“And every time I hold Tanner,” she continued in a husky whisper, “every time I kiss him, cuddle into him and breathe in his smell, I think of you and thank you.”
A heavy lump filled my throat. “My son’s name is Tanner?”
Amanda nodded. “Tanner Fitzgerald Sinclair.”
I let out a wry laugh. “Fitzgerald? Oh, Mandy, no.”
Fitzgerald is my middle name. Don’t ask.
Amanda raised her shoulder in a little shrug. “Sorry?”
I chuckled again. The fact I did surprised me. Honestly, I hadn’t expected to. “When was the second time you called?” I asked. I don’t know if I wanted to feel angry again, if that was the reason for asking, or if I needed to know when a future I could have had had been denied me. If I needed to be able to identify the moment fate had fucked me – us – over.
“About a year ago. I saw you on YouTube, beating up some royal bodyguard.”
With a moan, I dropped back to the sofa. “Crap.”
“I called to see if you were okay. And then I realized I couldn’t talk to you without telling you about Tanner, and that made me realize how much I’d completely messed up, how long it had been since we’d spoken, and so I hung up before the connection was even made.”
I watched her lean against the door. Watched her let out a soft sigh. Watched her waiting for me to say something.
“Did you want me in your life, Amanda?” I finally asked.
She curled her lips in a sad smile. “Every day I wanted you in my life. And not just when Tanner wouldn’t sleep or he was sick and I was covered in poop or vomit. On the day he was born I wanted you there more than I can say. To show you what you’d helped create. It hurt so much that I’d . . . I’d robbed that of you. The first time I held him, I saw you in him. Oh, God, Bren, I wanted you there so much I felt you in my very soul. And then, as he was growing up, there were days I’d ache to turn to you, to share him with you, to feel your hand on my shoulder as I blew raspberries on his tummy . . . The first time he sat up, I actually called your name, looked for you to share it with. The first time he crawled . . . his first step . . .”
Something hot and tight twisted in my gut at her words.
A tear trickled down her cheek. “But as those days past, as too many days past, I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know . . . and I was so scared you’d hate me, scared you’d hate us for destroying your life. If you didn’t know about your son, you couldn’t hate him, right? Better to not know about him than . . . than hate . . .”
She slid to the floor against the door, a crumpled mess of broken sobs, and hugged her knees.
I moved then. Toward her. In three strides, I was there on the floor beside her, folding her into my arms, holding her to my chest. “It’s okay,” I murmured against the top of her head, her hair cool and damp under my lips. “It’s going to be okay.”
I accepted what I was doing was insanity. I accepted she’d shattered my trust in her, but I held her anyway. Because she was right. I am Brendon. I am the eternal optimist. I roll with whatever life throws at me, I see the joy in every situation life presents me. And life had presented me now with a future of infinite adventure and unknown excitement.
A son. I had a son with the girl I loved and we would show him how wonderful, how amazing life truly was. We would do that. Together. Now all the secrets were out, we would take on the world and live. Truly live.
I could do this. We could do this. We really were going to be okay.
That’s what I thought at the time.
What we think and what is real however, doesn’t always line up.
Five
A Lifetime of Dad Jokes
I held Amanda. She wept into her knees for a long time before finally burying her face into my chest and crying. It felt like her tears were torn from her soul. As my shirt grew damp from their moisture, my own soul felt ripped. Sure, I was still angry with her. How could I not be? She’d denied me eighteen months of my son’s life. But I knew her. I knew she wasn’t a bitch. Keeping her pregnancy from me? Keeping the existences of our child from me? I believed her when she’d said it was because she didn’t want to ruin my life, my future.
But holy fuck, what had it done to her life? How had it changed her dreams? She wasn’t a teacher now, with a classroom full of kids to guide and nurture. She was a mother, with just one child. Our child. She’d done that on her own. Alone. She’d been raising our child alone.
How amazing was that? No matter how she’d torn me apart at the confession, how much strength must that have taken? To do that on her own?
And now, on discovering I was a father, there wasn’t a part of me that wished it wasn’t the case. Not a part of me that thought, nope, I don’t want this. I don’t want to be a father. Not even the part that had planned a string of personal training centers all over Australia.
We’d work through this together. Together. She didn’t have to do this alone. She didn’t.
I held her, stroked her hair and told her over and over we were going to make it work. Promised her it was going to be amazing.
The logistics of our new life together, the three of us, didn’t present itself to me as we sat on the floor. That didn’t worry me. We’d figure it out.
Maybe marriage? Setting up a home in Sydney? I could still run my PT business – just the one to start with, given the situation – and my mum and dad could help Amanda with Tanner. Hell, Mum was a nurse at the Sydney Children’s Hospital. When it came to kids, she knew more than anyone else I could name. And she’d been complaining about the fact she was getting old with not a grandchild in sight. The pressure would be off my big brother now to get his act together. He and his fiancée could continue their backpacking adventures around the world without the guilt Mum laid on them – playfully, and with love – about her pressing need to be a grandma (I’d make sure he knew he’d owe me, of course. What kind of little brother would I be if I didn’t?). As for Dad . . . Dad rolled with whatever life threw his way. Hey, I had to get the personality trait from somewhere, right?
I didn’t stress about what my family would think. There was no need. But I couldn’t begin to assume what Amanda’s family thought of the situation. Both her parents were high achievers. Her mother was a high school principal with three published books on education. Her father was a professor of English Lit specializing in Shakespeare at San Diego State University who had, according to Amanda, a major chip on his shoulder about jocks. They hadn’t approved of her extended travel in Australia, given it was eating into her studies. They hadn’t suffocated her with ridiculous pressure and expectations, but they’d been very vocal about her academic performance.
As I mentioned before, when I’d met them for the first time, her father had done his best to scare me off, even belittle me in front of her. Again, not because he was a jerk, but because he wanted what was best for his daughter, and in Charles Sinclair’s mind the best for Amanda was graduating with her teacher’s degree (with Honors, of course) and getting a job at a prestigious private school. Not being “distracted” by a guy who seemed more interested in exercising his biceps than his brains. It hadn’t helped, I guess, that I’d been wearing a T-shirt that said Education is Important. Big Biceps are More Importanter.