Millie knew she was starting to strain their relationship. She dropped her head back to the pillows and changed what she’d been going to say. Instead, she softened her voice and responded with, “You’re right. I’ve never been in the position you’re in, and I don’t know what I’d do. But, son, I know you think this will help him, but I’m telling you, you’re wrong. You will only hurt and confuse the boy by forcing this upon him…and I won’t be a part of it. I won’t help you hurt him.”
Quietly, he responded with, “We’re not asking you to, Mom. We didn’t send him to you, for you to tell him. But it’s already been started. The ball is in his court now, and we’ll just see what he does with it.”
Millie grunted. “So that’s your plan? You’re hoping that he will break the news for you, for the both of you. Nate…you’re making a huge mistake, and I won’t help it along. Kai will never learn anything from me, and frankly, I hope he never finds out the truth from him either.”
Her son sighed, like he was exhausted. “He’s going to, Mom. One way or another, he’s going to find out.” Millie sighed; her exhale sounded just as tired. In a soft voice, her son continued, “I will tell him. If he doesn’t tell Kai the truth, then I will.”
Millie tried again to object, knowing it was useless; her son was set on this course. “Nate…please reconsider? Kai doesn’t have to—”
His voice harder, her son cut off her feeble attempt. “No, Mom. This has to happen. Kai has to be told that I’m not…that I’m not his father.”
Millie’s eyes watered as she pictured her son’s pain, as she pictured Kai’s future pain. None of this seemed like a good idea to her. With a stuttered exhale, she told him, “But that’s just it, Nate. You are his father. Even if there isn’t a speck of our blood inside him, he’s still family, and he’s still your son.”
Her son let out a long, tired exhale. “He has to know the truth, Mom. Truth matters.”
(Cut scene #2. This is at the end of chapter 3, when Kai and Jessie have returned to Millie’s hospital room.)
Millie sighed in irritation as she returned the phone to the nightstand. She loved her son, but she strongly disagreed with how he was handling this situation. Sending Kai thousands of miles away, to place him directly in the path of his biological father—a man that he didn’t even know was his biological father—seemed cruel to Millie. If Kai had to be told, and Millie really didn’t see why he ever had to be told, then Nate should sit him down and talk to him himself. That seemed a far wiser choice.
But that wasn’t the decision her son was making. He and his ex-wife had already called and made arrangements with the man who used to be Nate’s friend and colleague. Somehow, the pair had convinced the man to give Kai a job. Kai didn’t know it, but Monday morning he’d be walking into the office of the person who carried the other half of his genes. While Millie didn’t agree with Nate and Leilani’s choice, she was staying out of it, and hoping beyond hope that Kai remained ignorant. Sometimes truth mattered. Other times, it only stung.
Millie flinched as an ache in her hip went straight up her spine. The pain wasn’t too bad, but the occasional wrong movement did send a twinge through her. Glancing at the door again, she wondered where her two grandkids had run off to. Their reaction to each other had sure seemed weird. She’d been so sure they would instantly connect once they’d met, but that didn’t seem to be the case. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but then again, kids today often mystified her.
Millie wondered if her own mystifying child was hoping Kai would take one look at his real father and instantly know the truth. Well, “real” father simply in the sense that he had been responsible for creating Kai. The man Kai had become…well that was entirely because of her son.
Sympathetic regret washed through Millie as she thought about how Nate had learned about Kai. He hadn’t been aware of his wife’s infidelity when they’d been trying for a child. It was years later, when Kai had just entered his teen years that the harlot had admitted the truth to him…admitted that she didn’t know who had fathered Kai. Millie had no love for the woman. Not anymore, not after she’d ripped her son’s heart out. But Kai loved her and Millie was careful to keep her feelings about the subject to herself.
Not able to stand not knowing who Kai belonged to, Nate had secretly tested him. When the test came back, and he saw in black and white that he had no blood connection to the boy, he’d immediately divorced his wife. It had been a move that Millie had wholeheartedly supported. And in another move Millie had supported, and had been immensely proud of Nate for, he’d never stopped being a father to Kai. Lesser men would have rejected the child as well as the wife, but not her son. His affection and love for Kai had never faltered, and the truth of Kai’s paternity had never gone farther than Millie, her son, and her son’s unfaithful ex-wife.