“You don’t know? That sounds suspiciously like there has been more than one lover in your life.”
“There have been several and they weren’t lovers. All they were, at least to me, were sperm donors and there were several because I didn’t want to know who the father was.”
“That sounds like you set out to get yourself pregnant.”
“I did.”
“If you felt the need to have children why didn’t you come to me? They can reverse vasectomies these days.”
“I didn’t have time.”
“Camryn, will you please just tell me what the hell is going on and get it over with. Don’t make me drag it out of you a little at a time.”
“Your mother had Laura, Nancy and me over for lunch about three months ago. She made the announcement that she and your father had decided that there wasn’t sufficient motivation for us to start producing grandchildren so they decided to stir up some competition. She said they would give whoever produced the first grandchild two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and they would make it five hundred thousand if it were a grandson.
“I don’t know how Laura and Nancy took the news, but my attitude was ‘who cares’ until the day I came home and saw that you were looking for a realtor to sell the house. I will not lose this house. I had to give up a lot when I lost my job, but I will not lose my house!”
“I’ve never looked for a realtor. We aren’t even close to having to sell the house.”
“But I saw it. I saw that you had the Yellow Pages open to Realtors.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I went into your den looking for you and I saw the Yellow Pages on your desk. It was opened to the section on real estate.”
“I don’t have a clue as to what you are talking about Camryn. This house is not for sale and I’ve never even thought about selling it.”
Her face went pale and I asked again, “Why didn’t you come to me and talk it over?”
“I didn’t have time. I was in a race against Laura and Nancy; I couldn’t afford to take the time it would have taken to get your vasectomy reversed.”
“What the hell happened to the logical mind that you used to have? Did you not take the time to think it all the way through? What did you think would happen when I found out? All you did Camryn, was guarantee that the house would be sold.”
“No baby, no. I’ve got it all worked out. We take the two hundred fifty thousand and pay the mortgage down and then we refinance. We’ll be okay.”
“No Camryn, we won’t be okay. This is a community property state. The house will have to be sold and the profit from the sale will be split between us in the divorce.”
“Divorce? What divorce?”
“Oh come on Camryn. You can’t seriously think that I’m going to stay married to you after this? You cheated on me. You fucked other men and got yourself knocked up by one of them. You are a whore Camryn and I’m not having anything to do with a whore. This marriage is over Camryn, it’s toast!”
“No baby, no. I did it for us Davy; I did it for you and me. You can’t leave me Davy, you just can’t.”
She was right, but I didn’t know it at the time. And then it was more of an I wasn’t allowed to leave her than I couldn’t leave her. It wasn’t an hour after Camryn ran crying up the stairs to the bedroom that my mom and dad showed up. My mother came rushing in the door, “Where is she? Where is my little Madonna?”
I pointed to the stairs and said, “She’s in the bedroom, but th….”and before I could finish she was running up the stairs. My father watched her go and then he said, “Thank God Davy. I think you may have saved your mother’s sanity. Come on, fix your old man a drink and let’s toast the new baby.”
“What do you mean I may have saved her sanity?”
“You know, I’ve been on you boys pretty hard to get a bun in the oven and I won’t lie and try and pretend that I don’t care about a grandson to continue the family name, but the fact of the matter is that we needed a grandchild – either sex – for your mother’s well being. I don’t know what it is in women, and it may not be in all women, but in a woman like your mother there is something about children, grandchildren, and maybe even great grandchildren that just can’t be denied.
“She has been so upset these last few years over not having any that I’ve had to take her in for psychiatric help. First Harry and Nancy find out that Harry’s sperm count is so low that he can never have children and then Bob and Laura just flat out told her they did not want children and never were going to have any. You were the last hope and when Camryn never got pregnant something let go in your mother. She hasn’t been the same these last few months. When Camryn called today to give her the news it was like seeing your mother come back from the dead. You can’t even begin to know how happy you have made her and, it goes without saying, me too. Well, here’s to the newest member of the family” and he clinked my glass and downed his drink.
As I sipped mine I wondered just how in the hell I was going to get out of that pickle. I had an unfaithful whore of a wife whose bastard child was the only thing keeping my mother out of a mental hospital
Throwing Camryn out on her ear was suddenly out of the question. At least until some way could be found to end her pregnancy. Maybe induce a miscarriage or get an abortion. Camryn, not being stupid, was having none of it. She read the situation perfectly. As long as she had the baby I couldn’t get rid of her without causing God only knew what problems for my mother. My dad wouldn’t be a problem; he would just tell me to get rid of the worthless slut, but my mother? What would happen there? What made it worse was now that Camryn was pregnant my mother was around constantly and if she wasn’t at the house she was on the telephone.
A day didn’t go by that I didn’t get a piece of advice on what I should be doing either to or for Camryn. While all this was going on I had pretty much severed my relationship with my wife. I moved all my stuff into one of the other bedrooms and I didn’t speak to Camryn if I could help it. The exception to that of course was when any of my family were around and then I had to try and make it look as if everything was normal.
Camryn did not just lie down and accept it. She kept telling me that she loved me, that she didn’t want to lose me and that she had done what she had done for us and to save us financially. But it didn’t matter how much she begged me to forgive her I wouldn’t. It might have been possible if she had taken a lover in a weak moment and I had found out, but that wasn’t the case here. In one of the few times we talked before I shut myself off from her she admitted that all of her late nights working and the weekends she said she was working were when she met the men she fucked. She admitted to having had sex with seventeen different men on backseats and in motels in her quest to get herself knocked up.
“But I stopped as soon as I found out I was pregnant.”
As if that fucking mattered.