Page 48 of Family Bonds: Alana & Brennan
“You can trust me,” he said. “I know that saying that means nothing, but I was cheated on in the worst possible way.”
“Can I ask how?”
He was looking at his canvas now while he talked. Maybe it was easier for him to talk about his experience if he wasn’t watching for her reaction.
“I know you are dying to ask more about Becca’s mother.”
“You told me she’s an international flight attendant and it was easier for you to have custody.”
“That’s the nice polite way of saying that Rene has no interest in being a mother. Her ideal life is about traveling the world. We dated for about five months before she found out she was pregnant.”
“How did you meet?” she asked.
“At the airport,” he said, laughing. “She worked a flight I had to Brazil. I went with a few friends. We laughed and flirted. She slipped me her number at the end of the flight.”
“You’re a very attractive man,” she said. “I could see that happening.”
“I’m not as outgoing with women as I was before. Honestly, it was more my buddy egging the situation on than anything.Not that I didn’t find her attractive, but it’s not like me to do something like that.”
“Good to know,” she said. She didn’t want to think he was the type of person hitting on women when he was out.
“Those months we dated, we saw little of each other. I never got to know her well. We might have seen each other twice a week if I was lucky. We had texts going back and forth and calls, but she worked crazy hours and was not always available to text.”
“Did you move in together when you found out she was pregnant?”
“Not right away. It was hard to pin her down to figure out our next steps. She kept saying we had time. But they pulled her out of work in the third trimester. She was retaining water and having some other issues.”
“Being on her feet and in the air couldn’t have been good.”
“No. She had a horrible diet of fast food and processed snacks. I’m sure it was always being on the run, but she wasn’t taking care of herself and it caused fights. She moved into my place when she was out of work.”
“So you could take care of her?”
Seemed like maybe she wasn’t the only one doing everything for everyone else.
“Yes. We got on each other’s nerves quickly. I don’t want to speak ill of her, but I’m going to tell you the way it was. I don’t want you or anyone to think there is any love lost, but I also don’t want you to think I’m this horrible person trashing her.”
“I don’t think it.”
“You didn’t trash Jonathan.”
“Oh, I did. I just don’t do it to many people. There is a difference.”
Brennan laughed and looked at her. “I’m glad to hear that. My mother got the brunt of what I felt. Just know that Rene is avery selfish person. It’s all about her and what she wants. I did everything in the house and she barely moved off the couch. If the doctor told her she had to stay like that, I’d understand. I even gave her the benefit of the doubt that the changes going on in her body were causing all the mood swings.”
“But that wasn’t the case?”
“I’m sure it was. Or that just attributed to it being magnified. She didn’t want to be pregnant. She didn’t want a child, but she was afraid to end the pregnancy. I wanted the baby and I think in her mind she thought it’d be easy and I’d take over everything.”
“Which you have done since you’ve got custody.”
“I set up daycare and how it was going to work,” he said. “Because you’re right, with her schedule, it was going to fall on me. A few weeks before Becca was born, I was cooking dinner and there was a knock at the door. I went to get it and some guy was standing there asking for Rene.”
“Oh boy,” she said.
She could see this playing out in her head based on the information she had.
“Yeah. I heard her gasp behind me on the couch, then asked who he was. He said he was the father of her baby.”
