Twenty-Seven
Aspen
It’s been a whirlwind. There’s no other word for it.
One minute, life meandered along much as it always had. The next moment, Kaiden fell into our lives with the impetus of a meteor strike - sudden, blazing, and leaving an impact crater it’s impossible to ignore when he’s not there to fill it.
The transition has been surprisingly seamless as far as Kai’s concerned. There’s been no reticence, no ambivalence, no guardedness towards this man who one day just turned up in our lives like he belonged there.
Our son is all in.
Now, three weeks later, I’m standing in my art studio, watching through the window as father and son pitch a baseball between them in my backyard, while I wait for my kettle to boil.
Kai’s laughter carries through the air, high and bright, and my chest tightens with an emotion I can’t quite name. Joy? Fear? Both?
Kaiden moved into a building two streets over.
Two streets.
He can walk here in five minutes. He claims it’s for Kai’s sake - so our son doesn’t have to travel far, so visits are easy. But the way his eyes linger on me when he thinks I’m not looking tells another story.
And what can I say? I’m not immune, and he’s still my husband, after all.
The electric kettle clicks off, snapping me back to reality.
I pour water over the tea bag, watching the liquid darken, since I’m trying to ignore how Kaiden’s shirt pulls across his shoulders when he reaches up to catch the ball.
Trying not to remember how those shoulders felt under my hands years ago.
Kaiden was my first… and also my last.
Ten years may have passed, but I’ve never so much as looked at another man. Never wanted to.
In all honesty, I thought my libido had shriveled up and died. Seems it had just gone into hibernation, waiting for Kaiden’s return.
How pathetic is that?
For whatever reason, the knowledge irritates me unaccountably.
“Stop it,” I mutter to myself.
But my body doesn’t listen. It hasn’t listened since he showed up at my door.
Since that kiss on the porch that I’ve replayed in my mind far too many times to count.
Since he started showing up every day, fitting into our lives like he never left, making Kai glow with a happiness I’ve never seen before.
Making me feel things I thought I’d buried.
I can’t lie - I resent him for it. He’s just tipped up, much the same way as he left, and expected me to just adapt. To accommodate his schedule, his presence, his gravitational pull on everything I’ve built.
And I have. Because Kai deserves this. And the smile on my son’s face when Kaiden picks him up for their outings is worth swallowing my own complicated feelings.
I take a sip of tea and immediately burn my tongue. Perfect. Just perfect.
Through the window, I watch Kaiden crouch down to Kai’s level, adjusting his grip on the ball.
He’s patient in a way that surprises me.
The Kaiden I knew was always wound tight, always calculating, always three steps ahead.
This version - the father version - moves slower.
Gentler. Like he’s terrified of breaking something precious.
Maybe he is.
Kai throws the ball, and it goes wide. Kaiden dives for it anyway, making an exaggerated show of the catch that has Kai doubled over laughing.
Something in my chest cracks open watching them together.
This is what I kept from both of them. This joy.
This connection. This simple, perfect moment of a father and son just being together.
Am I wrong to resent what they’re building? The unique bond they’re creating.
One that doesn’t involve me.
One where Kaiden gets to be the fun parent while I take on the role of the disciplinarian, the rule keeper, the one who has to enforce bedtimes and homework while he swoops in with ice cream trips and promises of fun times.
The bitterness surprises me with its intensity. I thought I’d moved past this. Thought I’d come to terms with sharing Kai. That’s when the guilt rises up, familiar and suffocating, because I’m the one who engineered this situation by choosing to keep Kai’s existence away from his dad.
Now I guess I’m paying the price.
There’s a light knock on the door, which I recognize as Kaiden’s, and I open it to find two hopeful faces staring back at me. “Can you come out to play?” he asks. And how does a cold, mafia capo look so adorable doing it?
Because yeah, that’s another bitter pill I have to swallow. My estranged husband goes out of his way to include me in his visits with our son. I’m the one holding back, which makes my jealousy even more unreasonable.
“I’m working,” I say, gesturing vaguely at the canvas behind me that I haven’t touched in over an hour.
“Come on, Mom,” Kai pleads, his eyes bright. “We can go over to the park like a real family.”
The words hit as hard as if he’d thrown a physical punch. A real family. As if we’re playing pretend right now. As if the last decade of me raising him alone somehow doesn’t count.
I force a smile that feels tight around the edges. “I really need to finish this piece, sweetheart. I’ve got a deadline.”
“You’ve been saying that for three days,” Kaiden observes quietly, his dark eyes seeing right through my excuse. He always could read me too well.
“Because it’s true,” I snap back, hating how defensive I sound.
Kai’s face falls before turning mutinous. “You’re no fun, Mom,” he throws at me with the accuracy of a direct hit. “At least Dad wants to spend time with me.”
The words slice through me like a blade, and I watch him storm back outside, Kaiden following with one last glance in my direction that I can’t quite interpret.
I stand frozen in the doorway, my tea growing cold in my hands, watching my son deliberately turn his back on me while he bounces the ball with renewed vigor on the side of the house. Each throw feels like a rejection, like punctuation to his statement.
At least Dad wants to spend time with me.
The rational part of my brain knows he’s nine years old. That kids say things they don’t mean when they’re disappointed. That this isn’t about me being a bad mother, but about him wanting his newly-discovered father’s approval and wanting me to share in this miracle too.
But the irrational part - the part that’s been doing this alone for a decade, the part that sacrificed and struggled and protected him every single day - that part is bleeding.
I retreat into my studio and close the door, leaning against it as if I can physically shut out the hurt.
My eyes land on the canvas I’ve been avoiding.
The commission that should have been finished a week ago.
The piece that’s supposed to represent ‘hope and new beginnings’, according to the client brief.
