Finally, I managed to speak, though my voice came out thin and cracked.
“So what happens now, Mark? Do you just… bring him here one day and expect us to carry on like nothing happened?”
His head snapped up, panic flashing in his eyes. “No. God, no. I’ll do whatever you need, Linda. I’ll take this slowly. But—” he exhaled shakily, running a hand through his hair. “I can’t abandon him. Not after what I know now.”
Hot tears blurred my vision. “And what about us? About me? You let our five-year-old daughter find out before I did. Do you realize what that did to me?”
Mark’s shoulders caved in, his voice dropping low. “I know. I should have told you the moment Sarah came back into my life. I was scared, and I handled it all wrong. But please… please understand — Noah is a sweet boy. He’s been through so much already. He doesn’t deserve to be punished for Sarah’s choices. Or mine.”
I pressed my hand against my chest, feeling the frantic hammer of my heart. Part of me wanted to scream, to shove him away, to make him feel the betrayal that burned inside me.
But then I saw Anna’s little drawing in the center of the table, her smiling brother holding her hand. She had already welcomed him into our family without hesitation.
And that thought gutted me more than anything.
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