I am seven months pregnant with a boy baby who is not my husband's. I know my baby is not my husband's child because my husband, Chuck, had a vasectomy before we were married. I know the baby's a boy, because we've had an ultrasound done and the technician showed me his little boy package.
I also know my baby's black.
I was still just 32 years old in those weeks prior to Halloween, when my husband of nearly two years asked me if I was ready to have a child of our own. I can't tell you how excited I was, because I'd lived with a man for five years during my twenties and I'd never gotten pregnant by him. In fact, I was afraid it was me, and that I'd never ever get pregnant at all.
Chuck told me he'd check with the doctor about the possibility of getting his vasectomy reversed. I was delighted. Later that week he changed the subject to us hosting a visiting army buddy of his in the next few weeks.
I shrugged my shoulders and told him that I didn't see why not. Then he said a funny thing.
"My ex never welcomed Leo into our home."
"Why's that?"
"Because I-I sort of...asked her to sleep with him."
Chuck told me that he'd asked his ex-wife to sleep with his best friend from the army, and her refusal eventually became part of the reason for their divorce. I was surprised as I imagine you could guess.
"Why would you want your wife to sleep with your best friend from the army?" I asked.
"If I tell you, you'll laugh at me," he said.
I told him I wouldn't laugh, and he told me. I didn't laugh.
To make a long story short, there was a riot on one of the army bases stateside when Leo and Chuck were stationed together. It was a terrible riot between black soldiers and white soldiers, and in the process of both men being caught in a place where neither wanted to be, Leo, a black soldier, saved Chuck's life by getting him under a tarpulin and hiding him there until the black rioters left.
"I owe him my life, and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude," he said finally. "The only way I can think of to repay him is to give him--"
"Give him what?"