Page 22 of Home Hearts Hooves

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I pull in front of Isabel’s father’s house and sit with the van idling for a minute, tightening my grip on the steering wheel and relaxing it over and over as I try to steady my racing heart. I’ve been spiraling between clients all day, only pulled out of the rambling thoughts when a new emergency pushed them briefly aside.

The more I thought about being a dad, the more I’m sure I can’t go into tonight all rage monster like today. Not if I expect Isabel to encourage a relationship between me and my daughter. Fuck, even thinking those words has me buzzing. My stomach is in knots at the idea of meeting her. Well, meeting her properly. What a shit way to meet your father, pulling out his hair for a DNA test. Not exactly a story you’d want to tell the grandkids.

My fingers tighten on the steering wheel. Why does she need the DNA test? Did Isabel tell her I only maybe was her dad. Did Isabel cheat?

It’s like I’ve been kicked in the gut by a horse. I can’t breathe. Isabel’s house starts to go out of focus, and I blink repeatedly, trying to clear my vision.

What if Isabel isn’t sure who the father is? Confirmation would only be needed if there was a chance that there was more than one person who could be the father, right?

I try to focus on the light from the setting sun cresting over the mountains in a warm glow behind the house, and as my breath starts to steady and the glass begins to fog, I remember the man Isabel was with when I visited. Maybe she met him right after I left. “It doesn’t always have to be the worst-case scenario,” I tell myself.

I loved Isabel. I know that I did. While my awakening to my attraction to men came after leaving this small town behind, the love I had for her was real, and the idea that she could have betrayed me hurt more than the thought of her bringing up a child, our child, without telling me. I never said I was a rational thinker.

In truth, I sort of see why she might have kept it from me. We were young, and I had big dreams of leaving this place to experience the world, other places, other animals, and sure, I always said I would then come back when, or if I was ready to take over my dad’s clinic, but a child would have derailed those plans. Shit, they would have completely blown them out of the water. I wouldn’t have gone to vet school. I would have stayed. I would have married her and that would have been my life. Could it have worked in the long run? Given the fact that I am very much a gay man and the love I had for her was the only love I ever felt for a woman, probably not. But then again, lavender marriages work for some people.

“Okay, rational thinking time. What is the best and the worst outcome tonight?” I ask myself. It’s a trick I picked up back when I was in high school. Whenever I had a decision to make or was worried about something that was coming up, I’d think of the worst and best outcome. It wasn’t so that I could try to stop the bad or make the good happen, it was more a way to prepare my brain for the possibilities, which would help me to handle whatever did come.

“Best, this child is mine, Isabel didn’t cheat, she and the child both want me in their lives and I can start learning what the hell it means to be a dad. Oh, and my mom gets to be a grandma.”

That thought brings a smile to my lips and a warmth to my chest that settles my racing heart, just a little.

“Alright, now the worst outcome. Isabel cheated, and the child isn’t mine.”

I let the words sit in the cooling air of the van.

“No. Worst outcome, the child is mine but wants nothing to do with me, Isabel and her family stop me from getting to know her, and Dean… he thinks I ran out on the child before they were born and hates me.”

My eyes sting, and I know for sure that is the worst outcome that could come from this. I remind myself of the best outcome and add in the dream that I find the right man, and we live happily ever after with a bunch of animals and grow old together surrounded by lots of grandchildren.

The porch light comes on, and Frank Mores pushes open the screen door.

“Are you coming in or are you going to stay out there all night?” he calls, and I take a final steadying breath and climb out of the van.

“Good evening, Mr. Mores,” I say, and I’m surprised how much my voice sounds so much like it did when I was a teen coming to pick up his daughter. The nerves swell in my stomach, but I try not to pay them much mind as I reach out my hand for him to shake. He grips my hand firmly.

“Come on in, boy. Isabel’s in the front room.”

“Thanks,” I say, but he doesn’t release my hand. Instead, he pulls me closer to him, his whiskey breath in my ear.

“I know you’ve got a good reason to be mad, boy, but this is still my house, and I won’t tolerate disrespect. Are we understood?”

His grip tightens just a fraction.

“Yes, sir,” I reply with a curt nod.

“In ya go then,” he says, finally letting go of my hand.

I slip off my shoes at the stand and walk through to the front sitting room. Isabel is there with her mother. Her eyes are red, cheeks stained with tears, and her mother’s arm is slung over her shoulder, tapping gently. To look at her, you’d think she’d been crying all day. She could have been. When I saw her this morning she started to cry, maybe she never stopped. She holds her gaze on the old cane coffee table and that urge to protect her, to make everything okay rises up and I want to rush to her, to tell her everything will work out, but I stop myself, because that’s teenage Preston’s voice urging me on, and right now, I need to stay focused. I need to see what end of the outcome scale I land on. Or where in the middle.

I sit in one of the large green chairs opposite them. My foot bounces, and I prop one ankle over my knee to try to keep it down.

“Did you have my child?” I ask, my heart racing again.

Her head nods slowly, and her bottom lip quivers. The fire builds inside me, but I can’t let it surface. Sure, I do have a right to be angry here, but all that will accomplish is scaring Isabel and giving her reason not to want me around my child. A child I’ve already lost way too much time with. So I repeat that thought in my mind and take another breath.

“I want to hear you say it, Izz,” I tell her, and she looks up from her lap, fresh tears falling from her eyes.

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