Chapter 31
Will
I called my secretary and told her I was sick and wouldn’t be coming in this morning. I owned a multi-billion-dollar corporation that didn’t stop for anything, and it needed my constant supervision to keep the gears turning smoothly, but there was no way I could walk into that office and act like nothing was going on in my life. There were certain times you could leave your life at the door, but something as big as the imminent arrival of an unexpected child was not one of those times. I had barely slept the night before. I’d thought about Ella’s revelation and what she had been going through and the fact that I was once again going to be a father. Only this time the circumstances were a bit more complicated than with my first child.
I needed to clear my head and process this new information, so I’d arranged for my mother to come pick up Avery for the day. She didn’t know what was going on yet, but I was going to tell her when she got here. I loved my son, and in almost every other situation, he was the calming voice in my head, the comfort in the storm, and my partner in crime, but this situation was too much for him to understand. I didn’t want to show him that I was struggling. He needed a strong lead, and I felt that today I was falling short. Just as those thoughts were running through my head, there was a knock on the door, and I answered it and hugged my mother tightly.
“Wow,” she said, hugging me back. “It’s good to see you too, Son.”
“How was your train ride over?”
“It was nice this morning. I had a completely empty train.” She smiled, patting me on the chest and walking into the house.
“Mom, I have to talk to you about something,” I said.
“All right, hit me.”
“Last night, Ella came over to talk to me,” I said. “She was hyped up and rethinking life because of what her father had just gone through. She revealed to me that she is pregnant, and the child is most definitely mine.”
My mother smiled comfortingly, wrapped her arms around me, and squeezed. She always knew what the appropriate response was to everything, even if it wasn’t the one I expected. I closed my eyes and gave in to the comfort, ignoring the fact that I was a grown man needing his mother. She pulled away and held me by my shoulders, looking me in the face.
“I know you don’t feel like congratulations are in order, but I disagree,” she said. “Congratulations, my sweet boy. You are such an amazing father already. This child is going to have such a wonderful life with you, and with Ella as its mother.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” she said, smiling. “And I support Ella and you with all my heart. I know this is probably hard on her and a very confusing time, but please let her know—and you remember—that I’m here for anything the two of you may need. Or the four of you now, I guess. Does anyone else know?”
“No,” I said, rubbing my face. “No one other than you. She hasn’t told her parents yet, and to be honest, we haven’t really talked that much about it. I just found out last night, and needless to say, my mind has been running a million miles a minute ever since.”
“You always did have a way of overthinking everything in life.” She smiled. “But some things, no matter how much you think about them, will never be solved that way. In fact, some things only get worse when you start to overthink them.”
“I know,” I said, shaking my head and sitting down on the couch. “This is definitely one of those situations where overthinking things is taking a toll on my mind, body, and the relationship between Ella and me. I mean, not to sound like a ten-year-old boy looking for my mother’s guidance, but really, what do I do, Mom? I don’t even know where to start.”
“Well, first and foremost, you pull yourself up by the bootstraps and you take care of that baby,” she said, sitting down next to me. “The two of you made a choice that resulted in a child, and it’s not that child’s fault if it was unplanned. Babies are such a beautiful gift in this world, and they grow up to be the leaders of this country, like you have. While they are little, though, they just need the support of their mother and father, and that is something that I fully expect you to give without hesitation. This child is no different than your Avery. The circumstances are different, but the child is not.”
“Of course, Mom,” I said, shaking my head. “Taking care of that child was never even a question in my mind. I will love that baby just as much as I love Avery, and it will have everything and anything it needs, and so will Ella. That wasn’t what I meant when I said I didn’t know what to do. I’m already raising one child in a ‘broken’ home, even though it broke from circumstances we couldn’t prevent. I feel like allowing this child to grow up in a broken home is something that can be avoided, but the decision is daunting, and I don’t want to make the wrong one.”
