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“I have something else to say,” he said, and I just stared at him. “Even if I’m not present in a physical way, the baby will never need anything.” He pulled a credit card out of his wallet and placed it on my small table along with a packet of paper. “I opened this account for you and the baby. All the bank information is here. I’ll fund the account whenever it gets low, and if there are any major expenses…” he trailed off, and I watched him gather himself. “I’ll support you both,” he said simply.
I shook my head, shocked that he believed money could make up for his actual presence in a baby’s life. “I’m not yours to worry about anymore. You’re free. You can go back to being single and unattached. You don’t owe me a thing.” I pulled the front door open and waved my hand to the street outside. “Go on. Go be free, Oliver. The weight is lifted.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that I want to be free,” he moaned. “But Holland, I don’t even know what family is. This is the one thing in life I really don’t have a clue about. I thought it all made sense before, and now…honestly, the thought I could hurt someone as deeply as Adam and Sonja hurt me—the idea that I would have the power to turn someone’s world upside down. It terrifies me. I just don’t want to let you down.”
I stood there flabbergasted. “Seriously?” I was practically shrieking now. “Then you failed. Because that’s exactly what you just did.”
“You’ll find someone better,” he whispered, his eyes shining as he moved toward the door. “Someone who can be sure, someone who deserves you.”
Some kind of noise ripped out of me, something between a laugh and a scream. I was pretty sure I looked positively deranged in that moment, and I felt close to the brink of my self-control.
Oliver turned in the doorway and looked at me for a long moment. “I love you, Holland. I think I probably always will.”
I closed the door in his face and locked it, stumbling to the couch where I pulled a pillow against my chest and stared into space, my breathing coming in gasps. After a few minutes, the tears erupted from my eyes and exhaustion came over me. I curled up against the couch and hugged the pillow, not bothering to wipe at the tears that poured from me, not knowing how I might move forward. As my heart broke inside my chest and anger turned to a bleak despair, I wondered if the baby could feel my fear and anxiety. How could Oliver leave me like this? How could I do any of this alone? I wished I’d never met him, wished I’d never seen the possibility of a real family.
—
I forced myself out of bed the next morning and buried myself in work. I didn’t go out and wander the executive tower for fear of running into Oliver.
He was wrong. In my heart I knew he’d make a good father, even if he was too busy acting like an immature asshole to see it. It seemed like he’d bailed out just because he was afraid to try. I couldn’t think about it because my eyes welled up immediately every time I did. Beyond my anger was a more painful and raw hurt. He’d left me. And though he’d explained, and he had reasons he thought were sound that had nothing to do with me, there was a kid inside me still who would always believe she wasn’t good enough—wasn’t lovable. How could anyone abandon a tiny baby? I couldn’t see it, but my mother had. There had been something about me that wasn’t enough for her to stay.
“It had nothing to do with you, Holland.” Delia sat in my office, her long legs stretched before her. I’d called her in the middle of that first day after Oliver’s visit and she’d come the second we hung up. I had thought I’d be okay, that I’d be able to work through the confusion and pain, but I was wrong. “You know that, right? You know that people don’t put kids up for adoption because of the kids.” Delia’s caramel eyes were serious and focused as she spoke. We’d had this conversation, been having it since we were children. But we both needed to hear it sometimes.
“I know.”
“Holland,” Delia said, pulling my eyes back to her face. “You are beautiful and amazing, smart and funny. Any man would be lucky to have you, and Oliver knew that. I watched him with you. He knew how amazing you are. If he ran away, it wasn’t because of you.”
I hadn’t told Delia everything about Oliver, about his family. I filled her in now, my voice cracking and thin. She listened intently, and gave a sharp nod when I’d finished.
“That right there is a huge pile of bullshit and not one part of it has anything to do with you. Of course he’s gonna be messed up after that.”
“It doesn’t change what’s happening now,” I said, feeling hollow. “It doesn’t matter if I understand. He’s still gone.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what to say, honey. Part of me wants to be pissed off at him for being confused and stupid. But men are like little boys sometimes, Holl. Carl pulls shit like this all the time, and I have to push him back onto the path.”
“What do you mean?”
“With both girls, he completely freaked out. And he doesn’t have a trunkful of baggage like Oliver. I think it’s the way some guys grow up—they freak out first. Carl couldn’t run away cause he put a ring on it as soon as we found out about Gigi.” She waved her hand in the air and grinned. “But he wanted to. He told me later it was some kind of Peter Pan shit, like the idea of having kids meant that he was finally going to have to be a grown-up for real. Never mind that the man was already six-foot-two, paying a mortgage, and holding down a job. It was the idea of responsibility. Knowing it was a choice he couldn’t undo.”
“But he came around?”
Delia nodded. “He didn’t have a choice.”
“But Oliver does,” I pointed out, unable to stop playing devil’s advocate. “We’re not married. We haven’t even known each other long. And I still don’t know if he really believes it’s his.” The last part was a whisper. I hated the idea that it mattered. It was a baby, a defenseless and innocent child. Why should it matter where the DNA came from? But I knew it did.
She smiled weakly. “To some men that matters a lot. It’s that whole evolutionary caveman thing.”
“He opened a bank account. Gave me a card for it.”
“At least he’s doing something,” she said.
Surprise whipped through me—it felt as if Delia was taking his side in some small way. “It makes me feel like a prostitute,” I whispered.
I dropped my head onto my arms and Delia walked around to sit on the edge of my desk, her hand rubbing my back.
A knock sounded at my door and I raised my head. Pamela appeared.
I swallowed hard and tried not to look completely undone, my hands pushing my hair away from my face and wiping at my eyes. “Hi,” I said.
