However, I didn’t feel upset about it anymore. I just had to see the girl. I wanted to see what she looked like. Did she look like me? Did she look like her mother? Was she a perfect mix between the two of us? Or did she look totally like another man’s daughter?

Speaking of another man’s daughter, once I hung up the phone with my mother, I thought about calling Kim and my sister Juanita. My mother had gotten me started. I hadn’t been on the phone for days. I just refused to answer it anymore. The phone had pretty much been an addiction for me for years. I was always having a battle with it. Turn it on or turn it off ? Answer it or don’t answer? Call her back or leave her alone? For years!

Well, I hadn’t talked to Kim O’Bannon about her situation again at all. I wondered if she still wanted to have a baby without a husband or father. And how would she feel about another woman beating her to the punch with a child from my seed? Of course, I would never bring that up to her until everything was proven. But Kim would find out eventually. Everyone would have to find out. I didn’t plan on doing what Michelle had done. Moving in silence may have been her way of doing things, but it wasn’t mine.

So I made my phone call to Kim at her Chicago office. I knew I probably couldn’t talk to her about babies and fathers and sperm banks while she was still on the job, but I could at least set it in her mind to talk to me about it after work that day.

“The Right Connection,” someone answered the phone at her office.

I stumbled in confusion. “Aaahh, is this still the office of Kim O’Bannon?”

“Yes, I’m sorry. Everyone’s getting confused by the new company name,” I was told by the receptionist. It wasn’t as if Kim had the same woman answering the phone there. There seemed to be a lot of turnover in young college interns at her office, particularly when it came to screening and directing her phone calls.

“Who may I say is calling?”

“Terrance Mitchell.”

“Oh, okay. I heard her mention your name a few times. I’ll see if she’s available.”

Kim jumped right on the line.

She said, “I was just thinking about you. I have a new job for you down in Houston.”

That was ironic. I had been thinking about Michelle’s brother Sean playing baseball for the Houston Astros again. They had just been on TV against the Atlanta Braves over the weekend. It’s funny how a coincidence continues to pop up once the subject is on your radar. I’m sure the Astros had played the Braves plenty of times since I lived in Atlanta, but I had no reason to think much about it before.

Anyway, I asked Kim when I needed to be in Houston.