“Yes.” Again Connor held her gaze, but this time she was sure she saw regret layered across his expression. “For a short time.”
She dug her nails into the wood and made a weak attempt to pull her other hand free from his. He didn't let go. Anger joined the host of emotions wreaking havoc on her insides. “Get to the point, Connor.”
“I'm sorry.” He looked at the water once more and gave a slow shake of his head. “The attorney tells me Kiahna left behind a son, a seven-year-old boy.” Connor's voice fell, and Michele had to strain to hear it above her pounding heart. He turned to her again, and this time his eyes were colored with an even deeper regret, a regret she hadn't known he was capable of.
He looked straight up for a moment, and then back at her. “The boy is mine, Michele. I didn't know about him until yesterday.”
“Y–yours?” She stared at him, her throat so tight the word barely squeezed through. She pulled her hand from his and crossed her arms hard against her stomach. Shock slapped her around and left her speechless, unable to even imagine what might come next.
If the child was Connor's, then …
He'd had an affair.
He'd been with another woman and never told her about it. Even when she'd thought everything was perfect between them. Pain seized her chest and she knew instinctively what it was. A piece of her was dying. The part that had trusted Connor without hesitation was suddenly gasping for air, losing its heartbeat, unable to exist in light of the news.
What had she done wrong? She grabbed at the details floating in her mind and ordered them to line up. If the boy was seven, then Connor was with his mother what … eight years ago? So what was it, her depression? The trouble she'd had with losing her mother? She could hardly help those things.
She'd been pregnant back then, hadn't she? Pregnant with Susan. So, maybe he hadn't been attracted to her. Maybe she wasn't thin enough for him.
And who could blame him?
“It was my weight, right? I wasn't thin enough.”
“No!” He shot her a look that mixed shock with growing shades of desperation. “Of course not.” He rested his forearms on his knees and stared at the sand and grass beneath them. “It was one time, Michele, I swear. One night when we were grounded in Honolulu during a storm.”
Michele closed her eyes and in a rush the things he was saying became real. It was true; he'd had an affair with a flight attendant. Michele held her breath and in the devastated places of her soul, a desperate prayer began to form.
God … I'm dying. I can't breathe … help me.
Daughter, I am here with you … I will never leave you nor forsake you. Never …
She sat up a bit straighter. Where had the voice come from? It was the faintest whisper, but then … it wasn't a whisper at all. More of a soft breath inside her soul. She had believed in God all her life, but never had she felt anything like this, this certainty that God Himself had spoken to her.
He would never leave her nor forsake her? Weren't those words in the Bible somewhere? The thought gave her the strength to open her eyes and consider once more the things Connor had said.
In the distance a couple walked by, hand in hand, their voices blending with the breeze and the sound of the water on the sand. Michele turned to Connor and stared at him. He had his hands over his face, but he was still staring at the ground through the cracks in his fingers.
Michele gritted her teeth, hating him for doing this to her, to both of them. Hating him and desperate not to lose him all at the same time. How dare he call her out here to say something so devastating? She wanted to slap him and scream at him, fall into his arms and run for her life, but she was frozen, unable to do anything but focus on breathing. Black dots danced before her eyes, and she held her breath, determined not to give in to them, not to pass out from the blow.
It struck her that while Connor was staring at the ground, she couldn't think of anything to do but look at him. She couldn't scream or laugh or run or cry. That type of pain would come later, for sure. But now it was all she could do to navigate the broken pieces of her life. She whispered the words that wouldn't go away. “How could you?”
Without looking up, Connor opened his mouth. “Everything was so crazy that summer, Michele … I never meant for it to happen.”
She had to keep from covering her ears and spewing something awful at him. Instead she forced herself to analyze the situation. If the boy was seven, then yes, the affair had happened in the summer of 1996, the year Connor was stationed in Los Angeles and everything about their lives seemed to be falling apart. She'd always believed that she was the reason he'd found his way back, the reason he'd been able to continue on as a pilot and put the mess with the FAA investigation behind him.
Now, in a single moment, all of that certainty was gone.
“Connor …” She had no strength for the questions that lined up and demanded her attention. But first—no matter what it cost her—she needed the rest of the story, the part about the boy. “What did the attorney say?”
Her husband made a slow move to straighten himself. The confident, cocksure man who never let life get the better of him was defeated for the first time as far back as she could remember. His shoulders looked small, his face drawn and wrinkled around the eyes, as though exposing the secrets of his past had aged him ten years in as many minutes.
He dragged his fists hard and rough across his cheeks, and gave another brief look at the sky before turning to her. The air eased from his lungs and he seemed to shrink some more. “His mother left instructions that if anything ever happened to her, the attorney was supposed to find me.”
“Why?” How dare this other woman want her son to meet Connor … after so many years. “Why would she want him to call you?”
His eyes searched hers. “She wanted Max to spend two weeks with me … with us. He wouldn't know I was his father, Michele. It would only be a chance to connect. Then …” He paused and pursed his lips. “Then if things worked out, maybe he would come here.”
