57. Reid #3
“You can’t,” he snapped, voice breaking.
“You weren’t there.” And there it was: the fracture beneath the anger.
The abandoned child he still was beneath the soldier.
“You weren’t there,” he said again, quieter, but the words shook.
“I remember her leaving. I remember her kissing my forehead, our last hug, then her walking out the door. I remember waking up and she was just… gone.”
“It wasn’t an easy choice—”
“STOP SAYING THAT!” he exploded, slamming his fists into the desk so violently the lamp jumped. “Stop turning her into some helpless victim! Stop pretending she didn’t walk out on her own two feet!”
“I’m telling you the truth—”
“I don’t WANT your truth!” he choked out. “I want the mother who stayed. I want the mother who didn’t leave because everything got too hard. I want the woman I needed, and you’re standing here telling me she didn’t choose to be there for me when SHE CHOSE YOU.”
“Eugene—”
“She fucking chose YOU,” he repeated, voice cracking so hard, tears brimmed at his eyes again. “She didn’t choose us. She didn’t stay for us. She—she left for YOU.”
“She was alone,” I said. “She was the only woman in a home closing around her. Gregory would’ve had custody, had control regardless if she stayed or left.”
His fingers twitched, then curled into fists before they flexed again, looking ready to punch through a wall or through me. He wasn’t yelling anymore. Silent panic was all that was left… his mind lost as it raced back and forth.
His pulse was visible in his neck, heart hammering too fast. He paced the floor, his racing mind still not content with the lack of exits. No choice to be relieved from what he was feeling, no control of his past, of what he was enduring now, of the unknown future that lay ahead.
I’d seen men like this before… but seeing it in my son had gutted me more than I could admit.
If I’d been there… if I hadn’t been buried by Frederick—
If I’d had even one ounce of power left… I could’ve saved him. Saved Genevieve… I could have saved all of us.
But I hadn’t been there and he’d been alone. A boy carrying wounds meant for a grown man.
Abruptly, he stopped in his tracks, back facing me. “…What do you mean he’s not dead?”
The tension seemed to thicken even more if possible, my heart hammering against my ribs to be let out. “Gregory is dead…” I forced out of my lips. “Your father is not.”
He lowered his head, chest heaving, gripping the edge of the desk so hard the wood protested under his palms.
“Then who—?” His voice broke. “Who the hell is my father?”
I didn’t look away as I walked over to him. He still couldn’t meet my eyes. Shame, resentment, anger, all coiled up in the son I never got to see become a man.
“Eugene,” I said quietly. “Look at me.”
He shook his head, and I paused, not knowing how to get through to him… questioning whether I could, whether I even deserved to.
He still didn’t listen to me. “…How long did you know?”
I exhaled slowly. “Long enough.”
He didn’t respond, the seconds passing in the room feeling like hours. Then he pushed away from the desk suddenly, as if staying in the same room as me hurt too much.
“I can’t do this,” he muttered, already moving for the door.
“Eugene—”
He didn’t let me finish as the door slammed behind him, shaking the frame.
I didn’t chase him or call after him. I wasn’t going to force him to accept the truth or to stand in front of me and play the role of a son he’d never been allowed to be. I wanted him to, for years I did… but wanting him now wasn’t enough when he felt unwanted his whole life.
The door pushed open after a moment. I turned, thinking it was him, but instead it was my beautiful wife who walked in, eyes red and teary as she came over to me.
“…Was it that bad?” she said gently.
I pulled her into me, letting her rest her head on my chest. She sagged against me immediately, a shudder moving through her.
“Let’s just say,” I murmured into her hair, “you and he ended on a better note than I did.”
Her fingers curled into my shirt. “I ruined everything, you know… I left him, left Brielle. I don’t deserve his forgiveness.”
I sighed. There it was again… the wound my Vieve always carried. The belief that poisoned her.
“You think abandoning your children was easy for you?” I asked, my tone harsh with the truth.
“You think any part of what you did was selfish? You chose what you thought was right. You survived a house designed to break you. And yes—” I pressed a thumb to the tear sliding down her cheek ”—you hurt him.
We hurt both of them. But you didn’t ruin everything just yet.
He needs time, and he needs to hurt. Give him some space to do that. ”
I brushed my knuckles over her jaw. “And no… you don’t deserve forgiveness,” I muttered, watching her look more wounded than before.
I tipped her chin, forcing her to meet my eyes.
“But you deserve the chance to try. You deserve the chance to be his mother again. To show him who you still are, who you can be to him.”
A sob caught in her throat, but she held it in.
“And if he gives you that chance,” I whispered, “it’ll be because he chose it. Not because you earned it or begged for it. But because he finally understood the truth.”
“The truth?” she whispered.
“That you weren’t a mother choosing between her children and a man,” I murmured. “You were a woman trapped between two impossible fates.”