The Knocked Up Plan(15)

But she was sorry. She was so very sorry. She didn’t realize she had a problem. She didn’t know she was addicted. Would I please stand by her while she sought treatment for sex addiction? Because she wanted nothing more than to conquer her addictive behavior, change, and remain my wife.

As if that was ever going to happen.

Look, I’m sympathetic to addiction. I have a cousin who has battled the demons of alcoholism. I get that addiction is a beast, and it can wrap a person in its clutches. I understand the painful toll it can inflict on a family.

But as a man, I couldn’t bring myself to look beyond what Maggie did to us. She admitted everything one evening in our living room after I’d just finished a report for a client.

“Honey, I need to tell you something.”

She kneeled beside my chair, clasped my hand, and then spewed forth her confession like vomit as she came clean and begged for forgiveness.

I was shocked. I was hurt, and I was, frankly, disgusted. “Whatever forgiveness you seek, you’ll need to find it with God. It’s not coming from your soon-to-be ex-husband,” I told her, and then I kicked her out.

Two years of marriage, nine months of engagement, three months of courtship. That’s 1095 days of my life flushed down the drain.

All of them a lie.

In retrospect, the signs of her extracurricular activities were there all along. Too much time on her phone, too many unexplained hours away, too many distracted moments. I’d chosen to look the other way because I’d loved her. But it’s amazing how quickly you can fall out of love with someone when they smash the vows of marriage and fidelity, stomping on them with steel-toed boots.

It didn’t take long to get over her. The ending of our marriage was like a crash course in how to un-love someone. I don’t have any feelings left for her except perhaps . . . mild pity. I’m also so damn grateful she chose to cheat early on—before we had kids.

But Nicole’s not asking to have kids with me. Her proposition is a horse of an entirely different color. It’s also one I understand to some degree. My brother Devon and his partner couldn’t have kids the old-fashioned way. They chose to adopt, and my niece Simone is the cutest creature alive.

And so, as I lift the burger, I give Nicole my best Salt-N-Pepa imitation, singing, “Let’s talk about cupcakes, baby.”

“I thought you’d never ask.” She holds up her fork to punctuate her statement. “Turns out I’ve become an expert in sperm. Or cupcakes, as some say,” she says with a smile. I wink back. “And the reality is this—there are probably many amazing donors with wonderful traits. But no matter how much testing and interviewing and screening they do, I’d still be getting a sample from a complete stranger. And on top of that, the more I think about it, the more I’d like to know who the”—she pauses as if she’s rerouting words—“the donor is for my baby.”

As I bite into the burger, I note that she didn’t say father. There’s deliberateness to her word choice, and I suppose that’s understandable. I love Simone in a way that makes my heart feel as if it’s squeezing in my chest, but I also love that she’s my brother’s kid. Not mine. I’m not ready to have one of my own.

“That makes a lot of sense. You want a better idea of what you’re getting into. You want to take some of the guessing out of the equation,” I say, as I pick off the onions since I forgot to ask the waitress to hold them.

“Yes. I do,” Nicole says, taking a drink of her water. “And, please forgive me for being so clinical, but you really have everything I’d want in a donor.”

A burst of pride spreads through me. “Yeah? Tell me what that is. Besides a distaste for onions and an astonishingly good backhand at Ping-Pong.”

Her nose crinkles slightly as she smiles, drawing my attention to the small spray of freckles there, like a little constellation. “Those are absolutely at the top of my list,” she says, then she picks up her fork and takes a bite of her salad.

I eye her bowl. “Nicole. You miss the meat, don’t you?”

She laughs loudly. “Oh yeah, I do miss the meat. And yes, I walked right into that one. But that right there is one reason. You’re easygoing. You’re charming. You’re kind. You’re funny. You’re smart. You’re ridiculously handsome.”

“Oh really? Ridiculously?”

“Insanely good-looking.”

“Do continue.”

“You’re amazingly gorgeous. You’re out-of-this-world beautiful.”

I’m not often called beautiful. It’s a word reserved more for women or works of art. Oddly enough, I don’t mind it. Maybe because it came with a litany of praise, or perhaps it’s the way she says each word with a particular flare. Whatever the reason, I can’t help but give some back to her when I say, “And your child will have a beautiful mother.”

“And that,” she says, gesturing to me. “That right there. You’re just . . .” She lets her voice trail off. “You’re good, Ryder. You’re good.”

I raise an eyebrow skeptically. “Is that like nice? As in he’s a nice guy? Because nice guys finish last.” I’m sure Maggie thought I was a nice guy. A perfectly nice fellow she could cheat on.

Nicole shakes her head. “I didn’t say nice. I said good because you’re one of the good ones.”