Ten felt his emotions start to rise. “Me too. I want to come down when the new baby is born. Maybe we can get away for the long weekend in October or for Thanksgiving.”
“That would be great. Brooke’s gonna need all the support she can get with going from an only child to a big sister. How did Everly handle it?”
“Everly knew ahead of time she was getting a little brother.” Ten laughed.
“You mean before you told her?”
Ten shook his head with a laugh. “No, she knew before our surrogate got pregnant. She’d been in touch with Ezra’s spirit from the other side. I know it sounds crazy, but we both had a lot of chats with him before he was born.”
River sat back in his seat with a look of wonder on his face.
Ten couldn’t read his expression. “I get that not everyone believes in what we can do, and that’s okay.”
“No, it’s not that. What you and Everly can do is absolutely remarkable. There have been times in my life when my own intuition cautioned me not to take a certain road home, or I would think about someone I hadn’t spoken to in a while, and out of the blue, they’d call me. I can’t imagine being able to see what you see or how you deal with it.”
There weren’t a lot of people who looked at Ten’s gift from that side of the fence. “People either don’t believe in my gifts, or they think how amazing it would be to see into the future or speak with Ronan’s dead mother. It isn’t often people think of the downside. I can’t tell you how many murder victims I’ve helped cross over, having to see those last terrifying moments of their life, to feel their fear and their pain. There have been so many people over the years who never got to say goodbye to their loved ones before they passed on or were fighting and not speaking to each other. Yeah, there are benefits to what I can do, but there are also moments that have nearly broken me.”
River reached out and set a hand on Ten’s arm. “I’m here for you no matter what. If you need to talk in the middle of the night, I’m only a phone call away.”
“I appreciate that. I might take you up on that offer.” Ten was nearly overwhelmed with emotion. His parents had never believed in his gifts; neither had Ronan at the start of their relationship. River was one of the only people Ten knew who’d believed in him from the first moment. His gift was the reason River had reached out in the first place.
“I hate to ask, but what are you going to do about Dad?” River watched Ten closely as he spoke.
Without responding, Ten got out of his seat and filled the electric kettle. He flipped it on and started to get out mugs and tea bags. He’d known all along that River was going to ask this question at some point, and not thanks to his gift giving him the heads-up, but because it’s what Ten would have asked had their roles been reversed. When the water was hot, he brought two steaming cups to the table. “I think my answer to that question is going to have a lot to do with you.”
“With me?” River wore a stunned look.
Ten nodded. “I’ve pretty much forgiven David for keeping you a secret. I don’t want to waste any of our precious time being angry over what we missed.”
“I hear that. What are you angry about?” River grinned at his brother when Ten looked surprised. “We’re more alike than you know.”
“I’m starting to see that more and more. I’m angry that David wants nothing to do with you. It’s great that he’s here with us, but he could opt to speak to me anytime he wants, but instead, he’s using Everly as a go-between.”
“That would piss me off if David were here in person, never mind from beyond the grave.”
“I agree. Everly is a remarkable child in her capacity to speak to spirits and with the amount of empathy she has, but she’s only six years old. She deserves to have a childhood full of sleepovers, bike rides, and trips to Disney. The last thing she needs is to be an intermediary between her grandfather and her father.”
River took a sip from his cup.
“You know, when I was a kid, David was so good with the younger kids in the parish. He was a mentor for kids without fathers. He’d play hoops with the kids or would play catch. I was never into those kinds of activities, which I know disappointed him, but when I’d see him with the little kids, I always used to think that he’d be a great grandfather one day. Of course, all of those dreams were shattered when he disowned me, and to be honest, I never imagined I’d have a life like this where I was married to the man of my dreams and the father of two kids.”
“I used to wonder about those things too. Late at night, when I couldn’t sleep, I’d make up stories about him in my head. We’d go fishing or ride wave runners. How pleased he’d be to meet my girlfriends and then my wife. The look in his eye when he held Brooke for the first time.” River sighed. “He hasn’t made this easy on either of us.”
“No he hasn’t. What would you want to say to him if you had the chance?”
“I’m not sure. Part of me wants to scream my frustrations at him, while the other part wants a hug. How ridiculous am I?”
“You’re not ridiculous at all. Every child wants the approval of their parents. In my case, I wanted to hear him say he’d beenwrong to disown me and kick me out of my house on my eighteenth birthday.”
“He really did that to you?”
Ten nodded. “A few months before that, I’d told him and Kaye that I was gay and also told them about my gift. I gave my parents some information I could have only gotten from their parents, who’d all passed on. If he could have kicked me out then, he would have, but I was only seventeen.”
“Do you think he was afraid you’d discover his secret love child?”
Ten’s eyes widened. “I’d never thought of that before. I suppose it’s a possibility. I always thought that he was more worried about what the congregation would think of him, raising a gay psychic son, rather than his own feelings about me.”
“It’s the same with me. He wouldn’t have wanted people to know he’d had a child out of wedlock.”
