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Liam called. He was upset I’m not with him. He doesn’t know. And he’s been through so much. I don’t know what will happen with us. I wish I could say we’ll make it to the other side of this, but, how can we? Please know one thing: I’ll always love you.
Noah
There’s no reason to stay at the cabin, and I reach for a bottled water in the fridge before locking the door behind me. In my mind, I’ll stop at the hospital, to see Tia. But can I look at her, speak to her, knowing what I know?
The trip is short. The two and a half hours speed by, and before I know it, I’m on a familiar street in the Queen Anne area of Seattle. We spend a lot of time here. After all, Evelyn insists on cooking for us weekly, especially now with the kids.
I didn’t give myself permission to end up here, but as I knock on the James’s front porch, it’s where I know I should be.
The door opens and Evelyn stands in front of me. Her eyes as puffy as they were yesterday.
“Ashton. Oh, Ashton honey.” She steps forward to embrace me. But she stops herself. “Oh, sweetheart, please come in.” She opens it wider to let me through. I step over the threshold, and she motions to the sitting area off the foyer.
“Have a seat. Would you like coffee, lunch?”
I have no concept of time, but the summers in Washington are full of long days of sunshine.
“No, Evelyn, I’m just here because…”
“You want to know the truth, right?”
I take a seat on the formal couch, and she sits kitty corner on a chair.
“I think I deserve it, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course you do, baby. First, you have to know I never hated you. The day we both met, I wanted to throw my arms around you, happy to have finally met the boy I gave birth to. I knew instantly. I mean, how many times have we been asked if we were mother and son? You and Noah look so much like one another, don’t people ask if you’re twins?”
It’s happened on occasion, but more times than not, we’re holding hands. No one would fathom two brothers were kissing, let alone married.
“Evelyn,” I urge. I want facts. It’s all I can work with right now.
“You heard the stories, about how I thought Liam would die, and it was touch and go when he was first born. As Liam and Noah grew older, I couldn’t shake off this odd feeling, that I had another son out there. Part of me didn’t want to know. It wouldn’t take away the love I had for Liam, but if my child was out in the world, I had to know he was okay. What if his parents didn’t love him?I had to know.”
She’s not overly emotional, which isn’t the Evelyn James I’m most familiar with.
“When Jim found you, and brought me that picture he snapped of you walking hand in hand with a younger Tia, I cried all night long. Would I take you from a mom who loved you? I had to speak with her. Jim found out that she worked nights because she was a widow and money was tight. Caitlyn couldn’t contain herself when we spoke about our kids. You were her world. Liam was mine. Him and Noah. Separating them would have killed Noah. So, I had a decision to make. Jim gave me a solution, creating a grant for single women. He made himself fake credentials and offered your mom a new life. I had to take care of you from afar, even if I was never in your life.
“We never wanted to stir up questions, Ash. I wanted to find out how you two were switched, but it would just alert others, and they’d start looking into all the births. Jim checked on you a couple times a year by phone, with your mom. I asked him to keep all communication private. Unless you were sick or abused or neglected, I had to trust your mom would do good by you. And she has. Oh, Ashton, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to get to know you. Or tell you how proud I am. And you may hate me, and maybe I deserve that, but I did the best thing I could at the time. You may hate me. Liam and Noah may never forgive me. Your sister, who I fell in love with, is certainly going to despise me. Carl, well, Carl is Carl. He’s already forgiven me. I have no idea what this means for anyone I hold near and dear, but at the end of the day, I only wanted to protect you and Liam.”
I don’t hate Evelyn James. I can’t find it in my heart to even try.
“Say something, Ashton. Please tell me anything. As long as it’s the truth.”
I attempt to make sense of it all. “You could have told us at any point.”
“Yes. You don’t realize how many times I was so close to telling you, sweetheart. But you’d already been intimate, it was obvious, and well, in my mind, you two couldn’t have biological babies. I warred with myself, but you two were so happy. Why take it away when no one had to know?”
I rest my elbows on my knees. “But now there’s Tia and Liam. What the hell should we do about that?”
“They hated each other so much. I mean, who could have seen that coming? And yes, I don’t know how they’ll react. And it had hurt so much, trying to break you both up. When it was obvious neither one of you would budge, I decided to embrace it. I got my son back. I had all three of you, and then Tia came and I fell in love with her too. I know it’s twisted, but life took so much from us already. Why make it worse? But Ashton, sweetheart, I never saw it playing out like this. I still stick by my decision to let you live in the home you were raised in for ten years. If there’s only one thing you believe, believe this. I felt like I lost a limb knowing you would never know my love. I do love you. I hope you know that. But it hurt like hell every day of my life.”
I don’t know what I was expecting from Evelyn. I wanted to hate her. I wanted her to be the villain in our story, but she’s not. She made an impossible decision that affected everyone’s life, but it was out of love. This much I know.
I extend my arm over the space separating us. Her eyes lift to mine. “I believe you, Evelyn.”
She lets out sobs that I imagine she’s held in for years. I could never hate this woman. I see her heart, the same beautiful heart as Noah’s. She loves us. This part I’ll never doubt.
* * *
