“But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you both.”
“But it does mean that things can’t stay the same,” I added quietly, the reality settling in. I couldn’t believe that my wife had cheated on me. It made me question everything, including the paternity of the baby that Laura was carrying.
As we sat there on the couch, Laura reached out to me. She went on about promises and wanting to make things right. But I didn’t see how we could move past it and be okay.
I wanted Jackson to live in a home with two parents who loved and trusted each other, but after this — I didn’t see a way through it. Later that evening, I took Jackson out for dinner. We needed to escape our home and the uneasy atmosphere that had taken over.
We needed a break. “Will you move out?” he asked me as he dug into his burger. “No,” I reassured him.
“Mom and I need to figure some things out, sure, but I’m not going anywhere.”
He nodded at me. “I thought that Mom wasn’t okay,” he admitted. “When I got home from school, Gran was trying to get Mom to come out of the bathroom — she kept calling and Mom just kept on crying.
I didn’t know that there was another man in the house.”
“Where was he?” I asked, cracking open a beer. “He was sitting on your bed, or so Gran told me,” Jackson said. After dinner, we just didn’t want to go home.
There was a disconnect between our home and the reality of the situation. But I was grateful that I had Jackson with me. Much later that night, when I went home, Laura was sitting on the couch biting her nails — something she did whenever she was stressed.
“What now?” she asked. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to make it right.”
She moved the book that was next to her and patted the couch.
“I think only time will decide that,” I said. “But I need you to tell me the truth — is the baby mine?”
Laura closed her eyes and took a deep breath, barely able to contain her anxiety. I could feel it, bubbling off her skin and surrounding the room.
“I’m not sure,” she whispered. In the next few weeks, Laura decided to go for therapy — she said that she needed to understand why she acted out. “I didn’t think that I would be the person to do this,” she said while making us cups of tea.
“But you did,” I said. Laura nodded. “I’m going to stick around until the baby is born,” I said.
“And once we do a DNA test, we can decide on our marriage.”
I’m not sure what’s going to happen next, but I do know that I’m not prepared for the reality of that test. What would you do?
