Happy Birthday: A Novel

“I have something to tell you that I just figure you should know. I don’t want anything from you. I don’t need anything. But I figure you have a right to the information too.” She didn’t beat around the bush. She wanted to let him know. That was all. She was having his baby and he had a right to decide how and if he wanted to deal with it, or not at all, which was fine with her too. She had no expectations of him. “I was on an antibiotic for strep throat when we saw each other in September. I didn’t realize it could do that, but it screwed up the Pill I was on, and to be honest, I got so drunk that night that I forgot to take the Pill. I’m three months pregnant. I’m having a baby in June. I found out four weeks ago, and I decided to keep it. I’m thirty years old, and I don’t want to have an abortion. You don’t have to have anything to do with me or it, if you don’t want to. But I thought you ought to know, and at least give you the choice.” It was as direct and honest as she could be with him, and he looked across the table at her as though he was going into shock. He looked pale. His hair was as dark as hers, he had dark brown eyes, and his face was as white as the tablecloth when he spoke.

“Are you serious? You’re telling me that now? You invited me here to dinner to tell me that? Are you crazy? You’re having it? You don’t even know me. You don’t know if I’m an ax murderer or a lunatic or a child molester, and you’re having a baby by a guy you slept with once? Why aren’t you having an abortion? Why didn’t you ask me how I felt about that before it was too late to do anything about it?” He looked furious as his eyes blazed at her across the table. For a moment, she was sorry she had told him at all.

“Because my decision to keep it is none of your business,” she said just as harshly. “It’s my body and my baby, and I’m not asking you for a goddamn thing. You don’t ever have to see me again, if you don’t want to. And frankly, I don’t care either way. You don’t ever have to see the kid. That’s up to you. But if there were a child wandering around who was mine, I’d want to know about it, so I could decide if I wanted to be part of its life or not. That’s the opportunity I’m giving you, no strings attached. You don’t have to support me or the baby, or contribute anything. I can manage by myself, and if not, my parents are willing to help me, which is nice of them. But they thought, and I agree, that I owe you at least the information that you’re having a baby in June. That’s all. The rest is up to you.”

She glared back at him then, and he fumed silently at her for a minute. He had to admit, she was being decent about it, but he did not want a baby, with her or anyone else. He had been clear about that all his life. And she was screwing up everything for him. Now he had to decide if he wanted to be a father or not. Because like it or not, and without even consulting him about it, she was having his baby, because they had both been stupid enough to get drunk and sleep with each other and her birth control had malfunctioned. How romantic was that? But she didn’t look sentimental about it either. Just honest and practical, and she was trying to be fair to him. But he didn’t like it anyway. He was sorry he had come to dinner and found out about it, and even sorrier that three months before he had slept with her.

“And who are your parents, that they’re being so noble about this?” She looked startled by the question. It was hard for him to imagine parents of a thirty-year-old woman who were willing to be so supportive of her. He didn’t even know parents like that, and surely not his own, whom he hadn’t seen in ten years and didn’t want to see again.

“My parents are perfectly nice, normal people,” she answered him directly. “My father is a medieval art professor at Columbia, my stepmother is a speech therapist and a wonderful woman, and my mother is Valerie Wyatt, she talks about home decorating and weddings on TV.” She said it as though she had a job like everyone else as he stared at her.

“Are you kidding?” he said. “That’s who your mother is? Of course … Wyatt … why didn’t I think of that? For chrissake, your mother is the arbiter of everything that happens in the home, or at a wedding. What do they think of this? Don’t they think you’re crazy to have this baby too? How are you going to manage a restaurant and a kid all on your own?”

“That’s my problem, not yours. I’m not asking you to show up and change diapers. You can visit it if you want to, but if you don’t, that’s fine too.”