Page 120 of I Will Find You

“I was sure the procedure didn’t take, that Matthew was yours, but that didn’t matter. Going through with it. My betrayal. It changed you.”

I fight through it, try again to stay on message, swim through the emotional battering. “You tried to get pregnant with donor sperm.”

“Yes.”

“You told me you didn’t.”

“I know. I lied.”

I don’t know what to say here. “And you thought…?”

I see it now—how she thinks it all played: I found out she’d used donor sperm, and I lost my mind. I thought Matthew wasn’t mine. “The anger, the resentment, the stress.”

Plus the sleepwalking. In her mind, I didn’t do it intentionally, but somehow my hidden rage manifested itself and I had too much to drink or a bad mix of antidepressants and alcohol, or whatever past trauma rushed back into my damaged psyche, and unconsciously I rose from my sleep and grabbed a baseball bat and walked into Matthew’s room and…

So much of what happened makes sense now. Cheryl blames herself. All this time. She hasn’t only lost her son. She believes I did it—and worse, she believes that she is responsible.

“Cheryl, listen to me.”

She bursts into tears again. Her knees give way. I can’t let that happen. Whatever, I can’t let her fall like that. I hurry over, and she grabs onto my shirt and sobs. “I’m so sorry, David.”

I don’t need to hear this. I don’t want to hear this. Focus on the goal, I tell myself. “None of that matters anymore.”

“David…”

“Please,” I say. “Please look at the picture.”

“I can’t,” she says.

“Cheryl.”

“I can’t give myself that kind of hope. If I do, I’ll break.”

I don’t know what to say to that.

“I want so badly to believe, David, but if I let myself go there…” She stops, shakes her head. “I’m pregnant again.”

“I know,” I say.

And that is when I hear a key jangle the lock on the door. A second later, it swings open.

It’s Ronald.

It takes him a few seconds to recognize me. When he does, his eyes go wide.

“What the hell is going on here?”

I don’t have time for this. I look back toward Cheryl.

“Go,” Cheryl says to me, wiping her eyes. “He won’t say anything.”

I hurry toward the door. For a moment I think Ronald is going to block my path. He doesn’t. He steps aside. I want to say something like “You better be good to her” or even “I’m happy for you guys” but I’m not that selfless and I’ve had enough melodrama for one afternoon.

I give him the slightest nod and am on my way.

Chapter

33

---