It was like Melissa had sent out some kind of emergency alert to every person who'd ever met her. Attention all friends and family members: Grant is being mean to me. Please call and tell him he's a terrible person. The first message was from her sister Clara because, of course, it was.
Clara had apparently appointed herself as the head of the Grant-Is-Obviously-Satan Committee, and she was taking her new job very seriously. "Grant," her voice came through my phone speaker with all the warmth of a tax audit, "I cannot believe what Melissa told me. She's sitting in my living room right now crying her eyes out because her own husband abandoned her with a newborn baby. How can you be so heartless?"
"She's your wife, Grant. Your wife. Where is your sense of responsibility?" I had to laugh at that one. Responsibility, right?
Because apparently I was responsible for taking care of a baby that wasn't mine, born as a result of a decision I'd explicitly opposed, for people who couldn't be bothered to handle their own parenting duties. That made perfect sense in Clara's twisted little world. The next message was from Melissa's college roommate, some woman named Jennifer who I'd met exactly twice in eight years of marriage but who apparently felt qualified to judge my entire character based on whatever sob story Melissa had fed her. "Grant, this is Jennifer Morrison, Melissa's friend from college."
"I just wanted to say that I think what you're doing is absolutely disgusting. Melissa is going through the hardest time of her life, and instead of supporting her, you're being selfish and cruel. She gave that couple the most precious gift anyone can give, and you're punishing her for it. I hope you can live with yourself."
The most precious gift. Jesus Christ. They were all reading from the same script. Like carrying your boss's baby was some kind of humanitarian effort instead of a spectacularly bad career move that destroyed a marriage.
But the real masterpiece came from her mother, Joanne, who'd apparently been saving up her passive-aggressive energy for one devastating voicemail that lasted nearly five minutes. "Grant, dear," she began, using that saccharine tone she always used when she was about to gut you with surgical precision. "I just got off the phone with my daughter, and I have to say, I'm deeply disappointed in you. Deeply disappointed."
"When Melissa married you, I thought she was getting a man who would stand by her through thick and thin, for better or worse. But apparently, I was wrong." She paused there, probably for dramatic effect, before launching into the main course of her guilt trip. "That poor girl is sitting in Clara's apartment right now with a beautiful baby boy, and she's heartbroken because the man she married, the man who promised to love and honor her, has turned his back on her in her hour of need."
"She's exhausted. She's scared. And she's dealing with all of this alone because you've decided to be petty and vindictive instead of being the husband she needs." Petty and vindictive.