Unpleasant Truth

TYLER

I guide my car in the direction of the Starbucks on Sven Street.

It’s a tranquil place, and I manage to snag a private booth at the back, cradling a coffee as I anticipate Carla’s arrival.

My thoughts are a tempest, swallowed by the turmoil that my existence has morphed into.

Tears ambush me each time I contemplate the trio I left behind at home this morning, three individuals I’m uncertain I’ll be reuniting with tonight.

I should have reached out to one of them, not Carla, but what’s done is done… and I need her.

I crave her comforting embraces and calming words. I need her assistance to comprehend why this is transpiring.

I need my mom.

Not the woman who birthed me, but the woman who loved me because she chose to, the woman who learned how to console me. The woman who, in spite of everything, has always been there for me, no strings attached.

God, I can’t lose them.

But I’m aware that’s precisely what’s bound to occur.

I raise my now chilled coffee to my lips, taking a hefty sip. It’s unpleasantly cold, but I don’t want to stand and order another.

I don’t want anyone to witness me in this state, so I endure the bitter, cold flavor of the coffee, using it as a diversion from my drifting thoughts.

“Oh darling, what’s transpired?” Carla slides into the booth next to me. Without a second thought, I crumble into her embrace, burying my face in her chest where I feel most secure, letting it all out.

I weep softly while she holds me, her hair cascading over my head like a protective veil as she leans down to kiss me like she used to when I was a child.

“Oh my boy, everything is going to be just fine,” she says, but it isn’t. It’s never going to be okay. Everything I’ve ever known, everything that has shifted in this past year that I’ve grown accustomed to.

Our home.

Our life. My child.

Our newborn child.

It’s all destroyed.

Everything is ruined and likely to be torn away from me in a matter of moments.

“Come on now, take deep breaths, Tyler.” I shake my head, smudging my tear-streaked face into her top, but she doesn’t halt me or remark on the fact that I, a thirty-five-year-old man, am crying into her chest like I did when I was a child and someone had bullied me or taken my favorite toy car.

Her hand strays to play with my hair, and I find solace in the woman who was a constant presence throughout my childhood.

“Son, what happened?” I lift my head to see my biological mother sitting across from Carla and me.

A surge of guilt attempts to infiltrate my chest, despite the fact that I called Carla. She came too; she had to be asked by Carla to come. Or maybe she was there when I called.

It should have been her that I called, but it wasn’t.

She wasn’t the first mother I wanted to come to my rescue. She wasn’t the person I wanted to confide in.

I should feel guilty, but I can’t summon that feeling because I’m too lost right now to feel anything else.

My head falls back into Carla’s chest, and I remain silent—almost lying on the booth seat until my position becomes so uncomfortable that I finally do lie across the booth seat with my legs up and my head in Carla’s lap.

“Come on sweetheart. We can’t help if you don’t tell us what happened,” Carla continues to stroke my hair as she speaks.

I used to lie like this when I was a child, watching TV or when she would read us stories after bath time.

When I came home from school with a bruise or five from the bullies and needed to cry then too, it was always Carla who came to me then. It’s always been Carla who’s been that type of mother for me.

So trusting and guiding, the perfect mother.

“Did you have a fight with Zach again, sweetheart?”

“Not yet,” I whisper, though I can barely speak through the lump in my throat that threatens to unleash more tears of despair.

He’s going to hate me, fucking hate me.

“Was it about your visit with Tilly today?” my mother asks from across the table. I can no longer see her face, only her legs under the table.

I nod once, not wanting to verbally say yes though I don’t know if she can see me at all.

“What happened to upset you this—”

Carla’s words are cut off by her ringing phone, and she answers it within two seconds, just like she did with me.

“Hello, Jerry,” she says. She’s silent, listening to Jerry while continuing to stroke my hair. I close my eyes, praying for sleep to take me so that I don’t have to feel this overwhelming dread coursing through my body.

“No. No, he’s okay. I’m with him now… yes, he’s in a bad way… Is it necessary for that to happen today?…don’t worry then. We will have him there on time.”

She looks down at me, and our eyes meet, hers crinkle with a concerned smile and mine well up at the look she’s giving me.

“You find Zach and tell him. Then we will meet at home after. Okay, sweetheart, good luck, speak to you later.” She puts the phone down and stares across at my mother with a blank expression.

“The DNA results state you are Tilly’s father,” she says softly, and I nod.

“Oh sweetheart, don’t you worry. We will have this sorted. Jerry is requesting a subpoena for DNA to be done again, under supervision this time.”

