Another Chance With Love

“I tried, but I couldn’t go through with it,” she continued staring at her hands. “I pulled up to the clinic and saw three people I went to church with protesting and I… I just couldn’t.”

I sighed, some of the anger leaking out of me. “You should’ve told me at least. I would’ve helped. Shit, at least I can help now.”

The baby began to fuss in the carrier. Lisa reached down and patted his stomach as the tears rolled down her cheek.

“When I couldn’t go through with the abortion, I decided to give him up for adoption. But I chickened out when they told me you’d have to sign the paperwork. So, I was stuck, and I knew how I’d left you and…”

Her tears continued to flow.

I leaned back in my chair and ran my hands through my hair. This had all hit me out of the blue. Lisa and I had gotten drunk one night at the end of the spring term, and being idiots, we’d ended up having sex. She left the next day, she stopped texting, stopped taking my calls, wouldn’t return my emails… it sucked, and I missed her.

“We can do this together, you know,” I said, even though my hands were still over my eyes.

Lisa was staring at the baby when I finally looked at her.

“No,” she replied in a small voice. “I can’t raise him. My parents would never forgive me for embarrassing them with a child out of wedlock. You know how religious they are.”

I hmphed. “They don’t deserve you, Lisa. In some ways, they’re worse than my parents.”

A small but tentative smile crossed her lips as we began the same argument we’d been having since high school. Lisa’s parents were strict Catholics, and mine were insane Baptists.

“What do you want me to do, Lisa?” I asked when she reached down and picked the infant up. This was the first time I’d seen him properly, and I lost track of the conversation immediately. He was so small, his little face was scrunched up with an expression of discomfort. I could tell he was about to start wailing.

“My God, he’s beautiful,” I remarked, and Lisa looked at me in a strange way. “We made that?” I said in shock.

“If I remember right, I did all the hard work,” she said, and we were back to our snippy friendship like we hadn’t been apart for nine and a half months.

I chuckled. “I’d have helped if I’d known. Can I hold him?” I asked, feeling a strange stirring in my chest.

Lisa hesitated like she was afraid to let me, but then she handed him over. I’m lucky I didn’t lose my shit right there. I nuzzled him, lost in all that this meant and all it would mean from this point on. He settled down in my arms, and I smiled. I could see some of my grandpa in his face. The second I spotted the resemblance, my own tears threatened to fall. My gregarious, left-wing nut of a grandpa would have loved this baby, and he’d have known exactly what to do. But we’d lost him just last year.

When I turned toward Lisa to tell her how much I thought he took after grandpa, she was gone. I looked at the door just in time to catch sight of her back as she left the restaurant. I turned my attention to the infant and wondered for the millionth time if I’d finally lost my best friend. The anxiety of losing her and my grandpa, all within a year of each other, began to take over, but when I stared at the baby, something loosened inside me. I had no idea how I was going to manage an infant, but having him, even though I’d just found out about him, seemed to fill the holes that had been left in my heart.

I sat staring at him for what had to have been thirty minutes. Finally, a server came over and put her hand on my shoulder. “I accidentally heard some of your conversation. Do you need some help with him?”

I burst out laughing, which caused the sleeping baby to jerk and me to immediately tense. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” I said, and the lady chuckled.

“If it helps any, none of us really do.”

I glanced up at her, willing my tears not to flow. “But at least you had some prior warning.”

The lady sighed. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll go through the stuff your lady friend left here, and we’ll make sure you have everything you need. I’ve had three myself, the youngest is three, so I know the drill.”

Without looking up from the little one, I asked, “Won’t you get in trouble?”

“I doubt it. I’m Catherine, I own the place, and it’s unlikely my staff will have the nerve to challenge me.”

She smiled when I met her gaze, and walked over, starting to go through Lisa’s things. “Looks like you’ve got what you need. Do you have anyone you can call?”

I immediately thought of my mom. Over Christmas, I’d come out to my parents as bisexual with a preference for men, and it had gone spectacularly bad. My grandpa had known but, he’d never told them. Unfortunately, I assumed he had. Well, you can imagine what the pastor of a mega Southern Baptist church’s reactions were.

My grandpa got custody of me when I was a preteen. My dad hit me so hard once, he broke my arm. I still don’t remember what stupid infraction I’d committed. I just remember being picked up from the Emergency Room by my grandpa, and after that, I never lived with my parents again.

On Christmas night, my dad’s expression when I made a comment about dating a guy looked a whole lot like the one I remembered the night he broke my arm. He was bigger than I was, even though I’d just turned nineteen. I stood up and walked out of my parent’s house. Luckily, he didn’t strike me that time, but he hadn’t spoken to me since.

“My aunt will probably help. I just need to call her. Can you hold him for a moment?” I asked.

The lady’s face beamed. Not for the first time, I wondered what it was about babies and puppies that inspired such a response from the female of the species.

The woman took him from me, and gently rocked him in her arms. The experience of child-rearing struck me as I watched her with him. For what must have been the hundredth time since Lisa told me I was a dad, I felt completely out of my element. What the hell was I going to do?

The spell broke when she looked up at me, so I pulled my phone out of my pocket and immediately called my Aunt Doris. She was the closest thing to a mom I had. She’d moved in with Grandpa and me after her divorce. Just after I’d moved in with him.

“Aunt Doris,” I said.

“Oh, hi, honey,” she replied immediately. “This is unexpected.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to find the words to explain to her what was happening. “Um, are you home?”

She hesitated. “Baby, what’s wrong?” she asked. Luckily all the maternal instincts my own mom never had, Aunt Doris, her sister, seemed to have in spades. Too bad she didn’t have any kids of her own to share those instincts.

“Well, um…” I glanced at the baby and then at the server as I tried to figure out how I was going to explain things.

“Trevor, spit it out, sweetie. You’re scaring me.”

“I have a baby,” I finally blurted out. “Lisa and I had a baby.”

Aunt Doris was our family’s carefree, happy, eccentric member who honestly believed love cured all. As I should’ve expected, she squealed at the news. “I’m a great aunt!” she exclaimed loud enough that the server still standing next to me smiled.

“Yeah,” I said. The tears I’d managed to hold in until that point slipping down my face. “But Lisa left. She said she can’t take care of him.”

“Oh, baby,” my aunt said. “You bring him over here, and we’ll figure this out. And don’t you worry about a thing cause I’m going to be the best great aunt that’s ever been born.”

Her optimism struck me squarely in the chest, and I couldn’t resist letting out a sob of relief. I knew she was right. Aunt Doris had my back.