Chapter Nineteen #2
He doesn't say anything about it, and neither do I. His fingers linger there for a second before dropping back to the table, but I saw it and he knows I saw it. I'm not touching that one yet. I already have enough emotional explosives scheduled for this evening.
"That would be awesome," I manage. "I could use a partner, and you've got home-court advantage."
"Hell yeah!" His hand flies to his mouth. "Sorry."
I run two fingers across my lips like I'm zipping them shut and raise my other hand for a high five. He grins and slaps his palm against mine, and I manage not to cry over a fucking high five, which feels worthy of recognition.
I can't keep my eyes off him for however long it takes before food starts arriving at the tables.
I ordered the seared wagyu with roasted fingerlings, Oscar asparagus, and a glass of white wine I'm mostly ignoring because I need all available brain cells tonight.
Drunk biological-mother disclosure feels like the kind of decision people discuss in therapy for years afterward, and I already have enough material.
I'm unrolling my silverware from the napkin and settling it across my lap when I look up and find James standing beside the table with a plate of food in his hands.
"Oh, they brought mine already," I tell him, assuming he's running deliveries again.
He doesn't move.
Instead, he shifts his weight and looks down at the plate, and the confident emcee who was running the scavenger hunt five minutes ago has disappeared. Now he's nervous, which immediately makes me nervous because one of us really needs to have our shit together and it should probably be the adult.
"Would it, umm..." He looks at the empty chair across from me. "Since we're partners, could we maybe eat together? Talk strategy?"
My eyes go straight to Samson and Lauren.
They're both watching us now, but when I catch them, Samson gives me a small shrug and Lauren's eyebrows shoot up. Their confusion looks genuine.
Not them.
This is all him.
And fuck me if that doesn't hit somewhere tender.
I must take half a second too long absorbing it, because James starts backing out before I've even opened my mouth.
"Sorry, I just thought—"
"No, please. Sit." I reach toward the chair before he can escape. "I'd actually love that."
He sets his plate and drink across from mine and slides into the seat, and he's still nervous. His fork gets rearranged. Then his napkin. Then his glass moves approximately an inch to the left for reasons known only to him.
I pretend not to notice.
Whatever he's working himself up to, I'll let him get there in his own time.
"Do you help your dad with the cooking?" I ask, cutting into my steak and hoping some easy conversation will settle both our nerves.
"Sometimes, yeah. I like it. Cooking, I mean."
"Is that what you want to do?"
"No. Not even a little bit." He laughs, rooting his fork around his plate without actually eating much of anything. He went with the salmon puttanesca. "I'm taking a gap year to do an internship here in LA, and then I'll start my degree. Engineering. Mechanics."
Pride swells in my chest before I can remind myself I had absolutely nothing to do with any of that.
I didn't encourage the interest, help him choose a school, or sit at the kitchen table while he filled out applications.
But fuck it. He's my son and he's brilliant, and I'm going to allow myself this one.
"That's amazing. It's a gift, knowing what you want that early. I had no idea what I wanted to do at first."
"You knew my dad when he was a teacher in Houston?"
"I did, yeah. He was my brother's AP teacher, and they lived two doors down from us growing up."
"That's so cool." He nods, still moving food around his plate without any of it making the trip to his mouth. "So you knew me too, then? When we lived there? Or did you move here before I was born?"
I put my fork down and clasp my hands in my lap, mostly because they've started trembling and I don't need them joining the conversation.
"Yes. I knew you."
He nods again, eyes fixed on his plate.
"James?"
He looks up, and for a second I see the tiny face I held in my arms in that hospital bed the night he was born. Fifteen years disappear so fast that I have to remind myself this is the same child, just bigger now, sitting across from me with questions he has every right to ask.
"You don't have to be nervous with me. What do you want to know?"
"Well. Mom and Dad told me when I was younger that I was adopted.
That's never been a secret, you know?" A small laugh escapes him.
