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Jay stared at his feet as he nodded. “My mom told me to always make you proud. To not do anything that would make you regret taking me and Janessa into your home.”
His mom’s hand gripped his arm. “Has this been hanging over your head all these years?”
Jay shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Well, let me say that nothing you’ve ever done has made us regret offering to take you into our family,” his dad said. “And that includes this situation.”
“You offered to take us?” Jay asked. “I thought my mom asked you.”
“No,” his mom said. “When your mom was diagnosed with cancer, Dad and I talked and decided we’d offer to take you if it appeared she wasn’t going to recover. I knew from conversations we’d had how important it was to her that you and Janessa not go to her or your dad’s families. She and your dad had worked so hard to build a life for you in a safe neighborhood. Even after your dad’s death, she did what she could to keep you from the neighborhood where they’d grown up.”
Jay drew up memories of where they’d once lived. It had been a wonderfully diverse neighborhood that, while low-income, hadn’t been riddled with gangs. There had been lots of familiesof varying sizes and races. He hadn’t realized the effort it might have cost his mom to be able to make a home for them there.
“We were happy to have you as part of our family,” his dad said. “And that hasn’t changed.”
“I’m sorry if we ever made you feel like your place in this family wasn’t secure,” his mom said, her voice wobbling a bit. “If we ever made you feel like you had to worry that you might lose our love.”
Tears stung Jay’s eyes, and he gripped his hands together to stop them trembling. “You never made me feel that way. I was so young when I made those promises to my mom, and I felt like I could never free myself from those expectations. And the harder I tried, the harder it became. In those moments when it felt hopeless for me to uphold those promises and expectations, I just ditched it all.”
His mom leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “From the moment you arrived, you’ve always set a high standard for yourself.”
“Except for when you didn’t pursue a pro career in basketball,” his dad said. “Why was that?”
Oh, he was going to have to bare everything. That hadn’t been his plan when he’d come there that night, but maybe in order for them to understand, he had to.
“It wouldn’t have been what my mom wanted.”
“But what about what you wanted, son?”
“I don’t want to look back,” Jay said, deciding that maybe he didn’t want to delve into all that right them. “My decisions—all of them—have brought me to this point, and I need to just focus on Peyton now and what he needs from me.”
“I agree that your attention needs to be on Peyton,” his mom said. “However, it seems that things in the past have prevented you from understanding your worth and value to us and our family. You’ve already felt like you had to deal with this whole situation on your own, and if you continue to think that way, you won’t ask for help with him in the future.”
Jay ran a hand over his head. She wasn’t wrong. It was hard not to feel like he needed to figure out everything with regards to Peyton on his own. The boy was his responsibility, and this situation was the consequence of the bad decisions he’d made in the past.
It didn’t feel right to prevail upon his family for too much help when they didn’t approve of his choices.
“We’re here for you, son,” his dad said. “For Peyton’s sake and for your own, lean on your family. Don’t shut us out.”
Jay hadn’t planned to ask for help from his parents. He’d just known there was no way to keep this latest turn of events in his life a secret anymore. Though he could hide a lot of things, a son wasn’t one of them. Well, he could have hidden him if Amberlyn had simply wanted child support.
He didn’t know if he would have actually hidden Peyton’s relationship to him if all Amberlyn had wanted was child support. It would have been a huge temptation to keep his past from encroaching on his present and the future he wanted for himself.
All he had to do was think of the warm light of affection in Misha’s eyes. The many times Denise had called him a good man. The admiration in the gazes of the boys he coached. The promises he’d made to his mom. Everything the Halversons had done for him.
Yeah. All of that would have weighed heavily in favor of keeping the information about Peyton to himself. Which just proved what a selfish person he really was.
But that wasn’t how things had turned out, and though he could have chosen not to take Peyton, the moment he realized what sort of environment his son could end up in, he’d stepped up.
Did that decision erase what he would have done otherwise?
Jay wasn’t so sure it did.
“When can we meet Peyton?” his mom asked.
Jay dragged a hand down his face. “Maybe tomorrow?”
“Are you telling the others?” His mom hesitated. “Are you telling Misha?”
