The Apple of My Eye

South of Heaven

As soon as I realized that what I was holding in my hand was a home pregnancy test stick that basically sentenced me to something other than what I had been planning all along-though I didn't quite know what it was yet-my first reaction was denial. That's right. I refused to believe it. I thought Chloe could only be leading me on. In a couple of seconds, her whole scheme unraveled in my head: she had to have faked it. Of course! I mean, how easy must it be, right? Plus, it simply couldn't have happened. I hadn't even-oh wait. Yes, I had. Less than a month ago. Fuck. That one had to be ruled out, then. Could she have maybe let it happen on purpose? Of course she let it happen on purpose-except, no, she couldn't have. This was too big a thing, too life-altering an event, for someone to play with it like that. Unless-

As thoughts were convoluting like a million bees stinging my brain, I visualized more than a few different scenarios, none of which made much room for the whole Star situation. I pictured myself having to move back in with my wife and daughter while the baby was still under way. I pictured talking Chloe into getting an abortion-a thought I must have entertained so loud she probably overheard it through my cranial walls-and I immediately regretted having allowed myself to think a thing like that. I couldn't honestly think I'd ever be okay with taking my own child's life, religious and societal views notwithstanding. Then I imagined myself moving out of the picture altogether, in which case the baby, provided there really was one, would grow up without a father figure. Sure, I'd still go see him, but to him I'd be some guy around whom he'd feel really awkward and uncomfortable, some guy who came to see him every once in a while and would take him out for the infrequent movie and ice cream.

Then I realized it was taking me too long to react to the news, and I promptly stopped thinking all this to evaluate the situation.

"Are you sure?" I asked Chloe, well aware that this was one of those questions that add very little to any conversation.

"I'm pretty sure," she said curtly.

"How can you be so sure, Chole? It's a known fact these tests are not exactly foolproof," I said.

"It's the third one I've taken this week, okay? I'm pretty damn sure," she replied. Funny thing, she didn't look angry anymore. In fact, she looked like she was about to break down.

"I thought you were on the pill. Weren't you on the pill?" I ventured.

"I was, Stanley. I don't know what went wrong, all right? This is not how I wanted it to happen," she said, her face crumpling into cry mode and fresh tears streaming down her cheeks.

It was only then that it dawned on me that whatever pain and anguish she must have been experiencing before had now been augmented, obviously. If she was in fact pregnant, there were all these hormones driving her nuttier than she had been all along. Not to mention the fact that this whole affair was out-and-out tear-jerking in and of itself, without the need for a pregnancy to make it even more labyrinthine.

We were once so blissful, Chloe and I, several years earlier, when we found out Victoria was on the way, that it now seemed unbelievably unfair to this little creature that he had been conceived amidst such havoc, that the news of his coming had been received with such doubt and aloofness.

Damn. Was I in trouble now. I didn't even know what kind of trouble, but I knew I was in it. What did this all mean? Five minutes before I was talking about packing up my stuff and leaving my second apartment in a year to go move in with my hot young girlfriend, a move that would take me away from the convenience of living next door to my daughter-and the inconvenience that was living next door to my estranged wife. They'd be seeing me a lot less when it finally happened, and I had been totally okay with the thought. Would I be okay with it now?