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“I’m sure you do,” he said.
Last month, he’d gotten the call from his mother that his father had had a stroke and they were in the ER. He’d asked her to keep him up to date but wouldn’t come to town unless she asked. She hadn’t. He would have come for her and her only at that point. He figured he hadn’t seen his father in years so there was no reason to work the guy up.
He’d visited his mother once a year but avoided his father. He talked to his mother every few months too, but their communications were more emails and texts between those phone calls.
He supposed that was how it made it easier for him to hide the existence of his son.
Not that he knew of Max until four months ago himself.
“Come in. Take your jacket off and start talking. I’ll ask when you’re done.”
He appreciated that at least one of his parents gave him a chance to express himself. To tell his side of things. To be heard.
He removed his jacket and picked up the carrier to bring Max into the living room. Nothing had changed in here in the month since he came for his father’s funeral. He wasn’t sure why he thought it would.
His mother had said his father was fine after the stroke and there was nothing to worry about. Getting a call four days later to say he had a brain aneurysm and collapsed in the bedroom and didn’t make it had been more of a shock than Rachelle showing up on his doorstep with Max almost a year after he’d seen her last.
“This is Max,” he said. “He’s six months old. I didn’t know about him until four months ago. I’d been dating someone, nothing serious, and we went our separate ways.”
“How can you not know you have a child?” his mother asked.
He sighed. “I think she wasn’t positive whose it was,” he said. “I’m not sure of her reasons.” He wasn’t going to go into all the details now. It wasn’t the time.
“Max was with his mother when you came last month?”
“No,” he said. “Rachelle passed away three months ago.”
“I’m so sorry,” his mother said. “What happened? So you’ve got custody of Max? You’re doing this on your own? Who watched him while you were here last month?”
He knew it wouldn’t be long before the questions started to fly. “She overdosed,” he said. “She brought Max to my place four months ago and said she was in a bad place and couldn’t care for him.”
“She just left her child with you?” his mother asked. “You said she didn’t know if he was your son?”
“I don’t want to get into it all,” he said. “At least not right now. Max is mine. I had a paternity test done the minute she left him. I also retained a lawyer to get custody drawn up. Aside from her admitting she was in a bad place, she never told me. She dropped him off and left. When I tell you I was clueless, you have no idea.”
He’d never changed a diaper or fed a kid before. Everything was new and foreign to him. Thankfully he had some good friends.
“How do you know she died?” his mother asked.
“She was found in her apartment. She had my name as her emergency contact. I suppose it was one smart thing she did. I’m still going through all the legal channels to change his last name to mine. He has Rachelle’s, but I’ve got custody.” He waved his hand. That was another battle he was dealing with but nothing he was stressing over at this point.
“I don’t understand why you couldn’t have said something to me four months ago. Or even last month?” his mother said. There were tears in her eyes and he hated that.
“Mom. I’m flying by the seat of my pants. When it happened I didn’t know what to do. When Rachelle died, things got more out of hand. Max and I were finally settling into things as best as we could and then Dad had his stroke and passed last month. You’ve had enough to deal with.”
“That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have wanted to know I had a grandchild, Ren. I can’t believe you would be so cold and callous like that.”
The words sliced through him. He hated to think he was like his father, but it was not the first time he’d been accused of being that way. That he was the one that had to be right and could be cold to others.
He was with Zara too at the end. It was what he did to survive and it took everything he could not to beg her forgiveness afterward.
His mother didn’t deserve it though. She’d been the one person who had been in his corner in life.
“I planned on telling you,” he said. “Then everything with Dad happened and it didn’t seem the right time. But I’m here now.”
“You’re here because I need help to sell the marina. If I’d asked you to come to help me run it, you wouldn’t have.”
“No,” he said. “That isn’t a secret and you know it. I would have tried to talk you into selling it anyway. It’s too much for you. It was too much for Dad, but he didn’t want to admit it.”
