I didn’t get a lick of sleep. I spent the entire night staring at the ceiling wondering what happened. Why was she accusing me of leaving her? How could she stand there and deny what she wrote on Facebook, deny that she went back to Chris after I saw it with my own eyes?
I drink a few bottles of water to sober up. Then around eight in the morning, I decide to hit the hotel gym, getting on the treadmill to keep from pounding down her door. As I run, I think about all the runs we shared together. I remember how I still ran at seven o’clock every Monday and Wednesday night in Brazil, wondering if, even though she was with him, she was doing the same thing. I recall how I looked at her pictures for years wondering why she left school and how she was doing.
When my feet fail me and I barely recover before I face-plant the deck of the treadmill, I settle on going for a swim instead.
Down at the hotel pool, I do lap after punishing lap, trying to exhaust myself so I don’t have the energy to go after her. It’s working. After fifty laps, I’m unable to even gather the strength to pull myself out of the pool. I stand in the water and silently watch a few other people doing laps as I try to work the feeling back into my arms and legs.
I see small feet kicking in the lane next to me as someone does the freestyle stroke towards my end of the pool. I’m surprised when a kid wearing reflective goggles pops up out of the water beside me. I’m impressed at his speed. “You’re pretty fast, partner.”
“Thanks,” he replies.
“What’s your name, kid? I’ll have to watch for you in the Olympics one day.”
His dimpled smile is full of pride as he answers, “Max.”
“Well, Max, I’ll bet you’re even faster than me, and what are you, eight or nine?”
“Seven,” he says, beaming up at me.
“Max!” a woman yells from the other end of the pool.
I nod at her. “Your mom?”
“Nah, she’s my nanny. She’s always telling me not to talk to strangers.” He twirls his finger in the air around his ear, making me laugh.
“Maddox Mitchell, get over here this instant!” his nanny yells.
“I gotta go, mister.” He flips up his goggles, revealing piercing blue eyes. “Bye.”
He stares at me while he backstrokes his way to the other side of the pool.
Sheer panic knocks the wind out of me when I focus on his eyes.
I
Can’t
Breathe.
I feel as if I’m drowning in the shallow water.
I can’t fucking move.
My legs are cemented in place, crippled with paralyzing uncertainty.
A gnawing ache rises up from the pit of my stomach, gripping my throat like a vice. I brace myself on the edge of the pool, taking a deep breath while my racing thoughts search for explanations. I shake my head, blood pounding through my temples. How is this possible? His eyes—they’re mine! I just looked into my own goddamn eyes.
I regain control of my legs and quickly do the math in my head as I race out of the pool and find my towel. He said he’s seven years old. I haven’t seen her in almost eight years. This just can’t be. But, he’s got my middle name for Christ’s sake—surely she wouldn’t have named Asswipe’s kid after me. And the resemblance . . .
My frantic mind tries to wrap around what my heart knows to be true. That the kid who was swimming next to me in the pool . . . the kid who was just smiling at me with Baylor’s dimple in his cheek . . . the kid named Maddox, who, if I’m being honest, is a mirror-fucking-image of me—that kid must be my son.
A kid.
I have a fucking kid!
Suddenly it occurs to me that I’ve been denied this information for eight years. Who does she think she is keeping this from me . . . keeping him from me?
I don’t even finish drying off before I rush upstairs to my room, dripping wet and thoroughly pissed off. I burst into the suite to see Scott and Angie going over yesterday’s paperwork. “Call our lawyer,” I spit at Angie. “Right fucking now!”
“Gavin.” She stands up and walks over to me. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
She glances over at Scott and they share a look. “Does this have anything to do with Baylor Mitchell?” she asks.
I cock my head to the side and stare at her.
She continues, “Scott told me you saw her last night.” She brings me a dry towel from the front credenza. “Why do you need a lawyer, Gavin?” Her eyes suddenly go wide. “You didn’t do anything stupid like kill her and bury the body, did you?” She laughs nervously.
I give her a hard stare. “No. Not yet anyway,” I say. “She has a seven-year-old kid. Named Maddox.” I point to my chest. “My fucking kid!”
She looks confused as she studies me. “You knew this was a possibility, Gavin. Why all of a sudden do you care if she has your kid?”
