Page 55 of Child of Mine

“Isn’t that, like, a kid’s job at least half the time? But—hang on. Rewind. Who is the mom? Do you like the mom? Like,likeher like her? Is this why you dumped Christine?”

“I didn’t—we’re not having that conversation again. But maybe.”

“To what part?”

“To all of it? I don’t know. We have a pretty strong… connection.”

“You’ve slept with her.”

“Obviously. Did you miss that week of health class or something?”

“No. You’ve slept with herrecently.”

“Sometimes I hate that you can read my mind.”

“What’s the problem, then? Other than the fact that I’ve been waiting to get pregnant for you to be married. Now you’ve totally lapped me, and I’ll never catch up.”

“Well, I’m pretty pissed off that she didn’t tell me about the kid. We’ve been working together for weeks now. And yeah, we had sex again. And she still didn’t tell me.”

“Maybe she had a good reason. You are pretty grouchy. Did you scare some kids?”

When I don’t answer immediately, she does it for me. “You did. So maybe she was worried you’d be a mean dad. Who could blame her?”

“Thanks for the support. Always good to have you on my side, J.”

“Iamon your side. I’m on the side of you getting back to the fun-loving brother I used to have.”

Not able to deal with this at the moment, I remind myself that I did call for her advice, so I may as well let her give it. When she doesn’t launch into that, I get worried. “Do you think I’ll be a bad dad? A mean one?”

“No, but…”

“But what?”

“Maybe you need to think of her as a dog, not a kid.”

“Treat my daughter like a dog?”

“No,thinkof her as a dog. You’re great with Ribsy. I think you’re just prejudiced against kids. You did have to deal with a lot of little assholes on the cowboy show.”

“And the clown show before that.”

“Right. So, to avoid your ogreish tendencies, just pretend she’s an abandoned dog.”

“Full of fleas and buckshot?”

“Exactly. Except hopefully less smelly.”

“Huh.”

“I know, I’m brilliant. You have five days before I tell Mom.”

“Why do I only get five days?”

“Because we have a staff meeting Friday. I can’t promise anything if I see her in person. You know how she is.”

“Okay, I get it. Hopefully, I can figure out how this is going to go by then.”

“No matter what, this little girl’s family just got a whole lot bigger. And that’s a good thing.”

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