Chapter Thirty-Eight
Theo
The windows of my apartment rattle from the force of me slamming the door behind me. She has some nerve, telling me I need to go away. If I didn’t leave, I was going to say something I would live to regret. If I had the energy, I would slam the door three more times for good measure. But all I can manage is to throw my keys across the room. They hit a pile of crap on my dining room table. If I don’t pick them up now, I’ll never remember what I did with them.
I move some junk mail out of the way that Mom must have put there for me. Underneath the pile are the board games that Darla gave me for my birthday. I must have left them at my parents’ house when we rushed out of there to get to the hospital that fateful day, and Mom dropped them off here for me. One at a time, I open the boxes to smell the fresh cardboard smell of a new game waiting to be played. All the plastic game pieces are still in their plastic bags. The Twister mat has that familiar plastic smell and hasn’t been overcome with stinky feet yet. When I move the last box, the dry-erase board sits facing up, its unanswered Hangman puzzle staring at me, taunting me. I run my finger through the drawing, smearing it until it’s completely illegible. Don’t care.
The bright light from the floor lamp is too cheerful for me, so I switch it off before I slouch down on my couch. It’s more comfortable than I remember. But compared to the hard waiting room floor, anything would feel like a Tempur-Pedic mattress.
I’m too wired to sleep but too tired to eat. Darla should have told me. I’m a reasonable guy. I could have handled the truth. Well, my handling of the truth has been quite crappy now that I think about it. It’s exactly the reaction she was afraid I would have, and it’s exactly why she didn’t know how to tell me. But still, she told everyone else but me. That’s what hurts the most. I was the least important person to her. I would bet she told the clerk at the grocery store or maybe the dude that changes the oil in her car. It wouldn’t surprise me if the librarian and the mailman probably knew from the get-go.
Thinking back over the past few weeks, I realize she did try to tell me about her really big secret. And like the hypocrite I am, I assured her she could tell me when she was ready. I went back on my word about always trusting her and believing in her. And I sucked at the “not keeping a record of wrongdoings” or the “rejoicing in the truth” part of the scripture that I preached to her. I let her down a thousand times worse than she could ever hurt me.
I lie down with my hands across my face. This is actually the first time since I found out about Stella that I’ve had the chance to contemplate everything that has happened. I’m a father. I. Am. A. Father. I have a daughter, and she is so sick, so sick she might die. No, I can’t let myself think that right now. I will not let her die. As long as I’m alive, I will fight to keep her alive.
A key rattles in the lock of my apartment. I groan. I should never have given Tommy a key. The door opens. Jennifer, Heather, and Tommy rush in, flipping on the lights, which burn my retinas.
I don’t even give them the courtesy of making eye contact. “Get out of here.”
Jennifer sits beside me on the couch.
“What are all of you doing here? Don’t y’all have your own lives?”
Tommy sits in the recliner by the sofa. “Come on, Theo. We don’t have to be here. We want to. We’re family.”
“How did you know I was here?” I ask Jennifer, who’s sitting next to my feet.
“We stopped by the hospital. Darla told us she shooed you away.”
“Figures.”
Tommy moves to the coffee table. I snap a glare his way. He’s way too close for comfort.
“I said get out of here.”
“Theo, shut up,” Jennifer says.
Heather heads for the kitchen and makes herself at home. Little sisters are notorious for the “what’s yours is mine” mentality.
“No more,” Jennifer says, wearing her big-sister attitude. That’s never a good sign. “Tommy’s here because he cares about you.”
I scowl. “Even you don’t believe that. I bet Tommy had a field day when he found out.”
My brother grimaces and opens his mouth to speak.
Jennifer motions for Tommy to stay silent before he can say anything. “You don’t mean that,” she tells me. “Stop being so sortatious.”
Tommy takes a deep breath. “Theo, she came over here the day you took her ice-skating to tell you, but you hadn’t come home from work yet. It took her a while, but she finally worked up the nerve to practice her speech on me.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He flails his arms around. “I didn’t know what to do. She promised me she would tell you. In fact, she said she was heading straight over to the hospital to tell you. I thought it was best coming from her.”
That was the day Mallory showed up at work, begging me for another chance. No wonder Darla was there. She had finally worked up the courage to tell me, and Mallory ruined the moment.
“If you could have seen the torment she was going through—”
“She kept it from me on purpose.” I stare at the ceiling. “First, Mallory lies to me and then this.” I clench my fists.
“It’s not the same, and you know it,” Jennifer says. “And for the record, I didn’t know squat until you stopped by my class that day.”
