“So I’ve been sober for five months” he finally said, after several moments of awkward silence and nervous sips of coffee.
I stared at him blankly. The reason for his visit was slowly coming together in my mind.
“Well what do you think about that?” he asked.
“I think you should make it a year. I think I’ve been sober for seven years. But I think that’s good.”
We stayed quiet for a while…
Finally he spoke again, finally I began to realize that his seemingly random visit was not so random at all.
“So I heard you had a baby.”
I instantly hated myself for letting him in the house.
“I did.” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
“I heard it was a boy. I heard he’s about seven.”
“He is a boy. He’ll be seven in July.”
“Wanna know what else I heard?” he asked.
I really didn’t. I really just wanted to change the subject to anything else. The weather, the Red Sox, Quantum Physics…
“I heard he’s mine.”
Lying wasn’t going to do me any good here. Sober or not, the timeline left no room for debate.