* * *
“Of course she’s your real daughter,” Lola Haynes reassured me two days later, pushing her pedicured feet into red strappy sandals. Connie was in the backyard, swimming laps in the pool. I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of her. “She looks just like you.”
“No,” I corrected her, “she looks just like you. Not that I would wish this jawbone on anybody.”
“Oh, my god, Ace.” Lola rolled her eyes and made a dramatic show of slumping forward, her bleached blond hair falling into her face, then sitting up straight and flipping it back. She wore a strapless sundress and cherry lip gloss, ready to run the gauntlet with some random Tinder match yet again. I didn’t get it, but then again, I’d never really gotten Lola. Our casual status turned serious solely because she got pregnant early on—and I hung in there as long as I possibly could.
“When have you ever let Chet bring you down?” Lola pointed out.
“Never.” I hated to admit when Lola had a point, but this time, Chet’s barb rang true. I knew Lola could lie like a professional actress if it suited her needs; that was how my dumb ass stayed with her for three whole years, trusting every “work conference” and every “family reunion” she supposedly had. I shook my head to clear the web of her deception from my brain. “But you and I both know I wasn’t the only man in your life when you got pregnant with her, Lo. Chet mentioned something about that fucking stump, Shemp.”
Lola sucked in her cheeks and pouted her lips, a duck-faced expression she often made when she was under pressure. If she was bluffing, this was her tell. I never mentioned that to her.
“Look, Lo... I want a paternity test.”
“Oh, come on!” Lola cried, throwing her hands up and standing from the couch, striding into the kitchen. Was she trying to avoid me? Did she feel guilty? “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
“Come on yourself,” I sneered, thanking God that we weren’t together for the millionth time in the past five years. I followed her into the kitchen and she busied herself with pouring a cup of water at the sink. “You’d understand if it was possible that Connie might not be yours.”
“And don’t you know how traumatic that would be for Connie?” Lola dumped the water out of the cup and absently scrubbed at it with a rag from the sink. “How am I supposed to tell her that her dad might not be her dad?”
“Lola.” I kept my voice measured and calm. “All you need to do is pluck a hair from her brush. That’s all. Please don’t tell her we’re doing this.”
“We’re not doing this!” Lola cried, throwing her cup into the sink and running the faucet over it. “I’m not giving Connie a goddamn paternity test!” She pulled the same cup from the sink and began scrubbing at it again.
“Yes, you are!” I grabbed the cup out of Lola’s hands and pitched it into the sink. She was going to look at me, damn it.
“No, I’m not!”
“Why?”
“Because!” Lola huffed out a breath and wrenched free from me, bracing a hand on the sink and her other hand on her hip. She shook her head and fixed her gaze on her French-tipped toenails. “Because she’s not,” the whispered answer finally came struggling out.
In that instant, my breath whooshed out of my lungs and the floor disappeared beneath my feet. I felt every cell in my body deflate, flatten and drain completely. My daughter wasn’t my daughter. Connie wasn’t my daughter. I was the one who mopped her spit-up from her chin. I was the one who scooped her up when her bicycle toppled sideways in the driveway. But she wasn’t my flesh and blood. She wasn’t my DNA. She never had been.
The birth certificate was a lie. The past eight years were a lie.
“What?” I said, even though I knew exactly what she had said. It sounded so faint and impossible to my ears. Maybe I was just having a stroke. “What did you just say?”
Lola’s shoulders rounded, and she shook her head. “She’s not your daughter.” Lola twisted to face me, eyes shimmering with tears. That shit meant nothing to me now. “I—Mike Shemp is a fucking stump, you’re right,” she rushed to explain herself.
My hands clenched into fists, and I told myself that I would never hit a woman. I told myself those words again and again, boiling where I stood.
“I couldn’t—couldn’t let that guy be a part of my life forever!” Lola pressed her hand to her forehead and pursed her lips, gazing at me with such thick self-pity. This bitch was a one-woman show. I had to give her that much. Never a dull moment... if it was a show that you wanted to actually watch. “And you were so nice,” she finished weakly.
I stalked to the sliding glass door and opened it, yelling out at Connie. If I stayed here another minute, I might destroy this kitchen. But it wasn’t just Lola’s lying, piece-of-shit kitchen. It was Connie’s kitchen, too, and she was the only thing in my life worth preserving, worth fighting for. “Come on in, baby!” I bellowed. “Daddy’s here!”
I glared pointedly at Lola as I said the words.
She pressed her shiny lips together, eyes still gleaming up at me. I shook my head.
“I’m glad you did it,” I confessed. I loved Connie as much as life itself, and I would never wish her out of my life. “But I can’t look at you right now, woman.”
I shook my head again as my eyes turned to Connie, my knobby-kneed eight-year-old, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel, jogging barefoot across the backyard. I had to focus on her. She was the only good thing left.