“Dad…?” I heard my son’s trembling voice on the other end of the line. “What’s wrong, David? Are you okay?” “I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” he said. “But mom’s dead.”
After I finally pulled myself up from the floor, I caught the first flight I could from North Carolina to my hometown in South Florida. As I tilted my restless mind against the plane cabin window, I couldn’t stop thinking about Michelle. Our last conversation. All we’d been through. The first time I laid eyes on her. And how I failed her.
Like a lot of young love stories, ours began in a high school parking lot. My buddy Leo asked me to drive him to a neighboring school to say hi to his latest crush, which immediately became my crush. As she came down from the bleachers, her silky blond hair and piercing blue eyes marched right into my soul from a football field away.
Sixteen years of wondering what love was about, and here she was walking towards me in the hazy daze of a summer heat mirage. But Michelle wasn’t coming for me. She liked Leo, and despite being high school buddies, I knew better than to get sideways with a brawler who had anger management issues.
Two months would pass before I saw Michelle again. It took place at a Sunday BBQ in the woods. Although we didn’t say anything at first, we snuck side glances at each other through the bonfire flames until I finally got up the nerve to ask her if she wanted to take a ride on my dirt bike.
She wrapped her delicate hands around my waist and rested her porcelain chin on my shoulder. I felt as if angels had swaddled me in a blanket of affection. When we came to a clearing in the pines, I pulled over to have our first proper conversation.
But our 7 minutes in heaven were ticking away as fast as the melting sunset on the horizon. Leo and the gang were already drunk and wouldn’t be pleased by our absence, so I did something unlike myself and kissed Michelle before she could finish her sentence, more than willing to take Leo’s beating if it came to that. In an instant, I felt every roller coaster ride, Slurpee, and cotton candy I’d ever tasted glide down my throat and fill my body with rapturous bliss.
Michelle and I had an undeniable connection. But she was with Leo and me with Ann. Given our commitments and tight-knit community, I couldn’t see how we could ever be together. Regardless of this, we’d often talk by phone, and soon our late-night conversations turned into untamable romantic yearnings. All we wished for was time to be together, and that’s around the time a small opportunity presented itself to us.
. . .
“There’s no escaping it!” The dentist said. “Your wisdom teeth need to come out.” By the time surgery had finished, I was so floppy from the mix of valium, laughing gas, codeine, and novocaine they had to roll me up like a rug and load me into the backseat of my dad’s Oldsmobile.
When I got home, I went through several seasick hours of tossing and turning in bed because the mix of pills and fumes didn’t sit well with me. My parents had to go to a social event that night, but they promised not to be out too late, given my pale state. But as soon they left, Michelle called to see how my surgery went, and when she found out I was home alone, she insisted on coming by the house, which she’d never done before.
With swollen cheeks and a deadened tongue, we dove right into our pent-up longings. But the meds had not only numbed my mouth but everything else in my body. Yet we continued in vain — or so we thought — to make something happen.
Suddenly, we heard the front door slam; my parents came home much sooner than expected. We jumped out of bed and put our clothes on, hair disheveled and buttons out of sync. As I escorted Michelle down the stairs, I thanked her audibly for checking in on me as my parents looked on suspiciously.
I couldn’t sleep that night because something didn’t feel right. My feelings for Michelle were not as I initially thought; I cared for her immensely, but not in that romantic way. When we sat down to talk about it, I was relieved to learn she felt the same way, and instead of hugging, we shook hands and went our separate ways.
. . .
“I know it doesn’t make sense,” Michelle said as I pressed the kitchen phone harder to my ear to make sure my parents — eating dinner a mere 10 feet away — didn’t hear. “But you might be the father.”
I hadn’t heard from Michelle in several months. Yet, I could tell from her voice I needed to take her claims seriously. But it was 1982, and I didn’t know how to talk about sex as a teen, particularly in the small, southern town we lived.
I wanted to ask my parents for help, but this situation was the last thing they needed to deal with at the time. My dad had lost his job and had been unemployed for three years, our home foreclosed, and their marriage on shaky ground. They felt humiliated in front of their friends, so you can imagine what a child out of wedlock would do to their reputation. But that Monday, I asked my dad to meet me at a local cafe.
My dad had his demons but was a good, religious man at heart, and I figured he’d help me do “the right thing.” I didn’t want to run from this. But my dad worried she was just after money, and he recommended I ask the family lawyer, who was like an uncle to me, for advice.
