Page 55 of His Secret Virgin
My cell rang, and I jumped off the bed, pulling it out of my pocket and nearly dropping it as my hands shook. The name on the screen wasn’t Emma’s though. It was my daughter Lauren calling.
“What is it, Lauren?”
“Well, hello to you, too, Daddy,” she said with a laugh.
“I’m in the middle of something, sweetheart.” I didn’t want her to hear the worry I knew threaded through my voice. “What do you need?”
“Nothing, really,” she said. “I just wondered what time you’d be coming home and if you and I and Ashley could go out to dinner this evening. I’m bored.”
“You could get a job, and then you might not be so bored,” I told her.
Her laugh told me she thought I had to be joking. “Daddy, you’re so funny. So, really, what time will you be home?”
I had no idea when I’d be home. “You and your sister can go and eat without me. I’ll be working late.”
“Maybe Mom will want to eat with us,” she whined. “You haven’t been spending much time with us at all. You’re gone every weekend, you know. We hardly ever see you. All we wanted was to go to dinner with you and spend a little time with you.”
Guilt over how little time I had spent with my daughters began to set in. “Look, how about we plan it for tomorrow, Lauren?” Surely I would have this thing with Emma straightened out by then.
“Okay, fine. Here’s the real reason we wanted to talk to you tonight,” she confessed. “There’s this little island in the Caribbean that Ashley and I saw on the internet, and it’s for sale, Daddy! We want you to buy it for us.”
I should’ve known they wanted something.
“I’m not buying you girls an island.” I’d grown more and more aggravated with my daughters the past few months. They really had no aspirations at all, except to spend as much of my money as they possibly could. “But you’re right, we do need to talk. Not about what you want me to buy, but about what I want the two of you to start doing. It’s time to make some changes. It’s time for you and your sister to stop following in your mother’s footsteps and take a page out of my book for a change.”
“What does that even mean?” she asked, sounding confused.
“I’ll get into it much deeper tomorrow night, when you, your sister, and I have a little sit-down.” I heard the phone beep and saw Emma’s name finally pop up on my screen. “I’ve gotta go.” Swiping the screen, I answered the call, “Emma?”
Her voice sounded thick, like she’d been crying, “Christopher, I’m sorry. I swear to God that I never meant for this to happen. I don’t want you to worry. I’ll disappear.”
“No!” I shouted. “Don’t disappear, baby!”
“I’ve got to. It’s the only thing I can do now that I’ve messed up so badly.” She broke down then, crying uncontrollably before saying, “I’m pregnant.” And then she ended the call, just like that.
Time stopped. My entire body went numb.
She’s pregnant?
