“A good day to you, too.” I slam the receiver down and raise a warning finger toward Medusa. “Not a word.”
Vivian throws her head back and finally laughs openly until her eyes glisten with tears. “I’m sorry,” she says between chuckles. “What a charming night you must’ve had.” The laughter continues. “Makes my Saturday look not so bad in comparison.”
She’s beautiful when she laughs. The realization hits me unbidden. To be fair, Vivian has always been a good-looking woman, but without the usual aura of austerity and disdain, I see her in a whole different light. A dangerous, too-attractive one. She must sense I’m staring at her funny, because her mirth slowly disappears.
“What?” she asks.
I rake a hand through my hair. “Nothing,” I say. “I hope at least one day my future wife and I will laugh the whole thing off. It’ll be a great story to tell our grandkids: that time grandpa went on a date with a witch.”
It’s Medusa’s turn to stare at me as if she was seeing me for the first time.
“Yeah,” she agrees. “It’ll make for a good story.”
We share another serious look, maybe even a silent agreement to lay down our arms.
But, contrary to my optimistic feelings, Vivian stiffens in her chair and checks her watch, asking, “Are we done yet? I don’t have all morning.”
And, just like that, the comradeship is gone and we’re back on opposite sides of the fence. “Sorry, no. We still need to discuss Tegan’s father.” We’ve circled the issue enough, so I go ahead with a direct question. “Why do you refuse to disclose his identity?”
Medusa stares daggers at me. “Do I have to answer?”
“You don’t have to do anything. If you’re not comfortable talking to me, I can refer you to a colleague, but you should address the issue. For your daughter’s sake.”
Vivian stares at the floor, nibbles nervously at a fingernail, and then scoffs, exasperated. “I can’t believe I’m sharing the story with you, my sworn enemy.”
“Oh, come on, would a sworn enemy almost break his neck so you wouldn’t miss a hearing?” I had to throw my IOU card in there eventually.
She takes a deep breath. “When I got pregnant, I was a freshman at Harvard. Tegan’s father was my English Literature TA. I was eighteen, he was twenty-seven—smart, handsome, with that literary artist halo… I fell for him during the first lecture, but never expected my feelings to be reciprocated. Long story short, we started a clandestine relationship, as he couldn’t openly date a student. I was so in love with him.” Vivian shakes her head, and her mouth thins in that hard line she’s shown me so many times. “When I found out about the pregnancy, I was scared, but I thought we’d raise the baby together, get married, start a family. Like the naïve child I was, I told him everything with a big smile on my face.” Her voice cracks at this point.
“And he refused to accept his responsibilities?”
“Oh, not just that. He went on a rampage, called me a liar, saying that I was trying to trap him, ruin his career, accusing me of going off the pill on purpose. I hadn’t. Tegan is really the product of a carton of leftovers gone bad and a night spent throwing up in my dorm bathroom. It never occurred to me that vomiting a single pill could nullify the effect of the whole box, but it did.”
I sense she’s still withholding information. “Is raging all the professor did?”
We hold gazes for the longest time. Then, Vivian confirms my suspicions. “No,” she says. “He said he wasn’t interested in being a father, that the baby probably wasn’t even his, and that I should get rid of it before anyone found out. When I refused, he demanded I transfer to a different school, and threatened to fail me in both his classes if I didn’t comply.”
I realize I’m gripping the armrests of my chair only when I have to pry my fingers away. The man sounds like a prime asshole.
“And you didn’t report him to the faculty board?”
Vivian shakes her head. “I was eighteen, scared, alone, heartbroken. I was lost. So, I did everything he asked: I finished the semester at Harvard before my belly showed and transferred to Columbia the next year. I wouldn’t have been able to raise a kid on my own and still graduate while in Boston, anyway.” She shrugs. “At least in New York my parents could help.”
“The professor sounds like a real piece of work,” I say.
“Yeah, right?”
“Sort of makes me want to go on a second date with the witch just so I can ask her to curse him.”
Vivian smiles. A saddish, bittersweet smile, but a smile nonetheless. “Yeah,” she agrees. “I’d like to see that. But you get why I don’t want Tegan to meet him. That man is toxic.”
“I do…”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
“But Tegan is no longer a child. It should be her decision. Are you more afraid he’ll refuse to be in her life, or that he will want to be part of it?”
“Both options seem equally dreadful, and neither will do Tegan any good.”
“To the contrary: both would.”
“Really? How?”
“If he wants nothing to do with her, Tegan will stop blaming you for keeping her away from her other parent. It’ll hurt at first, sure. But it’ll also give Tegan closure and allow her to heal. And if, instead, he ends up regretting his choice, Tegan will have a chance to meet her father. Fifteen years is a long time for a man to reflect on his mistakes. He could regret his decision.”
“Yeah? Then why didn’t he try to find his daughter once in all these years? I’m not that hard to track down.”
“I can’t answer that question. Only he can. Do you
