Happy Birthday: A Novel

Pat was silent for a long moment, not sure what to say to her, or understanding what went with it. “You are? I didn’t think you were seeing anyone. Are you getting married?” He looked a little hurt that she hadn’t said anything to him sooner. He liked to think that he was closer to her than that. He glanced quickly at her mother, but Valerie had lowered her eyes and said nothing, as Pat looked back at April and Maddie watched.

“No, I’m not getting married, and I’m not seeing anyone. I would have told you,” she said with a sigh, leaning against him for comfort and support. She needed it to tell him the rest of the story. She knew he wouldn’t be happy. But her father had never failed her, and she didn’t think he would this time. She hoped not, although she wouldn’t have been pleased about it as a parent either. And her mother had been nice about it too. “It was an accident,” she said honestly, “with a man I hardly know. I saw him once. I had too much to drink. We wound up in bed, don’t ask me how, I don’t even remember. And I just found out I’m pregnant. I haven’t spoken to him since it happened. I don’t know if I’m going to tell him. I don’t even know if he’s a nice person. He’s a food critic, and judging from the review he wrote, and the fact that he never called me, he probably doesn’t even like me. But I’m thirty years old, I don’t know if I’ll ever have a chance to get pregnant again, and I’m going to keep the baby. I want to,” she added, so that her father would understand that this was a choice she had made, even knowing all the risks, headaches, and problems she was willing to sign on for. “I didn’t want this to happen, and to tell you everything, I’m on the Pill, but I think I forgot one, and I was on an antibiotic at the time, and it made my Pill just ineffective enough so I got pregnant. Maybe it was destiny. Whatever it was, I’m having the baby.” She looked at him cautiously, with no idea what his reaction would be. He was visibly shocked but trying to digest it. He glanced across the table at Maddie, who was worried for her stepdaughter, and then he looked back at April, with his arm still around her shoulders. He had loosened his grip for a moment.

“That’s quite a story. Are you sure you want to have the baby? That’s a lot to take on, on your own. A lot of responsibility, with no one to lean on. You have me, and Maddie and your mother of course, and we’ll do everything we can to help you, but single motherhood isn’t easy. I see a lot of my students do it, for various reasons, some of them by choice, and some because it just happened, but it’s never easy. Will you give up the restaurant?” he asked, and April quickly shook her head.

“Of course not. I don’t see why I have to do one or the other. I can do both, work and be a mother.” Her mother always had, and she was her role model. And Valerie’s career had been far more demanding, but April had always had her father too. This baby wouldn’t. All this baby would have was its mother, three grandparents, and two aunts. It didn’t sound like a bad start to April, and it was all she could provide.

“I know you can do it,” her father said quietly, trying to absorb what she had told him. He would never have expected this from April, neither the one-night stand nor the decision to have the baby. He wondered if turning thirty had been an important part of the decision for her and made her feel that it was now or never. He knew that more and more women were deciding to have babies alone these days, so it didn’t totally surprise him. But it seemed completely out of character for April. “I just hate to see you take on something so difficult all by yourself. I think you should talk to the father. He may be a nicer guy than you think and want to help you and be involved. It’s his child too. And you’re going to need all the help you can get. It’s going to be a hell of a juggling act for you, particularly if you keep the restaurant and continue working as hard as you do. That’s going to be really rough on you.” Much rougher than he wanted for his daughter. He had always hoped she would marry and have children, in that order. What parent didn’t? And April appreciated the fact that so far he hadn’t condemned her for what had happened, and he didn’t look like he was going to.

“I’ve been thinking about calling the father. I just feel kind of stupid, and I don’t know what to say to him. ‘Thanks for the bad review, and remember the night we spent together when you got drunk at my restaurant on Labor Day weekend?’ If he’d called me after, it would have been different. Or easier anyway.”

“I think I saw his review. It was nasty and sarcastic,” her father said, sounding angry. Pat’s loyalty to his children was fierce, and he expected others to be too. Mike Steinman, the food critic April had mentioned, clearly hadn’t liked the restaurant, and hadn’t been afraid to say so.