CHAPTER 23
Doctor Church
The second my hands are freed I wrap them around her tighter than I ever have before.
“I’m never going to lose you again,” I say.
“Matilda, who is this?” the douchebag who was inside the house asks.
“It’s…this is the man who gave me…”
“Wait! Him?” the man says. “This piece of street trash is Andrew’s father?”
My eyes dart from Matilda to the man and back to Matilda.
“Andrew’s father?”
“Ian, I’m…I’ve…there’s something I need to tell you.”
I freeze up. What’s happening? A few seconds ago I was cuffed and headed to the slammer and now some guy I’ve never met is talking about something in regards to my women who I haven’t seen in almost a year? I try and put the puzzle pieces together, but it’s all coming too fast. Riding a motorcycle on the freeway at one hundred and fifty miles per hour is nothing compared to this.
“Come inside,” she says, taking my hand.
I take a step forward.
“He’s not coming in this house,” the man says.
“I think we got off on the wrong fit, sir,” I say as the SWAT team packs up their gear behind me but is still watching this situation unfold with a heightened level of interest.
“We didn’t get off on anything nor are we going to. There is no relationship here. Not with her or with me. None of us as a matter of fact. You’re not welcomed here. You deadbeat dad.”
“Matilda. What’s going on here.”
“I’m sorry. Just wait here for one second please.”
She runs to the man and grabs him by the wrist and leads him back inside.
Am I on an episode of the Twilight Zone right now?
I hear yelling but nothing breaking. I’m trying to respect whatever they have here, but I don’t want this to get out of hand. It’s my responsibility, duty, and commitment to protect my girl, but I’m trying to let them iron it out first. My patience is wearing very, very thin.
Suddenly Matilda comes out of the house with something bundled up in her arms.
“Ian, I’m sorry you have to find out like this…especially this way.”
“Find out what exactly?”
She turns her body sideways and pulls back part of the blanket.
“This is your son. Andrew.”
My entire body and mind go completely still. I just stare at the little boy there in her arms.
Not the little boy. My little boy.
My offspring. My first son. Our son.
The one we created together so perfectly. In a day full of exhausting highs and lows this is the most amazing final turn of the roller coaster that is life. I’ve experienced a world of emotions in the last ten minutes, and this one takes the cake.
“My son? This is my son?” I say.
I believe her, but it still hasn’t sunk in.
“I’m a dad.”
“You’re his father,” she says. She’s smiling but it’s a nervous smile…one with trepidation.
“May I?” I say silently.
She carefully hands Andrew over to me. I cradle him in my forearm and look down at him seeing my eyes and my nose, but his chin is definitely hers.
“He looks…perfect. Just like us.”
“Just like us,” she says. “Because we made him.”
I never thought I’d ever experience a moment like this and until her I never wanted to. Now I wonder what I waited all these years for.
“I wish I would have found you earlier,” I say. “So we could have already had a few of these beautiful babies by now.”
“That’s not entirely true,” she says.
My eyes move from Andrew to hers, not understanding the meaning of her words. “Not true?”
“You didn’t find me. I found you,” she says as she winks.
“But when I found you I found the meaning of life and I found love.”
“You…love me?”
“I always loved you. It’s why I kept searching until I finally found you.”
“And why I showed up at your clinic only to find a…hedge fund.”
“A hedge fund?” We both laugh. “None of that matters. Only the future. What we have now, which is everything, and where we take it, which is forward.”
“There is no future,” the man says.
“Shut up, Pierre!” she says.
“Who’s he? You met someone?”
I see that he’s older, somewhere around my age but I know it can’t be.
“He’s my stepfather. He helped me out when I got pregnant.”
“And you registered for Médecins Sans Frontières from this address?”
“Yes, I was here working as a nanny briefly and when I was almost finished I registered for Médecins Sans Frontières. Wait…how did you…?”
“I never stopped looking. I really never stopped. I turned over every rock…every stone…every boulder no matter how big. To me they were just pebbles and I was ready to move them all until they cleared a path to you…and Andrew.”
“He’s not staying here tonight!” Pierre says.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says to me. “He’ll get over it.”
“Want me to buy the house next door?”
“Ian!”
“One knock on the door and I’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.”
“I’d slap you on the arm, but you’re holding out first born.”
“Our first of many.”
“You promise?” she asks.
I make sure my grip on Andrew is perfect and with my other hand I reach up to her face, brushing my fingertips along those perfect, high cheekbones of yours.
“I promise just like I promise to love you forever,” I say.
“And I love you,” she says.
“You mean us,” I say.
“Yes,” she says, pausing to wipe away a tear of joy. I wipe away the second for her. “I mean us.”
I drop my hand from her face and wrap it around her. All three of us hug in the night on the outskirts of Paris.
I’m still not sure how I got here but I sure am glad I did. And more importantly than the journey I took to get here is the journey we will take forward.
Hand in hand as we bring more beautiful babies into this world.
Together. Forever.