Heather enters the living room with beers for everyone but hands me a bottle of water. She tears open a bag of chips, and the three of them grab handfuls as though this is any other family night at the Edwards household.
“What are you so mad about, anyway?” Heather asks me, or at least I think that’s what she said. Her mouth is so jammed full of chips, I’m not even sure she was speaking English.
“What do you think?” I reply.
“I mean, are you mad that you have a kid, or are you mad that other people figured it out before you?”
I close my eyes to block out this unwanted intervention.
Heather keeps pushing. “I’m being serious. I don’t know the backstory, so help me out. Are you mad that you have a kid?”
I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with my little sister. “Of course not.”
“Okay, are you mad that Stella’s hers?” Heather asks.
“Definitely not,” Tommy answers for me.
I stare at them. I couldn’t disagree, even if I had the strength.
“Are you mad you didn’t know for so long?”
I move to a sitting position. “I don’t know. I mean, yes. I mean, maybe. But I’ve been here a month, and she still didn’t tell me on purpose. Who does that?”
“She has no self-esteem, Theo,” Jennifer says. “She tried to tell you.”
I snort. “She tried to tell him.” I point at Tommy.
Jennifer lets out a sigh. “Before that. Long before that. I’m talking about when she was pregnant. She sent you emails telling you about the baby.”
My head snaps to attention. I’m completely awake now. My eyes feel as if they’re about to bug out of their sockets. “I never got any emails. I think I would have remembered that.”
Tommy stands and paces the room. He stuffs his hands into his jeans pockets. “Uh, no, you didn’t get them… I did.”
I jump up, ready to punch my brother in the face, but Jennifer grabs my arm to hold me back.
I clench my fists. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying she thought she sent them to you. Do you remember a long time ago when I was getting a bunch of crazy emails? A friend of mine was pulling a joke on me, and I thought Darla’s emails were part of that, so I deleted them. And I might have told her to leave me alone. I guess she was doing what she thought you wanted.”
My mouth drops open.
“I’m so sorry, man. Darla didn’t even realize it until the day she was practicing her speech on me. She didn’t want you to be mad at me so she made me promise not to say anything to you until she had a chance to clear the air.” He reaches out and squeezes my shoulder.
I sink back down onto the couch and cover my face with my arm. Tommy sits on the coffee table in front of me. His words swim around in my brain, nauseating me. Darla really did try to tell me. My heart aches when I think of how abandoned she must have felt when she thought I didn’t want her or the baby. I can’t think like that right now. “But even so, that doesn’t justify not telling me now.”
“She’s not a mean person,” Jennifer says. “Forgiveness, Theo. Forgiveness.”
“Well, it’s your fault,” Heather says to me.
We all stare at her. “And how is that?” I ask.
She chomps down on another chip. “Condoms, dude. Didn’t Mom teach you better?”
Tommy laughs under his breath, and I punch him on the shoulder.
“Ow!”
“Heather, that’s not nice,” Jennifer says through a stifled grin.
Heather giggles. “I didn’t mean for it to be funny. What were you thinking? That you’d be immune to having babies?”
“Jeez, Heather, I didn’t plan for this. And yes, I did think I was immune, thank you very much.”
They all know what the doctors have told me. They all know how hard it has been for me to watch other people my age get married and have kids, knowing I was told I would never have that.
I sigh and sit up. “It was not my normal practice, okay? I don’t sleep around. She was special.”
“Is special,” they say in unison.
“Whatever. If I had known, I would have done the right thing. I wasn’t… I’m not a love ’em and leave ’em kind of person.”
Heather smirks at me. “Then explain to me why you’re leaving now.”
Tommy fist-bumps her.
Damn. The baby of the family is now the wise one. That’s a hard pill to swallow.
Jennifer smiles at me. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”
Tommy continues. “It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”
Thanks a lot, Tommy. I’m going to remember this when some girl finally cracks his armor. It’s only a matter of time, and I’m going to make him eat his words.
Heather clears her throat. “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
Oh, now my baby sister has to gang up on me too. I thought we were buds.
“Love never fails,” they all say together.
Ugh. The problem with having a pastor for a father is that every member of the family can whip out scripture at any time to suit their specific argument. But this passage hits too close to home. They’re right, and they know it. Damn it.
I rise from the couch and growl at them. “I need to take a shower and get back to the hospital. Let yourselves out.”
They have the nerve to do a round of high fives as I head down the hallway toward the bathroom.
“Assholes,” I mumble to myself.