About a month after, they came to get him.
“Hello, is there a Rob Ellis here?”
He heard the polite voice at the door.
“Yeah,” his mother replied. “Rob!” she called up the stairs.
Rob came down the stairs and warily approached the two people standing at the door.
“Rob Ellis?”
He nodded.
“Would you please come with us? We have an order to escort you to the Home for Unwed Fathers.” The taller woman turned the tablet to face them both, so they could read the order if they so wished. They did not.
Instead, his mother turned to him, rage on her face. “You—”
He said nothing. Just stood there. Unsure—
“Go!” his mother shouted at him. “Get the hell out of my house!” She reached out then, grabbed him, and practically shoved him out the door. “You fucker!” She spat. She actually spat at Rob’s feet.
Rob stumbled across the threshold.
“You’re allowed to bring one suitcase if you like,” the other woman said to him.
“No! Let him go as he is!” His mother slammed the door.
Once at the Home, they put an ankle monitor on him.
“What’s this for?” he protested. “I’m not on house arrest, am I? I haven’t done anything wrong!”
The woman stared at him. Eventually, he looked away.
“It’s for your own good,” she said then. “If you try to go back home, there will most likely be worse consequences.”
Well, she was right about that. But maybe he could go stay with Tyler. No, his parents wouldn’t exactly welcome him either.
Next, they branded him. A small ‘U’ on one cheek, an ‘F’ on the other. Unwed Father. Or, as his mother would surely say, Unwed Fucker.
For nine months, he had to live in the Home. It was an older house, renovated for its current purpose. On the ground floor were the administrative offices, a kitchen, and a dining room. The upstairs was divided into four small bedrooms, each with two bunk beds; a large communal bathroom was in the middle. The basement had a small utility room, and, now, two large areas that served as school rooms during the day, recreation rooms in the evening.
The house was full: sixteen guys, their ages ranging from thirteen to just shy of eighteen. Several other Homes were scheduled to open that month, as soon as the accelerated renovations were done. The demand was quite high.
There were rules about what to do when. Everything they did had to be supervised. They couldn’t even go outside into the fenced yard alone. It was like they were kids. He was seventeen, for fuck’s sake.
He spent the mornings and the afternoons in class, with no spares: he had to keep up with his regular courses in order to pass the year and graduate, and there were a ton of extra courses, every one of them mandatory: child development—physical, intellectual, emotional, social; nutrition; first aid; parenting skills for a newborn, an infant, a toddler, a child, a teenager. They had some good laughs about that last one.
Once a week, they were all encouraged to go on the day trip. They’d pile into two mini-vans, each with ‘Unwed Home for Fathers’ emblazoned on the side, and spend the afternoon at the mall or, more likely, attending the Saturday game of some local sports league. Every one of the guys wore an over-sized hoodie and a baseball cap, but still, it was obvious. Who they were. What they had done.
He talked with some of the guys, mostly Mitch, his bunkmate.
“It’s not fair!” he’d protested early on. “I don’t even know if she’s pregnant.” Though, he supposed, she must be, if he was here. She must have identified him as the father. That’s how they knew to come and pick him up.
“Yeah, we all fucked someone,” one of the other guys said. “Big deal, everyone does it.”
It seemed that all of the guys had pretty much the same home situation and so were actually content to be there in the Home. And as for when they got out? Don’t know, don’t care.
Rob would have said the same thing, had someone asked, but hearing it from so many others, it started to sound … inauthentic. He didn’t know what was going to happen when he got out of there, but truth be told, he did care.
About eight months in, one of the women came down to the classroom and asked him to come upstairs to one of the offices. It was the same woman who’d put the ankle monitor on him.
“Have a seat, Rob.”
He sat.
“So … Kaley has survived childbirth.”
He was caught by surprise. He hadn’t expected that to be what he’d been called to the office for. Honestly, he hadn’t even thought much about Kaley, her being pregnant, going through childbirth. And the word ‘survived’—had there been a chance she wouldn’t survive?
“You don’t know it’s mine! I wasn’t the only one bangin’ her.”
Again, the woman stared at him. Again, eventually, he looked away.
“We do know. A paternity test was done. Back when.” And since every male’s DNA was on file …
So now what, he wondered.
“Now we wait for her to confirm her decision. Whether to keep the baby or give it up.”
Well, if she decided to give it up, what the fuck had he spent almost nine months in stupid parenting classes for? Actually, even if she decided to keep the baby, what the fuck had he spent almost nine months in stupid parenting classes for? It was her body. Her baby. She should be the one in parenting classes.
