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“Hey, Son. I wanted to check in on you, now that you have to do all my dirty work,” Dean said as he gestured toward the paperwork.
“It’s no trouble,” Alex said. “Want to sit down? I was just going to grab myself a cup of coffee.”
“I’d love one,” Dean affirmed as he sat.
Alex returned with two steaming hot cups of coffee. As he passed the drink over, silence fell over them like a blanket. It wasn’t the most comfortable of silences, either; it was one that held the ominous nature of the secrets that had just spilled forth.
“I heard the news,” Alex said suddenly.
What news exactly? There’s been so much...
“I guess I have a new sister,” Alex said as his voice crackled.
“News travels fast on this island,” Dean whispered.
Alex shrugged and shook his head so that his dark curls ruffled around his ears. After a long, horrible silence, he said, “How could you have done that to Mom?”
They were among the worst words Dean had ever heard.
In a way, when Dean had first caught wind of this Elise-Darby-as-surprise-child potential, he had thought of Alex. How could he begin to describe to him what he had done? Alex had been tremendously close with his mother. They’d been through hell and back together, while Dean had held the light torch there on the island—in and out of hospitals, with Mandy sleeping in a chair by his bed. When Dean had suggested a hotel a few times over the phone, Mandy had scoffed and said,“You know that’s our child you’re talking about, right? In pain? We don’t know how much longer he has left, and I want to be there for every second of it.”
“I can’t give you an answer to that question, Alex,” Dean said. “I can tell you that I was young, much younger than you are now, and an idiot—much more of an idiot than you ever were.”
This made Alex chuckle just the slightest bit. A good sign.
“I was in the prime of my life with three young children and a wife I felt hated me,” Dean explained. “It’s no excuse, but it’s what I had. When I saw an opportunity to act outside of that, I ran. But Alex, the important thing is—I came back. I remembered my promise to your mother, to the three of you, and I fought myself and every decision I had made to build a better world for the Swartz family.” He stole a breath before continuing.
“Maybe most important of all is this, Alex. After that affair, I didn’t cheat on your mother again. I hardly even looked at another woman. Your mother was a fantastic woman, and I loved her. Most of all, I admired the way she poured her life into yours when you were sick. She fought so hard for all of us—so hard that I thank her every damn day that you pulled through. I think we both know you needed her.”
Alex’s eyes filled with tears. He gripped his coffee cup with bright white, tense fingers. “I thank her every day, too,” he muttered. “And you know what? Through all that time, I never saw Mom cry. Not once. She kept it all together for me. Hell, I cry at the smallest things sometimes. You know as well as I do that I didn’t keep it together at the funeral.”
Dean chuckled as a few tears of his own flickered down his cheeks. “Nobody kept it together at that funeral. You must have seen me.”
Alex heaved a sigh. “I guess that was proof in and of itself that you loved her.”
“I can’t picture my life without her. She meant so much to me,” Dean said. “I can’t speak to how complicated this whole Elise thing must make you feel. I know it blows my head in, thinking about her across the continent from us all this time. She came here for answers, and I think she got a whole lot more than she bargained for.”
“That’s the Swartz family in a nutshell, I guess,” Alex said.
Dean leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. Beside him, Diesel adjusted, swung a paw over his other, and then panted louder. The beautiful dog had no idea how intense the current conversation was.
“Despite all that, I can’t regret it,” Dean said suddenly.
Alex’s eyes glittered ominously.
Dean shrugged as he added, “I can’t regret this beautiful, kind, considerate, talented woman. She’s clearly a gift. A gift in the same way you are, in the same way your mother was, in the same way, Cindy, Tracey, Emma, Megan and Michael are gifts. This leads me to my next question and I want you to think about this very carefully before you decide. Won’t you at least try to meet with her? Won’t you at least try to accept her into our family? I don’t want to live a single day knowing you’re angry with me. And I think you deserve whatever love she has to offer you. We all do. This is not her fault. She didn’t ask for this. She deserves a chance.”
