My parents look at me in dumbfounded silence. And confusion. “You…what?”
“Six and I…we um…” I struggle to find my words.
“We had sex in a dark closet about a year before we formally met,” Six says. “I got pregnant. Found out on a foreign exchange in Italy. I didn’t know who I had sex with, which meant I didn’t know who the father was, so I gave the baby up for adoption. But when I moved back and started dating Daniel, we figured it out. And now we know where our baby is and we’re going to meet him over Christmas break.”
That wasn’t as delicate as I was hoping it would come out, but it’s out there now.
And my parents are still silent.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “We used a condom.”
I expect them to be angry or sad, but instead, my father begins to laugh.
So does my mother.
“Good one,” my father says. “But we aren’t falling for it.”
“It’s not a prank,” I say.
I look to Hannah and Chunk for backup, but their jaws are practically dragging the floor. “Wait,” Hannah says. “You found him? You actually found him?”
Oh yeah. I forgot Hannah and Chunk didn’t know that part.
Six nods and pulls out her phone to show Hannah. “They emailed us today.”
Hannah grabs the phone from Six.
My mother looks at Chunk like she’s the only one who will be honest with her. “It’s true,” Chunk says. “Daniel told us a couple days ago. It really happened.”
“We have pictures,” I say, pulling out my phone.
My mother shakes her head and starts pacing again. “Daniel, if this is a joke, I will never forgive you.”
“It isn’t a joke, Mrs. Wesley,” Six says. “I would never joke about something like this.”
“Look, I know it’s a shock.”
My father holds his hand up to shut me up. “You had a baby and put him up for adoption and didn’t tell us?”
“He didn’t know until after it happened,” Six says in my defense. “I didn’t know who the father was.”
My father is standing next to my mother, still glaring down at me. “How could you not—”
My mother puts a hand on my father’s shoulder so he won’t finish that sentence. “We need a minute,” my mother says to us.
Six and I look at each other. We’ve been so excited, I don’t think we really thought about how this would go down with our parents. We go to my bedroom, but we wait with the door open so we can listen to what they have to say. But nothing is said. Just sighs. Lots of sighs.
My father is the first to speak. “Do we ground him?” he asks my mother.
“He’s nineteen.”
Another pause. Then, “We’re grandparents?” my mother says.
“We aren’t old enough to be grandparents.”
“Obviously, we are. And they said it was a boy?” she asks.
“Yeah. A boy. Our boy had a boy. Our son has a son. My son has his own son. I have a grandson.”
“So do I,” my mother mutters disbelievingly.
Six and I just wait patiently and listen as they work it out.
“I’m not ready to be a grandmother,” my mother says.
“Well, you are.”
“I wonder what his name is?” she asks my father.
I take it upon myself to answer this one. “Matteo!” I yell down the hallway.
My father peeks down the hallway from the living room. When I see him, I open my door all the way. We stare at each other for a moment. He looks disappointed. I’d almost rather him look angry. “Well,” he says, motioning for us to come back to the living room. “Let’s see the pictures.”
We take a seat at our table and they all pass my phone around taking turns looking at the pictures. It takes a good ten minutes to sink in before my mother starts crying. “He’s so beautiful,” she says.
Six is squeezing my hand again. Then she starts to cry, because when Six sees anyone else cry, it makes her cry. “I’m sorry I let someone adopt him,” she says to my parents. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
My mother’s eyes swing to Six and she’s immediately out of her chair. She takes Six’s hands and locks eyes with her. “You have nothing to apologize for. Nothing at all. We love you so much, Six.”
They hug, and dammit if it doesn’t make me tear up. As much as they embarrass me, I really did get lucky when it comes to the parents I got.