Out On a Limb(17)

I wonder if he’ll show up for the baby, unlike my dad or Sarah’s.

I wonder if I want him to, or if I’d rather do it all myself. Lessening the chance of disappointment, the blow of rejection for me or this kid down the line.

Once we arrive, I allow Sarah the honour of telling her husband my news. The moment Caleb walks into the kitchen to greet us, the words burst from her lips, immediately sending him into a state of shock.

“He’s frozen.” I turn to my best friend, who’s giggling into her phone, taking photos of her dumbfounded husband. “You broke him,” I say.

“No, you did.” She laughs again. “He’s just rebooting. He does this sometimes.” Sarah slides her phone into her back pocket. “Caleb,” she singsongs his name. “Come back to us, sweetie.”

“Why is no one else freaking out?” he asks, lowering himself onto a kitchen stool.

“I think it just hasn’t fully hit me yet.” I shrug, throwing back some shredded cheese from a bag in their fridge.

“I had a premonition that this would happen someday.” Sarah does this. She loves to claim that nothing in life catches her by surprise, due to her very much–unconfirmed psychic ability she proclaims to have. I find it oddly comforting.

“What—what do we do?” Caleb asks. “What are we going to do?” he asks, nearing hysterical.

“Well, you do nothing,” I answer. “As incestuous as this may often feel, you’re not the father.”

“This is so strange. It’s always just been the three of us.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, his elbow propped up on the counter.

“Oh, darling…” Sarah says, her tone laced with fake amiability. “You will always be our first baby. We love you so much.”

“Who’s the dad?” Caleb asks, ignoring his wife and turning to me as I shut their fridge with an armful of an assortment of snacks.

“Tell him,” Sarah says smugly, moving to stand beside Caleb.

I glare at her, dropping my haul onto their counter. “Bo,” I answer plainly.

“Who the hell is—”

“Robbie,” Sarah interrupts, bursting. “Robbie!”

“Oh… shit,” Caleb says, grimacing.

Sarah and I turn toward each other with urgency, terror in both of our expressions.

“What? Why shit? Is he some sort of… delinquent?” Sarah asks, turning to face Caleb.

“No! He’s just…Well, he’s—”

“You wanted to introduce us, Caleb,” I say, my rage piquing within every syllable. “What do you mean oh shit?”

“I thought you’d have fun together!” he says, holding up his hands, his voice reaching an unbelievably high pitch. “I didn’t think this would happen!”

“Spit it out, man!” Sarah yells.

“He’s Cora’s ex.”

Sarah gasps like she’s in one of our favourite telenovelas.

“What?” I ask, deathly low.

Cora, Caleb’s older sister, is the spawn of Satan. We’ve often joked that Caleb is such a good guy because there was no evil DNA left once she left the womb. Cora told Sarah she looked tired on her wedding day. She also asks me to remind her of my name every time we’re at the same event, even though I’ve been an adjacent part of their family for the better part of fifteen years.

Other than her beguiling personality, all that I’ve heard about her in the last few years is that she was recently engaged to and dumped by a man named… Robert.

“Why is he using so many identities?” Sarah asks what I’m wondering out loud, her voice barely audible. “Why did you tell me about a Robbie and not a Robert?”

“Robert is Robbie and Bo,” Caleb clarifies, as if we haven’t put that together. “Cora insisted on calling him Robert. My dad started calling him Robbie, so I did too. I think he mostly goes by Bo these days.”

“So this is Robert who left his fiancée out of the blue? That Robert?” Sarah asks, pacing in small circles.

Caleb grimaces but nods.

“Cool, cool, great. So what I’m hearing is that my baby daddy is known to fall in love with women who seemingly enjoy hunting children for sport”—I inhale sharply, my voice cutting out—“and then proceeds to drop them like they’re hot garbage?”

“Well, I mean,” Sarah says, crouching closer to me across the counter, “some women are hot garbage.”

“That’s my sister!” Caleb protests.

“You know who she is,” Sarah fires back from behind gritted teeth.

“How did you not know?” I shout at her.

“I avoid Cora like the plague. You know that! I never even met the guy!”

“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” I say, nausea climbing. But no one is listening. Sarah and Caleb are squared off with each other. Sarah is poking his chest as he backs away slowly.

“Why the fuck would you try to set Win up with Cora’s ex?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. Robbie is a good guy. He’s—”

“This is why you have to run all of your decisions past your wife!”

“Wait…” I say, far too quietly for them to hear as I press my palm into the clammy skin on my forehead.