Page 86 of Center Ice
And while I know he’s right, I also know my kid, and I’m afraid he’s going to throw us a curveball we aren’t expecting.
Which is sort of what happens, because when Drew says to Graham, “Your mom and I have something we want to talk to you about,” our son holds his half-eaten apple in two hands and looks at Drew like he knows exactly what he’s going to say.
“Okay,” Graham says.
“So, you know how your family is just you and your mom?”
“Yeah, it was. Until you came back.”
Drew’s eyes flick to mine, but my face is frozen in a mask of surprise.
“What do you mean, Graham?” I finally spit out.
“I saw the picture at Drew’s mom’s house,” Graham says, as if we know what he’s talking about.
“What picture?” Drew asks.
“The one I thought was a picture of me. But your mom said it was you when you were my age. So I knew you were my dad.”
“Wait,” Drew says, then coughs out a laugh. “You saw a picture of me when I was your age and decided I must be your dad?”
“Yep. It’s like how Ivy looks just like Lauren when she was little, right, Mom?”
A couple of months ago, Lauren was showing us some photos of her and Paige when they were little. Graham was amazed at how Lauren, at three years old, looked exactly like her daughter, Ivy, looks now. We’d explained that sometimes kids look just like one of their parents at the same age. I guess it isn’t a huge leap that he’d see how much he looks like Drew and jump to the same conclusion.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” I say. “So how are you feeling about Drew being your dad?”
Our son takes a bite of his apple and chews it with his eyes scrunched up like he’s deep in thought. Then he looks at Drew and says, “I’m glad it’s you.”
He looks between the two of us, and instead of asking any questions about how this happened, how Drew didn’t know or how he eventually found out, Graham says, “So, are you guys getting married?”
It’s the second time in as many hours that he’s mentioned this idea.
“You don’t just get married because you have a child together,” I tell Graham. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
“Whydoyou get married, then?” Graham asks.
“Well, when you love each other very much and you want to spend the rest of your life with that person, then you get married,” I tell him, feeling Drew’s eyes on me.
Graham’s big brown eyes are wide, and his face is curious when he says, “And you don’t love each other enough to spend the rest of your lives together?”
Why do kids always have to ask the hard questions?
Drew pulls at the neck of the t-shirt he’s wearing under his flannel and looks at me like he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. “I think that it takes time to make those kinds of big life decisions, and your mom and I need more time before we can decide.”
I’m trying to figure out if he’s come to that realization himself, even after telling Caitlyn he was going to marry me, or if he’s saying it on my behalf so that I don’t have to be the one standing in the way of something Graham obviously wants to happen.
“We’re just taking things slow, Bud,” I tell Graham. “We need to figure out what this whole family thing looks like. For a long time, it was just you and me, and it’s only fair to give Drew time to adjust to being part of our family, and for us to adjust to him, too.”
“Okay,” Graham says and lifts his little shoulders in a shrug. “Can we go find more apples now?”
Drew and I glance at each other, both of us obviously bewildered by how this conversation went.
“Sure,” I say, thinking there’s no way we got off that easy after I’ve been building this up in my mind for so long.
But as Graham runs down the path ahead of us, holding his half-eaten apple, Drew slings his arm over my shoulder andpulls me to his side as we walk. Then he says, “I’m not just going to marry you someday, Audrey. I’m going to marry you somedaysoon.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
