When I think about what else I need to tell him, I’m crushed for him. “It’s hard to believe.”
“I read the report. They said he did everything wrong when they hit the weather. How could he have done everything wrong when he trained constantly for stuff like that?”
“He might’ve been distracted.”
“By what?”
“He had another child.”
His face goes blank with utter shock. “What?”
“He was born between Tyler and Sophia.”
“That can’t possibly be true.”
“It is true.” I tell him how Steve proved it before he brought the info to me.
Rob sits back in his chair, as stunned as I was when I first heard this news, which is sort of a relief as I’d feared he might’ve known and not told me. However, his shock is genuine. “He had another kid.”
“Yes. A son. I don’t know anything more than what I’ve told you.”
“How did Steve find out?”
“She’s threatening to sue Mike’s estate for child support.”
“His estate is closed.”
“I have a lawyer friend looking into what my liability might be.”
“Wait, so she can sueyou?”
“I was the executor of Mike’s estate, so yes, I guess so. But if she thinks she has a case when he didn’t name her or her child as a beneficiary, she can also sue the insurance company. I don’t know. It’s all a big fat mess.”
“Where’s she been all this time?”
“I guess she reached out to Steve a while ago, but he refused to bring it to me until he had proof that the kid is Mike’s.”
“Are you pissed that he used Tyler’s water bottle to do that?”
“Extremely pissed, but I get that his heart was in the right place. I mean, if it came back that she was full of shit, I never would’ve needed to know about it.”
“Yeah, I guess, but still… That’s so invasive.”
“It sure is. This whole thing is invasive. I feel like I never really knew the man I was married to.”
“You knew him.”
“Did I? I’m not so sure, and I wonder if he was so distracted by this situation that he screwed up at the worst possible time. Was she threatening him before the crash? Was that why he made critical mistakes? Was he freaking out about her blowing the lid off their affair and me finding out?”
“Jesus, Iris. Do you think that’s what happened?”
“We may never know, but if he had all that weighing on him, who knows what it did to his concentration?”
“I have no idea what to do with this information.”
“Welcome to my world.”
“I’m sorry. You must be devastated.”