Chapter 10 #2
"I need to tell you something," she said. "I should have told you before. I should have told you the moment I walked into that training room. I've been trying to find the right time, the right words, but there's no right time and I've run out of excuses and I can't let you fall asleep not knowing."
My chest tightened. "Okay."
"I need you to let me get through it. All the way through. Before you say anything."
"Anne, you're scaring me."
"I know." She pressed her hand flat against my chest, like she needed to feel my heartbeat. "I'm so sorry. For what I'm about to tell you, and for waiting this long to tell you."
"Just say it."
She took one long, steadying breath.
"When you left for Sweden," she said, "I found out three weeks later that I was pregnant."
The words hit me somewhere in the center of my chest.
I didn't move. Didn't breathe.
"I was terrified," she continued, her voice barely above a whisper.
"We'd just broken up. You were in Stockholm starting your professional career.
I was in grad school with no money and no plan.
And I convinced myself that telling you would ruin everything.
That you'd give up Sweden to come back, resent me, resent us both.
"Anne—"
"I'm not done." She pressed her hand harder against my chest. "I told myself I was protecting you. Protecting your career. But the truth is I was protecting myself. I was so scared you wouldn't want me. Wouldn't want the baby. That you'd think I trapped you. So I didn't tell you."
The room felt like it was tilting.
"I had him alone," she said. "My mom was there. And I raised him. For five years I raised him by myself."
Him.
"We have a son," I said. The words came out barely a sound.
"His name is Finn." Her voice cracked. "He's five years old.
He's the smartest, funniest, most energetic person I've ever met in my life.
And he looks exactly like you, Liam. The blue eyes.
The dark hair. The way he concentrates on something with his whole face.
He's yours. There's never been any question. "
I sat up.
I didn't decide to. My body just moved, pulling away from her, needing space and air and something solid under my hands. I sat on the edge of the bed with my elbows on my knees and stared at the floor.
"I have pictures," she said softly. "And a video. My mom took it at his hockey practice last week. He has no idea you'll ever see it. He's just — he's just Finn."
She reached for her phone on the nightstand and held it out.
I took it with shaking hands.
The first photo: a boy at the park, hanging upside down on the monkey bars, laughing. Dark hair. Blue eyes. A smile that —
That's my smile.
I scrolled. Finn building LEGOs, tongue poking out in concentration. Finn holding up a drawing of a hockey player wearing number 17 — his number, the one he'd claimed for himself without knowing it had always been mine.
My throat closed completely.
"There's a video," Anne said quietly. "When you're ready."
I pressed play.
A small figure on the ice, skating toward the camera on determined legs, stick raised. He took a shot — more of a committed tap than a real slap-shot — and the puck slid wide. He turned to the camera with total indignation.
"I meant to do that."
Someone off camera laughed. His grandmother.
He skated back to position, completely unbothered, and looked directly at the camera with the absolute authority of someone making an important announcement.
"I'm a Mite. My coach says I'm a natural. I'm going to be number seventeen when I'm famous."
Then he turned and skated away, already focused on the next shot, completely unaware that anyone would ever watch this moment except his grandmother.
He grinned as he went — wide and unguarded and so achingly familiar — and the sound that came out of my chest was something I had no name for.
I played it again.
And again.
Number seventeen when I'm famous.
My number. His number. The same number — and he'd found his way to it completely on his own, through a friend's father, through coincidence, through whatever ran in his blood without either of us knowing.
He hadn't drawn me.
He'd drawn himself.
And it was the same thing anyway.
"Yes," I said out loud, to nobody, to my son who couldn't hear me. "I'll teach you everything."
I don't know how long I sat there. Anne forwarded all the pictures and the video to my phone.
At some point Anne got up, found her clothes, dressed quietly. I was aware of her moving around the room but I couldn't look at her yet. Couldn't speak. Couldn't do anything but sit with this enormous, devastating, beautiful thing she'd just handed me.
I had a son.
I was a father.
And I had never known he existed.
When I finally spoke, my voice didn't sound like mine.
"Five years."
"Yes."
"Five years of birthdays." I could hear the fractures in my own voice. "First steps. First words. All of it. Five years I didn't know."
"I know."
