She snatches the card from my hand and disappears, leaving me alone with the weight of what I've done.My feet carry me back to the piano, to Gregory's photo.My fingers clamp around the frame as I stare into those ocean-bright eyes I loved so much.Eyes Cole inherited.Eyes this child might have.
"I'll protect our son, Gregory.I promise."My voice breaks."Even if he hates me for it.Even if..."
The torn pieces of the check mock me from the floor.Fifty thousand dollars.Such a small price to pay to keep my son's future intact.To keep him with me.
Please forgive me, Gregory.Please understand.I can't lose him too.
* * *
Cole
Jessica cameto Boston to tell me she was pregnant!
The words explode in my mind like shrapnel, tearing through everything I thought I knew.I stare at my mother, this woman who raised me, who shaped me, who betrayed me in ways I'm only beginning to understand.
"Jessica came here.To this house?"
"Y-yes.I-I'm sorry."Her voice trembles, but the words ring hollow, like every other apology she's ever given me.
"No!"The word rips from my throat."Don't say that.Don't apologize.Instead, explain what you did to convince Jessica not to inform me of her pregnancy.Tell me!"
My mother's eyes dart across my face, weary and frightened.Like a cornered animal finally facing consequences."When I told her you weren't here, she asked when you would return.I refused to give her that information.But then when I tried to close the door, she blurted out she was pregnant.Shocked by her revelation, I let her in, and we had a conversation."
My mind works in overdrive, pieces clicking into horrible place.Every phone call from Jessica playing back with new context.Her tears when she ended things.The way her voice broke when she said it was better this way.All lies.All orchestrated by my own mother.
"How did you persuade her to raise our child alone?"
Mother releases a trembling sigh."I offered her a check.Which she didn't accept.She tore it up and left."
"She didn't take the check."My heart still beats, but against a chest that feels hollow.I narrow my eyes, tilting my head as I study the woman who raised me.Her chest rises and falls rapidly.After several swallows, she continues.
"But she called me two weeks later and told me she changed her mind."
"How much!"
She stares at the floor.When she hesitates, something in me snaps.Fifteen years of control, of manipulation, of lies - all of it crystallizes into this moment.
"How much, Mother?"
Her voice comes out barely above a whisper."After she signed the confidentiality agreement, she received fifty thousand dollars."
My knees nearly buckle.Bile rises in my throat as I force out another question."What did the contract say?"
"It stated that after receiving the money, she couldn't contact you; otherwise, she had to return every cent."
I run my hands through my hair, lost for words.Fifteen years of memories rewrite themselves in my mind - every milestone I missed, every moment stolen from me by my own mother's manipulation.Samantha's first steps.First words.First day of school.All gone, sold for fifty thousand dollars and my mother's idea of my future.
"Cole, I'm so sorry.I'm ashamed of what I've done.But I can't undo it.I wish I could."
Something dark and primal rises in me, a rage I've never allowed myself to feel.I lift my head, fixing her with a stare that makes her flinch."Bullshit!You're not sorry.You had fifteen years, a hundred and ninety-seven months.That is five thousand, four hundred, and fifty-seven days, Mom.And you said nothing."
My hands twitch, clench and unclench.A vein pulses in my forehead as my heart pounds so hard it drums in my ears.The urge to destroy something - anything - overwhelms me.Like the way she destroyed my chance to be a father.My eyes land on the wooden cabinet beside me, the one filled with her precious china.Without thinking, my fingers clutch the wood and yank.My mother's pleas disappear under the thunderous crash of shattering dishes.The floor becomes a battlefield of broken pieces, a perfect reflection of my shattered world.
Jeremy bursts through the kitchen door, stopping short at the destruction.I don't care.I march out to find five pairs of eyes staring at me - shock, confusion, concern written across their faces.
Alisha hurries forward, my anchor in this storm."Cole, what's wrong?"
I can't speak.Can't explain.The words are trapped behind fifteen years of lies.Instead, I walk straight to my daughter standing by the piano.The same piano where I once played, where my father taught me, where everything began to go wrong.
