The tears she’s been holding escape down her face. “You don’t hate me?”
My anger is completely overshadowed by my happiness. “I’m mad as hell you didn’t tell me about him. I may even put you over my knee and spank your ass until it’s blood red. But right now I just want to meet my son.”
“I want you to meet Jacob, but we need to talk about everything and sort out details before that can happen.”
This isn’t fair. She has all the control and I have none. “Come on, Ashlyn. You can’t dangle my boy in front of me and then not let me meet him.”
“You will but we need to iron out some stuff first. We can go to my place to talk. I’ll ask my parents to take him for ice cream after the game so we’ll have a little extra time. They’ll bring him home in a little while. I swear you’ll get to see him tonight.”
I know Ashlyn is right. Having a sound parenting strategy is the responsible thing to do. Jacob needs to see his mom and dad have a plan for how we’re going to make this work. The biggest mistake we could make right now is to introduce me into his life and have him recognize we don’t have a clue what we’re going to do.
I look at my son standing on third base. I don’t want to walk away and leave him. It feels wrong—like I’m choosing to abandon him. “OK. But I want to see him score this run before we go.”
I lean into the fence and hold the wire. I’m afraid I’ll float to cloud nine if I don’t.
I have a son. Everything about him is just like me. And he’s going to be my little buddy.
I had no idea I could be this happy.