When I met with John Law — yes, that was his real name — he listened quietly at my meandering story and then said in his down-home gravely voice to “Just let sleeping dogs lie. If that baby’s yours, things will get a whole lot more serious than a Sunday night phone call.”
Still concerned, I went to our family doctor to learn if being the father of this baby was even possible since Michelle and I never finished our transaction. His answer wasn’t all that different: “The statistical odds of you being that baby’s father are near impossible.”
Yes, it’s true; the men back then never believed the girl, but I believed Michelle was genuine in her pursuit. However, I kept getting conflicting information from both her friends and mine about who the father might be. It turned into a local scandal. People took sides. And things got ugly. I didn’t know what to do or who to trust anymore. So I waited for the next shoe to drop, but it never did, and I figured it wasn’t my baby.
. . .
I left for college four states away in the fall, and I’d heard that Michelle moved in with her rough-rider construction beau. It would take another four years and a college degree before I’d hear from her again.
It was 4:17 in the morning when the phone rang, and Michelle told me about her calendar theory again, this time in more detail. She agreed it was hard to imagine how it could’ve happened, but with piercing conviction, she said, “David’s your son!” And I believed her.
This time I didn’t seek anyone’s advice. I took matters into my own hands, which is what I should’ve done the first time, had I known how to be a man.
Getting DNA tested in the 1980s wasn’t easy. You couldn’t just order a DNA kit or go to the local doctor to take a test. You had to hire lawyers, get the court system involved and send test tubes off to remote labs with legal filings. A dozen lawyers refused to represent me because they said it might open me up to financial liability. “Let her send a legal request,” they’d say, but I didn’t give a damn about the money. If David was my son, I wanted to be a part of his life. Fortunately, the 13th lawyer I called took my case because he’d been through a similar situation in his younger days, but like the others, he forewarned me of the potential liability.
Months passed before the test came back with a 92.4% positive hit rate. I was not only satisfied but excited by the results. My girlfriend? Not so much. She moved out. My parents disowned me. My friends said I was naive, and my employer questioned my judgment.
But none of that mattered. I was over the moon to have a son!
. . .
I met David for the first time when I was 23, and he was five. I had him stay with me every summer, Christmas, and spring break after that. I took him on the road with me all across America, Asia, and Europe. I loved him so much. He filled up my life with incomparable joy.
Michelle became a cop, got married, and had three more kids. I supported David financially, and she and I coordinated several times a month about his health, school, and overall development. Our future paths seemed predictable, but life never unfolds the way you think it will, as anybody with age will tell you.
By the time David reached 15, he was much taller, wiser, and more grounded than I ever was at that age. But he was still too young to have to make the next call.
. . .
When the phone rang at 4:47 am, I knew it wasn’t good. With all the strength David could summon, he informed me his stepdad had murdered his mother in an alcohol/drug-induced rage. Nobody saw it coming. But he shot her five times as she worked on a family scrapbook in bed.
As David went over the details, I collapsed to the floor, still pressing the phone to my cheek. Then, everything came back to the start: the hazy heat mirage. Her deep blue eyes and porcelain chin on my shoulder. Our first kiss. The hundreds of late-night phone calls. And the miracle child we created together.
However, the last page of Michelle’s life ended before I ever got to ask for her forgiveness in how bad I handled things and how horrible it must have been for her to go through that pregnancy, birth, and scandalous experience without me by her side.
That day is when everything I did wrong and ran from caught up with me. Michelle died deserving much more than an apology from me. I will forever live with the guilt of my inactions, and I will never be off the hook for failing her. But the one request she made me promise to fulfill was to get David into college.
David moved in with me at 17 and now has several college degrees, a Ph.D., a wonderful wife, and two beautiful kids of his own. I know Michelle is looking down from heaven, so proud of her son and perhaps considering mercy for me.
. . .
I’ve met many guys that ran from their paternity and thought they got away with something big. But actually, they’re the ones who lose out and will forever live with the guilt of dishonoring a mother and denying a child the right to know their father.
The greatest joy one can experience in life is having your kid look up to you and love you unconditionally. No love in life compares to that feeling. It terrifies me to think I might’ve missed out on that if I’d continued to listen to the “elders.” But I still have to live with not being there for my son’s mother. It’s the greatest harm I’ve ever done, and I hope my son, his mother, and God can forgive me.
—
This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
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The post How a One Night Stand Turned Into a Lifetime of Guilt appeared first on The Good Men Project.