Page 58 of His to Love
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Patton
I had one feisty mamma on my hands. Alexa mumbled in Spanish under her breath, “Tonto del culo.” Pacing restlessly in front of the bassinet where little Patty lay sleeping soundly, she continued her ranting. “Perdedor, debilucho, mujeriego!”
Taking her by the hand, I pulled her out of the nursery so she wouldn’t wake the baby with her raving. “Come on, we don’t want to wake the baby now do we?”
“He makes me so angry, Patton. You have no idea. The stupid dog!” She wasn’t calming down even a little.
“Look, I get it. I get how mad you are, and you have every right to be. But you had to know he might do something like this someday.” I found it hard to believe that she hadn’t expected a confrontation at some point. Especially since his father had seen her in the hospital with a husband and baby. “And his father did see you with the baby.”
Her eyes glistened—not with tears, but with pure hatred. “I wish that man had never laid his eyes on our child.”
“You’ve gotta calm down.” It actually made me worry about her heart. “Your heart did stop beating only six weeks ago. Take it easy. Please.” I pulled her into my arms, wrapping her in my warm embrace as I rocked with her, leaning my chin on top of her head. “You’ve got the baby to think about now. You can’t go losing your temper.”
Before having the baby, I hadn’t seen her ever lose her temper. I couldn’t have even imagined her getting angry at someone. But it seemed like it was up and running and here to stay now. I didn’t know if that was such a good thing. She could really let it fly.
“I can’t help it. I felt threatened in such a horrifying way. I can’t explain it.” She looked up at me, her mouth set in a frown. “I can’t let him take our son away from us.”
“And he won’t be able to do that. There’s not a judge in this world who would award that man any sort of custody or even visitation. He told you to get rid of the baby, Alexa. Plus, we can afford the best lawyers in the state if he or his family even thinks about trying to take this to court.” A part of me felt sorry for the guy and his family though. “But if you ever want to entertain the idea of them being part of Patty’s life, you know I’ll back you on whatever you want to do.”
Her palms planted on my chest and she pushed me back hard. “What? You will support your son having that man in his life? You will support him having two fathers? You would do such a thing to your son, Patton?”
“You’re making it sound so bad, when it’s not bad at all.” I wasn’t sure how to talk to her about this. She was so stubborn on the matter. But it needed to be said. “You have to think about the future, baby. The fact is that our son will always be ours. But what if a day comes when he has to be told that he has a different biological father?”
“And why would that ever have to happen?” she asked as if the thought had never occurred to her.
“Let’s just say that Alejandro has a daughter sometime in the near future. Let’s just say that our son and Alejandro’s daughter end up going to the same school. Let’s just say they ended up in high school together and found an interest in each other.”
“That is preposterous! You think Patty will end up falling in love with his half-sister? Ha! Ha, ha, ha.” It was apparent that she thought that could never happen in a million years.
So, I brought up something a little easier for her to believe. “Okay, what about cousins then? What if he dates one of his cousins because he has no idea he’s related to her?”
“That will never happen,” she said sternly. “Our son won’t be allowed to date until he’s much older, anyways. And by then we will know if he’s got any relatives in that horrible family. And we will gently persuade him not to have anything to do with any of them.”
Is she even living in reality right now?
“I’m just saying that one day we might have to tell him the truth.” I’d come to realize that. It was time she began to think about it, at the very least.
“Why will we have to tell him the truth, Patton? Why?” She began pacing as her hands flew around in the air. “What would that do to him if he ever finds out that you are not his natural father? I don’t want to even think about it. I don’t want him to ever feel bad about himself.”
“Why would he feel bad about himself?” I thought that was a stretch. But then it hit me that she wasn’t exactly talking about the baby. She was talking about herself. “Are you afraid that he’ll think badly about you if he ever finds out that you weren’t married to his biological father?”
“No,” she said then stopped pacing and wrapped her arms around herself. “Well, maybe. I mean, I don’t want him to think that his mother was a tramp. I want him to be able to look up to me. I want him to think of me as…”
“Hmm, as what?” I asked her. “A perfect person who has never made a questionable decision in her life? Sounds like a lot to live up to, to me. If he thinks his mother is some saint, then how will that make him feel when he makes mistakes? He needs to know that his parents are just as human as he is. He needs to know that people don’t always make the right decisions in life.”
“But I want him to be good. Like me.” She pouted for a moment. “Like I was before that man came into my life.”
“And he will be good. But he will make choices that aren’t always perfect. We all do. Do you think I’m proud to admit to every woman I’ve ever had sex with?”
“Why?” she asked as she looked at me with worry. “Are there a lot of them?”
“Well, not a whole lot.” I hadn’t meant to start that conversation at all. We could save that for another day. “I just mean that I obviously made mistakes in my past, too. The same way you did. The same way Alejandro has. He’s young, Alexa. Young guys do some dumb and sometimes mean things. I know I’ve done my fair share. Not that I’m proud of it, but I haven’t always been as good as I am to you.”
Her shoulders slumped and she looked as if she felt horrible. But then she stood up straight and looked me in the eyes. “Are you going to do this often?”
“Do what?” I wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
