The Accidental Daddy

‘I know, and I did consider not telling you at all. I know people have this obsession about truth, but a lot of truth just hurts.’

His face was shadowed but Joey read sorrow in it and wondered just how badly he’d been hurt by some truth in the past. And for some reason beyond her understanding, it hurt her that he’d been hurt.

She really was a mess!

‘I suppose, both morally and ethically, you need to know,’ he acknowledged. ‘But I thought I should come in person—explain in person.’

She couldn’t help the frown that must be causing permanent creases in her forehead.

‘I don’t understand any of this, but I’m assuming you somehow found out, or think you found out, that I was inseminated with your sperm instead of David’s. But the checks and balances at the IVF centre are so complex, it can’t happen.’

‘Exactly what I thought,’ Max told her gloomily, ‘and in case inside that calm exterior you’re raging about yelling and threatening to sue, I’ve already done enough of that for both of us. Problem is I can’t help feeling doctors get a bad enough press without patients suing them so I wouldn’t really like to go that far.’

He’d kind of run out of words, so he looked hopefully at Joey.

Nothing!

He ploughed on.

‘Can you tell me why you used frozen sperm? I know the name on the files when they were finally tracked down was McMillan. That was or is your husband?’

For a moment he didn’t think she’d answer. Her eyes were unfocussed and he guessed she was looking inwards—to a not very happy place if he read her expression correctly.

‘David had a headache. A bad headache.’ She spoke slowly, quietly, offering the words one by one as if each one still caused pain. ‘He was diagnosed with an aggressive, inoperable brain tumour and given six weeks to live. We’d been married a month. I didn’t want him to do the frozen sperm thing. If I couldn’t have him, I certainly didn’t want his baby. I was angry—at him for being sick, and at myself for handling it so badly. Angry at the whole world.’

She paused, looking around the room, probably remembering her beloved husband in it with her—probably regretting her anger …

‘Anyway he did it, saying that, in time, he fully expected me to find someone else to love and marry. That was what he really wanted for me, he said, but if that didn’t happen, then he’d like me to have the option of having his baby. I could have someone of his—some part of him—to give me the love I deserved. That was how he put it. And it’s been there, in the back of my mind, ever since. Then last year I thought I can’t keep the sperm forever. If I don’t do it now …’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, I just did. I wanted to and I did. But now … what have I done? A baby that’s not David’s …’

She rested her head back on the arm of the couch and closed her eyes, as if telling this tragic story had stolen her last reserves of energy, leaving her too exhausted to wipe away the tears that leaked, slow and full, from beneath her eyelids.

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