The next day, he was asked again to come to the office.
Again, “Have a seat, Rob.”
Again, he sat.
“Kaley has decided to give up her baby.”
Yes! He was off the hook!
But then he was, again, caught by surprise: another woman entered the office, holding a newborn.
“As you know,” the first woman continued, “when a woman gives up her newborn, it automatically goes to the father.”
The other woman held out the baby to him. “Her name is Cindy.”
“But—” He did not reach to take the baby. “No— It’s not my fault!”
The first woman spoke, while the second one took a seat, carefully holding the baby. “Are you saying that Kaley, a fifteen-year-old girl, somehow overpowered you, restrained you, brought you to erection, and then to ejaculation into her vagina?”
“No, I—” Did they have to be so blunt?
“Even if that were the case,” she continued, “perhaps because she put something in your drink, you willingly put yourself in that position, no?”
“No! I mean— I used a condom!” He actually couldn’t remember if he had or not. Probably not. They weren’t cheap.
“Yes, well, sometimes condoms break. There’s a chance with any contraception that it won’t work. That’s the risk you take when you engage in sexual intercourse.”
“But— I don’t want it.” He didn’t even look at the baby.
“Well, you should have thought of that before. Before you ejaculated into Kaley’s vagina.”
“I didn’t— We were just fooling around, having fun!”
Yet again, the woman stared at him. “You didn’t know how babies are made?”
“No— Yes— I’m not stupid!”
She kept staring at him.
No one spoke.
“Okay,” he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “If she can give it away, so can I.” He glared at them.
“No,” the first woman said, “one of you has to take responsibility for it. Ideally, both of you take responsibility, but that’s not an option here, apparently. Kaley got first choice, since it’s been her body the baby has been using, but since she said no, well, it’s … yours.”
“Why didn’t she ask me first? I’d’ve said no. Then she could’ve had an abortion! I would’ve told her to have an abortion!”
“Rob,” the second one spoke up, gently, “you know that’s impossible. Abortion’s been illegal for years now.”
“Well, I won’t take care of it,” he insisted. “I’ll just … leave it somewhere.”
“That’s your choice, of course, but as you should know by now, the baby will likely die without your care. And then you’ll be charged with infanticide. For which the penalty is assisted suicide.”
Since Rob hadn’t planned for any of this, they arranged transfer to a ‘Tier 2’ Home, one that had the appropriate facilities and resources for babies.
“I figure I’ll get a job,” Rob said to Mitch, thinking out loud as he packed his stuff. Because no way was he going to live in another Home and— Actually, he didn’t know what that future would look like. “I’ll get an apartment, hire a babysitter for during the day, then—”
“You won’t get a job,” Mitch scoffed. “No one will hire you with those,” he nodded to his cheeks.
“Why not? If I work hard—”
“If you do it again, they’ll be the ones have to pay for this,” he gestured at their situation. The house. The program.
Rob looked puzzled.
“It’s the law.”
Oh. Rob sat down heavily.
“Even if you could get a job,” Mitch continued, “you probably wouldn’t make more than what you’d have to pay the babysitter. So you’d still be out rent, food, diapers …”
Rob exploded back onto his feet and started pacing the small room. “So how the fuck am I supposed to do all the stuff I gotta do?! For the baby?”
“Ah,” Mitch sighed, “an age-old problem. With an age-old solution.” There was a crooked grin on his face.
“What, I get married? I suppose that would work …”
Mitch scoffed again. “Good luck with that.”
“Why? I’m good lookin’,” Rob glanced at the mirror, as if for reassurance on that point.
“You’re damaged goods is what you are,” Mitch replied. “Who’s gonna want someone who’s got a kid to look after?
“And even if you didn’t,” Mitch continued, “even if Kaley had kept the kid, who’s gonna take a chance that you won’t be a Fucker again?
“Who’s gonna want someone who’s pocketing only part of their wages?”
“What?” Rob stopped pacing.
“If Kaley had kept the kid, they would’ve taken your wages to support her and the kid, your kid, for six years, then just the kid, your kid, for another twelve. Don’t you know anything?”
Rob sat down again. Slowly. Thinking this through.
Mitch waited, the crooked grin back on his face.
Rob saw no way out. “Okay, genius, so what—”
“Didn’t you pay attention to your Women’s History course?”
Ah. But Rob just snorted. Then protested, “I ain’t a woman.”