She was on her feet. “Here? With us?”
“Yes.” The word was so soft, so hesitant, Michele almost missed it.
Her mind raced, and she took two steps toward the water, spun, and walked back to Connor. “You told him no, right? We couldn't do that, Connor, none of us. Not me or you or the girls. Tell me you told him no.”
Connor only looked at her, his eyes begging her to understand. When he said nothing, she knew. Not only had her husband had an affair and fathered a child, but now, instead of moving on, he wanted the boy to become part of their family. The idea was unthinkable, the information more than she could process.
Without saying another word, she turned and headed down the beach.
“Michele!”
His tone sounded weak, hopeless, and she neither stopped nor turned around. She walked to the place where the surf lapped against the shore and veered right. Then she ran as hard and fast as she could, harder than she'd ever run in her life until she was certain she'd placed a mile between her and Connor.
There, alone on the beach, she dropped to the sand and let the flood of hurt come.
How could he? How could he destroy her with not one, but two bombs in a single conversation? She was still trying to believe he'd cheated on her, still trying to reckon with the idea that all those years ago he'd slept with another woman. But the idea of bringing that woman's child into their home?
Connor had to be crazy to consider it.
What would the girls think? Daddy had a special friend, and now her son was going to move in with them? They'd see through that story before they were in middle school, and then what? Would they hate him for being unfaithful, hate him for taking them to church all those years, all the while living a lie?
She didn't know how long she sat there, letting the ocean breeze play against her wet cheeks. With every passing minute, her options became more painful, if less complicated. Connor had given her no choice, really. He wasn't looking for
her approval in the matter. He was telling her what he wanted to do.
Otherwise he never would've brought it up.
He'd kept the news of his affair silent for nearly a decade. Surely he could've taken the details of it to his grave without her knowing the truth. Here, now, only one reason existed for his saying anything.
He wanted the boy, wanted a chance to have the son she'd never given him.
“Why, God?” She shouted the words at the ocean. “Why weren't we enough?”
Connor would force her to agree to the plan, because what were her options? Tell him no, and have him quietly resent her forever? That would never do, but then neither would bringing that child into their home. How long could he live with them before she went crazy from the constant reminder of Connor's unfaithfulness?
The truth of that burned within her, but it left her no choice. Whatever happened from here, the boy would have to come. If she refused Connor the chance to see the child, he'd hold it against her for the rest of her life.
And if he came …
Michele stood and walked back to Connor. She felt like a zombie, a member of the walking dead. He was still there, sitting on the log, waiting for her. When she was close enough for him to hear her, she crossed her arms and locked eyes with him. “Bring him, Connor.”
She hated the momentary flicker of hope that flashed in his eyes. The look was gone as quickly as it had come, replaced with a more appropriate guilt and regret. “Michele …”
“I'm serious. Bring him.”
For a long while Connor said nothing. Then he looked at her, searching her eyes. “Really?”
“Yes. Bring him here for two weeks.” Her voice had taken on a different quality in the past hour, though she couldn't quite figure what it was. Before she changed her mind, she continued. “We'll tell the girls he's the son of one of your friends.”
She held his eyes a moment longer, then turned and made her way to the car. She pulled out of the parking spot and left him sitting on the log, still facing the ocean. That was fine with her. He could drive home by himself and think about how he'd been willing to destroy her, ruin all they shared, for a boy he'd never even met.
She was halfway home when she found a way to define the difference in her voice. Whereas before it sang with joy and hope and possibility whenever she was with Connor, now it sounded dry, mechanical. It was a tone that was bound to get worse as time went on, as the boy came to stay with them, and she was forced to see in his face a woman who had lured Connor into sleeping with her.
She felt sick at the thought of seeing him.
“God … I can't do this.”
No reassuring thoughts flitted through her head this time, and again she was struck by her voice. Because she recognized the sound. She'd heard it that long-ago morning when her mother called to report that she was feeling sick.
“Honey, I think I need a doctor,” her mother had said. And the sound of her voice was almost exactly the same as the sound in her own voice now. Dry and broken and terrified.
The sound of someone dying.
TWELVE
Again, Connor made the call from a quiet chair at a deserted airport gate.
He was transferred to Mr. Ogle's office, and when the man didn't answer, Connor left him a message. “Call me as soon as possible.”
An hour remained before he needed to report to his gate, and he had nothing else to do. So he sat back, clutched his cell phone, and thought about his life. In less than twelve hours it had become a nightmare.
Michele hadn't said anything more than necessary, functional things since hearing the news. “Pass the salt, please,” or “Here's your laundry.” Their Tuesday morning time was spent with her in the utility room organizing the cupboards. It felt like a lifetime ago that he'd promised they would pray together, read the Bible together. The girls had noticed last night, of course. Each of them came to him several times with their concerns.
“What's wrong with Mommy?”
And from Elizabeth, their oldest, “Are you and Mommy in a fight?”
