The Perfect Solution-A Suspense of Choices Read online

  "It’s so hard to believe that’s what happened?" He breathed in harshly. "They just gave him to someone he didn’t know. Someone just walked in, said 'I want that one' and walked away with someone else's child? What kind of center did you put him in?" He questioned accusingly. "I can't believe you would just dump my child," Pushing her back a bit so that he could look into her eyes. "What kind of security system do they have? Did you check into that? It's your job to know these things. Did you find out what kind of people worked there or did you just want to get rid of him?"

  "What are you asking?” She looked into his face in horror. “You, who care nothing about anyone other than yourself, I know you're not standing there trying to blame this situation on me. I would do nothing to purposely endanger my child. I love him more than you could ever think."

  Catrine tried to push out of his arms, but he refused to let her go. In frustration, she stilled and continued talking.

  "I did everything I could to make sure that Brhin was in a safe environment." She pounded his chest in exasperation as she stated her point. "I can't believe you are even saying this to me. If you saw The Perfect Solution Daycare Center, you would think it was a place sent from heaven. The center has everything even you would want for your child. Each class has space, lots of toys, cleanliness, computers, and superior education, everything.

  "Yeah, it has everything but security. Calm down." He ordered when she twisted angrily in his arms. "I wasn't blaming you."

  "Right," She clicked her tongue irritably. "I know their security is the worst and it did bother me. I could see the potential for a problem almost every time I walked into the building. This worry about the system had given me the idea of writing out a proposal to show to the center's director. Let me get it so you can see what I was planning. I know this doesn't seem like the right time to be thinking about this, but I feel so guilty.

  If I had followed my mind weeks ago, we probably would have avoided this awful situation we are in now. I am always telling Brhin to follow that inner voice because it could only be God talking to him and he could do no wrong by listening. And here I am as an adult, hearing the voice daily and putting it off as fear, paranoia or stupidity."

  Reluctantly, Austin released his hold on Catrine and sat down. Catrine crossed the room to her desk, shuffled through some papers and came back with a single typed sheet and handed it to him.

  "These are some great suggestions," he said after reading through the page. "You should give them to the director."

  "I thought that my company might have been able to make The P. S. Center more secure." Accepting the paper back from Austin's outstretched hands, Catrine folded it in half slipped it in the back pocket of her jeans and reached for a Kleenex to wipe her nose. "I have been ill for the past two weeks and this morning I felt really rotten so I asked Phae if she would get Brhin from The P. S. Center.”

  "Other than a cold, what's the matter with you? Are you pregnant?"

  Catrine stared at Austin as if he had just lost his mind.

  "Are you crazy?" She angrily put her hands on her hips. "How in God's name did your mind jump to that conclusion? Are you going through some kind of sick fetish for pregnant women or something? Do I look pregnant? Did I feel like I was pregnant when we were in the bedroom and you were running your hands all over my body?" In her anger Catrine had stepped so close to him that their bodies were almost touching. "And whom in God's name would I be pregnant for? Am I supposed to be sleeping around, now? Is that what you think of me? Am I supposed to have turned into some sort of a slut because I was no longer with you? Do you think that just because you didn't find me acceptable that I would have to search the universe for someone that would? You must be out of your mind. I know you don't think that raising one child on my own is such a joy that I would want to try it with two?"

  Austin put his hands on her hips and looked at her slowly from head to feet and back into her eyes.

  "As I'm sure you remember, Catrine you didn't look nor 'feel' pregnant when you threw me out of your life and yet you were. So let's not go there."

  "I didn't know I was pregnant." She answered emphatically. "How many times do I have to tell you that? Do you honestly think I would have kept the fact from you if I had known then?"

  "You can't deny that you did keep the fact from me.”

  "No, I can't and I won't even try." She groaned loudly. "Look, I'm sorry. As much as I loved you and you know that I loved you so don't look at me like that. Do you think I would have wanted you living with me if I hadn't? Do you think I would have been willing to put up with you day in and day out if I wouldn't have loved you? No matter how great you think you are you are not the easiest person to deal with. And yet I still wanted you living with me. Think about it. Don't you think I would have used anything to get you to move in with me? If I had believed it would have softened you and had gotten you to change your mind about living with me I would have even lied about being pregnant, hell at the time and the way I fantasized about you living here, I would have even told you I was dying. You were always so thick headed." She jabbed her pointer finger in his chest. "I would have told you I was pregnant you idiot, but you walked out of my apartment and completely out of my life. I thought you had moved out of town.”

  She paced the room, coming back to stand directly in front of him.

  "I went to my gynecologist a mere two days after our last argument. Just for a checkup," she put in quickly when it looked as if he would interrupt. "And he told me I was pregnant. God, I was so excited. I hurried home and called you. For two weeks I called, I paged, I sent text messages and emailed you and never received an answer.

