How long had this woman been a part of his life!?!?
“These past few days have just been a wake-up call for me. I don’t know if it’s because you saw the message, or if it’s because I saw the look on your face when you did. I never want you to feel like I don’t have your best interest at heart.” He glanced down at his phone again nervously and then continued. “Three: I only kept this from you because I was…I was afraid to lose you.”
That last excuse had an air of familiarity to it that wasn’t lost on me – they sounded so much like words AJ had spoken in the past. Tears were already in my eyes as my gaze slipped away from Jason and down toward the phone where he’d apparently been keeping all of his secrets.
I picked up his cell and he had to unlock it for me, which was new. Once upon a time, I knew the code, but clearly at some point he changed it. I wonder why. At that moment, I realized that his offer to let me go through his phone Sunday was a mere bluff; he knew my pride wouldn’t let me stoop that low.
Reaching over my arm, Jason pressed the icon that brought up his pictures. He scrolled past photos we’d taken with his family in L.A. at Christmas time, photos from my last birthday, pics of us together at the beach last summer, but then…right there in the bottom right corner of Jason’s gallery…..was a picture of a little boy…a little boy who bared a striking resemblance to Jason – green eyes and all.
The questioning look that I shot him said it all and he instantly started explaining.
“I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t,” he said in a rush. “I couldn’t figure out how to say it.”
“How about this, ‘Sam, I have a SON’!” I hissed, tossing the phone in his lap when I stood to my feet.
All I kept thinking was ‘how’! We’d been together for two whole years and I had no idea he was a father?
“I mean…” My hands raked through my hair as I paced. “How, Jason? Where is he? How did you hide a WHOLE KID from me for almost two years?”
He lowered his head, but didn’t answer.
“Does he live here? Where is he?” Do you even see him?” I shrieked, sounding every bit as judgmental as I meant to.
“No, he doesn’t live here. And I see him when I can,” he said sheepishly.
I racked my brain to remember a time when Jason left town without me and I couldn’t…because he hadn’t. “Does he come here or something?”
Jason shook his head. “His mom doesn’t like the city, so no. When I wanna see him, I have to go there.”
“There? Where the hell is ‘there’?”
Jason hesitated and I stopped dead in my tracks to stare at him. With his head still hung toward the floor, he almost whispered his response. “Boston.”
“Boston?!? Of course.” I paced away again, reevaluating every second of Jason’s behavior while we were visiting for the wedding. “Did you see him while we were there?” As soon as I asked, I answered my own question, recalling a whole afternoon that Jason spent off on his own…or so I thought.
“I did – when I left to go to the movies and the mall…I took him with me.”
That was what the text was about…The kids mother was acknowledging that it would be nice for Jason to see his son more often.
I continued to pace, shocked and just…shocked. “Why tell me this now?”
Jason shrugged and I couldn’t believe he tried that.
“I’m gonna need you to speak actual words, Jason.”
“Like I said, these past few days have just made me realize that I was tired of holding all this in,” he reasoned.
“What about his mother?”
I couldn’t think of any super—serious relationships in Jason’s past that he’d ever mentioned. Maybe she was a one-night-stand.
“We split around the time Ryan was born six years ago.”
I felt weak. When I had to take a seat on the couch again, Jason watched me like a hawk.