Page 9 of My Girlfriend is Not the Father

‘Just not sure you could back that beast up into a tiny spot.’

‘I could back my beast up into any tiny spot,’ she said with a terrible growl. Nope. ‘Ugh. Why does it always sound so good in my head but never coming out?’

‘Oh, Lucy-goosey. Someday your humour will land.’

‘You suck.’ She glanced behind her to make sure she wasn’t holding up anyone who needed supplies. ‘Fine, you can pick me up.’

‘Seriously, when are you going to get an electric car? The amount of gas—’

‘The amount of mining it takes to get your battery for your electric car—’

‘Fair.’ He chuckled. ‘Call you later. I have to go back to coding all the things.’

‘Better you than me.’ How Drew received so much satisfaction working with software was beyond her. He explained many, many times what he did at work, but her eyes glazed over after about twelve seconds of him rambling about the interworkings of JavaScript and Python.

Okay, so another huge milestone was checked off the baby list. The coordinator told Lucy she’d have fluctuating feelings, sometimes moment to moment. Happy, terrified, anxious, thrilled. But right now, they all seemed to hit at once, making her dizzy.

After taking a moment to recoup, a smile crept onto her face. We’re getting close.

She tossed her phone into her purse and moved to the self-checkout. Shoot. Baby aspirin. She wasn’t even pregnant yet, and her forgetfulness was teetering on an all-time high. She pivoted, searched a few aisles, and stopped. Smack dab in front of her was a display of sriracha.

She had an idea.

Chapter 4

Jade

Amateur hour. For freak’s sake. Jade scrubbed the red dye off her hands. How, after doing hair for almost twelve years, did she apply colour without her gloves? Red colour, no less, one of the most potent pigments. She didn’t want to leave her client hanging, so when she realised her mistake, she slapped her hand with a towel, put on gloves, and finished applying. Thirty minutes later, after saturating the last strand, the dye had seeped into every pore and was surely making its way to her internal organs.

Her focus had been off this week. Even Mrs Dieterman called her out for not paying more attention to her stories. Hearing her ex-wife’s voice for the first time in almost a year had rattled Jade to the core. She hated that Elizabeth’s voice still held power over her, this draw to the life Jade left behind, to the shattered dreams that were once so profound. A year and a half ago, when she signed the divorce papers and packed up her belongings for a new life in Minnesota, she didn’t think she’d hear from Elizabeth again. Ever. In fact, she prayed she wouldn’t hear from Elizabeth again. She needed to cut her ex-wife out of her life completely, because Jade knew herself – a moment of weakness reminiscing about some rose-coloured memory would unravel all the healing work she’d done on herself.

It wasn’t vindictive on Jade’s part. Not at all. It was simply that Elizabeth had made her choice. A distinct, bold, hard-lined decision that didn’t include Jade: after eight years of marriage, Elizabeth decided she wanted to start a family.

Jade didn’t.

She never had, and she’d been upfront about that with Elizabeth from the start. She’d thought they were eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart, and then … and then the love of her life, her person, her wife, drew an impossible line. The ultimate ultimatum. And in the aftermath, Jade knew she’d never be whole again. The pain was guttural, the type that buried deep into your bones and infected everything. Even now, the wounds had healed as much as they could, but the scars would be there forever.

But the worst part of it all, as much as she ached to hate Elizabeth, she couldn’t. Part of her soul had been branded by her ex, and Jade wasn’t sure that she’d ever be able to fully let her go.

Jade grabbed a fresh box of latex gloves from the cabinet and ripped open the top as painful memories of her marriage flooded through her. Elizabeth had begged, pleaded, bribed, and borderline threatened to have a baby with or without Jade. Jade didn’t budge – she couldn’t budge. She had never wanted to be a mother. Being an aunt, great. Motherhood, no.

What hurt the most was that Jade and Elizabeth had been on the same page since freshman year of college when they first met. Careers, early retirement, travelling the world – that was their future. A family was never on the cards. And then – wham.

After months of begging, haranguing, and outright disparaging Jade for her ‘cold heart’, Elizabeth finally said she’d take care of the baby on her own, and Jade could just be there for moral support. ‘You don’t even have to change a diaper,’ Elizabeth had yelled outside their locked bedroom door as Jade buried her face into a pillow. Even though Jade had no motherly bones in her body, she knew that was a terrible way to raise a kid.

The Dark Night flashed in her mind – the moment she knew their relationship would never recover. A document slapped on the table. Elizabeth crossing her arms. Jade bursting into tears.

Not divorce papers. Or at least not yet. No – they were adoption papers. Elizabeth had gone ahead and applied for adoption on her own. She said Jade could be with her on this journey, or not.

Jade left their home a week later.

The next several months, Jade downward-spiralled through bouts of anger and self-doubt. Her only relief came from her hyper-fixation on building up her salon. She spent eighty to ninety hours a week for those first few months getting Jade’s on 7th off the ground. Blistered feet, bloodied hands, nearly falling asleep at the wheel on the drive home … everything was a welcome distraction from the ugly truth: Elizabeth hadn’t chosen her. Jade wasn’t enough for her wife. Her self-worth faded, slipped between her fingers. For months, she battled to regain some sense of value. A year plus later, she wasn’t sure if she had fully succeeded.

The magenta soap suds swirled down the drain, and Jade wiped her hands. Her fingers would stay pink for a few days, but after some hefty exfoliation, the dye would fade. She zoned out, staring at bottles of colour. ‘What am I doing …’ she mumbled and tapped her fingers against the ceramic counter. Oh yeah, coffee for the client.

Admittedly, hearing Elizabeth’s voice wasn’t the only thing pestering her brain. She’d perked up one too many times when the salon phone rang, scoured the upcoming appointments log, and not-so-casually asked Amanda, ‘Any new clients this week?’ hoping she’d see Lucy’s name. A strange tug-of-war between relief and disappointment occurred every time a new client was someone other than Lucy. And the relief was a much safer emotion to process.

‘Here you go.’ Jade brought her client a coffee and chocolate and set the timer. ‘Forty-five-minute processing time. I’ll be back in a bit to check on you. Need anything else?’