Chapter 68

ARTHUR

A few seconds after I heard Doris turn on the shower, my phone rang. It was Cathy. I kept forgetting that I was supposed to call her back. This was a good time as any. I picked up the phone.

"Hi, Cathy. I'm sorry we haven't connected earlier. How are you?"

She hesitated. "I'm OK. I've been traveling around Asia. I know it can be hard to get me with the time difference."

"I really should've called you earlier, but I bought a hockey team, started a pharmaceutical company, and I've been busy with Doris. I wasn't ignoring your texts. I just keep forgetting to call. I'm sorry. What can I do for you?"

She paused again in a way that wasn't good. It gave me chills. Dread went up and down my spine.

It wasn't just that she paused. It was the way that she paused. It wasn't just silence. It was an eerie, cold silence.

Whatever Cathy was going to ask of me, it was big, and she was scared. I bite my lip.

"Cathy, whatever it is, just spill it."

"I'm pregnant," she said.

I paused for a beat. "Congratulations."

"You don't get it. I don't want to be pregnant. I have a career. I have fans. I need to travel around the world. I can't have a baby."

I was silent. I didn't see what this had to do with me.

"It's with the same boyfriend that I got together with right after I broke up with you. We were just together for a week, and he's a musician too. He's in a different band now. We're not together. It's a mess."

"Cathy, I'm sorry you're in a situation, but why are you telling me?"

"I'm saying this child will be a full-blooded sibling to Mia. I'd like you to take the child and raise it."

"What the hell?" My voice was loud.

I didn't want Doris to hear this. I was glad she was in the shower. I lowered my volume.

My voice was a harsh, forced, behemoth-sized stage whisper. "What the hell? Have you not ever heard of using a condom? Did you not learn anything last time?"

Cathy's voice had too many emotions in it for me to sort out. "We used a condom. I was also on birth control. Did you know that birth control doesn't work if you're on antibiotics for a cold? Did you know that?"

I didn't know that. I did, however, know that condoms didn't work one hundred percent of the time, and birth control didn't one hundred percent of the time either. The fact that this was the second time protection didn't work for Cathy was either a weird twist of fate or a lot of rotten luck.

"You don't want to consider having an abortion?" As soon as the words were out, I regretted it. I knew Cathy was religious.

"I didn't know I was pregnant. I thought I just had a cold, and I was feeling sick, and then it was a little over two months before I realized it. I've been trying to get in touch with you for over a month..."

I did the math. It was too late now, even if Cathy did want to do it, which I was sure she didn't.

"Damn it, Cathy. Did it ever occur to you that I might want biological children of my own? That I might not want to adopt another child? That you're putting me in a really bad situation?"

I got up and paced. "I'm just now getting into the next stage of my relationship with Doris. I'm trying not to fuck everything up. Do you ever think of anyone besides yourself?"

Again, I regret the words as soon as they are out of my mouth. Cathy was pregnant and probably hormonal. I'm sure it took a lot of guts to call me. She doesn't need me yelling at her.

Cathy's voice trembled like she was on the verge of crying. "Listen, Arthur, you're the only one I could ask. I don't have any family. You know that. If you don't say yes, I'll have to put the baby up for adoption."

Cathy paused. "I don't want to blindly hope the baby lands with someone good. I know you're good." She paused again.

"Cath..."

"You have the money to get the best nannies and the best care. And the baby would be with Mia, so they would be together as biological siblings. I just wanted to give you the option."

"Cathy, fuck. Just, Damn it. You just throw this at me in the middle of nowhere?"

"Well, there wasn't exactly any way to ease you into it."

"I guess that's true."

I smacked myself in the forehead and then grabbed the bridge of my nose. "This is a disaster. I can't believe it." I made myself calm down.

"I'm trying to get Doris to move in with me, Cathy. I don't need a wrench in the works."

"Congratulations, and I'm sorry?"

"You have some epic shitty timing."

"It isn't like I planned it!" Cathy sounded on the verge of tears.

"Fine, fine." I heard the water shut off in the bathroom. "Listen, Cathy," I said quietly. "I need to think about this. I'm going to need to talk it over with Doris. We don't have to make a decision today. It's a shock, OK? Give me time to think about it and decide what to do."

I took a deep breath and ran my hands through my hair as if that would calm me.

"Just give me a few days, OK? I will get back to you. Either way, we will come up with a plan. Take care of yourself. I'm glad you called me. No matter what, we're friends, and I'm not going to abandon you will figure it out."

Cathy started to cry. "Thank you," she said softly.

Doris came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel.

"I have to go. I'll call you in a few days, OK?"

"OK," Cathy said and sniffled. "Thank you." She hung up.

I closed my eyes. What a shit show.

"Who was that?" Doris asked.

"That was Cathy," I said

"What did she want?"

I opened my arms to Doris. She came to me and let me hug her. I held her tight.

"I'll tell you later, Dove. It's a long story, and it requires a long discussion. It's late. We'll talk about it in the morning. I don't want it to ruin our night."

"Crap. That doesn't sound good."

"Well, if it's good or bad is a matter of perspective, but that's a conversation for another day. Leave it to Cathy. She knows how to shake it up and bring the surprises.”

"Cathy has always made me feel insecure, like she's prettier, a better singer, and more successful. She always makes me wonder if you don't like me for me but because I look like her.

I squeezed Doris's ass. "There are four things wrong with those sentences. She's not prettier. She's not more successful. She's not a better singer. I don't like you because you look like someone else. Also, there's no woman in the world I will ever love more than you."

"As I said before, I think I went out with her because she reminded me of you."

I caressed Doris's jaw. "I think fate might have brought us together, Doris. After all, at The Strip, you came up to me. I didn't see you first. You came up to me. You thought I was something I wasn't. You propositioned me."

"And from that point in my life, my whole life changed. I went from just putting one foot in front of another to living a life we're building together. I'm not with you because you're a copy of somebody else. I'm with you because you're one in a billion. And my precious dove, you're the one in a million who is meant to be with me.”

I paused to see that Doris is with me. To breathe with her because I know this is emotional.

"If you don't get how great you are from what I just said, I'll keep telling you. If I can never convince you that that's my fault, I'll keep trying."

Doris looked like she was going to cry. Her bottom lip trembled.

"Jesus Christ, woman. Do I need to sex you up again so you don't get too emotional?"

"I guess so."

"Have mercy on a guy. I'm a stallion, but even I need a break."

Doris laughed. "Well, tomorrow's another day. And I do like morning sex."

"Consider it a breakfast date."