  Did you hate me so much that you couldn't even return a message and belittle me for being such a fool and chasing you around? The people at your office and at the hospital said you had gone and they wouldn't tell me when you would return. Believing they were lying I even went to your office and received theses pitying looks from your secretary. It made me feel as if you had found someone else. What was I to think? I even grew balls and called your mother." Sitting down, she smiled at the complete surprise on his face.

  "What, you talked to my mother? You're kidding. She never told me."

  "I asked her not to. I was desperate. Here I was alone in town without my sister. Pregnant without the father of my child and I didn't even know if I wanted the child. If anyone was desperate for a mother it was me and the only mother I could think of was yours. The first time I called we talked for quite a while. I like her. She told me I had just missed you. I believe you had left to hang with your brothers. What are their name Dallas and Houston?" She chuckled. "I almost asked your mother if she had a thing for Texas."

  "My dad believed there is no state in America that adds up to Texas. It's a family joke," he answered absently. "I can't believe you called there. Let's just talk about this conversation you had with my mother. Did you tell her you were pregnant?"

  "Of course I did and she came and sat by my side while I was in labor," she answered sarcastically. "I would really do that, huh? Don't you think you would have known about it if I had? Do you believe your mother would have kept such a thing from you? Your mother doesn't seem to be the type of person to let something like that pass and not want to be involved. There is no way she would sit around knowing she had a grandchild and not want to be part of its life, right? Besides, I couldn't make the words pass my lips. I already felt stupid. Just like a typical idiot. Here I was, twenty years old, knocked up and alone."

  "You wouldn't have been alone if you would have told me."

  "I wanted to tell you, but you were never there. I called your mother twice more and gave it up. Your mother is really easy to talk with, but once I started crying on the phone whenever I talked to her, I just couldn't talk myself into calling her back. There were so many times I almost let it slip about the baby, but I knew she would tell you and that is not the way I wanted you back. Trapped and blaming me for making you a victimized part o
f my life. She told me that she would send you home to sort yourself out. I assumed you would probably call, but you never did. I figured you were trying to clear me from your system and I decided I would do the same."

  "How did you expect to do that when you would be living with my child?" Austin pointed to a picture of Brhin. "I don't know if you have ever noticed but that boy looks just like me. You have practically been seeing me every day for the past three years. Don't show me that face. You know I'm telling the truth."

  "Yes, I do know that. I never said it was easy."

  "Then how could you go so long and not let me know? I can't take it in. You say you loved me. You couldn't have. I craved to see you for weeks, months damn near years. That was the most difficult time of my life. I really don't know how I survived. To tell you the truth there is still not a day that I don't think about you. A song, a movie, something happening in my life of importance and I will pick up the phone to tell you about it. Habits die hard. I was so used to sharing everything with you. Sometimes I would just shake my head at how stupid I was and hope that you were happy in whatever you had chosen to do with your life. How in the world did you do make it through the day? You must have thought about me constantly. And then to be pregnant?" He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders in wonder.

  Catrine reached up to smooth the wrinkle from his brow and he grasped her hand to halt it before it reached its destination.

  "Don't touch me like that Catrine. I can see the motherly look in your eyes. I am not your child and things will not end the way you think."

  "I'm sorry. I just…." Her hand fluttered limply to her lap when he let it go.

  "I can see now that there are still some unsettled issues between us. Many of these things we won't be able to settle tonight. One thing I want to explain is the time that I went away. I can't let you take all of the blame." He paused to rub his chin and sheepishly studied the toes of his shoes. "A couple of days after our argument, I ran home to my mother. I was going through an identity crisis I guess because I was feeling that I was too old for you. Here I was the eldest of the two of us and I was afraid of commitment. When I was at work, my mind was so filled with you that I had trouble concentrating and when I was at home, you were definitely there. I was confused. I cleared my schedule and took a needed vacation.

  I have a box in my closet right now filled with things that belong to you. I felt like you were surrounding me. Everywhere I looked every thought I had came back to you and so I ran home to my mom. I moped around and was smothered in my mom's comforting world until she too booted me out and sent me home to deal with my problems. I can't believe she never let on that she had ever talked to you. Maybe in her way she had. She would ask things like, 'have you talked to your lady friend lately'? She wanted to know how you felt about our break-up and things like that. I presume I became such a great actor that I guess I fooled her into thinking everything was fine.

  Over the last couple of years, I avoided all conversation with her that seemed to be drifting towards you. You must have struck a chord with her because I thought she was becoming as obsessive with you as I was. I never mentioned you again and made damned sure that I never thought about you. I came back to town after my little vacation, ignored whenever my heart told me to get in touch with you and did my best to forget our relationship. What I should have done was called as soon as I had returned and so the hundred million calls from you. Instead of making me want to call you they made me want to back farther away. I just assumed you were calling about the same old thing. I should have just called and I would have known that you were pregnant."

