I Left Pregnant and Swore She Wasn't His, Now He Wants the Truth novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: A Truck Stop Outside Slidell

I lie that the baby isn't his, drive east, and a Ledger on my phone starts giving me one-line orders that I can't stop following.

I stopped at a truck stop outside Slidell at two in the morning because the gas light had been on for twenty miles.

The phone lit again before I turned off the engine.

[Task 2: Pull the SIM. Keep the phone.]

I looked at it for a while.

Then I looked at the hand I was holding it with, which was shaking.

A husband can find a wife by her phone, and mine would be trying every number I had by now.

I had forty-one dollars in my wallet and a joint credit card I couldn't use.

I had no idea who was sending me instructions, and I did what it said.

The SIM came out with a paper clip from the glove box.

I dropped it in the trash can by pump six.

[Task 2 complete. Payout: one full tank.]

The gas pump clicked on by itself.

I stood with my hand on the nozzle and watched the numbers run.

Nobody was around to see me, which was the only reason I didn't scream.

Inside, the clerk was a young man with a headset and a paperback.

I told him I needed a toothbrush, a phone, and a charger for a phone that wasn't going to ring.

He pointed at the aisle.

"The phone is on the counter," he said. "Landline, if you got somebody who picks up."

"Is it long distance?"

"It's two a.m., ma'am. Everything is."

I dialed Mémère's number from memory.

She answered on the first ring, so she hadn't been sleeping.

"Odette."

"Mémère."

"He's in his truck in my yard. He hasn't come to the door," Mémère said.

I put my forehead against the cold rack of lottery tickets.

"Did he say anything?"

"He said he wanted to wait. I said it was my yard and he could wait if he liked." She breathed. "Where are you?"

"Don't tell me where I am. I mean, don't let me tell you."

"Cher."

"If he asks you, I want you to be able to say you don't know," I said.

"I don't lie to a man's face, Odette. Not even a Guidry."

"Then you'll just be telling the truth."

There was a long wait on the line.

I could hear the kitchen clock behind her, the one with the rooster on it.

"Is it his?" Mémère said.

I hadn't told her I was pregnant.

I hadn't told anyone but a woman in a white coat and a screen.

"How did you?"

"I raised you. You haven't eaten boudin in six weeks."

I laughed, and it came out as a sob, and the clerk turned a page of his paperback very slowly.

"Yes," I said. "It's his."

"Then you tell him."

"He'll take me to a clinic and hold my hand while they do it, Mémère."

"Maybe he will," Mémère said.

"I would let him."

She didn't say anything to that, because she knew it was true.

"Say you don't know where I am," I said. "And I'll send you a card from a box number, and one day I'll tell you everything."

"A card," Mémère said. "My granddaughter, with a forwarding address of nothing."

"Yes."

"Eat something."

"Yes," I said.

"Odette. It was cruel, what he said in front of everybody."

"I know."

"And what you said," Mémère said.

"I know that too."

She hung up first.

I stood in the aisle holding a pink toothbrush, and the phone in my pocket buzzed once.

[Task 3: Drive to Mobile. Do not stop in New Orleans.]

I didn't ask why.

I got there at six, with the sky going gray over the bay.

The motel on Government Street already had a light on in the office.

The man behind the glass slid a key across without a word.

[Payout: one night, paid.]

I slept four hours on top of the bedspread with my shoes on.

At eight the phone rang, which I hadn't thought it could do.

A woman said she was calling from a high-risk obstetrics office in the city and had an opening for a new patient.

I hadn't called anyone.

I said yes anyway.

The doctor was a man with a gray mustache and a very quiet office.

He read my records on a screen while I told him about the tile and my son.

He didn't make me say it twice.

"I want to be honest with you," he said. "You can have this pregnancy if you take the risk, and the risk is yours. I would feel much better if you were closer to the hospital than you are now."

"I'm in a motel."

"I noticed."

"I want to keep it," I said.

"I figured that out when you didn't ask me about the other option."

He turned the screen so I could see a small curled shape and a flicker in the middle of it.

I put my hand over my mouth.

The nurse brought a clipboard.

It was an intake form, four pages long.

On the last page there was a line that said Father of Child.

I held the pen above it for a long time.

I could write his name.

I could call a man in a truck in my grandmother's yard and tell him he was going to be a father, and then I could tell him he was going to be a widower.

I wrote the word none.

The phone buzzed in my lap.

[Balance: He owes you an apology. You owe him a father's name.]

I turned it face down on the clipboard.

I wasn't ready to pay.

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