“Mom, I need to know when she came back. Was it a long time after me or not?”
Mom folds her arms across her chest and gives me a curious look. Why can’t she just see that what I really need is for her to just give me the answers that I so desperately need? Can’t she see how freaked I am?
“What’s going on with you and Lucie? Because I saw you all playing in the yard last night…”
“Yeah, we hung out. We played in the yard. Whatever.” I shake my head in dismay. “What I need to know, Mom, and this is very important, is when Lucie came back from college. How long after me?”
“Erm?” She taps her chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know. She came back because she was pregnant…”
“Yeah, I know that, but when? Days? Weeks? Months? Years?” I throw my hands up. “When?”
“It wasn’t long. I can’t remember exactly when, why are you asking me this all of a sudden?”
My head falls into my hands. I start to think about all the things that I haven’t noticed before. The look of Logan, the way that Lucie keeps going really strange every time I mention his father, the way that he behaves… even the fact that Lucie is, and always has been, a ‘good girl’ type. I don’t think she would be the sort to leap into bed with someone else so soon after me. I just can’t imagine it. But I can’t see her keeping something so huge from me either. She isn’t the sort. Well, as far as I know anyway.
“Mom, I know you don’t understand, but I really need to know when. How can I find out?”
“I don’t know, if you’ve forgotten me and your father were very wrapped up in trying to sort your life out. I know that there were some issues with the Smith family but I couldn’t concentrate too much on that…”
“No, I know, I understand that.” Again, I’m the thing getting in my own damn way. “I’m sorry about all of that still. I guess I’m just trying to figure some things out.”
“What, son?” Mom asks me curiously. “What are you trying to figure out? I want to help.”
I decide to go to a different tact. “Mom, did you ever find anything out about Logan’s father?”
“No, it’s something that no one knows. She wouldn’t even tell her own parents… why do you know?”
She leans forward across the table, her eyes spiking with excitement. This seems to be something that she’s been trying to work out for years and now she might actually be able to crack that code. She won’t be happy when she does. If I’m right, and I’m not totally convinced that I am just yet, then she’s about to discover that she’s lived next door to her grandchild for years and never known. How will she take that?
“Mom, I’m trying to work out who the father is, and I think I might know.”
She purses her lips tightly together and she gives me a funny look. “I know that there must be something going on with you and Lucie at the moment, we’ve all seen it, but I don’t think you’ve got to start digging around. There must be a reason that Lucie doesn’t want anyone to know and I don’t think you should push it.”
I can’t stand it anymore, I feel like the words are about to explode free from me. “Mom, me and Lucie had a… very short… fling.” Urgh, I hate calling it that, but I suppose it was. “In college, just before I left… that’s why I want to know how long it was after me that she came back. Okay?”
I slump forward and rest my head on the table. I hate myself for being that person, and I’m also not very happy that I’m in this mess. Mom is going to crucify me when she clocks onto the truth.
“So, what you’re trying to tell me…” Mom asks slowly. “Is that you and Lucie had a fling, back in college, presumably one where you didn’t used protection, and then you left… followed by her… and she was pregnant.” She sucks in a couple of panicked breaths. “Pregnant with Logan… by you.”
“Well, I don’t know that for sure, that’s what I’m trying to work out right now.”
Mom leaps up from the table and she runs from the room. I have no idea what she’s doing, so while I wait I pour myself a cup of coffee. I take a slow sip but I spit it out rapidly, unable to keep anything down. I’m really trying not to do anything rash right now which is so bloody difficult when my head is everywhere.
I could be a father… Logan might be my child… I could have been a dad for four whole years…
“Look.” Mom hands me a photo album which I open with confusion. “I didn’t notice it before but now that you’ve said it I can see the similarities. You and Logan… you as a kid. You’re exactly the same.”
I glance through all the pictures, growing increasingly panicked for the moment. Mom is right. We do look really similar. We could be the same child. Me and Logan… when I said that me and Kade were practically the same, I didn’t know how much I meant it. But we are. We are exactly the same. It’s like looking at a mirror version of myself. He is mine, he’s mine, I’m his father. That’s just… I don’t know what it is.
My chest gets tight, panic tears through my body, I almost can’t breathe. I clutch onto my chest, gasping, rasping. I think Mom is talking to me, words dance around my ears but none of them sink in. My brain buzzes far too loudly for anything to sink in. I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that I’m a dad and I didn’t know anything about it. She could have told me, I could’ve known all this time. My life could have been totally different. I could have been… well, I don’t know, I could’ve been a family man.
“Son, you don’t know for sure yet…” Finally, my brain calms down enough for something to creep in. “You can’t jump to these conclusions until you’ve asked her.”
“What do you think about this?” I pant at Mom. “If he does turn out to be mine?”
She shrugs and gives me a funny look. “Mom’s only do things for their children that they th
ink is right. Maybe it’ll hurt me a little to learn that’s the case, but I know that Lucie will have her reasons.”