He did his best to calm their fears, explaining that Mommy and Daddy had a lot on their minds, but no, they weren't in a fight. It was true. Michele didn't seem up for a fight. She hadn't asked about Kiahna or how he'd met her or how important their time together had been. Almost as if she'd rather let their relationship die a sudden death than know the details of that August night, and fight him over what had happened.
Connor tightened the grip on his phone. No matter what direction things went from here, he would never forget the look on Michele's face when he told her the news. She'd always talked about how much she trusted him, and recently how what had happened to Renee and Joe would never happen to the two of them.
But he hadn't known until that evening on the beach exactly how much she'd believed in him. He watched the truth become clear in her heart as the initial shock wore off and the facts became part of her. The doubt in her eyes since then was enough to bring him to his knees.
Not literally, of course.
This wasn't the type of thing he was going to run to their pastor over, not the type of thing he'd go to the men's minister to confess. It happened eight years ago, after all. Eight years. He'd been perfect since then, faithful, honest, everything Michele and the girls needed. Even now, in the wake of the trauma his announcement had caused Michele, they had no issues to resolve, no conflict to work through. Her heart was bruised, yes, but as long as she could separate the past from the present, Michele would eventually forgive him for something that had happened so long ago.
Counseling would be a waste of time at this point. Unless Michele couldn't learn to trust him again. Then he'd call the pastor for sure.
But not yet. For now, the situation was simple. They would take the boy in for two weeks and make a decision after that.
He hated how the truth had hurt Michele, regretted the confusion it was causing his girls, but the affair hadn't been his fault. He hadn't planned it, after all. It simply happened. The result of a kind of accumulated pressure unlike anything he'd ever experienced. He'd never loved Kiahna. Never even fallen for her. It had just been one of those things, one of those awful situations that happen.
Yes, he'd made a wrong choice, but that was in the past. Too far in the past for Michele to doubt him today.
But she did. No question about it. Doubt filled her eyes the way hope and joy and love had filled them just a few days earlier.
The phone in his hands vibrated and he jumped. In one motion, he flipped it open and pulled up the antenna. “Hello?”
“Mr. Evans, this is Marv Ogle, the attorney in Honolulu.”
“Yes, Mr. Ogle.” Connor felt his chest tighten. “My wife and I have made a decision about Kiahna's boy.” He paused. After his next statement, there would be no turning back. “We'd like Max to come visit for two weeks, the way Kiahna requested in her will.”
“Very well.” The man's voice filled with a kind of uncertain relief. “Today is Tuesday. When shall we fly him out?”
Connor already had an answer, not that he'd discussed it with Michele. When he'd tried the night before, she held up one hand and shook her head. “This is your thing, Connor. Do what you want.”
Now he slid to the edge of his seat and clenched his jaw. “How 'bout Friday evening?”
“Friday evening.” The attorney paused and the sound of shuffling papers filtered through the phone lines. “Very well, that should work.”
“Can we … talk about the guidelines, the story we'll tell him?”
“Certainly. Kiahna assumed you wouldn't want to tell the boy you were his father. Not at first, anyway.”
“Right.” Connor felt his heart beat harder against his uniform. It was really going to happen; in a few days he would meet his son for the first time, come face to face with the sins of his past. Shame colored his tone. “What will you tell him?”
“Just what Kiahna said in her letter, that you were a friend of hers, and that it mean
t a lot to her that Max spend a few weeks with you.”
“Okay.” Connor swallowed. His palms were sweaty, and the list of questions he'd prepared suddenly slipped his mind.
“Max knows he has a father, Mr. Evans. Kiahna told him in her letter that perhaps one day he would find his biological dad and have a relationship with him. Then again, perhaps not. Either way, he believes he has a father in God.” The attorney paused. “Faith is very important to Max.”
Faith?
Guilt washed over Connor as he considered that. He was supposed to be a man of faith. But since 1996 his relationship with God hadn't amounted to much more than a few appearances at church each month and the constant intention to get back to praying, back to reading the Bible. Back to connecting with God. Instead he'd rarely found time, and in the absence of a relationship with the Lord, Connor had done his best to work things out on his own.
But Max …
Apparently Max believed in a way that made people notice.
“What … what else?” Connor was stalling, buying time until his thoughts cleared.
“He loves a cold can of Coke, especially the little bit that gets stuck on the inside rim of the can. His favorite food is whipped cream and blueberry pancakes, and on stormy nights he's afraid of the dark. He likes trees because they point up to heaven, snowmen because they seem real, and any kind of animal. He's the fastest boy on his baseball team, and he loves listening to Jana Alayra's music.”
“Jana Alayra?”
“She sings Christian songs, stuff for kids. When her CD's playing in the house, he sings along at the top of his lungs.”
“He's a singer, too, huh?”
“Not really.” The attorney chuckled. “He's tone deaf, but he loves it all the same. And seeing him sing songs about not veering from the path that's right is as beautiful as anything I've ever heard.”
An idea struck Connor. Mr. Ogle loved Kiahna's son like his own. It was something he hadn't asked the man, but better that he do so now, before the boy came for the visit. “Mr. Ogle, have you and your wife considered adopting Max?”