I never really intended to do a sequel to this story, but the view count was so high and the triggered comments were so stupid that I couldn't leave it be. Rather than listen to the comments demanding comeuppances, I'll double down.
If you're new to the story, you should definitely read Ch. 1. I always hope that people enjoy my stories. If you do, let me know! Any feedback, critiques, or story ideas are always welcome. If you hate the story, that's cool too. I'm quite certain you will give it 1* and leave a nasty comment.
********
Well holy shit, I wasn't as effed as I thought. A year after the fateful conversation when Becca cooly informed me that she had given birth to my illegitimate child after an unexpected late-night-rescue-turned-fuckfest, things in my family life had remarkably remained unchanged. Was Becca a crazy person? Sure. But during our extended conversation she informed me that she wasn't interested in leaving her husband Ed, and she apparently wanted to stay in the small university town rather than tail me to a large city and leech me dry with child support litigation. Lucky for me, I suppose.
That's not to say I hadn't taken steps to protect myself from that eventuality. I met with one of the top family attorneys in the city, generally described my situation, and tried to do what little I could do to protect myself in the event Becca changed her mind and came after me. I learned new phrases describing my situation like, "issue of adulterous intercourse of a wife during wedlock." That's certainly the legally sanitary way of putting it.
In short, I wasn't necessarily screwed, but I was subject to the whim of Becca - a frightening proposition. The law mostly favors maintaining the legitimacy of a child, I learned. My understanding was that Ed was listed as the father on the birth certificate, so she would have to go through steps to disestablish legitimacy only to turn around and sue me to establish my paternity. That would be a long slog, and I figured she would have done that originally if her goal was to trap me in a relationship.
But the scary part of it was that I knew she would eventually win a paternity action. I had seen photos she posted on Instagram, and I was sure the boy was mine. He looked exactly like me at his age...and nothing like Ed.
And don't get me wrong, I felt kinda bad for not being a part of the boy's life, but it wasn't like I'd left him abandoned. He had a two-parent family; he had a home; he was provided for. I saw myself as more of a sperm donor. A sperm donor who had chosen to fuck the shit out of a married woman in front of an unconcious husband, mind you, but you'll forgive me for thinking that that option was more appealing to me than jizzing into a sterile jar.
*****
A few months later, I got a pretty interesting email from my alma mater:
From: Dean Jean Acheson
To: Me; Rebecca Caswell
Subject: Congratulations! Young Alumni Excellence Award Winner
Date: Friday, August 9th 2:26 p.m.
Keith:
We at the University would like to congratulate you on being selected as one of this year's winners of the distinguished Hoover Young Alumni Prize for Early Career Excellence. The Society's Selection Committee has noted your career accomplishments and would like to bring you and other award recipients to campus to lead a panel discussing professionalism and career development for current students. The awards ceremony and panel will be held the weekend of October 11th.
Also part of the weekend's festivities will be a Cocktail Reception and Fundraising Gala. Black tie optional. We hope you can join us!
Please RSVP to Rebecca Caswell, Senior Associate Director of Alumni Engagement, by August 30th.
Again, congratulations on the honor and we hope to see you soon,
Dean Jean
******
Alumni Engagement indeed. This was both highly flattering and highly dangerous. My firm would be overjoyed by the news though. Our Marketing Director ate up opportunities like this to post press releases and photos of our attorneys receiving awards on various social media platforms.
It was obviously dangerous though, because there wasn't really a way to dodge interacting with Becca. I suppose I could just ignore the email, but for the past year my goal had been to stay off Becca's radar. I was definitely more than a blip on her screen now.
Having involuntarily come to this position, I started to get pretty worried. How do I accept the award and turn down physically showing up? What excuse could I gin up to the university? As various scenarios were playing out in my mind, my laptop's notification window dinged again:
*****
From: Rebecca Caswell
To: me; Dean Jean Acheson
Subject: Re: Congratulations! Young Alumni Excellence Award Winner
Date: Friday, August 9th 3:08 p.m.
Keith:
Congratulations! We all hope you will be able to join us for the celebration weekend. I have been asked to follow up with our winners to facilitate travel arrangements. The Hoover Endowment will cover your travel and lodging. Unfortunately, a horse show is in town the weekend of the event and has all the hotels booked up. Luckily, we have a room in the Fuller House reserved for you. As you may remember, the Fuller House is attached to the Alumni Engagement office, so don't hesitate to contact me morning, noon, or night and I will service you in any way.
Yours,
Becca
p.s. I hope you will be able to come. You have to meet my son. He's the spitting image of his father, who you know well.
******
Needless to say, there was a colossal amount to unpack in her email. On its face, it was relatively tame. Sure, it was a little weird to sign off a professional email with "Yours" or say "service you" rather than "be of service," but that's not necessarily something that the dean would automatically pick up on. There was, however, a lot for me to pick up on. Servicing me; yours; meeting my son. There was no way I was going to this event.
I started flipping through my calendar and emails, looking for a reasonable excuse to decline, when Janine, the firm marketing director, walked in my office.
"Keith, I just got a call from your alumni office requesting your bio sheet for a press release they're drafting about an award you're receiving - Young Alumni Excellence - Congratulations!"
"Thanks Janine, it's unexpected," I responded.
"And to get the news from an old friend like Becca, she sounds like a firecracker!"
"She worked at the university when I was there; our paths crossed a few times. But it doesn't look like we'll cross again soon, I can't make it the weekend of the event."
"Like hell you're not going to make it. A focus of the marketing team is to highlight the accomplishments of our young attorneys."
"I'm a little behind on my billables and the timing is around a major motions deadline."
She walked away in a huff.
*****
A half hour later the lead partner of my litigation team let me know the firm would allow me to bill for my time receiving the award to a firm code and that I would be getting help on any motions I was working on. He also mentioned I could interview an applicant or two for an upcoming summer associate program when I was up in my old college town. What this really meant was that I couldn't really place any more obstacles between me and a weekend with Becca. Here we go.
******
After a short flight and quick rental car drive up the highway, I found myself in my hold college town. Late fall in the mountains was beautiful around here, and when I inhaled the cool air, it smelled of fallen leaves. This should have been the most relaxing place in the world, but my stomach was in knots as I walked up to the Alumni House to check into Fuller House. Fuller House is an old mansion on campus that the university uses to house visiting speakers and other VIPs. It was much nicer than a Holiday Inn, so that would be nice.
I had forgotten that the Alumni House actually connected to Fuller House by a covered walkway, but Becca's email had reminded me just how close I would be to where she worked. Luckily, it was the weekend, so it's not like she was going to be forty feet away from me the whole time. She had a family and home a few miles away. She couldn't just ditch them.