  "I've done my damnedest to forget about you, too. If it had not been for Phae, I don't know what I would have done. She is always there when I need her. When she went to get Brhin from the center today and they told her that I had already sent a friend to get him, she went home believing he was here with me. She wouldn't call to check because she was angry with me. Sometimes Phae will let her anger get away with her."

  "So that's where you get it from, huh? You two are definitely sisters."

  "I guess that makes you our brother, right?"

  "I don't think I could ever be your brother, Catrine unless incest runs in the family."

  He raised his brow mockingly.

  "You are so ignorant." She blew off his comment. "While Phae was at home waiting for me to call and apologize, I was drugged out of my mind, lying snuggled under a mountain of pillows and blankets, oblivious to the fact that my baby was probably somewhere crying for me. I should have gone out and gotten my child myself."

  "Don't blame yourself. The people at the Center are the ones to get all of the credit. If I ever get my hands on that teacher or the person that took my son, I will kill them. It's because of them I was dragged downtown like a common criminal. Do you have any idea what I had to go through while I sat in the police station? I have never been so humiliated and afraid in my entire life. I felt degraded. Sitting in that detective's office, all I could think about was the fact that I could end up in jail and maybe never seeing my unknown son. My practice would be shot to hell and all of the humiliations, and prejudices that I had to put up with to get where I was in my professional life, and all of the work that I have done for my patients would have been for nothing.

  That little detective would not believe me when I said I knew nothing about the child. He probably thought that I had just gotten you pregnant and run off. Labeling me a deadbeat dad or worse, a no good light skinned nigger sticking to stereotypical form. I got the feeling that he thought I believed I was God's gift. When in fact I would have been overjoyed to know I was a parent. Where did you have him? You didn't go to St. Elizabeth because someone would have told me. I thought about you a lot. I often wished that we had not had that stupid argument. I just couldn't understand why we had that breakup. If I have known that you were pregnant, there is no way on earth I would have left you alone. Not you or the child. Do you realize how much I have missed in my son's life? Those are times I will never get back. I missed everything. I missed the chance to count tiny baby fingers, to take him around my parents, my sister, and my brothers. Do you realize Brhin has four uncles and another aunt?" Austin looked at her as if the knowledge had just dawned on him.

  "No. Austin I'm sorry. I really am." She looked at him with eyes pleading for forgiveness. "We never talked about your family. What are their names?"

  "My two oldest brothers are James and Jasper then there's Dallas and Houston. Me, and then my sister, Althea is the baby of the family. They would have loved to meet Brhin. They are always saying, 'Tin, you need to get married.' 'Tin, you should have a child of your own'."

  "Why do they call you 'Tin'?" Catrine asked.

  "My sister says it’s because I act all hard but can easily be bent to any persuasion."

  "Obviously she never asked you to live with her." She rubbed her fingers through her hair and wiped her nose with a fresh Kleenex.

  "Let's not go back there. I may have been a little wrong in getting so up in arms about your wishes, but that does not mean I don't care. Did Brhin ever talk about his 'daddy'? Or did you have a substitute daddy for him? Was there someone else in my place? Someone that rubbed your growing belly, wiped your brow when you were sick, held your hand when you were in labor? Did someone else walk the floor with him when he cried in the night and you needed sleep? Is there someone that makes love to you in the wee hours of the morning when you wake needing mature human touch? Was there someone here to hold you close and comfort you when you found out our son was missing?"

  "No. No, to everything you have asked. Phae has been my only source of comfort. There has been no other man in my life. I haven't wanted any. I haven't wanted to think about any other man or you. Right after I had the baby, my every thought was of you, you and Brhin. I made videos and took pictures of everything he did in case we ever ran into you." Catrine reached under the coffee table and pulled out a thick photo album. She made herself comfortable and ha
nded the album to him. "I thought that whenever you came back, we would sit and smile over them. You see that picture." She put her thumb over the part of the photo that showed her laying in a hospital bed, hair mused around her shoulders, no makeup. "That was taken just minutes after his birth. See how small he was." She pointed to the very next picture. It showed Brhin being held up to the glass of an incubator. The nurse's hands pushed through the two holes and cradling him so a good shot could be taken. "You can see him better here. He was a little premature and had to stay in the NICU for three weeks."

  Austin slowly flipped through the pages of the album. Stopping every once in awhile to run a finger down a photo in wistful retrospection.

  "He was such a beautiful baby.”

  “Yes, fat as he could be. I had really wanted you to see him. I thought we would talk about his resemblance to our family members."

  "Well, he looks like my sister's new baby." Austin looked at her and then at the photograph. "Althea just had the baby a few months ago. Ironically, she named him 'Steele'. She says he's a lot like me but tougher and colder than I am so she couldn't call him 'Tin'. He hardly cries, rarely laughs and seems to take in everything with a calm nonchalant attitude. Is this how Brhin looks now?" He asked.