THE HALF OF IT

Part - 11

I expected her to say she have made a mistake, to get up and leave. What I never could have predicted was the fear in her eyes when she intially lifted her gaze to me.

She swallowed hard. "God, there's no easy way to tell you this . . . "
I frowned, because I couldn't imagine what had caused the dread I heard in her voice, and I was trying hard not to make assumptions-like, was she sick or something? "Tell me what it is, Teju? Whatever's wrong, I can handle it."

Her hands twisted together in her lap. "You have a daughter," she blurted out, her voice strained, as in she has to literally force the words out of her throat.

Her eyes were huge as she waited for my reaction, adding to my confusion. My brain tried to process what she have just said, and how it pertained to me, but no matter how I rephrased her statement in my mind, I couldn't make sense of it.

I shook my head slowly. "I'm not sure what you're talking about. I don't have a daughter."

"Yes, you do," she said, her tone more insistent now. "Our night together . . . I ended up pregnant."

I stared at her in shock, feeling as though I have just been blindsided. There was no misconstruing those words, yet we had used protection and she'd mentioned that she was on birth control.

"How is that even possible?" I asked, still shell-shocked by the likelihood of a pregnancy happening when we had taken twice the precautions-though my condoms had been in my bag for over a year. "I could understand if there was an issue with one of the condoms, but you said you were on some kind of contraceptive."

"I was." She gave me a pained smile. "When I found out I was pregnant, my doctor looked up when I'd had my implant inserted. It had been three years, and while the device claims to last up to four years, with up to being the key words, clearly mine had failed early. And, I am assuming, we also had an issue with one of the condoms we used.”

I scrubbed a hand along my jaw, then braced my forearms on the table, not knowing what to say. To think that both forms of birth control had been ineffective was surreal . . . and hell, I have a daughter.

“She’ll be three next weekend,” Teju added.

Three years old . . . that made me frown and I mentally did the math, amd came up two monhs short on the timeline. “Are you sure I’m the father? If she’s going to be three this month, that would have put you two months pregnant beore we even met.” Which meant that in all likelihood the child was of her ex, not mine.

“She was born premature at seven months,” she said, bridging that gap of time as she reached into her purse for something. “If you want to have a paternity test done, I completely understand, but here’s a picture of her for you to see.”

Teju held a photo in her hand, and again, reluctantly—as if she really didn’t want to show me—she turned it around for me to view. One look, and it was as though the breath was knocked from my lungs. She didn’t look so much like me, but instead her delicate features were a replica of my sister, Madhu, when she’d been a little girl around that same age. But those big, blue eyes . . . yeah, those were all mine, no paternity test needed.

The chubby-cheeked toddler was smiling in the picture, with sweetness and innocence, and she stole my  heart. Just knowing that she existed and was mine had me awe struck on her.

“What’s her name?” I asked around the lump that have formed in my throat.

“Her name is Ruhi, but I call her Valentine."

I glanced up at Teju and smiled, because the name was absolutely perfect. “I like that.”

“Considering the night she was conceived, she has been my little Valentine from the moment I found out I was pregnant.”