about me like I wasn’t there. To him, I was nothing more than an inconvenient embarrassment. My father had retired a few years ago from his surgical practice. Dr. Martin Miser had inherited a successful physician’s private care office from my grandfather and continued his practice to become a successful maxillofacial reconstruction surgeon. Magnus followed in the family footsteps and now partnered in the office as an orthopedic surgeon. Me? I was supposed to follow one of two career paths: either marry a doctor in the practice or become one. Instead, I taught math in a public school. None of them had ever forgotten their disappointment in my choices.
“I know who the father is, asshole. He doesn’t want anything to do with us.”
“Melanie! Your language!”
Ironic that my mom will get upset if I use the word asshole, but Magnus can get away with saying fuck.
Magnus just smirked. He knew he won when he got under my skin. “So when are you getting rid of it?”
“Check your hearing. Didn’t I just say the G word?”
He waved an imperious hand in the air. “Adoption? You can’t possibly be a mother. How can you expect to support a child on what you make?”
He had no idea he echoed Peter’s words. My head was filling with pressure, ready to explode. “I’m not broke. My bank accounts are fine. My insurance is fine. There’s nothing wrong with me financially.”
“Oh, you’re talking about the play money you get from your little job. Christ, you’d go through your trust fund in a heartbeat if we didn’t regulate it for you.”
“No one ‘regulates’ my accounts but me.”
“Please, dear sister, grow the fuck up. Your allowance was set a long time ago.”
“Trust dividends, not allowance. And I got control of it years ago when I turned twenty-five. Same as you.”
“And if it weren’t for me, you’d be getting nothing.”
“That’s not how trusts work. Why are you so concerned? It’s no secret you don’t give a shit about me. I don’t expect you to give a shit about my baby either.”
He put his cup down, folded his arms, and looked me in the face. I stared back, wishing my eyes had laser beams. “No, I don’t give a shit about you or the bastard you have inside you. I do give a shit about you bringing down our family name.”
Really? I put my hand up, thumb next to my ear and pinky extended to my mouth. “Uh, ring, ring! The twenty-first century is calling. Big news! Women don’t get pregnant by themselves. Who knew? No one blinks an eye anymore when unmarried women have babies. You know what? We even get to vote now!”
“Stop.” The single word from my father had Magnus biting back anything else he planned on saying. Martin cut into his circular fried egg and spread the liquid yolk over the white. I’d seen him do this for years. Every morning, the same ritual. “You’ve shared your news, Melanie.” He doubled up a strip of the coated egg white on his fork and lifted it to his mouth. Not once did he look at me.
With nothing else to be said, I turned and left. My feelings were numb. I didn’t expect roses and balloons, but the cold dismissal hurt more than I thought it would. I got in my car and fought the tears while I scrambled for my phone. Fuck, it was dead, and I didn’t have my car charger. Banging the steering wheel and screaming sounded like a great idea for a second or two. Instead, I started my car and spun out of the driveway, not caring if I left marks.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” I repeated my litany over and over again as I drove on autopilot to Bevvie’s house. I’d said these words to myself over and over, but I’d stopped believing them a long time ago. Uttering them out loud was just a habit at this point in my life. Memories crowded my mind as the familiar roads flew by.
The yellow van from the private school dropped me off in front of my house, and I skipped through the foyer in my new pink dress. My kindergarten teacher had told me she like my shiny black Mary Jane shoes and white socks with the lacy cuffs. I loved it when she called me pretty and liked my clothes. I had my colored pictures in my hand of the new numbers we learned. All the way up to one hundred! That