25. Rhodes #2
“I missed everything.”
“Rhodes-”
“Three birthdays.” I open my eyes. “Three birthday cakes I didn’t see him blow out, three years of Christmas mornings. His first haircut. His first day of preschool. I don’t know what his favorite food is, or what song puts him to sleep, or whether he’s scared of the dark.”
“Rocket chicken nuggets.” Her voice is small. “The one about the moon and the spoon, it’s the only song that works. And yes, a little. We have a nightlight shaped like the moon.”
Every detail is a knife. Every ordinary fact about my son’s life is something I should have known, would have known, if she’d just picked up the goddamn phone.
“You had every right to divorce me.” I say it slowly, carefully. “I wasn’t there for you. I put work first when I should have put us first, and made you feel invisible. All of that’s true, and I own it.”
Maren doesn’t move.
“But you didn’t have the right to decide that Rowan was better off never knowing me. You didn’t have the right to make that choice for him, or for me.”
“I know.” She’s crying harder now. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
The apology should help. It doesn’t - nothing helps. Nothing makes up for three and a half years of ordinary moments I’ll never get back.
“I want to know him.”
Maren wipes her face. “Of course. We can, we should figure out how to-”
“I don’t mean occasional visits, birthday cards and holiday weekends. I want to know my son, Maren. I want to be his father.”
“You’re his father.”
“He doesn’t know that.” My voice cracks. “He looked at me like a stranger because that’s what I am to him. A man in an old photograph. A name he’s heard once or twice. I want to change that.”
“Okay.” She nods, shaky but certain. “Okay. We’ll, we’ll figure it out. I’ll tell him. I’ll explain-”
“Tell him what? That his dad was here the whole time, but Mommy didn’t want him to know?”
She flinches like I’ve hit her. Part of me hates myself for it. The rest of me is too raw to care.
“I don’t know what to tell him.” She wraps her arms around herself. “I don’t know how to explain this to a three-year-old. But I’ll try. I’ll find a way.”
I nod. It’s not enough, nothing is enough. But it’s a start.
From somewhere in the building, I hear Rowan’s laughter. High and bright and completely unaware of the earthquake happening in the next room. My son’s laughter. A sound I’m hearing for the first time at three and a half years old.
“I held him once.”
Maren looks at me.
“The reconciliation night.” I can barely get the words out. “When you fell asleep, I… I put my hand on your stomach. Just for a second. I thought about what it would be like if we, if someday-”
I stop. Press my hand against my mouth. The grief is cresting now, breaking over me in waves I can’t control.
“He was already there.” I force myself to say it. “He was already there, and I didn’t know.”
Maren crosses the distance between us. I think she’s going to touch me, her hand reaches out, and I step back.
“Don’t.”
She freezes.
“I can’t-” I shake my head. “Not right now. I can’t be comforted by you right now.”
She lets her hand fall.
We stand there in the foyer of Livingston House, three feet and three years apart, while down the hall my son counts goldfish crackers with a woman named Camila.
“I want to meet him.” The words come out rough. “Properly. As his father.”
“Okay.”
“Not today. I can’t-” I gesture vaguely at my face, at whatever expression I’m wearing. “I can’t meet him like this. He’ll remember it. I want the first time he learns I’m his dad to be, I don’t know. Better than this.”
Maren nods. “We can set something up. This week, maybe. Somewhere neutral, the park, or-”
“The park.” I latch onto the idea. “Does he like the park?”
“He loves the swings. And there’s a sandbox he’s obsessed with.”
“What time does he usually, does he take naps, or-”
“Not anymore. He dropped his nap six months ago.”
Six months ago. Another ordinary fact about my son’s life that I learned just now, standing in a foyer, instead of watching it happen.
I look toward the door where Rowan disappeared. I can’t see him from here, can’t hear him anymore, but I know he’s there. A few rooms away. My son.
“I’m going to go.”
Maren doesn’t try to stop me.
I walk to the front entrance. Stop with my hand on the doorframe. Turn back to look at her.
“Three birthdays.” I say it quietly. “Three birthday cakes. First steps at thirteen months. First word ‘no.’ Split chin, three stitches. I’m going to spend the rest of my life knowing those things happened without me. Nothing you say now changes that.”
She’s crying again. Silently this time, tears running down her cheeks while she makes no move to wipe them away.
I step through the door into the October sunlight, and I walk to my car, and I sit there for a long time with my hands on the steering wheel, not moving, not thinking, just breathing.
Inside that building is a little boy named Rowan James Bellamy who has my eyes and my dimple and no idea that his whole life is about to change.
Inside that building is everything I missed.
I start the car. Pull out of the parking lot. Drive three blocks before I have to pull over because I can’t see the road through the blur.
My son’s first word was no.
He learned to walk at thirteen months.
He likes rocket chicken nuggets and a nightlight shaped like the moon.
He’s three and a half years old, and I’ve never held him, and the first time he looked at me he asked his mother why the strange man was staring.
I sit on the side of the road and I let myself grieve for every ordinary thing I’ll never get back.