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Her posture straightens. “I don’t. Just saw him around at parent-teacher conferences and school functions.”
“Oh.”
“Thanks for the egg cups,” Mike says.
“Of course. I guess I’ll let you two get back to catching up.” She smiles at me, but to her son, she whispers, “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure. I’ll be right back, Jenson.”
The two step outside. Wanting to know what she’s saying, I creep over to the door to listen.
“It’s casual. Don’t worry about it,” Mike says in a hushed tone.
“Please, just trust me. You shouldn’t fool around with him.”
“What’s it to you?”
“I didn’t want to mention this because it was so long ago, but I used to get on with his dad. If Jenson is anything like his dad, you don’t want to go there.”
All the air whooshes from my lungs, and I take a step back. That can’t be true. Dad would never disrespect Mom that way.
“So that’s how my tuition got paid?” Mike grits out, not bothering to keep quiet any longer.
“It’s complicated.”
“When did it start?”
His mom makes an uneasy noise. “Let’s talk about this later.”
“No, I want to talk about it now.”
“Not with him on the other side of the door.”
“I should invite him out here. He has a right to know too.”
“No, he doesn’t. Neither do you. It had nothing to do with either of you.”
“If you fucked him to get me into some fancy schools I didn’t even want to go to, then yes, it had a lot to do with me.” Mike’s tone is laced with venom that sends a chill up my spine.
“I’m no whore, Michael Cohen.” Her voice hitches. “It was more than that. We were together for ten years!”
“What?”
I move to the window to see the pair standing face-to-face, his mom at the top of the porch steps and him at the bottom. Mike’s arms are folded across his broad chest, and his mom has her hands balled together at her waist.
“A year before I got pregnant with you, I met his dad at the Silo. I was young and broke. He bought me drinks, took me to a fancy hotel, and after that first night, promised to take care of me.”
“He was married!”
“I know, but we were in love. He promised he’d leave his wife; I just had to be patient.”
“Yet you cheated on him because you got pregnant with me.”
“When Stratton told me his wife was pregnant, I got mad. Jealous even. I went out and had a one-night stand. It was dumb and ruined everything between us.”
“Obviously you didn’t stop things with him since it lasted ten years.” Mike runs a hand through his light brown hair, the same hair I had my hands in only moments ago while he was sucking me off.
“After you were born, everything changed. He stopped paying my bills and only came around now and then.” She places a hand on his shoulder that he shrugs off. “It didn’t matter, though, because I had you, and I did everything I could to give you a good life. Didn’t I?”
