“You made me believe you cheated on me,” I say now, getting back up again and going to the fireplace where I can walk back and forth and make sense of what he just said to me. “You made me doubt everything!” I yell. “You fucking broke me. Why?”
“She was desperate,” he says. “Her back was against the wall, and she was drowning. After you left town, I figured I had nothing else left. There was no reason to tell my side of the story, so I kept her secret.”
“Who knows?” I ask.
“My father,” he says, and my hand goes to my mouth, “and you.”
“What about Beau?” I ask. “Surely, the three musketeers would fill him in on that secret.”
“There is no way that we could tell him,” he says and looks down and then up. “It’s Liam’s.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” I shout, and I want to throw something, break something. “This whole fucking thing is a—”
“Yeah,” he says, cutting me off.
“You chose her,” I say softly. “Out of all this, you chose her.”
“I never chose her,” he tells me, getting up. “I chose Ethan.” He says his name, and I look at him with tears in his eyes. “In all this, I chose my son.”
When he says the words, my body starts to shake. I start to shake. “Your son,” I whisper.
“Yeah, I have a son,” he says. I look at him, and at that moment, everything comes out of me.
“You have two sons,” I whisper, my secret now free from Pandora’s box.
“What?” he says, getting up now and looking at me. “What did you say?”
He gave me his truth, and now it’s time to give him mine. “I said you have two sons.”
“Oh my God,” he says, putting his hands to his mouth.
“I found out I was pregnant a month after I left. I was beside myself. I lost so much weight. I was sleeping and vomiting. I couldn’t keep anything down. I just thought I was depressed.” I don’t stop, knowing that if I stop, I won’t have the courage to continue. “My mother came and finally forced me to go to the doctor. I was twelve weeks along. They turned off the lights in the small white room and put gel on my stomach, and then I saw our son for the first time. His heartbeat was strong, and at that moment, I knew that whatever you did, we created this amazing boy.”
“My son.” His voice is a whisper.
“It wasn’t an easy pregnancy,” I say. “I ate for him, I drank for him, I lived for him. My baby. My son.”
“Our son,” he reminds me, and I look down.
“When I was twenty-one weeks, I got a sharp cramp, and I thought it was just stomach pains.” I put my hand to my stomach, feeling the emptiness. “Then the bleeding started.”
“Kallie …” He says my name, but I’m in a trance as I’m back to that day.
“I rushed to the hospital,” I sob out, “calling my mother along the way, and she rushed there. When I got to the hospital, they put me in the bed, and I lay there while all this blood poured out of me. I tried to stop it, tried to close my legs, thinking it would stop it. In almost the same room that I listened to our son’s heartbeat, I was told there was no more heartbeat.” He roars out a sob and falls to his knees in front of me, and I want to do the same. “These things happen, they told me. I was in a state of shock by the time my mother got there. Catatonic almost, but it wasn’t over. I had to deliver our child. He was perfect.” I sob. “He was the most beautiful baby in the world. I held him for as long as they would let me. I told him that you loved him more than anything in the world. I told him that he had to be our angel now.” The crushing blow was even more now than it was on that day. “I blamed myself for everything. If I wasn’t depressed, then maybe he would have survived. If I ate more, maybe he would be okay. If I didn’t cry every day, maybe he would have known how happy I was to be his mommy.” I walk over to Jacob now who sobs with his hands covering his face. “So you don’t have just one son, you have two.”
“Kallie,” he says, and I walk closer to him. He grabs my hips and puts his face to my stomach and kisses it. “I’m so sorry.”
My hand goes into his hair, like I always do, my own tears falling and mixing with his. “I named him Gabriel.” The sob rips through him now, and I hold Jacob in my arms as he cries for our child.
“I’m so sorry.” He keeps saying that over and over again, and I look at him.
“I’m sorry for doubting you, and I’m sorry that I ran from you.” I lean in and put my forehead against his. “I was just so devastated that the only thing I could do was run.”
He’s about to say something else when the front door opens, and all we hear is screaming. “Dad, I’m home!” His eyes fly to mine, and then it happens in slow motion.
“Dad?” We hear again, and Ethan comes into the room with a huge smile on his face that falls when he sees me with his father. Or it falls because he sees his father in tears.
“Ethan.” Jacob stands, and I want to say that it doesn’t hurt me, but I’m gutted. Hearing his son call him dad and knowing that our son would be his age. I’m about to get up and excuse myself to leave when I hear Cristine.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she hisses, and it’s Jacob who talks now.
“Buddy, bring your bag in your room and bring me down your laundry,” he tells Ethan. The little boy looks at me, and I just smile.
“Okay, Dad,” he says softly and walks away. Only when Jacob knows he’s out of the room does he look at his mother.
“This ends now,” he tells her. “This shit. All of it.”
“She deserted you in your hour of need,” Cristine says. I want to tell her she’s right, but instead, I excuse myself.
“I’m going to let myself out,” I say, not making eye contact. I turn to walk out of the house, hoping like fuck it’s an easy way to go. Luckily for me, the foyer is right in front of me, and the front door is now shining at me.
My hand grabs the door handle, and I’m about to open it when I feel his hand on mine. “You can’t leave,” he says, my back against his chest. “You can’t just leave.”
“I’m not leaving,” I say, but really, I am. “I’m just … we just have a lot to process, so I was going to go.” He turns me in his arms.
“You were escaping again, and I’m not going to let you,” he says.
“I just need some time,” I say. “I wasn’t running forever. I was just …” I look down. “It’s a lot to take in, and I just laid a lot out there for you, too. So it’s a good time to go to our separate corners and talk later.”
I hear the crunch of rock, and I look over to see that it’s Casey. “Besides, you have Ethan here, and I just …”
“Can I call you later?” he asks, wrapping his arms around me, and I nod at him. “Okay, then.” He kisses my lips softly. “But we have to finish this conversation.”
“We will,” I say, and I turn to walk out of the door toward Casey, who looks at me when I get in the truck.