Unfriending the Dr by Piper Sullivan
Persy
What the hell is the matter with me?
I was a single mother of an energetic and precocious little boy, and with a full weekend to myself, what do I do? Invite my ex over for dinner so we could talk. What we had to talk about, I hardly had an idea, but Ferguson had paid for a month at one of the B&B spots in town which told me he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“This place is nice.”
I rolled my eyes because this wasn’t a date and I wasn’t trying to impress Ferguson. “Yeah, thanks.”
“No, really. You’ve made a good life for yourself here, Persy.”
“I know that, Ferguson.” As if I needed his approval to feel good about the life I’d built for me and my son, when he opted out of our lives.
He turned away from the wall of photos that mostly featured me and Titus with Ryan, with Megan, Teddy, Gus and Oliver thrown in for good measure. “Of course. I didn’t mean anything by it, just that this place is cozy and nice and,” he shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly looking nervous “You and Titus seem like you have a good life here. A really good life.”
“We do.” I nodded for the man I used to love to follow me into the kitchen. Dinner was a simple roast chicken with potatoes and root vegetables, because it would make it easier to talk about whatever had brought Ferguson to Jackson’s Ridge. “Drink?”
“Do you have any red wine?”
“I do.” Unlike Ryan, Ferguson was a wine man. Usually I had to coax Ryan into a glass of wine and tell him why it wasn’t disgusting. “Here you go. Enjoy.”
“Thanks.” He took a slow sip that lasted several seconds. When he set the glass down, Ferguson’s shoulders had lowered by a few inches. “I didn’t realize how much I needed that.”
“You seem a little wound up.”
He nodded. “I guess I am. Coming back here, to see you like this, it’s all been a little unnerving.” As if I couldn’t tell by the way he constantly rubbed his palms on his khaki pants, or raked his fingers through thick blond hair.
“Why? It isn’t as if we had a tumultuous relationship or a particularly bad break up.”
“No,” he conceded. “But you have to know how my choices make me feel today.”
“I have to?”
He flashed a smile, that charming smile that used to make me soften from the inside out. “No, but it does. From the moment I chose to walk away, I knew it was the wrong decision. I knew I would live to regret it and I have, every day for the past five years.”
“Six,” I corrected.
“Excuse me?” His blond brows dipped into a confused frown.
“It’s been six years, almost seven if you want to be accurate. You made the choice when I was still pregnant, and Titus will be six in a few short months.”
“Right.” Ferguson almost folded unto himself in the wooden kitchen chair as he reached for his wine glass. “It’s eaten at me all these years and I hate myself for it. I understand why you hate me now.”
The oven timer sounded and busied myself pulling the food from the oven and transferring it all to serving dishes, while I figured out how to say what I needed to say. Finally, we were seated across from each other, a platter of steaming food between us. “I don’t hate you, Ferguson. I love being a mother. It’s fun and amazing, and always rewarding. I think it sucks that you chose a woman over your son, but I’ve made peace with it.”
“Have you?”
I nodded slowly and took a sip of my lemon water. “I have. Hating you would only eat me up and Titus deserves more than that. My patients too. No offense, but you’re not worth a lifetime of hate, Ferguson.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “You’ll get no argument from me.”
That was weird, but I let it go and turned the conversation back to him. “So why do you suddenly want to meet Titus? Why now?”
He took another long sip from the wine glass and sighed. “Sabrina and I have three children together, two boys and a girl.”
“Okay.”
He flashed a nervous smile. “Our youngest, Steven, has had some health problems over the past couple years and we decided to do some preemptive testing in case we need to donate a kidney to him.”
I knew exactly where this conversation was going and I shook my head. “Don’t even think of Titus as an option, Ferguson.”
“I’m not, and even if I were he wouldn’t be a good fit.” He laughed, and it was abrasive and bitter. “Turns out that Steven isn’t my child. Neither is Paul, our oldest. Only Lydia, the girl, is my biological child.”
His words hung in the air and I listened in shock. “What? But how can that be?”
“Sabrina is not the woman I thought she was. Turns out she spent most of our marriage torn between her feelings for me and her ex, Paul and Steven’s father.”
