We walked home in relative silence. She kept her eyes on her feet, her thoughts a million miles away, and I watched her, trying to read her. In the dark, she looked younger than I remembered, and it was hard for me to believe she was the woman I once knew.
I could feel a part of me holding on tightly to the facts—that she was my wife and we had this entire past together—but a bigger part was sinking into a black hole of realization: it wouldn’t be as simple as telling her the truth. Falcon was right about that. She needed to adjust to life—to grow up, in a sense, before she would be open to the truth.
Seeing Harry tonight, learning that he was my son, it threw her. That much was obvious, and the fact that she hadn’t said a word to me since we left the house was further proof that she was better off left in the dark when it came to our past. At least for now. The husband in me wanted to stop her right here, grab both of her arms and tell her I love her. Kiss her and finally slip back into her life, but as I played that scenario out, knowing this girl the way she was now, I was certain she’d slap me and shove me away.
Eventually, she’d come around, maybe, but if she never did retrieve her memories, then our love, for the future, would only be what we built it to be—what we created now. If I forced myself back into her life by making it known that we were married, it wouldn’t be love bringing us together. It would be obligation.
But I did need to repair things that had been broken down tonight. She needed to fall for me—the me that her new mind knew—and I was certain a teenager with no life experience would not let herself fall for a guy with a kid. No matter how adorable that kid was.
“Ara?” I tried, laying proverbial planks down to build a new bridge.
“Mm?”
“I…” I started, but I just didn’t know what to say.
“Can we not talk about it?” she said, forcing a smile as she looked at me. “I’m trying to process.”
“Yeah.” I looked at my feet. “Sure.”
When we reached her house, she ran straight up the steps and in through the door, which had clearly been left unlocked for her, then she closed it and switched off the porch light without even saying goodbye.
I stood looking regretfully at the house for a moment, imagining a reality where I followed her inside and we sat up talking all night about old times, but I turned away instead, and left my heart there on her driveway, wandering home with my head down. I wished Harry had never come downstairs. But it wasn’t his fault. He was barely even eight years old. How could anyone expect him to hide the truth?
But what had been done had been done, and it simply meant I had to change tactics.
As I reached home, Mike was just getting out of the car, another bag of Em’s late-night McDonald’s tucked under his arm.
“How’d you go?” he asked, wearing an expectant grin, but it dropped as I got closer and he saw my face. “What happened?”
“Harry came downstairs—”
“Shit.” He almost dropped the bag. “Is he okay? Did he get upset—”
“He’s fine. But he called me Dad.”
Mike paled. “How did Ara take that?”
I couldn’t bring myself to speak the truth. I just hung my head and shook it.
“Aw, man.” Mike firmly cupped my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am. Falcon was right.” I swallowed hard, feeling a sudden and very unwelcome need to cry. “It was too soon for her to meet Harry.”
“We’ll think of something,” he assured me. “We can fix it.”
Not one cell in my body believed that. Ara was in a fragile state, and it would take a long time now to win her over. She didn’t know herself, didn’t trust her judgment or other people yet, so there was no way she could comprehend, or even envision, life with a kid.
But the Ara I knew and loved would not cast someone aside because of that either. I would need to appeal to that part of her and turn this new distance into guilt. Then, once she came to terms with the fact that I had a son, I would need some help to win her back again.
I rolled over and grabbed my phone off the nightstand. Elora would still be awake, probably just finishing her shift at the café. I dialed her number and it picked up right away.
“Dad! Is everything okay? Why are you calling so late?”
“It’s fine, sweetheart,” I said in a deep, hushed voice. Harry stirred though, his adjoining door left open tonight, so I rolled to stand and walked into the bathroom, closing the door.
“You don’t really sound all right.” Her voice was soft, soothing. “What happened?”
“Your mom found out about Harry.”
“Found out what about Harry?”
“Just that he’s my son.”
“And how did she take it?”
“She was a bit…”
“Freaked out?”
“Yeah.” I laughed, feeling lighter admitting that to Elora, as if she understood Ara better than Mike did. As if Elora understood how detrimental this was to our plan. “She was a bit cold to me after that.”
“That’s normal, Dad!” She laughed. “She’s a teenager with a lot of her own problems, and she just found out you have a major walking-talking one of your own.”
“Harry is not a problem!” I said firmly.
“Not to you. And not to my mother, either. But Ara’s not my mother; she’s not your wife; not even Harry’s mom. You can’t expect her to take this in her stride, Dad—”
“Then you’re saying I’ve lost her.”
“No,” she said softly but firmly, “but she will need time to process—”
“That’s exactly what she said.”
“Then, in the meantime, you just have to keep showing her how amazing you are and how you enrich her life, and she’ll come around. I know she will.”
Her certainty made me feel more certain. I mustered a smile. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Pick me up from school on Monday—meet her again and maybe befriend her sooner than we planned. I need help here. I feel like I’m swimming in an ocean without a life raft—”
“Sure.” She laughed. “I’ll see what I can do, but it can’t be Monday. I’ve got some stuff to take care of. How ’bout I send Ali instead—”
“Either of you will be fine. I just need reinforcements.”
“They’re on the way, Dad,” she said, lifting some of the weight off my chest.