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She sinks back into her chair, wraps herself back up in the blanket. “I’ve pictured you looking through that album so many times. Thought about how rotten it would make you feel. Just to know you missed out on holding him, seeing him smile for the first time, getting to see him take his first steps.” Charlotte looks out over the water. “I totally get it…You’re angry.”
“I just feel sad more than anything.”
“I’m sorry. And I know those words are starting to sound empty by now, but I mean it. I wish you got to hold him when he was firstborn, got to be a part of everything.”
It would be better to keep my trap shut, to keep this one thing that’s been eating away at me to myself. The confession makes me sound heartless, like a total and absolute shit, and that’s the polar opposite of what I want Charlotte to see when she looks at me now. I should be painting a different image for her, one that says: World’s Greatest Dad. And it should be easy to take that route because Lord knows I’ve been lying to myself and to everyone else around me lately—so often that it's become second nature. But I don’t want to lie to her.
“The other night, you said it was better for everyone that you didn’t tell me, and it shames me to say it, but you were probably right.” I put the muffin down, my appetite suddenly gone. “I’m ashamed to admit that I probably would have reacted like an asshole if you told me you were pregnant back then.”
She reaches over, puts her hand on my shoulder. “Please don’t beat yourself up over that. Please don’t do that.”
“I would have wanted you to get an abortion...I pretty much did suggest it back then. And seeing him now? I can hardly look at myself in the mirror. What I did...The way I treated you back then...I was so wrong.”
“Do you think I found out I was pregnant and was happy about it? I assureyou, I wasn’t.” After a pause she says, “Simon,” and taps my shoulder until I look at her. “I prayed for a miscarriage more times than I can remember.” She wipes at a tear. “I’ve never admitted that to anyone.”
I reach over and catch another tear as it makes its way down her cheek. “You’re a great mother, Charlotte.”
“Thanks, but that doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t really want him until I was being wheeled into the operating room and faced with the prospect of losing him. But listen to me, I’m past that now, and I don’t want you to waste time feeling bad over it. Life’s too short.”
“It’s hard to get past it. Those pictures of him in the hospital...”
“All the tubes, the incubator...I know.”
“You look so young in those pictures, but brave. I can’t even imagine how scared you must have been.”
“Petrified.” She smiles. “Ignorance would have been bliss, I’m sure, but I was practically prepared to take the MCATs by the time I delivered Ethan. I knew the stats, the odds stacked against him.” She waves her hand in front of her face. “But he was fine...Heisfine.”
“Yesterday was...everything. I still can’t believe he wanted to be with me, to get to know me. It feels like a gift.” I shake my head, feeling ridiculous. “I sound like an idiot.”
“No, I get it. It’s overwhelming.”
“In a good way.”
“Yeah,” she nods, “in a good way.”
We sip our coffee in silence for a few minutes before she looks to me and asks, “Where do we go from here, Simon?”
“I want...”
What do I want? I want to be Ethan’s father, even though I’m not one hundred percent sure what that entails. I want to be near him, I want to be near Charlotte. I can’t deny the pull I feel towards her, stronger now than it ever was. I want a chance at what we had, the chance to be her man again. I definitely don’t want to think about Wes, about what he means to them.
“Who was calling you all day yesterday?”
She’s beaten me to it.
I shake my head. “It’s not what you think.”
She looks away from me. “How do you know what I think?”
“I just don’t want you thinking I’m attached. I’m not...attached.”
“Tell me about her.”
My survival instincts kick into drive. “No.”
She blows on her coffee again, eyeing me over the rim of her cup. “I saw the two of you together.”
“What? When?”