Wow. “That sucks, Ferguson. I’m sorry you’re going through that, but that doesn’t tell me why you’re suddenly interested in Titus.”
“I made a mistake, Persy. Walking away from Titus was, no is my biggest regret. I’m sorry that I did that to you and I’m sorry I wasn’t man enough to stand up to her.” He shook his head and muttered incoherently into his wine glass. “The fucking irony. The hypocrisy.”
A small part of me felt sympathy for Ferguson for all he’d gone through, but not enough to reach out to him or offer him physical comfort. “You don’t owe me an apology, Ferguson. If you owe anyone, it’s Titus. Rising him has been my absolute pleasure. He brings joy to my life every single day. I’m grateful to have him in my life.”
“I want to know him, Persy. I need to know my son. Please.”
That please almost got me, but I wasn’t the same naïve little girl desperately in search of love anymore. Titus was my main priority. His happiness. His well-being. “All right, let’s say I let you get to know him and be in his life. Then what? You and Sabrina reconcile and you go back to Canada to play happy families with her and those three kids, leaving my son feeling neglected and heartbroken? I can’t let that happen, Ferguson. I won’t.”
“That’s not what I’m asking, I swear. I want to know who he is as a little boy. Are there parts of him that he inherited from me? What does he like to do? To eat? I’m curious about him.”
I let out a huff of laughter and stabbed a roasted baby potato. “That doesn’t sound like you want to be a father to him, it sounds like you’re looking for a friend.”
His head fell forward. “I’m looking for redemption.”
“That’s not what kids are for.” This was getting old, but if we didn’t hash it out tonight, Ferguson might decide to make my life difficult for a few more weeks and I certainly didn’t have time for that.
He looked up, a familiar smile on his face that had me shaking my head before he even opened his mouth. “We could give it another chance?”
My phone buzzed at the other end of the table and I reached for it, silencing it without looking at the screen. Titus was with Ryan, he was safe. “That’s not going to happen, Ferguson. Ever.”
“Are you seeing someone?” He poured another glass of wine, his third, and chugged it all before pouring another.
“That is none of your damn business. You walked away from me and Titus without a look back, not until you found out your whole life was a lie. That’s not the kind of man I want sharing my bed or raising my son.”
“That was the man I used to be. I’ve changed.”
“Before or after you found out you don’t have three beautiful children? I’m sorry, I mean four. Technically.”
Ferguson’s cheeks turned an alarming shade of pink as his shoulders fell in disappointment. A kinder woman, a more understand woman might have felt bad for him, but his obliviousness was starting to piss me off. “Okay, fine. You don’t want me. Does that mean that I can’t meet my son?”
“My son,” I clarified. “You were so uninterested that you signed away your rights, remember?”
He nodded. “I’ve spoken to a lawyer and he assures me-,”
“Let me stop you right there before you make a complete ass of yourself, Ferguson. You have no rights where Titus is concerned. You can make our lives difficult and tie this up in court for months, maybe even years, but that won’t change a damn thing and you know it. I’ll think about it, but it’s not for you. It’s only because Titus is curious about the man who abandoned him.”
The phone buzzed again and my stomach dropped. Either one of my patients was headed to the hospital for an emergency or worse, something was wrong with Titus or Ryan. I grunted and reached for the phone again, this time I swiped and looked at the screen. “Shit.” Ryan had called three times and left three messages before sending off a flurry of text messages. “I have to go.” I was on my feet and heading towards the door with no regard for Ferguson.
“Is everything all right?”
“No, Ferguson, everything isn’t all right. My baby boy is headed to the hospital. So am I.”
“I’ll drive.” Ferguson patted his pockets in search of his car keys and as soon as he found them, I plucked them from his hands.
“I don’t think so, Mr. Five Glasses of Wine. I’ll drive myself.”
“I’m coming with you,” he said, swaying in a half circle. “Make sure the little tyke is all right.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, but only because worry ate at me. Was Titus all right? Of course not, Ryan would never get me all riled up if it wasn’t something serious.
“Come on,” I growled at my ex. “And hurry up about it.” Titus needed me.
