It feels so nice to be out with just the three of us, Jace, Faye, and me. We haven’t gotten to spend hardly any time together lately even though my schedule isn’t as hectic. Our reservation is at a pretty ritzy place; I just hope Jace behaves himself. He is a pretty good kid, but he is only four. He looks so adorable in his khaki trousers and blue dress shirt. His hair is a mess of curls, but I still can’t bring myself to cut them.
Faye on the other hand looks like a ghost of her former self. Jace and I get our wavy hair from her. Her once lustrous locks are dull and dry. Her eyes don’t have any shine to them at all. She used to have curves in all the right places. We used to almost look like sisters instead of mother and daughter. It makes me so sad to see how the cancer has changed her.
“So, I notice you are spending a lot of your time with Tyler.”
I cut her off. We aren’t going there tonight. “Oh, no you don’t. This evening is about celebrating your birthday.”
She clenches her jaw and clamps her mouth shut, refusing to speak at all.
Dinner is a disaster. Jace is cranky from the heat and Faye has no appetite. I end up getting our food to go. Trying not to let Jace’s tantrums get to me, I take him home and get him his bath. I have never talked to him about his dad, and I guess there is no time like the present to introduce the idea to him. He may not understand much of it now, but I know it is something I should have talked to him about from the start.
After digging around in my closet, I find the perfect way to tell Jace about his father and the perfect way to show him too. I have been keeping a scrapbook of Brian and all of his greatest moments playing baseball. I started working on it all the way back in middle school.
Settling on a glider on the front porch, I pull Jace into my lap and open the book. “Mommy wants to talk to you about someone important, so listen closely okay?”
He places his tiny fingers on the first page. “Baseball,” he says looking at me for approval.
“Yes, your favorite. Do you see the boy in the picture, Jace? He is your dad. Do you know what a daddy is?”
“Jace plays ball.”
“Yeah, Jace plays ball, like his daddy.”
I continue showing him the pictures, explaining the best I can that he will be getting to meet his daddy soon, I hope. He falls asleep in my lap. I put the box to the side and pet his hair watching him dream, wondering what is running through his tiny head.
I hear Tyler’s car coming up the street. I’d know the sound of his engine anywhere. He approaches the porch after he’s parked, and seeing Jace slumped in my arms he takes him from me, taking him in his arms, carrying him to bed. Something his dad has never had a chance to do, another experience I have robbed him of.
Tyler rejoins me on the porch and takes a seat beside me.
“So, I want to understand Aria, before I put my heart out to you anymore than it already is. I want to know more about your situation with Brian and where you stand with him. Whatever this is between us, has taken over my world. I want to be here for you and Jace, but I need to know what I am walking into.”
“I need to know more about your world too. I don’t know a lot about the club and what all it entails.”
He nods.
I explain to him how I had planned on putting Jace up for adoption. Holding nothing back, I tell him all about my life growing up. How my dad had given up everything to raise me. Don’t get me wrong, had my dad not had his job in the coal mines, he would not have been able to provide for me the way he had. My dad gave up a lot when he married my mother. They were young and dumb. They ended up resenting one another after marrying so young. I didn’t want to doom me and Brian to their fate. I wanted a better life for both of us, and I loved him enough to let him go.
I explain about Faye’s drinking, it split my family up. I don’t want to raise a child in that environment. During my confession to Tyler, I also realize that I don’t have to be with Brian to raise Jace with him. Something I never really put thought into before.
Continuing with my story, I tell him about the emails Brian would send and how hard it was to hear that he had gotten married. He was living his dream, even got drafted to his favorite team, the Red Jackets. I knew I couldn’t come back to him after a few years and tell him he had a son.
“Brian was newly married and starting his career. Everyone would have thought I was after his money. Then another year passed and now another. There never was a right time to tell him. How could I after all this time had passed? I’m still not sure now is the best time to tell him. He has always had a drinking problem. I worry about Jace having to grow up the way I did, with my mom’s addiction taking so much away from us.”
Telling him he has a son I have kept from him, may push him over the edge.
Tyler tenses next to me. I don’t know what he’s feeling. “Are you still in love with him?”
“I don’t know, I thought I was…until you came into my life. Now, I don’t know if it’s that I love him because he is Jace’s father, or because I really am in love with him.” I pause for a minute, letting him soak my words in. “This conversation isn’t fair to you.” I wrap my hair in my fingers and twirl it. “Then there is the fact that you are my boss. I don’t want people to think I am screwing my way into becoming a spotlight dancer. I don’t deserve you Tyler, but lord knows I want you anyways.”
“Let’s take it one day at time. I don’t do relationships well, but I am willing to try, for you.” We spend a few more hours talking about his role in the club. He can’t tell me much. It’s as if they are a secret society. “I won’t have you around the clubhouse or any of that life until we know what we are.”
I understand. Faye has told me briefly that girlfriends and old ladies don’t generally hang out at the clubhouse unless it’s a family event. None of the girls who dance at the club are hangarounds. The MC runs a smooth, classy operation. They keep a tight lock on their way of life.
Tyler can’t give me many details, but he’s working on a deal that if things go his way, he will be made a partner of the Miami club and give him full control over it. This is a really big deal for him. This is why we need to be even more careful with our relationship, now more than ever.
“When are you going to tell Brian?”
“I don’t know, but I know I need to soon.” I don’t want to think about Brian anymore. My mind and my heart are focused on