Confidential(86)

My run-in with that Flora woman had been two nights ago, and after I texted Michael to cancel at the last minute, he went on a texting spree. It was like he was looking for reassurance, like he knew there was more than what I was telling. I kept responding minimally, hoping to allay his suspicions, because what if he was a monster? I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of that. It wasn’t just about me anymore; I had to look after my baby, too.

I was able to verify that there had been two women who filed and then withdrew complaints. But that was all I really knew.

I’d been falling in love with him. I had to admit that now. Flora seemed awful, but that didn’t mean she was lying. It was possible that what she said was true: that he was very good at what he did, at being what women wanted him to be.

Why hadn’t I done a background check, like my parents would have insisted?

Because I’d been mounting a rebellion against them, though they were too dead to know it. I’d been defiantly going with my gut, and now . . .

I couldn’t stop thinking about—and rereading—the papers Michael and I had signed. I had a good lawyer, which meant that the contract did just as I’d asked: it reduced Michael’s risk, ensuring he couldn’t be held liable in any way, and that while Michael had no parental rights and could never sue for custody, the visitation was fairly liberal. He was guaranteed at least once a month, with more at my discretion. He was entitled to pictures and updates at predetermined intervals. It was modeled on the contract between a birth parent and an adoptive parent in an open adoption.

Open. As in, my baby would be exposed to her (or his) father. I’d given Michael access to my child, and I didn’t have to be present if he didn’t want me there.

I’d been so stupid. So crazy. Baby crazy. Baby blind. I’d wanted to be pregnant, and Michael was the only man immediately available. I’d convinced myself that everything I’d seen and heard from him rendered him legitimate and trustworthy. And I told myself that was my gut speaking up, and I needed to listen, for once. It felt like a triumph. Paying a man a hundred K for sperm, and I’d been proud of the deal I’d brokered.

If I’d done even a fraction of my due diligence, I would have known about those two complaints. Of course, if I’d asked him about them, I would have been desperate to believe any explanation he gave. I still was, which was why I hadn’t yet asked him about Flora.

It hadn’t felt desperate, though. I’d felt excited. I’d felt like I was on the verge of the best choice of my life, practically the only choice of any consequence that I’d made without the influence of my parents, an influence that had extended beyond the grave. Michael had, in remarkably few sessions, managed to deprogram me. But then whose influence was I under?

No, it wasn’t possible. He couldn’t have conned me into this, into becoming the father of my baby, so he could get a hundred K. For one thing, it wasn’t even that much money in the Bay Area. He lived in Rockridge. I’d looked up his house on Zillow and it was worth $1.5 million.

Then there was Flora. That was a conniving woman if ever I’d seen one. Women didn’t often make false accusations, but it happened. There was a reason people were innocent until proven guilty.

I needed to see the proof. She’d written on the back of her business card that she had it, and she told me the blonde woman on Wednesday was another victim. I’d have to meet up with them and see what was really true. Most likely, it was a bunch of garbage from a few disturbed women. I’d tell Michael afterward what they were saying and that he needed to watch his back.

Thanks to Amazon Prime, I already had the beginnings of a library for my little one. I’d been reading aloud, hand on stomach, doing different voices for all the characters in The Giving Tree; Oh, The Places You’ll Go!; and Guess How Much I Love You.

Just my baby and me. I’d hoped for more, but if not, this was enough.

The pages blurred before me. I kept on going.





CHAPTER 71





LUCINDA


I’d been reading the same sentence for the past ten minutes. It was a horrible sentence, for sure, from a book about making cocktails that taste craft on a beer budget, but normally, I could have rewritten it in seconds.

“Problems?” Christine asked, just over my shoulder. I jumped. I didn’t know how long she’d been there, watching.

“No problems,” I said. It came out curt when I meant it perky, like I was a good little employee who danced to my boss’s tune instead of a woman in the grip of a slowly simmering rage.

“I thought maybe you were working on your own book again.”

“No, I haven’t done that since our conversation.”

“Or should I say, our book?” Her smile was small and mean. She was reminding me that I owed her, and that, in effect, she owned me.

No one owned me.

That book was my life. It belonged to me alone. I had suffered for every page, and there was still so much left to write. The story of a therapist who told me that my stepfather was in a position of power and that made me a victim, and then that therapist did the very same thing, which made him even worse than my stepfather. I stayed up all last night writing, stoking the flames of my anger, and now I could feel them burning bright.

“That’s my book,” I said. “I’m not writing it at work, and I’ll decide what I do with it.”