Chapter 2 - The Son I Never Knew Existed
I could hear my own heartbeat.
Nothing else.
Not the clock.
Not the traffic outside.
Not Claire’s breathing.
Only the pounding inside my chest.
“You were pregnant?”
Claire nodded.
“With my child?”
“Yes.”
My knees nearly gave out.
I grabbed the back of the chair.
For thirty-six years, I had believed Margaret and I never had children because life simply hadn’t worked out that way.
We had tried for years.
There had been tests.
Doctors.
Tears.
Eventually, acceptance.
And now Claire was telling me I had become a father before I ever married Margaret.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Pain flashed across Claire’s face.
“I tried.”
“You could have called.”
“I did.”
I stared at her.
“Twice.”
She explained that she had called my apartment after returning home.
The first time, Margaret answered.
The second time, Margaret answered again.
“She told me you knew about the baby.”
My stomach twisted.
“What?”
“She said she told you.”
“No.”
“She said you didn’t want to be involved.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I know.”
“Claire, I never knew.”
Her tears began falling.
“I know that now too.”
I sank back into the chair.
“Did you have the baby?”
“Yes.”
The answer almost broke me.
“A boy.”
I covered my mouth.
“What was his name?”
“Daniel.”
Daniel.
My father’s name.
Claire had remembered.
I started crying.
Not quietly.
Not gracefully.
I cried like a man discovering that nearly four decades of his life had been stolen from him.
“Where is he?”
Claire didn’t answer.
That frightened me.
“Claire?”
She looked toward the wall of photographs.
Then I saw him.
A man in his late thirties standing beside Claire at what appeared to be a wedding.
Tall.
Brown hair beginning to gray around the temples.
And my eyes.
My exact eyes.
I stumbled toward the picture.
“That’s him?”
“Yes.”
I touched the frame with my fingertips.
My son.
A son whose first steps I had missed.
Whose first day of school I had missed.
Birthdays.
Graduation.
Heartbreak.
Marriage.
Everything.
“Does he know about me?”
Claire hesitated.
“He knows his biological father’s name was David.”
“Was?”
“He believes you’re dead.”
I turned.
“What?”
Claire looked ashamed.
“I told him you died before he was born.”
“Why?”
“Because when he was little, it was easier than telling him his father didn’t want him.”
“But I did.”
“I know.”
We stood in terrible silence.
Then another thought struck me.
“Margaret knew all these years.”
“Yes.”
“She knew I had a son.”
“Yes.”
My grief transformed into anger so quickly that it frightened me.
“Why would my wife do this?”
Claire looked toward the hallway.
“I asked myself that question for decades.”
“And?”
“I finally got an answer six months ago.”
I stared at her.
“What happened six months ago?”
“Margaret came here.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“My wife visited you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Claire slowly returned to the desk.
This time she removed a second envelope.
“She was already sick.”
I recognized Margaret’s handwriting again.
Claire placed it in my hands.
“She came to confess.”
I opened the letter.
There were three pages.
But the first line was enough to stop my heart.
May you like
Claire, there is something worse than keeping David from his son.
I also kept his son from finding him.
