Page 69 of Heartache & Playdates
“No, I do need to.” I lifted my hand to stop him and blurted out, “I had a baby.Ourbaby. In Germany.”
There. I did it. It’s not how I planned on telling him. I was going to ease into it. But now the information was out there and there was no turning back.
His eyes didn’t change, but his jaw dropped and a nearly silent, “What?” fell out.
I inhaled and exhaled slowly, feeling once again that I could actually breathe.
“I found out I was pregnant in the summer. Ididtry and call you. I tried calling the group home, but they said you were gone. I know that I should have tried harder to get a hold of you, but it’s not like things are now. There wasn’t the Internet or social media.” I wiped away tears that were pouring down my cheeks. “My father was furious when I told him. He said that I was going to be home schooled senior year because no daughter of his was going to go to school knocked up. And he said Ihadto put the baby up for adoption. I said no. I tried to make him listen, but he wouldn’t. He stopped speaking to me altogether. Ibeggedmy mother to let me come back to California, to live with Nonna and have the baby, but shewouldn’thelp me. She said that my father knew what was best. They even took my passport away from me so I couldn’t have come back even if I’d found the money somehow.
“I didn’t know what to do. I was so upset. Scared. Alone. I stopped eating. I wasn’t sleeping.” I sniffed and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “I think that might have been why I went into labor early.”
“You went into labor early?” he repeated.
“Yes. She was born six weeks premature. I woke—"
“She? We had a daughter.”
I nodded as I continued, “I woke up and I was havingexcruciatingpains in my back. I couldn’t even stand or walk. My parents rushed me to a hospital, not the one on the base. My father didn’t want anyone knowing what was happening. He took me to one in another town, hours away. I thought I was going to die on the way there. I wanted to, I was in so much pain.
“When we got to the hospital, my mom didn’t come back in the room with me. She left with my father. So I was all alone. None of the nurses or doctors spoke English. I knew that it was too early, I kept telling them that. I have no idea if they understood me or not.
“After a little while, I don’t know how long, they gave me something in my IV. I thought it was to stop the labor, but it knocked me out. When I woke up, I wasn’t pregnant anymore. A nurse who spoke broken English explained to me that they’d had to do an emergency C-section. I asked to see the baby, but they never let me.” A sob choked me, but I pressed on. “She did tell me that it was a girl and she was healthy, even though she was premature, her heart and lungs were strong. Two days later I went home. My parents never spoke to me about it. I went back to school after the holidays, graduated and turned eighteen. On my birthday, I left Germany and went to New York for school.
“Iknowonce I got back to the States and away from my father, I should have tried to find you. To tell you. But those first years after…” I shook my head remembering how dark those years had been. “I wasreallydepressed. I was having panic attacks and I went to see a counselor who told me that I had PTSD from the experience.
“Then, I don’t know, I guess, days turned into weeks, weeks turned into a months, and months turned into years, and then, I don’t know, when I finally came out of everything, so much time had passed I knew it was too late.”
I sniffed as I wiped the moisture coating my cheeks. “Anyway, that’s why I never looked you up. That’s why I left the reunion without saying goodbye. That’s why I told you last week that we had to leave the past in the past, because I knew that if I was around you, I’d have to tell you. And I knew when I told you, you’d hate me.”
Maddox didn’t say anything. He was just staring at me. I knew that the bomb I’d just dropped on him was a lot of information and he might need a minute or two to process it.
So I waited and tried to brace myself for the fallout, for the anger, for the betrayal, but he just asked, “Are you okay? Now, are you okay?”
“Um, I was doing okay, I guess. Before today I hadn’t had a panic attack in like fifteen years.”
“You had a panic attack today?”
“Sort of. Not a bad one. A little one. It’s just been a lot…being back here. Seeing you.” There was still one more thing I was scared to tell him, but I knew that if I didn’t, I would regret it. I didn’t wantanysecrets between us. “Um also, after the birth, I was really sick, but my father didn’t want to take me back to the doctor. He thought I was faking it for attention or to punish them somehow. They didn’t take me back until my mother found me in my bed unconscious. It turned out that I had an infection in my cervix from the C-section. They had to doanothersurgery and there is some scar tissue, anyway, it’s made me infertile. I can’t have any other children.”
There. I’d said everything I’d been terrified to say. All the secrets I’d kept hidden were out. I thought telling anyone would destroy me, but it hadn’t. My world hadn’t ended. I was still standing. My legs felt like they were going to give out at any second, but I was still standing.
27
MADDOX
Partof me couldn’t believe what Peyton was telling me, but another part knew it was true. She’d had a baby. A baby girl. I was a father. I mean, I am a father, but I’d been a father for twenty years and had no fucking clue. My head was spinning with what that meant.
Slowly, I lowered down into the chair behind me. I didn’t trust my legs to keep me upright. The plastic covering crinkled beneath my weight.
I was trying to wrap my head around the information when a thought hit me. Hannah. She had a sister. One that she had no idea about.
How was I going to tell her? How could I explain to her that I didn’t know I had another daughter?
“I understand if you hate me,” Peyton’s words were barely above a whisper.
That was the second time she’d made that statement.
I lifted my head. “Hate you? Why would you think I would hate you?”