"I asked you. I asked you what was in Chicago. I asked you multiple times and you looked me in the eye and?—"
"I know." She was crying. I could hear it. "I know. There's nothing I can say that makes it okay. I was a coward and I was wrong and I'm so sorry."
"Sorry." I finally turned to look at her. She was standing in the doorway, dressed, arms wrapped around herself, tears streaming down her face. "You're sorry."
"Yes."
"We just—" I stopped. Pressed my hand to my mouth. Took a breath. "We just slept together. Tonight. How could you? And you knew. The entire time, you knew."
The pain on her face was real. I could see it was real. But it didn't touch the thing building in my chest.
"I wanted to tell you before," she said. "I tried, so many times. But I was scared that you'd?—"
"I need you to go," I said quietly.
"Liam—"
"I'm not—" I stopped again. Breathed. "I'm not saying anything I'll regret. But I need you to go. I need tonight. Just tonight. To—" I looked back down at the phone in my hands. Finn's face. Finn's grin. My eyes looking back at me from a face I'd never seen before. "I just need tonight."
She stood there. I thought she was going to argue. Push back. Beg me to let her explain.
Instead she said, "I'm so sorry, Liam. This has been my secret for so many years. We were never in touch and I didn’t want to try to find you.”
“You can come see him when you’re ready."
I looked up. "How soon can I come?"
Something moved across her face. Relief, maybe. "Saturday. If you want. I'll be there Friday night. You could come Saturday morning."
"Saturday," I said. "I'll be there Saturday."
She nodded. Moved to the door. Stopped with her hand on the frame and turned back one last time.
"He's going to love you," she said softly. "He already does. He just doesn't know it yet."
She left.
I sat alone in my apartment in the dark, and I let myself fall completely apart.
I didn't sleep.
I lay on top of the covers staring at the ceiling while the city went quiet outside my window, playing that video on a loop.
I'm a Mite. My coach says I'm a natural. I'm going to be number seventeen when I'm famous.
In the early hours I called my dad.
I knew he'd be asleep. I called anyway.
He picked up on the third ring, voice rough with sleep. "Liam? Everything okay?"
"Dad." My voice broke on the single syllable.
A pause. The sound of him sitting up. "What happened? Are you hurt?"
"No. I'm — no." I pressed the heel of my hand against my eye. "Dad, I need to tell you something."
I told him everything.
He didn't interrupt. Didn't say a word until I was done, until I'd run out of words and was just sitting there in the silence with the phone pressed to my ear.
“So you have a son," he said finally.
"Yeah."
"Finn."
"Yeah."
Another long silence. And then my dad — my steady, unshakeable, never-lets-you-see-him-rattled dad — made a sound that told me he was crying too.
"You're going to meet him Saturday?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Then hold onto that. Everything else can wait. The anger, the hurt, all of it — it'll still be there Monday. But Saturday you get to meet your son. Hold onto that."
"How do I do this?" I asked. "How do I walk into a room and meet a five-year-old kid who's been mine the whole time and not?—"
"You just do it. You walk in and you look at him and everything else falls away. Trust me."
"You sound very certain about that."
"I'm certain because I remember the first time I held you." He paused. "Nothing in the world prepares you for it. And nothing in the world compares to it."
I exhaled. "Okay."
"You'll be okay, son."
"I know." I looked at the phone screen again. Finn on the ice. That indignant look when the puck went wide. *I meant to do that.* "Dad — he wears number seventeen. Claimed it as his own. Didn't know it was mine."
My dad was quiet for a moment.
"Some things don't need to be taught," he said finally. "They just are."
I had to put the phone down for a minute after that.
When I picked it back up, my dad was still there, waiting.
"Thanks," I said. "Sorry for calling so late."
"Don't ever apologize for calling me." A pause. "Your mother is going to lose her mind when I tell her."
Despite everything, something in my chest cracked open into almost a laugh.
"Tell her Saturday," I said. "After I meet him."
"Saturday," he agreed. "Get some sleep, Liam."
I wasn't going to sleep. But I said "okay" anyway, and we hung up.
I lay back on the covers and looked at the ceiling and waited for morning.
I had a son.
His name was Finn.
He wore number seventeen.
And in three days, I was going to meet him.