Last Man - Brian Said No!

"So, you want to play it this way? Okay, then. Ellie and I know that after the first two months, you and Simon haven't been using artificial insemination, but have been fucking. Is that plain enough for you?"

"No, that's not true! How can you think that?"

"I don't think that, I know it, and right about now Ellie's having a similar conversation with Simon, and somehow I don't think he's going to be so shy about admitting it. Do you want to change your story?"

With that, she broke down in heavy sobs, then ran off to our bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

I returned to my beer, which wasn't quite as cold now, wondering just how two marriages had turned to shit. No, check that, I know how, but why? I knew Mairi had a big heart, who ever thought that it would be so big as to close me out, as contradictory as that sounds.

It probably comes as no surprise that both Ellie and I filed for divorce. Ellie and Simon's was relatively smooth. He didn't fight it; I guess he didn't feel that there was anything worth fighting for, which I thought was fucking cold. Ellie probably spent more time crying on my shoulder than on Mairi's, which given the circumstances probably makes sense.

Mairi, on the other hand, fought the divorce tooth-and-nail.

"If you want to have any slim chance of saving this marriage, you're going to have to get an abortion," I told her.

"No, I can't do that," she said.

"Do you expect me to sit by while another man's baby grows in your belly, especially the bastard Simon's? What's going to happen when it's born? You don't expect me to help raise it do you?"

"I thought I could give it to Simon and Ellie," she said softly.

"Are you forgetting that they're getting divorced? I don't think Ellie wants anything to do with it, and I don't think that Simon is cut out for single fatherhood."

"I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm not going to get an abortion."

"Then I don't think there's anything left to discuss." I said, walking out the door.

Mairi continued to fight, demanding counseling, but that actually worked against her. When the counselor heard the entire story, while she tried admirably to hide it, I could see the shock in her eyes.

"Mairi, against his own wishes, Brian agreed to allow you to carry Simon's child. All that he did was make the very reasonable request that you not have intercourse with Simon. You were following that course. What caused you to go back on your word?"

"It was Simon," she said.

Simon! Of course it was Simon. How I could ever believe that he would keep his word is a mystery to me.

"What do you mean, 'It was Simon?' the counselor asked.

"When the first two rounds of artificial insemination failed, Simon became agitated. He insisted that masturbating into a cup weakened his sperm, that he needed to come in my . . . my . . . vagina," she said. I was pretty sure that Simon had used a different word.

"So what happened then," the counselor asked gently.

"He kept pressing me, and pressing me, insisting that we had to, had to fuck to get me pregnant. I told him that Brian and Ellie would never agree to that. He said, 'So we won't tell them.' I was shocked, we had promised Brian and Ellie, but I was desperate to help Ellie give Simon a son, and when he kept pressuring me, I finally agreed to meet him at a motel instead of the fertility clinic. We . . . did it three times that day. Simon wanted to meet again the next day, but I was afraid of getting caught.

"Fortunately, I got pregnant, and I thought it was all over. Then, well you know what happened then."

"Mairi, you must see how much of a betrayal this was to Brian, and your refusal to terminate the pregnancy just adds to the betrayal. Is there any chance that you will end the pregnancy?"

There was a pause, then Mairi hung her head, shaking it slowly side-to-side, audibly sobbing.

"I'm sorry, Mairi, I don't see any way that this marriage can be saved, any further sessions would be a waste of time and money. I'm going to recommend to the Judge that the divorce proceed."

Mairi was openly sobbing, and as the counselor handed her a box of tissues, I hoisted myself out of my chair. I paused as I walked by Mairi, put my hand gently on her shoulder before walking out.

The divorce proceeded at the usual glacial pace of the courts, but eventually it was done.

As expected, she was awarded custody, which hurt, but there was a positive development there as well.

Shortly after Simon moved into our, excuse me, into Mairi's house, there was some tension between him and the children. It seems that while Simon didn't have any problems having children with my wife, raising my children was an offense to his manhood.

When Mairi asked me to take the kids I drove a hard bargain. I made her go to court and give me legal custody. As the custodial parent, I now got the house, and my child support payments stopped. I was magnanimous enough to not demand child support from Mairi.

No, Ellie didn't move in, though she was a regular fixture in our home, a surrogate mother to the kids as well as a beloved aunt.

A couple of months after all this went down, Mairi went into labor and delivered a healthy baby girl, much to Simon's displeasure.

Against doctor's orders, Mairi got pregnant again too soon, and miscarried. She had complications leaving her unable to have any more children.

Mairi called Ellie, who called me, to take Mairi home, as Simon was nowhere to be found.

When we got Mairi home, it was obvious that Simon had cleared out. Mairi broke down in tears.

"We hadn't gotten around to getting married," she said. "What will I do now?"

"Well, you obviously can't get alimony, but he does owe you for child support and we'll make sure you get everything that's coming to you."

She looked back and forth to Ellie and me.

"You'd do that for me, after all that I've done?"

"Of course," Ellie said, "we're still family," and they fell into each other's arms weeping.

It wasn't hard tracking Simon down, and it only took the threat of court to get him to pony up.

We didn't hear from Simon for a few years, but through the rumor mill we heard that he was leaving fatherless daughters up and down the East coast.

Ultimately the child support payments that the mothers were able to collect drove him nearly to bankruptcy and he had to give up on his quest for a son to carry on the MacTavish line.

Simon showed up on Mairi's doorstep one day. Having failed to provide a male heir, he apparently decided a first-born daughter was a viable alternative.

Mairi told him no in no uncertain terms and sent him on his way. While Simon's name was on Sara's birth certificate, he refused to allow her the MacTavish name, which Mairi was just as happy about now.

Simon left our lives then, and hasn't been seen or heard from since.

I don't see Mairi very much, she does visit Ellie and the kids on a regular basis, though her relationship with Ellie is still strained, and I usually make myself scarce.

Ellie met a man at work, and we double-dated some, though I rarely had the same date twice. He seemed like a good guy and after a few months he proposed. He swore he wasn't troubled by Ellie's inability to have children, and so far, that seems to be the case.

Ellie keeps trying to fix me up with every eligible, or near eligible woman she can find, but nothing seems to click. She thinks I'm still hung up on Mairi, but that ship has sailed over the horizon.

Hopefully, I'll find a good woman to share my life, maybe she'll even be a swimsuit model sex fiend, but for now I'm satisfied being the best dad I can be to my kids.