I want to laugh at the irony. Hope and new beginnings. What a fucking joke.
Instead, I set down my tea and pick up a brush, forcing myself to at least pretend to work since I’ve just scuppered all my kid’s hopes.
The canvas stares back at me, mocking. I’ve sketched the basic composition - a sunrise breaking through storm clouds, light spilling across turbulent water. Beautiful. Inspiring.
Complete bullshit.
My hand moves across the canvas, but my mind is still outside with them. I can hear the rhythmic thud of the ball, Kaiden’s low voice sounding unusually serious, while Kai’s responses are clipped and angry.
Good. At least that makes two of us who are pissed off.
I’m loading my brush with burnt sienna when I hear footsteps on the studio stairs. Heavy. Measured. Not Kai’s eager pounding or his dramatic stomps when he’s upset.
Kaiden doesn’t usually just let himself in, but I guess he probably guessed I wouldn’t answer a knock in my current mood.
“He’s cooling off,” Kaiden says from the doorway, not waiting for an invitation to enter. “I told him to take a few laps around the yard before he comes to say sorry.”
I swallow, a lump forming in my throat. He reprimanded Kai and told him to apologize?
And here I’ve been acting like my own brand of bratty kid.
Cursing him out for being the funtime dad, when all he’s done is provide opportunities for me to join in that fun and step up to do the hard stuff when it becomes necessary.
Fuckity fuck!
I’m still standing with my back to him when Kai comes barreling in, barely slowing from his run, slamming into me from behind and throwing his arms around my waist.
“I’m sorry,” he sniffles into my spine. “I know you’re busy, and I’m grateful Dad can watch me while you work because he’s more fun than Nona… but don’t tell her I said that,” he adds as an afterthought.
Turning in his arms, I hug him back, then drop down to his level. “I’m sorry I haven’t been any fun, too. How about we go to the park after all? I can work tonight after you’re in bed if your dad doesn’t mind hanging out in the house after you’ve gone down.”
His face lights up like I’ve just handed him the world, and the guilt twists deeper. How many times have I chosen work over him lately? Used deadlines as an excuse to maintain distance from Kaiden?
“Really?” Kai bounces on his toes, all traces of his earlier anger evaporated. “All three of us?”
“All three of us,” I confirm, even though the words feel like they have a far deeper meaning.
Kai whirls around. “Can you stay tonight, Dad? Please?”
I risk a glance at Kaiden over Kai’s head.
He’s leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching this exchange with an expression I can’t quite read.
There’s something soft in his eyes, though.
Something that makes my stomach flip in ways I’m not ready to acknowledge.
Something that makes me think my evening probably won’t pan out the way it should, as he nods his head in acceptance.
“Go grab your jacket,” I tell Kai. “It’s getting cooler out.”
He’s gone in a flash, thundering across the deck with all the subtlety of a small elephant. The silence he leaves behind feels heavy, charged with things unsaid.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Kaiden says quietly.
“I know.” I move toward my desk, needing something to do with my hands. “But I needed to. Kai was right – I’ve been using work as an excuse.”
“Have you?” He pushes off from the doorframe, taking a few steps into my studio.
Into my space. I feel my pulse quicken as he moves further into the room.
This is my sanctuary, the one place that’s been entirely mine for years.
And now he’s here, filling it with his presence, his scent, his gravity.
“Why is that?”
I busy myself cleaning a brush that doesn’t need cleaning. “You know why.”
He doesn’t answer right away, and I can feel his eyes on me, studying, assessing. When he finally speaks, his voice is low and careful. “Do I?”
I set the brush down harder than necessary. “This is complicated, Kaiden. You showing up after ten years, Kai getting attached so quickly, you moving two streets away...” I wave my hand vaguely. “It’s a lot.”
“For you or for him?”
The question catches me off guard, and I turn to face him properly. He’s closer than I realized, close enough that I can see the faint scar above his eyebrow, the one that wasn’t there before. Close enough that my body remembers things my mind has been trying to forget.
“Both,” I admit, wrapping my arms around myself. “He’s building this fantasy in his head about us being a perfect family, and I don’t know how to...” I trail off, not sure how to finish that sentence.
“How to tell him we’re not?” Kaiden supplies, something unreadable flickering across his face.
“How to protect him when it falls apart.” The words come out sharper than I intend, but I can’t take them back now.
Something shifts in his expression. Pain, understanding, maybe both. “You really think I’m going to leave again.”
It’s not a question, but I answer anyway. “I think you left once before when things got hard. Why wouldn’t you do it again?
The words hang between us, brutal in their honesty. I watch his jaw tighten, watch him process the accusation I’ve just lobbed at him like a grenade.
“That’s not fair, Aspen.” His voice is controlled, but I hear the edge beneath it. “I left to keep you alive. That’s not the same as abandoning you because things got ‘hard.’”
“Isn’t it, though?” I push, because apparently I’ve decided to pick this fight right now, in my studio, with our son about to come bounding back, all happy and content, any second.
“You made a choice without me. You decided what I could handle, what risks I was allowed to take. And now you’re back, and I’m supposed to just...
what? Pretend those ten years didn’t happen?
Let you waltz back into our lives and play happy families? ”
“I’m not asking you to pretend anything.” He takes another step closer, and I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. “I’m asking you to give me a chance. To give us a chance. Not to erase the past, but to build something new from where we are now.”
“And what exactly is it you think we’re building?” My heart hammers against my ribs, and I hate that he can probably see my pulse jumping in my throat.
“A future,” he says, as if it’s really just that simple.
A future with him was all teenage me ever wanted, and the raft of memories that assault me are keen to remind me. His eyes lose their focus for a moment, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing.