“I’ll be there in a minute, I’m on the phone.”

“Okay, meet you outside,” Christopher responded as he reached the back door.

“Just stay in the backyard or under the carport till I get there,” I called after him.

Nodding, Christopher left the house.

Trying to have an uninterrupted phone conversation with my friend Maria was proving to be very difficult these days.

“Maria, I’ll have to keep it short for now as Christopher just went outside and I’ve got to leave in a minute. Now where was I?”

“You were explaining why you agreed to let Robert see Christopher. You don’t owe him anything!”

“Several reasons come to mind, actually,” I responded. “True, I don’t owe Robert anything and after what I found out when he cornered me at the gym last week, I should be running in the opposite direction.”

“Then why aren’t you? Why cave without a fight? You’ve never backed down about anything that was important to you before!” Maria challenged.

“Maybe I’ve just learned to pick my battles more wisely,” I said softly. “In any case, it’s one afternoon and Christopher is really looking forward to it. He thinks of it as an adventure. I’ll let you know how things went when we get back.”

“You better. I’m curious to see how everything plays out. The two of you going to a barbecue at Robert’s house, with his wife and family? Look out!” Maria predicted before saying good-bye.

“Look out is right,” I mumbled to myself as I too walked out the door to go meet Christopher outside. I had no illusions that this was going to be smooth sailing, but I was tired of all the “what if” questions constantly running through my head. Like what if I ran into him somewhere unexpectedly? What if he knew about Christopher because one of his friends mentioned seeing me with a small child that looked like him when I was in town visiting my family? Fact is, I didn’t have to wait for that shoe to drop anymore. It already had. Now I just had to make the best of it.

Did I really want to go to this barbecue, meet his wife of five years, and put up with a lot of sniping? Heck no! I’d rather skip it entirely but I figured, at the very least, if things got ugly I could always put Christopher back in the car and leave. Robert couldn’t say I hadn’t tried. All I had to do was be pleasant and attempt to get along with everyone. The rest was on him as far as I was concerned.