Cowboy Baby Daddy

Kadie smiled at her nana and took her hand. I gulped down more coffee and walked toward my friend, hoping she’d be able to say something that would make me feel better about the whole situation.

I’d hoped the meeting with Alex would make everything easier by killing all the annoying feelings that had been distracting me, but instead, every muscle in my body was tense. The whole thing had ended up even more painful than I’d thought it would be, even though I’d planned everything I wanted to say Saturday night. Fat lot of good it had done me.

I didn’t even know if I’d really gotten my message to Alex across, but I was beginning to realize, maybe because I was in church, that it might not even be the most important thing.

I sighed. Maybe he took the hint not to ask about Kadie anymore, but the problem was that I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing. Might have helped if I’d paid attention in church today. Then again, maybe the sermon wasn’t even related.

I searched my memory, trying to remember what the pastor had spoken about. I remembered him mentioning something about stadiums and then something about 2 Corinthians. That didn’t really narrow it down.

Not that I needed a sermon to feel guilty for what I’d done.

A single question had haunted me before, but since meeting with Alex that morning, it’d become an obsession. Was I right to keep Alex from his own kid?

Years ago, when I’d first made the decision, it’d made sense. I thought he was a selfish playboy, and I thought that’d meant he’d be a bad father, but I hadn’t known about the accident. He hadn’t purposefully abandoned me. He’d made that clear.

I furrowed my brow. No. That wasn’t all true. He hadn’t purposefully ghosted me at first. And it wasn’t like I’d had the baby right away. I could understand him not calling me in the hospital and maybe forgive him for that, but it was hard to understand why he couldn’t have bothered to pick up a phone in the months and years after.

What was his excuse? Oh, yeah, it would have been “weird.” That sounded a lot like he didn’t want to deal with me being upset. If he cared for me, he could have contacted me and tried to make his case, not show up three years and give me some half-assed excuse about it being weird.

My head ached a little. I rubbed the bridge of my nose. I sighed. That’s why I needed to talk to Perri. I needed someone on my side to work this through.

My mama was on my side, but she was also older than me and didn’t have the same history with Alex as a friend. This had all started in high school, and so I needed a high school friend to help me think it through.

I closed on Perri. “Hey, can we talk for a sec?”

“Sure.” She took a final sip of her drink. “All done anyway. What did you want to talk about?”

“I wanted to talk in private,” I said quietly. “It’s about some important and private stuff.”

The last thing I wanted was for a church gossip to overhear this. I’d already caused enough stir when I’d had Kadie.

Perri blinked and nodded once, gesturing to a hallway with no one in it. We both tossed our cups into a nearby trash can and headed into the hallway.

“What is it?” Perri said after checking to see if the coast was clear.

“I talked with Alex this morning,” I said softly.

Perri nodded slowly. “Oh?”

“I’ve been running into him, and he kept saying how he wanted to talk to me, so I figured I’d sit down with him and let him say what he wanted to say.” I shrugged.

“And what was that?”

“He talked about the accident and about not meaning to ghost me. But then I talked to him about not calling after that. I think that was fair, right?”

“Asking him why he didn’t

call you after you got out of the hospital?”

“Yeah.”

Perri nodded once, a determined look on her face. “Totally fair. So, what did he say?”

“Nothing really. He talked about it being so long that it’d be weird.” I let out a long sigh. “He apologized, I mumbled a bit at him, and then I ran home to get ready for church.”

Perri stared at me for a long while. “What’s on your mind?”

A painting of Jesus on the wall of the hallway caught my eye, and I winced. Of course, he was watching. He always was. “I don’t know if I did the right thing. I feel guilty for hiding such a big secret. I thought it was for the best, but now I don’t know. I think I might have done the wrong thing.”