“Ella is a beautiful person,” my mother said. “I have thought that from the first day I met her. Sure, she is young, but I was young when I got pregnant with you. Even though I was already married to your father, love hadn’t yet blossomed between us. We married because we were supposed to, but you can’t force love. Luckily for the two of us, it came, but it was definitely a struggle at first. I can’t lie. I’m not saying to force anything with Ella. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t always have to be wedding bells and fireworks to be right. How do you feel about Ella?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Ella is enchanting, beautiful, and intelligent. She has the whole world at her feet, and she knows what it means to work hard for what you want in life. She is very much like me, only quite a bit younger. There is nothing about Ella to not like, really, but it definitely has been confusing, sorting out all these feelings and trying to find my place in all of this. I’ll be the first one to admit that this child was not conceived out of the love and romance at the beginning of a relationship. Ella and I were two adults engaged in a casual sexual relationship.”
“Too much information,” my mom said. “But go on.”
“We were just having fun and enjoying the time we had with each other. However, even before she told me about the baby, I realized that our casual encounter had turned into something much more. It’s been difficult between us because I have been scared to give in to my feelings. It’s like I am betraying Megan’s memory somehow.”
“Let me tell you something about Megan,” she said, taking my hand. “What the two of you had was beautiful, radiant even, and it changed your world. But Megan is gone, and I can promise you, she is not still lurking around here. She is enjoying whatever comes next. Whatever guilt you have, you have created it on your own. Whatever ghost haunts you, you’re the orchestrator behind that. Megan would want you to move forward, not sit still. You need to sit down with Ella and tell her how you feel, even if it’s confusing, and really listen to her.”
“Ugh. Why does this have to be so confusing?” I asked, throwing my head back. “You’re right. I need to put the past behind me. I need to sit down with Ella and listen to her fears and her hopes. I need to find that place I know we both want to be, but right now, I don’t even know where to start or what to say. I feel like a bomb was just dropped on my head and I had zero warning that it was even in the area. Not to mention the fact that my response will not go down as a good one.”
“Well, that part doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “You’re your father’s son. He was never good with words, either, especially when he didn’t have time to really think them through first. You need to take things one step at a time. You need to think about the best course of action, and remember, that action may not be what’s best for you, but it will be what is best for Ella and that baby. Your time to be selfish in this matter is over, I’m afraid. Now the real thinking needs to occur. But I don’t know why you think you need to hear this from me. You know all of this stuff already.”
“I do,” I said. “I guess maybe I’m just still in shock. My mind hasn’t moved past the part about me having another child. It feels completely surreal, like I dreamed the whole thing. I wasn’t prepared to hear that kind of news, and I hurt Ella because of it. That’s something I never wanted to do, but I seem to be pretty good at it. It’s like I’m tripping over my feet at every turn. I’m trying to remember that this is affecting Ella a lot more right now than it is me, but it’s still a huge thing in my life.”
“Of course it is,” my mother said, smiling. “No one is disputing that. It’s big for everyone involved.”
“I’m not worried about me. I know I’ll adapt. But I am worried a bit about Ella. She has been working toward this future that she was hellbent on having, and this may make it difficult for her. Just now she was able to find some sort of peace with her family, and that only came when her father went down from a heart attack. She has so many things going on in her life that will change because of this, and I worry that she won’t have the same kind of support from her family that I have from you. I’m afraid she’ll feel alone and rejected.”
“So you make sure that she isn’t alone and rejected,” she said. “That child’s well-being goes beyond clothes and diapers. It’s also attached to the well-being of its mother. Now I’m not saying you need to be in a relationship if it isn’t right in your heart, but you never let her fall on her face. She is going to need to know that no matter what happens with her family, you are there to lean on.”
“I understand,” I said, finally feeling a tiny bit better. “Mom, can you do me a favor?”
“Anything,” she said, patting my leg.
“Would you take Avery for a while?” I asked. “I want to have a space for Ella and I to talk, to work through things, and to show her that this doesn’t have anything to do with me needing her help with Avery. I also want to wait to tell Avery about everything until it’s straight with Ella and me. I need to keep his life as stable as possible.”
“That’s not a problem,” she said. “Just remember that you’re allowed to keep living your life, loving, and forging forward. Megan would have had it no other way.”
“I know.” I took a deep breath. “I finally know that.”