Time To Live

Chapter 01: Paternity

Jenna sat across the kitchen table from her brother and frowned. "Do you really think that is the right decision to make?"

Brian paced the small kitchen of his home, watching as his little sister sat quietly watching his eight-month-old nephew fidget in his high-chair. The baby was the picture of his father: dark brown nearly black locks, arrestingly large brown eyes, pale skin, perfect pale pink lips, and dimples. He always looked the picture of innocence, even when he was being the devil. "I know that you want to move on from this-"

Jenna sighed. "I am trying to, Bri. Can't you let it go?"

"No," he shook his head slowly. "Don't you think that Christian deserves to know his father? I know that everything went to hell in the end, and I realize that it's been a year to the day that you left that sack of shit –"

Jenna winced. "Bri, come on. He's Christian's father!"

Exhausted, Brian tossed himself roughly into a chair beside his sibling and frowned. "I feel very firmly that, despite his flaws and your relationship issues, now that we know without a doubt who Christian's biological father is, he deserves to know, as well. Maybe he won't step up and do the right thing, but he deserves that chance."

She chewed her bottom lip and knew that tears were cascading down her cheeks. "I never thought that my life would become an episode of Maury fucking Povich, Bri. I shouldn't have had to have a paternity test done on my son; I should have known from the day I got pregnant who his father was."

"I agree," Brian nodded fervently. "But that didn't happen and that's okay. Now we know."

Jenna glanced down at the paperwork in her hands and nodded slowly. "Now we know."

"You have to tell Chris," Brian urged her gently, prodding her elbow. "He deserves a chance. Maybe he will want to meet Christian?"

She stared at the papers, reading and rereading the information that stated that there was no chance in hell that either Ryan Sitkowski or Richard Allen Olson III had fathered her child. Consequently, to a degree of certainty that was upholdable in a court of law, Christopher Thomas Cerulli was the father of her son. Christian Salem Cerulli. The irony of his name was amusing to Jenna, but, in truth, she hadn't even chosen the name for herself: Chris had unwittingly named their son one afternoon, another lifetime ago, in a cabin in the woods.

As Brian lifted his fussy nephew into his arms, he sighed. "Look. I don't actually believe that he's going to be a man and step up to the plate and do right by my nephew. That whole fiasco, everything that happened with that band – I don't trust any of them, Jen. Least of all Chris. But as a father, I have to be honest with you and say that, at the very least, he deserves the chance. Call him, tell him about Christian, and maybe he will want to meet him?"

Jenna shook her head slowly then, stuffing the papers back into the manilla envelope they had arrived in and frowning. "Ricky said that they will be in town in a week. I don't want to do this over the phone, Bri. I am terrified and just the thought makes me want to vomit, but I feel I owe it to Chris to see him face-to-face, to explain in person."