starts laughing. “So you’re hooking up with a complete stranger?”

The waitress brings our food, and I wait to speak until after she’s gone. Even though the waitress doesn’t have a clue who I am or who Christian is, I’m still mildly embarrassed by the whole situation. “Not exactly.”

“Then who?”

“It was kind of weird,” I say. “The person I matched with on the app, ended up being Christian.”

This only makes Celia start laughing harder. In fact, she’s laughing so hard I think she might start to cry. “Mom is literally going to kill you.”

I take a bite of my fettuccine, thinking about that. She might. “She doesn’t have to know.”

“You really think that you’re going to be able to hide the fact that Christian is the father of your baby for that rest of that child’s life?”

I pause, hoping I could come up with some plan that would be solid, but the best I can come up with is, “Maybe.”

“Bullshit,” she says. “You’ll never be able to pull that off. Not only is Mom the nosiest person on the planet, but are you seriously telling me that even though you’re not together, you’re not going to let Christian see his baby?”

I hadn’t thought about that. We had both agreed that this would be the status quo until he got me pregnant. And then we’d be done. But given our history, wouldn’t I want him to see the child? Wouldn’t I want my child to know her father? This is one aspect that definitely would’ve been easier had it been someone I didn’t know. It would be easy to dismiss a stranger, and make up some story for my son or daughter about why their father wasn’t around. For Christian, I don’t have that luxury. “Regardless of whether she finds out, please don’t tell her right now. This is hard enough as it is without incessant phone calls asking why I’ve gone back to the loser who dumped me. Or who I dumped. Whatever.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“So,” I say, “I hear I’m not the only one with news.”

Celia grins sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess the cat’s out of the bag on that one.”

“What makes you want to go back to school now? You’ve never been interested before.”

“I’m not sure,” she says, “I just knew while I was walking around all these amazing historical sites that I wanted to know everything there was to know about them. And there’s only so much you can learn on your own. You need people who have studied it before, who have the resources to really dig in with you. So I figured now that I’ve got something I’m truly interested in, it was the time to come back and do it.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re going to be back. Maybe we can catch up more often.”

Celia smiles. “I’d like that. Besides, you’re gonna need somebody to run interference for you with Mom.”

I practically roll my eyes. “I don’t know why you think it’s going to be such a big deal. She’s never going to find out. She has no reason to know.”

“I think you got off easy as the older child,” she says. “Mom knows everyone, everywhere. Eventually, if you and Christian are ever in public together, someone’s going to see. And somehow that’s going to get back to Mom.”

“I think you’re vastly overestimating her network, but okay.”