Page 59 of Good Guy Gabe

It’s like a house of cards proving how much I’ve always wanted kids. Rows and rows of evidence balanced just so. That Suzie doll at the top, my dating profile toward the bottom, but there are plenty of layers in between. Girlfriends I didn’t have for more than a couple weeks because they didn’t know when they’d be ready for kids, the one who hurt me as much for telling me she’d lied about it as she did for cheating on me. All the kids’ charities I’ve volunteered for, the pee-wee football I coached before the Colts picked me up. But even more concrete thanall of that is the time I spent with my niece and nephew and, most importantly, every single thing I’ve said to Joss since her pregnancy test.

It should be a good, strong house. It should withstand the stiffest winds.

Except there at the bottom is a single card, that fucking vasectomy lie.

I told myself it didn’t matter anymore. She’s happy. She wants this baby. She wants me to raise this baby with her, and she wants to spend the rest of her life with me. In my mind, that vasectomy card gently laid itself down while the house of cards stayed intact.

Joss’s tone tells me this is not the case.

I signal to the drivers behind me that I’m pulling over to the side of the road. I can’t have this conversation at fifty miles per hour, eyes ahead.

“If you stop this car now,” Joss says, her tone far too even and deliberate, “I will get out and walk the rest of the way. Do not test me.”

God help me, but for a moment there, I consider testing it. Even if she does get out, I’m so much stronger than her, so much better equipped to handle whatever fight she throws at me. Unless she sprints and happens to be a faster runner than me — not a difficult feat for my teammates, but they’re professional athletes, and Joss’s favorite sin is definitely sloth — it won’t be difficult to wrangle her and keep her contained so we can have this conversation the way I want to.

But she doesn’t have to say, “I will call 911 and end you,” for me to know how bad of an idea this is.

Oh, she does say it, but she doesn’t have to.

“I love you,” I say helplessly. “I love you so much. Everything I did was out of love.”

“What did you do, Gabe.” There’s no question. She already has her answer.

I swallow hard. “I know this is bad, but—”

“Tell me what you did. You need to say it.”

Ironically, we’re roughly where we were when it all started. It feels symbolic, in a way, that the little service road I found for us is only a mile ahead. I drive this road every day going to the sports complex. That turn-off frequently gets my attention. And as happy as I get whenever it catches my attention, a twinge of guilt always hits me. It’s faded as the months have passed, become less of a serious fuck-up and more of a necessary evil. I think I’d almost convinced myself I did the right thing.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, I swear. It was stupid and reckless, but it wasn’t—”

“Tell me . . . what you . . . did.”

I have to focus on the road. I have to keep us all safe. This is my entire life. This is the only thing that matters. The lines blur in front of me, a solid white streak on either side of my hood guiding me forward. Guiding me to my doom.

If I stop the truck, she’ll get out. She’s gone.

If I keep the truck between these two white lines, she stays with me. I only lose her if I get off this road. I can keep her forever if I can keep driving.

I have a quarter tank of gas.

This is impossible.

So I turn off the main road and onto the one that will take us to Joss’s place.

“I never got a vasectomy.”

I want it to feel good to get it off my chest, but that’s stupid. It would have felt good if I’d confessed it without it being forced out of me. It would have been terrifying, but I would have known then.

“No, that’s not what you did. Not to me.”

I can’t play dumb here. There’s no point in pretending like the vasectomy is the real issue when she wants kids so badly. “I lied to you.”

I expect a tirade from her. This is her chance to lay into me, and honestly, I’m down for it. When I dislocate my shoulder, I don’t want to walk all the way to the locker room to deal with it, and I don’t want a ride there on the golfcart while they make a spectacle of me. I don’t want the medics to do gentle rotations to ease it back into place or a countdown while three people hold me to pop it back in.

I want Vedder to put his cleat on my chest, grab my arm, and yank.

That’s what I want Joss to do.

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