A New Kind of Denial

“Tanya, I just don’t see how this could happen. Or even how you could let this happen. You’re a responsible young lady and I would have expected you to have a lot more control over yourself,”

“Mom,” I whined. “You make it sound like I'm loose!”

“You don’t know he father of your baby! That is a bit loose, don’t you think?”

“It’s not that I don’t know the father, Mom,”

“But it could be either of two men, and you don’t know which one!” she exclaimed, her hands flying up in exasperation. “I hate this, Tanya. You’re a good girl and you shouldn’t have let this happen! I would expect this out of your sister, but never out of you! I don’t understand how you of all people would let something like this happen.”

“I know, Ma, you’ve been telling me this for the past half hour,”

“I'm just a bit disappointed with you right now,”

“And I know that too, but you really shouldn’t be,” I told her, crossing my arms over my chest. “I'm not the good little girl I used to be. You really don’t know me like you used to. Miranda used to be the bad one, the one that was always out of control, but she’s calm now compared to me. I don’t try to be the way I am, but it just happens. Yes, maybe you should be disappointed, but not with the cute, ‘responsible’ little girl you think I am, because that’s not me. I'm not cute, I'm not sweet, and this just goes to show that I'm not responsible. So don’t think of this situation like it’s happening to that girl. Think of it like it’s happening to Miranda, because that’s the kind of girl I am now. I'm sorry Mom, but you’re just going to have to face that.”

“How?” she asked me, her face falling immediately.

“I don’t know, Mom, shit happens,” I shrugged. “And I'm not getting rid of it or giving it up for adoption. So you’re going to just have to deal with the fact that I'm going to have a baby and I'm going to raise it.”

“But you don’t even know who the father is, Tanya! How can you live like that; not knowing who your child’s father is?”

“That’s what I'm going to go do,”

“What do you mean?”

“I have an appointment at the clinic to get a paternity test in a half an hour. I'm leaving in a few minutes so I can make sure I'm there on time. When I get back, I won’t have to ‘live like that’ as you so cheerily put it because I'll know who the dad is.”

“But don’t you need their DNA for that?”

“Technically, I only need DNA from one of them to figure out who it is. If it’s not that one, then it’s the other,”

“But do you have something from one of them?”

“A couple weeks before we broke up, Gavin had a nose bleed while he was here and he got some on my pillowcase. I haven’t gotten around to washing it yet, so it’s still in the hamper,”

“How much is this going to cost me? These things are bound to cost a lot and I want to know how much you’re about to charge onto that credit card that I'm going to have to pay off,”

“It’s about eight hundred and fifty dollars,”

“Eight fifty? Jesus Christ, Tanya, we are not made of money! That’s not happening. You’re not going to do this today! Don’t they make some that you can buy at the store and send in?”

“Yeah, but you have to wait until the baby’s born,”

“Then that’s what you’re doing,”

“But Mom!”

“But nothing! I am not paying eight hundred and fifty dollars so you can figure out who got you pregnant!”

“I told Gavin that I’d find out!”

“Well you are finding out, just not until later,”

“Mom, this is not fair!”

“Life’s not fair, Tanya Marie!” my mother screamed, her graying blonde hair bouncing in her high set ponytail. “You’ve got firsthand experience at life’s unfairness right now. You’re only nineteen; you don’t need a baby at this time in your life. That’s pretty unfair in itself, so suck it up and stop being a selfish little girl! You don’t have to get everything you want all the time!”

“I know that, Mom, but this is different!”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have one and gotten yourself pregnant, Tanya! If that wouldn’t have happened then you wouldn’t be in this situation and things wouldn’t be different.”

“But it did happen and we can’t fix that, so it is different and now we have to deal with it,”

“Maybe you should go call Gavin and tell him that you’re not finding out until after your baby is born. He should know; he’s a good kid,” she said, sighing and running her hand behind her neck as if she was trying o get out a kink in her neck. It seemed like she was getting fed up with fighting with me, so I just sighed, shook my head and walked down the hall to my room. I figured my mom was right about telling Gavin, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to tell her that.

So I pulled out my phone and called my ex. I was kind of hoping he wouldn’t pick up, but my luck ran out apparently. “Hello?” he answered, sounding a bit tired still. It didn’t sound like he just woke up, but more like he got up only a little while ago. That was very possible, really, since it was only ten in the morning and, for Gain, that was early.

“Hey, Gav, it’s Tanya,”

“Oh hey. Um, have you found out who yet?”

“I'm not going to be able to find out until it’s born,”

“Why? I thought you were going to go get one of those paternity tests or whatever,”

“My mom won’t let me,”

“Doesn’t she want to know who her grand kid’s father is?” he asked, his voice squeaking a bit at the end of his question. I could tell he was really hoping that we would find out. I couldn’t blame him, because I wanted to know just about as much as he did.

“She does, but she doesn’t want to pay for the test,”

“Well how much exactly is it?”

“Eight-fifty,”

“Well damn, no wonder she doesn’t want to. That’s a lot of freaking money,”

“Yeah, but it’ll be less than two hundred if we do the one that you send in after the baby is born,”

“I see why your mom wants to do the after test,” he chuckled.

“I know, it’s just…I want to figure this out,”

“I do too, but I guess we can’t until later,” he said nonchalantly, probably shrugging. “That is, unless you do the math and count the days and all that. Then you might be able to find out if the conception date was nearer to me and you having sex or you and Trevor,”

“But I don’t know when it happened,”

“If you ask the doctor during your next baby-check up or whatever those are called. The doctors will tell you, I'm pretty sure, with some real easy test,”

“It’s called a prenatal,”

“Well, whatever. When do you have one soon?”

“A week or so, I think,”

“Then ask about it at the appointment,”

“I guess I'm going to have to do that. Because I want to know soon,” I sighed, shaking my head a bit.

“Yeah, so do I,”