“And now you have had time to think?”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means… I want to help you with this. I want to be involved and support you.”
“Seriously? You’ve had a complete change of heart since yesterday? Like twenty-four hours ago?”
“What you said… I’ve been thinking about it. And you’re right. I was… I am… full of shit.”
I stared at him open-mouthed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“I’ve got a lot of stuff to deal with, but right now, I want to make the right decision. This is a baby. Yours and mine, right?”
I went to sit down. This was all too much.
He seemed sincere.
But it was confusing after yesterday when he had been so hostile to me, so mean.
“What about all that crap you said, about not trusting me?”
Matthew sat down in the chair across from me. He looked down and thought carefully before he said,
“It’s not true. I do trust you. You’re the only person I have ever trusted in my entire life, I think.”
I could not believe my ears.
“I think that’s why I was so mean to you, back in college, even yesterday. I’m not sure, but I truly am sorry for the things I said, back in college as well as after that. And for how I’ve treated you since you’ve come to work at Egal. The truth is, I was happy you were there and liked having you close by. I know it may not have looked like it, but I was.”
I had never heard Matthew talk so openly and freely about his feelings.
“I’m… going to need a moment…” I said and started laughing. He laughed with me, nervously.
I told him about babysitting Doris’s baby and how overwhelming it was.
“But you would have help. If you wanted, you could have night nurses. Nannies. Childcare during the day.”
My mouth dropped open, I had to shut it again.
He laughed and shook his head. “I know it sounds crazy,” he said. “But since I’ve started thinking about the baby, I can’t stop.”
“I was going to go to the doctor today to see how far I am and get an idea of options.”
He stared at me. “Options?”
“It’s a big responsibility, Matthew,” I said in a shaky voice. “I don’t know if I can do it. What if you decide in six months’ time you don’t want to see me again?”
“We can set up a trust in the baby’s name,” he said, right away, as if he’d thought about it. “That way it has nothing to do with the two of us.”
His face changed when he spoke about the baby, I saw a side of him that I’d never seen before. I wanted to believe this change of heart was real, but I wasn’t ready to trust him again.
Not yet.
I told him he could come to the clinic with me. He cancelled his morning meetings and took me to the doctor in his car. There, a nice lady in a white coat confirmed that I was pregnant, and we heard the baby’s heartbeat on the sonar. After that, I knew there was no way I could turn my back on my baby.
I may not have known how to be a mother, but I would not give up before I had even tried.