She laughed and put her hands on her hips. “Sexy, huh? Say! You never … yanno, while thinking of me?” She laughed again.
“Am I under oath?” I said. And we both laughed.
“The other big thing is that you would be becoming a parent. You’d never have to worry about taking care of the child in any way. You know we’d do all that. Your uncle is rich you know! And, on the other hand, you could see your child as much as you wanted, any time you wanted. You could bet on that.”
I nodded. It made sense. They would be great parents. I don’t know what kind of parent I would be.
“The only thing is, the one thing you would have to remember is that no one else, other than me, you, and your Uncle Zack could ever know the truth. Everyone must think it’s Uncle Zack’s baby.”
“Yeah. Of course. That’s what this is all about,” I reasoned out loud.
We had kept walking and made it all around a big circle and were in sight of their house again.
“I’m glad we had this talk,” she said. I was so confused and angry and scared. All at the same time. This really cleared my head and made it easier for me to say this to you Mikey: it’s up to you.”
“So, you’re okay with it?”
“I wasn’t until our walk,” she said. “Now, I’m completely comfortable with whatever you say.”
We walked into the house. Uncle Zack was in the kitchen. “Sorry about before,” he said. “Mikey …”
“I’ll do it, Uncle. I’ll do it.” I didn’t know I was going to say that until I said it.
My uncle looked shocked. Auntie Lee had a look of surprise on her face that turned real happy and she ran over and hugged Uncle Zack. He picked her up and whirled her around.
They were happy. I was happy for them, but nervous and kind of scared too.
He put her down and said, “Okay, Mikey. Three things: tomorrow’s the day, the day your aunt is most likely to get pregnant. Two—no spillin’ the seed! I don’t have to tell you what that means, do I? Actually, how long has it been, because you want as much in the reservoir as possible?”
I was embarrassed now, especially in front of my aunt. “No problem. Days,” I said. “That’s two. And number three?”
“I want to be there holding my wife’s hand when she conceives our baby.”
****************************
The whole walk and everything took about an hour.
That gave me plenty of time, in fact too much time for Lori. I got there at about eleven.
We had been going out for about a year, and I think now that we graduated and were getting ready to go to separate schools, we both felt things were winding down for us. Her mother’s constant bitching and nagging didn’t help either. The ugly, old bat.
“You treated me like shit last night, yanno,” she said. And, that was when she opened the door.
“Lori, I told you I was going to be busy. Why didn’t you just help me out and learn how to be a good hostess. My mom says—”
“My MOM! My MOM!” she said in that voice (you know the one).
“Why are you being like this?”
“YOU’RE the one being like … something! Not me. Don’t blame me. You started this whole thing by not paying attention to me. I’m supposed to be the most important person in the whole world to you, like you told me a million times.”