I thought about that for a minute. We were stuck in Chicago traffic, heading south on Interstate 90, so we were going nowhere fast. I had all the time in the world to think.

Kim had considered my right to refusal, and in her fairness, she had lost an easy argument to me. I had to comment on that. There was a lot to be said and understood between men and women, who, in relationships, bring children and all types of unsettled issues to bare over and over again through their cowardice. All of a sudden, my selfishness didn’t seem that bad. At least a woman knew exactly where she stood with me.

Kim sat there as quietly as I did. She was probably thinking that she should have never brought the idea up to me. And maybe she shouldn’t have, but it was too late; she already had.

I took a breath and said, “I thank you for being that fair.” I even held her hand inside the limo. “And I’m flattered that you asked me, but…”

I said, “I wish we all could be that fair to each other. But we’re not. Each and every day is filled with people trying to be as nice as they can be just to get the other person to do what they want. Now how selfish is that?”

Kim nodded to me and spoke on it. “That’s what I thought about with you. I know where you stand. So I knew you would say what you had to say, and give me the most realistic view on what I’m trying to do.”

I said, “But Kim, do you understand how selfish that is to the child? What child wants to come into the world and never know its father?”

She said, “Well, at least they are born. I mean, Tupac Shakur was constantly bad-mouthing his father and his mother, but look what he was able to do with his life? He’s the most idolized man that these hip-hop culture kids have.”

“Yeah, and he died in a bunch of craziness, just like thousands of other fatherless kids,” I argued. “I mean, you can’t sit here and look at the exceptions as the rule. In fact, he wasn’t even an exception. Tupac Shakur had the craziest public life of any man you could imagine.”

“But the understanding of his pain lives on,” Kim commented. She was as cool and calm as ever.

She said, “No matter what we decide to do, Terrance—and I’m not in any position to force you into anything—but you have to understand that, like it or not, there has always been and will always be kids who are born into this world without a father. All you have to do is think about all the men who die in these crazy wars, and the kids and families they leave behind. And it’s always going to be that way.”

“Yeah, but I’m not in anyone’s war, and I chose not to be, just like I choose not to be a father.” That’s all I had left to say about it. Tupac didn’t want to be a father either. And he’s not.