Chapter 9: Percy

I didn’t hear from Laura the next day. I went to her apartment but no one answered the doorbell. I decided to give her some space. I texted her to contact me whenever she was ready to talk about our future. No answer.

The next day I texted her. Again I got no answer. Then called and it went straight to voicemail, I left a message. Still no reply.

I called Amanda and asked her if she had any news from Laura. She told me she hadn’t heard from her in a while. Her texts and calls got the same result as mine.

I kept sending increasingly frantic texts but after getting no replies I went to her parents’ home.

Laura’s parents weren’t there. The guy who opened the door didn’t know or didn’t want to tell me anything about Laura or what was going on. At that point, I started to panic, thinking her parents had kidnapped her and taken her to Europe.

The next day I got a text from Laura. “Don’t try to contact me. I hate you! I don’t want to see you anymore. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want to ever, ever talk to you again! I’ll get a restriction order if necessary. Whatever you need, contact the family lawyer.”

The text ended with the name and address of a legal firm.

It felt like being part of a Twilight Zone episode.

I went to her parents’ home again, but the doorman refused to let me in and told me that if I kept bothering them or Laura they were going to call the police.

I decided to see a lawyer and explained to him the situation.

“It doesn’t make sense. She’s not like this. We were good. We were talking about it.”

“Hormones can scramble a pregnant girl’s brain pretty badly. Give her some time, maybe she’ll come around,” the lawyer explained to me.

“I want to be there for her and my baby.”

“That’s great, Mr. Wittmore, and speaks volumes of you as a person, but if she doesn’t want you around there is very little you can do.

“You won’t like this, but it’s true and sometimes the truth hurts. If your girlfriend doesn’t want to see you and her family has money, she’s probably in another country now.”

I panicked. “Is there anything I can do?”

“If she decided to get an abortion, you can’t do anything.”

“Laura didn’t want an abortion.”

“Maybe she changed her mind. Maybe her family made her change her mind.”

I knew Laura would never kill our baby. Or would she? I thought she would never walk away from me as she did, however, she did. Did I know her at all? Was she some kind of mental case?

“What happens if she decided to keep the baby?”

“Well, if she wants to give the baby up for adoption, she needs your consent. Of course, she could say she’s unsure of who the biological father is, where he is, or how to reach him. In that case, the father will be listed as ‘unknown’ on the birth certificate. If she delivers the baby in Europe, for example, you’ll never know. There are many ways to trick the law when you have money.”

“Basically, you are telling me that I’m fucked.”

“I’m afraid so. Traditionally, mothers retain most of the decision-making rights regarding an unborn child. I can contact her lawyer and offer him money to contribute to the cost of prenatal health care, but I’m pretty sure he’ll refuse. The law generally views the right to make health care decisions as an individual right, so there is not much we can do.

“When or if the baby is born, and it’s a big ‘if’ considering she might have changed her mind about getting an abortion, we can petition the court so you can have parental rights and you’ll be granted visitation, once we get a paternity test.”

I shook my head, “It doesn’t sound like her. This whole situation doesn’t make sense. She wasn’t like this. She doesn’t even like her parents.”

“Blood is thicker than water, Mr. Wittmore. If you were in her situation, would you choose a guy you just dated for a few months or your own family? My legal advice is that you should move on. Fighting your girlfriend and her family will cost you a lot of money and, in the end, none of these things will make your girlfriend change her feelings towards you.”