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“I can’t begin to know how painful this is for you. Mike… He told me that our son, Carter, would be cared for in his will if anything ever happened to him. He said he’d taken care of that. I waited to reach out. My sister said probate can take up to eighteen months, so I let it ride, hoping I would hear something. When I saw the thing about the NTSB blaming him for the crash, I reached out to Steve to ask him what was going on.”
“How did you find out Mike had died?”
“From your social media.”
“You follow me?” That shocks me.
“I started to after I found out he had a wife and children. I wanted to know more about his life, since everything he’d told me was a lie.”
As I listen to her, I realize we were both victimized by him. “Are there others? Besides you?”
“I don’t know that, but then again, I didn’t know he had a wife and three kids back in Virginia.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That he was divorced and starting over.”
Fuck, that hurts. I fight the urge to scream. “After you found out about us, did you ask him why? Because I sure as hell have no idea why he’d do this to me and our kids.”
“I did ask, but he didn’t have an answer to that. In hindsight, I think it was maybe the excitement of it all. Long-married guy has a chance to bust loose, and no one will ever know, so why not? That’s my theory, anyway.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, was the baby intentional on your part?”
“God, no. That was the biggest shock of my life. I’m on long-term birth control that didn’t work. I wouldn’t change a thing, though. I love him so much. I had no idea it was possible to love anyone this much.”
“He’s my children’s half brother.”
“Yes.”
“What do we do about that?”
“At some point, it might be nice if they could meet. I’m not sure how feasible that would be, but I’d love for him to know his siblings, because he won’t have others.”
“Mike always loved the name Carter. He wanted to name our son that, but I was hooked on Tyler.”
“The name was his suggestion, and I loved it.”
“Does he have Mike’s last name?”
“It’s hyphenated with mine.”
His parents will be happy to hear that. “Did you love him? Mike?”
“I thought I did until I found out he’d been lying to me since the second we met. Steve told me the estate is closed, so he also lied about taking care of our son.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“None of this is your fault, Iris. He deceived us both.”
“He did this to me once before, but I thought we’d gotten past it. I was so proud of the way we put our marriage back together.”
“I feel terrible about this. I never would’ve given him a second glance if I’d known he was married. I was sick to my stomach for weeks after I found out about you and the kids, and that was on top of the pregnancy nausea.”
“That must’ve been a shock for sure.”
“It was awful. I was disgusted with him and myself. I only saw him once more after that. He came to see Carter when he was first born. I told him he could see him once a year, but otherwise, we wanted nothing to do with him. He was apologetic, contrite, all the things. Whatever. I was done with him.”
“I know it’s none of my business…”
