“Noah,” I reply. “Noah Marcus Lawson.”
“What? She named him after your father?”
I nod slowly. When I found out, I was angry, but deep down I’m grateful that Christine decided to include my family when she named our son. My mom cries even more.
“Your father would have loved that. I can’t believe she honored Marcus’s memory.
When do I get to meet him?” she asks, referring to Noah.
“I’m not sure yet, Mom. But soon, I promise.”
She takes a shaky breath. “Okay. I’m going to bed. I need to take all this in. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
I nod and watch as she walks out of the room. I’m worried about her. She wasn’t lying when she said we tend to treat her like some breakable object. Ever since my dad died, my mom has become fragile in a way. They were so in love, and she misses him terribly every day. It’s been six years and she still cries anytime she sees any of Dad’s pictures.
“She’ll be fine, Mike,” Mel says, cutting into my thoughts. “Sam’s tough. I guarantee she’ll wake up tomorrow with a smile on her face, ready to do all in her power to meet Noah as soon as possible.”
She’s right. I know she’s right. It took Christine five days to warm up to the idea of me meeting Noah. I wonder how long it’ll take her to agree to let him meet his grandmother.
It turns out I was worried for nothing. The next day, without my knowledge, my mom calls Christine and asks her to dinner. She surprises me by agreeing. And she brings Noah along. He doesn’t get overwhelmed and is a perfect little kid in front of my mom and Mellissa.
After dinner, my mom and Christine disappear into her room to have a conversation. They return thirty minutes later with puffy eyes and small smiles. I can imagine how the conversation went, but it seems my mom forgave her.
I’m glad for that. Like it or not, Christine’s a permanent fixture in our lives from now on. It would be better to just bury the hatchet and move on. I would love to put the entire ordeal behind me and look to the future, but I can’t.
Because my brother doesn’t know the truth yet.
CHAPTER12
CHRISTINE
It only takes a single moment for a person’s life to be turned on its axis. For me, it was the moment I got fired.
Getting fired led to me moving back home. Which, in turn, led to me attending the wedding and telling Michael Crane that I gave birth to his child. And now, I’m here in my small, two-bedroom apartment in the quaint little town of Arcola, having orange juice and playing Scrabble with my son and his father.
“Mommy, ‘shitle’ is not a word,” Noah says, giggling.
“It has letters, does it not?” I grumble.
Michael was the one that brought up the idea of game night. According to him, since Noah likes words and reading so much, Scrabble is the perfect game for him. He said it also helps to develop mental concentration, so I thought it was a wonderful idea. I just didn’t realize it would turn into them teaming up against me.
“Not how it works, Chrissy,” Michael speaks up in his husky, low voice.
I look at him. It’s been two weeks since we resolved the issues between us. All secrets were let out and there was forgiveness all around. We developed a great rhythm fairly easily. He’s at our house three nights every week and Friday nights are game nights. He takes Noah to school on some days and he sometimes takes him over to his grandmother’s house to spend some time there. I haven’t let Noah sleep over at his house without me, though.
Baby steps. I trust him and he has been amazing, but I’m not ready to relinquish Noah to his care quite yet.
“Fine. ‘Shit,’ then,” I say, removing the last couple of letters from the board.
Michael chuckles.
“That‘s a bad word, Mama,” Noah states.
“I know that, but I can’t think of any other words that start with S-H and wouldn’t clash with the T on the other line.”
They blink at me almost simultaneously. Looking at them lying down next to each other on the floor, I can’t help thinking about how alike they look. Noah’s eyes are a combination of mine and his dad’s, but most of their mannerisms are totally the same. And they have a lot in common, as well.
If I have to hear one more conversation about Harry Potter, I’ll break something.