“What are you talking about, Ang? I never even knew she was pregnant,” I tell her. “She ran off with that asshole Chris and I never heard from her again.”
Angie gasps and pales. She walks over to sit down on the couch. Scott asks if she’s okay and she shakes her head as she asks me, “You didn’t write Baylor a letter, giving her cash for an abortion? A letter telling her never to contact you again?”
I throw my towel, not even caring that I send something from a nearby table crashing to the ground. I walk over to where Angie sits. “No, I didn’t write any letter. I didn’t do a goddamn thing. She left me, Angie. I loved her. If I had known she was pregnant I would have married her.”
“Oh, my God,” she says. Her face is painted with sadness and regret.
“You’d better start talking, Angie, and right fucking quick.” I pour myself a stiff drink despite the early hour. I have a feeling I’m going to need it. I know my whole world is about to change.
“I didn’t know, Gavin,” she says. Her lower lip quivers and her eyes get glassy. “She said you wrote a letter after you found out about the baby. She told me never to bring it up to you because you were probably too upset by it.”
“Who told you that? Baylor?” I ask, confused as to why Baylor would have talked to Angie about such a sensitive subject.
“Not Baylor. Karen,” she says.
“What?” I ask, looking between Scott and Angie for all the answers to the questions floating around in my head. “Why would Karen tell you I wrote a letter to Baylor when I didn’t even know about the baby?”
I stare at Angie as her body trembles. She closes her eyes and sighs. “God, Gavin. This is all my fault. I knew about Karen’s attempts to break you guys up. I knew about the fake Facebook page. I knew about it all. But I never said anything, because she told me you knew about the pregnancy and that you broke it off with Baylor all on your own.”
“The fake Facebook page?” I question. “You mean the one claiming Baylor was seeing both of us the whole time?”
She nods her head in shame. “Yes, that one. Facebook was brand new. Anyone who had an e-mail address could claim an identity. Not many people used it yet, so there was little chance of any of Baylor’s friends seeing it. Karen started it as soon as you told her you wanted to date Baylor. She took pictures off your phone and she somehow got a friend to get pictures from Chris’s. I think one of our sorority sisters was in a class with him.
“She tried to make you jealous by telling you that Chris was seeing someone, knowing you’d ask him or Baylor about it and they’d deny it, making you suspicious. Karen would post to the fake Facebook page from time to time to give it credibility so you would see how far back the dishonestly went. She planned all along to show it to you when you went to Brazil, but then Baylor got pregnant and she used that to her advantage.”
I’m still confused. “But how could Karen have known Baylor was pregnant when I didn’t even know myself?”
“Stephanie Jeffries,” Angie says.
“Who?”
“She was our sorority sister. She worked in the campus medical center. Karen told me that Stephanie recognized Baylor. Apparently she went to the clinic with the intention of getting on the pill. It was customary to run a pregnancy test before writing a prescription for birth control. Baylor didn’t even know she was pregnant until that day. Stephanie called Karen so that she could tell you and give you a heads up. Then Karen told me that you freaked out about the baby, saying your dad would disown you or something and that you said you were only messing around with Baylor anyway, so you just blew her off in a letter.”
Scott finally chimes in after sitting and listening with his chin in his lap. “This is seriously messed up, Gavin.”
“I swear to God, Gavin, I never would have let her get away with it had I known she let it go that far,” Angie says. “I’m so sorry. You have to believe me, Gavin.” Tears roll down her face and I know she speaks the truth. Angie has two young children herself that she dotes on as much as any mother I’ve ever seen, so I can’t imagine her denying that to another living soul.
I down my remaining whiskey in one burning swallow. This whole time Baylor thought I knew about the baby. She thought I’d left her to deal with it alone. That I’d given her money to get rid of it for Christ’s sake. It all makes sense now—why Baylor texted me that morning of my final, why she looked distraught that day at the dorm, why she quit school. Why she tore me a new asshole last night.
Holy God, my life has been built on a goddamn bed of lies orchestrated by my own selfish wife.
I stand up to go take a shower before I seek out Baylor to try and explain and beg forgiveness. I turn back to Angie on my way out of the room. “Call our lawyer,” I say.
“You want to go for custody?” she asks.
“No. Tell him I want a fuckin’ divorce.” I slam my fist through the door on my way into to the bathroom as I yell back, “Yesterday!”