"I mean, Dad is this huge blond Thor-looking gargantuan, Mom is a tiny redheaded Scot, and both my siblings have strawberry-blond hair.
Even if they'd never told me, eventually I would've started questioning the math. "
Sense of humor. Check.
Thank God I contributed something besides abandonment issues and weird hair.
"You want to know if I knew your mother. Is that what you're getting at?"
"No." He shakes his head quickly. "No, I'm sorry. I'm not." He sighs down at his plate. "I'm so blowing this."
"You're not blowing anything. I'm not going anywhere, James. We can take all night if you need it."
He looks up at me and smiles, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. "There are these photo albums from when I was little. The last time you were here, when you said you were a friend of my dad's, I knew you looked familiar. It bugged me for weeks."
He sets the phone on the table between us and starts scrolling through pictures from Houston, before we moved. I recognize a lot of them. James in the front yard. James at the park. Birthday parties, cookouts, random afternoons on a street I haven't seen in years.
Then I start noticing the backgrounds.
Me.
I'm sitting in our driveway while James plays in Samson and Lauren's front yard. In another, I'm at the park under a tree while he's on the swings. Then I'm standing at the edge of a birthday party, half-turned away from the camera.
He keeps scrolling, and there I am again.
And again.
Picture after picture, year after year, me somewhere in the frame.
I look across the restaurant at Samson and Lauren, and the realization hits hard enough that I have to press my lips together.
They did this on purpose.
Those sneaky motherfuckers.
All those years I thought I was watching James from a safe distance, they were documenting me doing it.
They kept proof that I was there, even when being there was all I could manage.
I don't know whether they always intended to show him or whether they simply thought one day he might ask, but either way, they made sure there would be an answer.
The tears come quietly while James scrolls through the last few pictures and puts his phone back in his pocket.
"When I saw your hair..." He touches his white streak again and gives me a small shrug. "Well. I'm a math person, you know?"
"I do." It comes out as a croak, so I clear my throat and try again. "You can ask me, James."
He holds my gaze for a long moment. His eyes are wet now too, and he looks away while he wipes at them, trying to be discreet about it.
I pretend not to notice because I'm his mother and I've been on the job for approximately four seconds, but I already know better than to embarrass him.
"Are you..." He stops and clears his throat. "Are you my biological mother?"
There is the question I've dreaded for fifteen years, and when it finally comes, the answer doesn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would.
"Yes. I am."
And God, I'm so damn proud to say it.
James nods slowly. He takes that in, his eyes dropping to the table for a few seconds before he looks back at me.
"He hurt you, I assume?" His voice is quieter now. "My biological father?"
Now that one I wasn't prepared for, and my answer is a soft sob I catch behind my hand.
"I'm sorry." I press my napkin to my face and take a second to get myself together, because bursting into tears every three minutes is not how I pictured this conversation going.
"It's okay. I'm sorry I upset you." He hangs his head and shakes it.
I reach across the table and take his hand.
"You didn't. I'm just overwhelmed. I came here tonight to tell you, to finally introduce myself, and you're so smart, James.
So fucking smart you beat me to my own confession.
" I squeeze his fingers and make myself give him the truth he asked for.
"Yes. Your biological father raped me. And I would go through it a million times over to know you.
I hope you understand that. There has never been a single day of your life when I wished you didn't exist. I've had so much joy just watching you all these years. "
His eyes well up again and his bottom lip starts to tremble, and if I didn't feel like a mother before, I sure as hell do now.
I'm out of my chair before a single thought can put a stop to it, pulling him into my arms. He stays seated but wraps his arms tightly around my waist, and I bury my face in his hair and hold him.
His hair. My hair.
Fuck.
"Do I remind you of him?" His voice is small against me. "Is that why you couldn't keep me?"
"I was afraid you might one day," I tell him, because he deserves the ugly parts too. "And I couldn't bear the thought of ever looking at you with anything but love."
I pull a chair around so I can sit beside him instead of having this conversation across a fucking table, keeping one of his hands between both of mine.