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Liam stopped, took a deep breath … and went on. That’s what parents did. This was a conversation that had to happen. Tomorrow Bret would go to school and some kid in some class would ask about Julian True. Bret deserved to learn the truth from his dad.
“Hey, pal,” he said, handing Bret a cup.
Bret peered into the mug and scrunched his face. “You put milk in it. It looks like a bunch of floating toilet paper in there. ”
“Mom doesn’t add milk—to cool it down?”
“Ice cubes when it’s instant; milk when its the real thing. It’s okay, Dad. ” He bravely took a sip. “Yum. ”
Liam smiled. “I love you, Bret. ”
Bret set down the mug. Liam knew that was it for the cocoa. “I love you, too, Dad. ”
“Come here. ”
Liam sat down in the huge, overstuffed chair by the sofa, the one they’d picked up at a garage sale outside of LaConner. Mike had spent more money refinishing and re-upholstering it than it would have cost to buy a new one, but as she always said, this chair was as comfortable as fifty years together. It easily held a man and his nine-year-old son.
Bret climbed up onto his lap.
Liam touched his son’s face. Come this summer, there would be a dusting of freckles across this little nose.
“Is this more about Mommy?”
“You remember we told you a long time ago that Mommy had been married before?”
“Yeah. That’s Jacey’s other daddy. ”
Liam swallowed hard. “And did you know that Julian True was in town?”
“Lizard Man? Hel-lo, Dad, everyone knows that. ”
Liam held back a smile. “Actually, he prefers to be remembered as the Green Menace, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, he’s in town to visit Mom. ”
“Lizard Man knows Mommy?”
Liam took a deep breath and jumped into the deep end. “More than that. Mommy used to be married to him. ”
Bret made a disbelieving sound—half snort, half giggle. “Yeah, right. ”
“It’s true, Bretster. ”
Bret frowned. It was a long minute before he asked, “But you’re my daddy—and she’s my mommy, right?”
“That’s righ
t. ”
Bret seemed to turn it all over in his mind, this way and that. Sometimes he was frowning; sometimes he wasn’t. At last he said, “Okay. ”
“Okay?” Liam had expected tears, anger, something more … traumatic than this quiet okay. Maybe Bret didn’t understand—
“Yeah, okay. Sally Kramer’s mom used to be married to Lonnie Harris down at the feed store, and Billy McAllister’s dad used to be married to Gertrude at Sunny and Shear. My mom’s ex-husband is way cooler than that. Hey, do you think he could get me a Lizard Man poster for my room?”
“You amaze me, Bret,” he answered softly.
The mudroom door crashed open. Jacey and Rosa rushed into the house. Jacey was screaming her brother’s name. She raced over to them and dropped to her knees beside the chair.
“Oh, Bret …” Crying, she ran her hands across Bret’s face like a blind person hoping to memorize every shape. “Don’t you ever do that again. ”
