Chapter 8

Home was nice, it was comfortable, and it was a place, for the moment, that was rife with questions and concerns.

“To tell or not to tell,” he said. She nodded.

“If he ever finds out” she said. “I mean if we do not tell him. On the other hand, if we do tell him...”

“Yes, potential problems if we don’t, for sure problems if we do. You tell me,” he said. “Whatever we do we lose.”

“Like you say, it’s no win either way. But I think we should wait. Yes, maybe tell him, just not so soon,” she said.

“It’s been seven months since we broke up. He has made no attempt to contact us. I think he may have just written us off. If so...” she said. He was nodding.

“If so, he may have solved the problem for us,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “But, Grant, do we have the right... ?”

“No, but if we give him the right, well, I can foresee a whole lot of angst and conflict that neither we, nor him, nor the baby needs in our lives,” he said. “Yes, we’re dirty rats for leaving him out there not knowing. But under the circumstances I think it’s the best way to go. But, if he does contact us, well, then we’ll reevaluate.”

“Yes, I see what you mean,” she said. “Okay then, that’s the plan. And no one else ever needs to know.”

“For sure that,” he said.

It was May 6th. ASU put on one heck of a graduation show. And this go around, I was part of it, and so was Lance.

I did get to make a short speech, having finished first in my major, Math, for the Ph.D. program. I was on the cusp of maybe having me a serious career in Computer Science, CS, that was the rising star of college majors. I didn’t have a job yet, but I would be looking soon enough for something that would for sure make me some serious money.

My woman, the one who’d dumped me should’ve been here cheering me on. I’d done enough for her over the years. But, well it wasn’t to be. I had the next best thing though; Lance graduated with me. And he also would be looking for a job. He was actually thinking of hanging out a shield of his own, but I advised him to work for an established firm first, and I think he was going to take my advice; oh, and the similar advice of all of his program teachers as well.

“Congratulations Doctor Wyatt,” he said coming up to me.

“You too, Mister Conniff esquire,” I said. “We are a couple of success stories for sure.”

“We are indeed,” he said. “And tonight, we celebrate, and no excuses. It’s steaks at the Harrington. My treat.”

“Hah, you’re on,” I said. and we did indeed make our way to the country club still wearing our graduation bandoliers. Well, so we were bragging a bit; we had a right.

“I invited Milton too,” he said. “He’s thinking of doing the grad school thing now. Not sure yet, but maybe we can get him to commit tonight.”

“Okay, good,” I said.

The Maître d’ had us seated in minutes. Milton joined us ten minutes into our drinks and menu perusals.

“Okay, you guys, who’s paying. I’m just a poor bachelor’s degree guy,” he said.

“You’re in luck, mister,” said Lance. “We’re flush tonight.” Milt’s smile was genuine, and, I thought relieved.

“We talked. We laughed, And Lance and I did put the heat on Milt to finish up and go for the masters. He could do it, and I could help him if he needed it which I was pretty sure he wouldn’t.

We ate, we drank, and the steaks were top drawer; well, it was the Harrington.

“Well, just one more mountain to climb before I go job hunting,” said Lance.

“The bar,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “And it’s next month.”

Lance did take the bar and he did pass, and he was so happy that I bought the steaks this time. Yeah, at the Harrington. Milt was with us again too.

Now if the two of us could only get the jobs we were looking for. For his part, Milt had changed careers. The PE thing was a little too heavy for him at his age. But he was already employed as a junior high school teacher of all things. He did seem a little long in the tooth for eighth graders, but he said he loved it, and that because he was older, the kids seemed to pay better attention than they did to the younger teachers on the staff. Oh, and he was teaching at Harmon T. Solis.

Well the Harrington wasn’t the only bistro in our little village of Phoenix, Arizona. No indeed. My favorite watering hole, and Lance’s, was still the Pasture. And Lance had stood me up. He actually had a meet up with a woman, a woman who was cooking him dinner, at her house. Shit, I should be so lucky.

I came in late, there was no need to be early, now I was done with ASU. And, with Lance otherwise occupied, all I was going to do was tip a few back anyway.

I might have been coming in late. But the gods of Greece and Rome never sleep. I know that. And the proof of it lay in the serendipitous situation that I now found myself in.

The booths at the Pasture were high backed and on top of each of the high-backed booths was a kind of decorative imitation farm fence. The set up allowed for a degree of privacy, and that could be both good and bad. What the set up did not allow for was sound proofing.

The couple in the booth behind the one Lily, my waitress, led me to, were having a conversation, not especially loud were they, but I could hear them and I understood every word they spoke. That was interesting because the conversation was about me. The speakers were my ex-wife and her now husband.

“If he ever finds out that he is Zoe’s biological father, we could be in serious trouble,” said Penelope.

“Stop worrying. It’s been over a year. The man is not going to be bothering us or even sending us Christmas cards. He’s cut himself off from us and that’s a good thing, or if not an actual good thing, at least a less problematic thing,” said Doctor Grant Hardy.

“I am so glad I divorced the man. He was okay as a friend; he really was. But as a husband? No,” she said. She’d really hurt me with that one. I could imagine what the conversations in bed were like for the two of them.

“You said a hundred times how big a help he was to you when you were in high school and in college. You could be a bit kinder in what you say about the man.

“Look, He is not going to find out about the fatherhood thing unless either you or I tell him and we’re not. It’s a non-issue. And if he ever did by some miracle find out. We’d just ask him what he wanted, give it to him, and be done with it,” he said.

“What if he wanted custody or even just visitation. I could see that as being a very large pain in the ass,” she said. “He likely couldn’t get sole custody or anything like that, but whatever he was able to get would be a pain.”

“Yes, but frankly, from what you’ve told me about the man; I don’t see him messin’ with the status quo. He might ask for some money. Or he might as you say manage to get some kind of visitation, but it would be minimal. I have lawyer friends and they are top of the line believe me,” he said.

“I guess,” she said. “Well, we need to get back, Carla has school tomorrow and her sitting with Zoe is a special favor to me tonight. I just had to get out. We’ve been working so many hours of late,”