Page 22 of Jasper
We drink and I share pie grudgingly as I tell him all about how I ended up with a bun in the oven. He is as shocked as I was when I got that phone call from Dr. Langford. Now that I’m over the initial shock, I realize that it’s a good story.
It doesn’t take Queenie a full five minutes to come to me.
“I hear that I have a grandchild on the way and his mama makes good pie. What else am I missing?”
I shoot Silver a dirty look and protest, “Come on, Ma. I was comin’ to tell you right after I got finished with my fuckin’ dinner.”
I don’t know why I thought I could keep anything from her when she runs the clubhouse and the club girls all curry favor with her by telling her every fart the brothers let.
My mom makes a disgruntled sound and says, “I’ll go and get Rock. Meet us upstairs after you finish your meal.”
My mother is my only real weakness. I hate disappointing her, especially when it comes to grandkids. Me and my brothers know that all she’s wanted since we all came of age is grandkids. We get the talk on every birthday about how responsible sons settle down, get married, and make kids.
Well, it’s going to be hard to hold her back from jumping at Tessa. She’s gonna want to visit, shop, and have her around the clubhouse, ‘cause she don’t understand the nature of our relationship.
I keep shoveling pie in my mouth until my pie pan is empty. I have to admit—it’s the best food I’ve ever tasted. Too bad she isn’t my woman. But since she isn’t, that means this delicious meal is just a one-off.
By the time I haul my ass upstairs, all three of my brothers are sitting around, waiting to hear all about this child of mine that probably isn’t even as big as my pinkie yet.
It’s not like I haven’t faced worse conversations in my life. Hell, I’ve told parents their sons weren’t coming home from war a time or two. But this is a different situation.
This is personal in a way I don’t even know how to explain. As I enter their suite at the Sons of Rage clubhouse, I find myself feeling secretive and possessive over Tessa and my unborn child. I don’t want to talk about it until I get more comfortable with the situation myself. We’ve made a fragile verbal deal that couldbe easily torn apart by my family’s ham-handed enthusiasm for embracing a new member.
The plush carpeting is snow white because that’s what my ma wanted at the time, even though it’s highly impractical in a biker clubhouse. My father is in the habit of indulging her every whim. We all are, and that’s why I’m gonna tell her about my baby. I’d prefer to keep it to myself, but I don’t want to alienate them now that I’m just about to grab the prez position. Shit, I never really realized how I have to play a bit of politics to get along in my family.
I drop down into one of the oversized armchairs and face my parents. As always, they provide a unified front by sitting side by side on the sofa. There’s a familiarity here that usually settles me, but today it feels tight around my throat. I’m not here to talk about club business or the latest scuffle with rival MCs. I’m here to tell them something I barely believe myself.
I launch into an explanation, pointing out that it’s been a couple of weeks since the fertility clinic in Vacaville notified me of the mix-up.
“I nearly ignored the number, thinking it was another scam or someone trying to pitch medical coverage. When the doctor said, ‘Mr. Jasper Jackson, this is regarding your specimen from the New Horizons cryogenic storage department’. That’s the moment my past hit me like a damn freight train.”
I tell them how it all started back when I was in the military. I talk about the deployment, the mission in the Afghan mountains, the warnings about exposure to toxins and how they might leave us sterile—broken in ways we wouldn’t understand until long after the war ended. I go over the uneasy laughter of my unit as we joked about banking our sperm, how someonefound a private lab that didn’t ask too many questions, how we all chipped in like it was some twisted insurance policy for a future we weren’t sure we’d survive to see.
I mention how I checked a box a couple of years back when the lab shut down, authorizing the transfer to a local clinic. I hadn’t thought twice about it. It was old history. A contingency plan collecting dust. Not until now.
I tell them, “Now, that backup plan has come to life. Them using the wrong sample turned my backup plan into something living and growing in the womb of a stranger.”
And I carefully explain to my parents how I got from that moment—one born out of fear and survival—to me standing here, telling them they’re going to be grandparents to a child conceived by accident and carried by a woman I barely know. Not because I was reckless or made poor life choices, but because sometimes shit happens and you have to make the best of it.
“There is no damn way on God’s green earth that I’m lettin’ my own flesh and blood slip my grasp. I don’t care how much time and energy I have to put into this situation, what I have to pay the surrogate, or how far I have to go to protect her from the couple she originally contracted with. I’ll rip apart the world to see my child born.”
My old man leans back in his chair, arms crossed tight over his chest, eyes unreadable. Ma is the first to speak.
“A surrogate? I thought you’d knocked some girl up.” Her voice is careful, like she’s really trying to get her head around all this. “Someone you don’t know is carrying your baby?”
“Yeah.” My voice chokes with emotion. “I told you, she was supposed to be implanted with another donor’s sperm. There was a mix-up at the clinic. It’s mine, there’s no doubt about it.”
My parents exchange a look. A quiet flicker of disbelief passes between them. I know that look. It says this isn’t how we pictured it, and we don’t know what the hell to say.
“And this woman,” my dad says, slow and deliberate, “what does she want? Is she keeping it?”
“The other couple has been pressuring her to terminate.” That gets their attention. My ma’s hand goes to her chest. I continue before she can get worked up. “She was resistin’ them. When I found that out, I made it my business to figure out who she was. I tracked her down. I offered her money to carry the pregnancy to term. Enough to cover medical costs and then some. She agreed.”
“You paid her?” My old man’s tone flattens out.
“I didn’t pay her to make a baby,” I snap, sharper than I meant to be. “This wasn’t some back-alley arrangement. We didn’t plan any of this. But once the lab used my sperm, I had a chance to step up and I did. Nothing is going to keep me from my child—not money changing hands, not your disapproval, or the other couple giving her a hard time.”
Silence stretches for a beat. Two. Then Ma asks the question I’d already discussed with Tessa twice.
