“God,” he breathed into his palms.
“You knew about him.”
“I suspected,” he admitted, his voice muffled. “Years after we were married, I went back. I needed to see Susan, to try to apologize, to somehow make amends. We talked. We drank. Grief makes people reckless and stupid. One night turned into a mistake born out of shared pain.”
“And the child that resulted from that mistake?”
“Susan told me she was pregnant,” he said, finally lowering his hands. “She said she didn’t want anything from me. That she’d raise the baby herself. She said it would be better if I stayed away.”
“And you let her,” I said. “You let her raise your son alone while you lived here with me, pretending none of it existed.”
He looked at me with anguish written across every line of his face. “Because I love you. Because our life together meant everything to me. I didn’t want to destroy what we’d built.”
“That child deserves a father,” I said.
“I know,” he whispered. “And I hate myself for not being there for him.”
The silence between us stretched and thickened until it felt like another presence in the room.
“They’re struggling,” I finally said. “Susan and Eddie. I could see it in everything—the house, her clothes, the way she looked. They need help.”
Mark stared up at the ceiling. “You shouldn’t have to carry this burden. None of this is your responsibility.”
“I’m already carrying it,” I replied. “The question is whether you will.”
He closed his eyes. “I don’t deserve to be in that boy’s life.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” I said gently. “It’s for him to decide when he’s old enough. But right now, you have a choice. You can keep hiding, or you can finally show up.”
He looked at me with red-rimmed eyes. “What do you want me to do?”
The answer came from somewhere deep inside me, from a place I didn’t know existed until that moment.
“I want you to meet your son,” I said. “Not because you deserve it. But because he deserves to know his father while there’s still time.”
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