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Closing my eyes, I prayed for the strength to get through this, then finally spoke.

My voice was shaky. “I sat next to a woman on the plane. She was four months pregnant.”

“Okay. It freaked you out?”

“No.”

“Did something happen to her?”

Grabbing a chair for balance, I sat down and looked up at him.

He didn’t move. “Tell me what happened, Kendall.”

“She was an off-duty flight attendant.”

“Alright. I’m not following.”

“Her name is Cass. Do you know her?”

He started to open his mouth to say something then froze when realization hit. “I do know her, yes.”

“You dated her.”

“Yes. How many times have we gone over this? It didn’t mean anything. It was before we met and…” His eyes widened, and a look of panic flashed across his face as he put two and two together. “Wait. You don’t think that I got her pregnant?”

“It’s not that I thought it. It’s that she told me that in her own words. She says you’re the father of her baby, Carter. She was flying to Florida to come tell you in person. She’s supposed to be on your flight tomorrow.”

He shook his head in disbelief then yelled, “What? No!” He knelt down to where I was seated in order to look me in the eyes. “No, Kendall. No.”

“Can you look me in the face and tell me with absolute certainty that it’s not possible that you are the father of her baby?”

His eyeballs moved from side to side as he struggled to make sense of this. He ran his hand through his hair. This news was out of left field for him too, and I had no doubt that he was in total shock.

I repeated, “Is it a possibility?”

He finally stood up and took a seat across the table from me, seemingly still too stunned to speak.

I rephrased my question. “Did you, or did you not sleep with her four months ago?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “I did.”

“So, it’s technically possible.”

The light drained from his eyes as it truly hit him. It was possible.

He couldn’t deny it.

Leaning his head into his hands, he asked, “We don’t know anything. What if she’s lying about the pregnancy?”

“She didn’t know who I was, Carter. She had no reason to lie to me.”

Still holding the sides of his head with both hands, he just continued to look up at me. The fear within me was expanding with each second that I witnessed the fear in his eyes growing. I had wanted him to tell me Cass was delusional. I had wanted him to tell me it was all a lie. I had wanted him to make me feel safe, and he couldn’t. He simply couldn’t prove anything one way or the other.

My mother’s voice rang out in my head. “You’re gonna end up with no one, and we’re gonna end up destitute!”

Carter’s own words from the past also came back to haunt me. “I would never turn my back on my kid. There is nothing more important than a child or their best interests.”

My head was spinning. “I’m sorry, Carter.”