“What does that mean?” my mother asks.

“Well, Sophie did Tilly’s swab at home and dropped it into the clinic, and Tyler did his at home and dropped it in. The clinic didn’t see either of them take the swab.”

“But how would that affect the results? Tilly is Tyler’s. DNA is specific, surely doing it at home or in the clinic isn’t going to change the results?”

“Jerry wants a second opinion,” Carla states in that tone that she usually used when she was annoyed at one of us, and I hope she is annoyed at my mother because it’s clear to see she still doesn’t believe me.

Yet Carla and Jerry do.

Again it’s my own flesh and blood that’s questioning me when the woman who practically raised me out of sheer goodwill isn’t.

Don’t think so horribly… She’s your mother.

“You have an hour until you need to be at the mediation meeting. We can stay here or go for a walk. Whatever you need… but Tyler, it’s in yours and Ella’s best interest that you attend this meeting.”

“This has nothing to do with Ella,” I spit, and I instantly know I shouldn’t have.

Carla’s just trying to help, but she doesn’t falter. Instead, she pats me reassuringly as if I said nothing at all.

“Oh, but it is. If Sophie decides to throw it out there, that you have previously been addicted to alcohol, things may have to go through court. And they could look at Ella’s safety with you too. Let’s just turn up to the mediation and work a way through this amicably while Jerry works his magic in court behind Sophie’s back.”

I sit up then to grab at the tissues in the middle of the table, wiping my nose and then take another to wipe my wet cheeks.

They are really going to help me.

“Do you trust me, dear?” Carla asks, reaching for my hand.

“Of course, I do, Carla. You are just like a mother to me.”

“Then trust that it’s in your best interest to play Sophie at her own game. Accept the child, pay for her, and take her for the weekends. Whatever Sophie wants until we can prove her foul play. Then Jerry will throw the damn book at her in front of a judge, and she will regret ever messing you around.”

“But Carla… I can’t. What will happen when we all fall in love with Tilly? Ella will get used to having a sister, then one day poof.” I splay my hands as a show of what I mean, then snap my thumb and finger. “She will just be gone, forever.”

“We will deal with the aftermath afterward. Besides, Jerry will try to get a resolution to this as soon as possible. It could be mere weeks. Just think of her as a niece, just like Ava.”

“Carla, I’m scared. So scared,” I say. She pats the side of my face tenderly.

“I know, sweetheart, I know. But you are a man now, and you need to stand up and act like one. I know you can do this, darling. You love kids.”

“I don’t want to love her kid.”

Carla and my mother spend the next twenty minutes trying to cheer me up and make me smile, but I’m just going through the motions of being present when I’m far from it.

I can feel myself shutting down, retreating to that place deep within my mind where I used to hide.

I end up showing them all the photos from the maternity shoot, appreciating their oohs and aahs at how lovely they turned out. But then the time comes for me to drive back to the center.

Carla nudges my arm, pulling my attention toward her.

“It’s time for the meeting, Tyler,” she informs me, guiding me toward my car.

She takes the wheel, insisting my mother should head home and wait for my call.

A call I have no intention of making.

The drive is eerily quiet and unnerving. Before I know it, we’re parked at the center, and I can feel panic creeping in.

I’m barely aware that I’m supposed to walk in there and act like I have everything under control. Carla holds my hand, like a mother comforting her child, as we cross the parking lot and enter the building.

Jerry and Zach are already there, waiting. I feel like I could drop dead right there, wishing the earth would open up and swallow me whole.

Zach pulls me into a hug, but I’m barely present. He whispers in my ear, telling me to do whatever~ little bird~ wants and promises to wait with his mom.

I can’t bring myself to respond or even look at him. How can I explain something I don’t understand myself?

“Let’s go, Tyler. Hayley couldn’t make it, so I’m filling in,” Jerry says, leading me just like Carla did. “You need to pull yourself together. Show them the Tyler from work. Be assertive but not aggressive. Don’t let Sophie run the show.”

“Okay.”

“I believe in you, son. I know that child isn’t yours. But it’s the weekend, and I can’t get a family judge until Monday. I’ll do my best to prevent this from dragging on.”

“Okay, Dad,” I respond, stopping when he does. Someone grumbles behind us as they maneuver around us.

“You’ve never called me Dad before,” he says, pulling me into an unfamiliar hug. Just as abruptly as he halted, he resumes motion, rapping on a door.

“I’m right here with you, kiddo. Let’s listen to what she wants so you can get back to your loved ones.”