Page 11 of Family Ties

The thought makes me sick. A lifetime of expectations to be forced on my child simply because of who their father is.

I’ve lived my entire life with the weight of the invisible expectations of my father. My child deserves better.

“We can get you on a flight out to your aunt’s in Colorado tomorrow night. We’ll have to be careful about where you get care. We’ll have to find someone who doesn’t use any of the traditional electronic health records. The Lombardi’s have their fingers in all of those, so they’d be able to find you," he tells me. Never once did he bother to consult me about the decisions he was making for my life.

His words wash over me. “So I’ll never be able to see Enzo again?”

My dad lets out a small sigh. A sigh I'm sadly familiar with. It's the my-daughter-is-an-idiot sigh because thinking about Enzo is the last thing I should be doing.

I’ve always been okay with my father running my life, maybe too okay. He has my best interest at heart, and for the important things like where I was planning to attend university, I got the last say. Something about the way he’s treating this situation, not asking for my input as he plans out my life, sets me on edge.

I bite my tongue. My father is my only support system and now isn’t the time to disrupt the status quo.

“You might as well forget he exists. If someone mentions his name to you, you don’t know who he is. The night you met him, it never happened.”

I grit my teeth. There isn’t any way I’m going to be forgetting Enzo. I’m not on board with not telling him about our child. But without my father’s help, I have no way of contacting him.

I’m pretty sure if I tried to pull up to his house, a guard would shoot me.

The guards made sense during the wedding. At least that’s what I told myself. It was an enormous event with some very rich people. Now, with the information my father has given me, I wonder if the guards are there all the time.

My father dismisses me with the instructions to go pack my things. I have a room at my aunt’s house, so I don’t need to take all of my things. Namely, my clothes and the things I have an emotional attachment to, since it sounds like I’m going to be living with her for a long time.

Clothes that won’t fit me for much longer.

I’ve already noticed some changes to my body, even if there isn’t a bump yet. My breasts are sensitive, they’re already getting larger, and my nipples are getting darker. My stomach is softer. I get bloated easily and it almost makes it look like I have a bump. My hair is also getting thicker, and I need to shave more often. Maybe I’ll give up on shaving. It isn’t like there’s a man in my life I’m trying to impress.

I hear when my dad retires from his office. He doesn’t stop by my room and see how I’m doing, or give me any updates on these grand plans he’s coming up with for my life. He leaves me in the dark. I try to comfort myself. Once I get to Colorado, I’ll have more freedom. My aunt has never shared my father’s view on parenting. She never thought she needed to monitor my every movement. When my father had first mentioned private school, she had fought him on it until I told her I was okay with the school he had chosen for me to attend.

I know she knows I’m pregnant. My father wouldn't send me out to live with her if she didn’t, but the thought of having to tell her fills me with dread. She moved in with us shortly after my mom died, and I knew she was filled with the same overwhelming grief my father was because her sister died, but she put it all aside so she could be there for me. I've never had to worry about disappointing her.

My fingers shake as I type her name into the contact, doubt plaguing me. I've never questioned her love before, but what if it isn't as unconditional as I thought?

She picks up on the third ring.

“Aunt Kennedy?”

“Oh pumpkin, I’ve been waiting for you to call me.”

Her words are so gentle, so full of love that I fall apart with her on the phone. And she lets me. She lets me pour out my heart about Enzo and the baby, about my disappointments, about not attending Brown at the end of the summer, and about my deteriorating relationship with my father.

And then she listens to me talk about my excitement.

No one else in my life would. Even though I'm young, and this is never how I expected to become a mom, I already love my child more than I thought possible. My father would have a heart attack to hear it.

"Pumpkin?" my aunt says into the phone.

"Yes, Aunty?"

"You're going to be a great mom."

Chapter Seven- Enzo

“Emma’s decided she wants to take a gap year from school. She feels like she needs to get to know herself a little better before going off the college,” Eric tells us, rolling his eyes. He doesn’t like the idea of Emma taking time off. It makes him anxious. His fingers tap against the drink he’s holding in his hands as he chews on the inside of his lip. He’s been drinking more lately, and maybe this decision of Emma’s contributes.

Of my father’s lawyers, he’s always been the most cool-headed. Calm and collected. For the past couple of weeks, he’s been on edge. He gets angry easily, and he drinks during work hours. It isn’t unusual among our employees, and as long as they’re someone who doesn’t handle a gun, we don’t mind. The fact that Eric has been has caught my attention.

Maybe I’m just paying more attention to him now I know my future wife lives in his home.

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