We enter the restaurant and are taken to our section right away. I stop off to take a leak then take to my reserved table where I’m given a menu right away.
While examining it, I hear, “So, you can’t wait for your guest to arrive to eat?”
I respectfully stand right away, in pure astonishment. “Michael… What are you doing in the City?”
I go to shake his hand, thrown totally off kilter. This is a huge surprise. I haven’t seen him in about a month, since Sarah’s birthday party.
“I guess I have to come to where you are since you won’t stop by the house to see Sarah anymore.”
We sit. I give a cue for privacy from all.
“I thought space would be nice for all parties,” I offer.
“I guess that’s rational thinking, considering your monumental offense,” he quickly returns.
“You don’t believe in preambles, I see.”
“I didn’t believe you did either. Not the way you busted up in my house seven years ago informing me that you impregnated my child.”
I exhale deeply. I knew this day would come sooner or later.
“Where do you want me to begin?”
I know my posture is placid, not yielding my anxiety, but that’s just who I am. The only person who can get me in a place of animation is his daughter.
“Is Zoey right in saying you got her pregnant on purpose?”
Shit. This is harder than I anticipated. Telling him she was pregnant was so much easier. That type of slip up is the reason why millions of us are here. But my deliberate action seven years ago isn’t as common a practice.
“When I met her…” I attempt. “She was just so...” I find my finger pads scraping from the top of my head to my chin. Shit. That approach won’t work. Fuck it. “Michael, I can’t say that I’m sorry for conceiving my son. He’s been the only sure thing in my life. He’s been…mine. Something irreversible.” I hear the remorse in my voice.
Michael shakes his head. “I’m not asking you to be. That boy has brought so much joy. I don’t wish to change his existence. I couldn’t imagine my life right now without him running amok through my house—now, that’s not something I could easily explain to his mother. That young boy that brings us joy has caused her, probably, the biggest heartache of her life.”
“How so?”
“Awww…c’mon, man!” he quickly reacts to my question. I’ve never seen him so dynamic.
His statement is honestly lost upon me.
“Stenton, you’re a father just like me. You may not have been one for as long and you may not have girls, but there’s nothing worse than seeing your child walk around for years with what was once the brightest light in her eyes, now darkened by sadness. You broke her heart, man!” he declares so vehemently, droplets of spit fling from his mouth. “Zoey hasn’t been the same since she got pregnant, and it wasn’t the baby. It took years for me to discern that. No. It was you. Not being with who she believes has touched her soul.”
Michael sits back and gazes off into the distance, I assume needing a breath. “She adores that little boy; getting over the setback of her career and the disappointment from her family eventually passed, but what hasn’t is that gleam in her eyes. She doesn’t have the…vibrancy she used to.”
“And you attribute this to me?”