Owen exhaled and leaned back in his chair. “He’s not sick.”
“I know, but he still has his ankle monitor, and there’s only so much time they can drag this out. At some point he will have to face his day in court.”
His eyes cut up to hers. “Will he?”
“I mean…I hope so.” She wasn’t going to promise him. How could she?
“Okay, well, what did you want to talk to me about?”
“Oh, yeah…” She was so flustered. She hadn’t expected to get sidelined by the talk about Martin. “Um… it’s a talk I think you’ve always wanted to have.” She took a deep breath and did her best to calm her heart, which was racing a million miles a minute. She wasn’t sure why she was panicking, why there was so much adrenaline rushing through her. Her nervous system had kicked into full fight or flight for some reason. She tried to swallow, but her throat was dry, so she took a drink and then set her cup back in the holder. “Do you remember when you asked me in kindergarten who your real dad was and I told you that I met him on the beach and I didn’t know his name?”
Taylor felt like her chest was on fire, and her breathing was coming in choppy, shallow pants.
“Mom, your chest.” Owen hopped up from the chair, and before she could say anything, he disappeared inside the house.
She closed her eyes and was breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth when she heard the back door close. When she opened her eyes, Owen was standing in front of her with a damp washcloth. She took it and pressed it against her neck and décolletage.
“Thanks.” She tried to take a deep breath, but she only managed to get a very short, shallow inhale.
“It’s fine, Mom. Just breathe.”
“Sorry, I should be the one making sure you’re okay. I don’t know why I’m…I don’t know why this is so…” She exhaled andforced herself to push through this panic attack. This wasn’t about her; it was about Owen. “Sorry, like I was saying…” Her mouth went completely dry again, and she couldn’t get the words out. She picked up the lemonade to take another drink.
“Are you trying to tell me that Caleb is my dad?”
As the liquid went down her throat, she choked. She managed to put the cup back in the holder and lean forward. Her eyes were watering like a sprung hydrant as she tried to recover.
When she finally managed to clear her airways, she croaked out the choppy question, “Why would you say that?”
The corner of the left side of her son’s mouth curled in the confident and too-wise-for-his-eleven-years half-grin that she was sure he’d inherited from his dad, just like the dimples, as he casually and matter-of-factly stated, “Because he’s my biological dad.”
“Why do you… How did you…” Taylor’s head was spinning as she lowered the cloth from her chest. “When did you know?”
“Since I was six.”
“Six?!” she exclaimed.
He nodded.
“What? How?”
“When I was in the hospital that time I had pneumonia in both lungs, you fell asleep holding the picture you hide in your purse, and I looked at it.”
Taylor stared at Owen in disbelief, her jaw metaphorically on the ground. She had no clue he knew about the photo strip she hid in the lining of her purse all these years. She knew exactly what time he was referring to. Martin’s behavior had gotten progressively worse since the first incident roughly a year and a half earlier. She felt guilty because she was relieved that Owen was hospitalized, so she would have a reason not to be home. She’d taken the photo out of her secret hiding spot, sewn into the lining of her purse, just to remember the last time she’d felt safe,but she’d fallen asleep because she was exhausted. A nurse came in to take Owen’s vitals, and she woke up with the strip in her hand. She’d been so relieved that it was the nurse who woke her up and not Martin, because if he’d ever discovered her with the photo, she honestly wasn’t sure she’d still be here.
“I remembered you told me that you met my dad in Daytona Beach, and in the pictures above your heads, there was a sign that said Daytona Beach. And then I turned the picture over, and it said Caleb on the back, so then I knew his name.”
“So all this time, you’ve known that Caleb is your dad.”
“Yeah, when we moved here, I figured that he was why. I mean, I didn’t think you just closed your eyes and picked a random spot on a map for us to go. Then I saw the DNA results and knew for sure.”
“You saw the DNA results?”
“Yeah.” He nodded.
“How? How did you know I even tested you?”
His head tilted to the side. “Mom, you said you needed a mouth swab to check for allergies. I mean, come on. And then I saw the email when I was in the kitchen and you were at the table. You closed it, but I saw it. When you took a shower, I looked at it. But even if I hadn’t, we look exactly the same.”
