Chapter 2 - The Letter That Destroyed My MarriageI did not open the envelope on the sidewalk.
Part of me wanted to tear it apart immediately.
Another part was afraid that whatever was inside would tear me apart instead.
Emma took Oliver two steps away while I stared at my mother.
“Tell me it isn’t what she says.”
Margaret’s lips trembled.
“Nathan, there are things you don’t understand.”
“That sentence usually means someone did something horrible.”
“I was protecting you.”
“From my son?”
Oliver heard that word.
His head snapped toward me.
My son.
Even thinking it felt impossible.
Emma crouched beside him.
“Sweetheart, remember what we talked about? Sometimes adults need a few minutes.”
Oliver looked directly at me.
“Are you Nathan?”
I couldn’t answer immediately.
Finally I nodded.
“Yes.”
His expression was strangely solemn.
“My mom has a picture of you.”
Emma closed her eyes.
That nearly broke me.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a letter dated May 14, seven years earlier.
It was addressed to Emma.
The first sentence made my stomach turn.
Nathan has made his decision. He does not want the baby.
I looked up.
My mother whispered, “Nathan—”
I kept reading.
The letter claimed I had chosen my company over fatherhood.
It said I believed Emma was attempting to trap me.
It said I would contest paternity if she contacted me.
It said I had authorized my mother to handle all communication.
At the bottom was my name.
Not my signature.
My typed name.
I stared at Margaret.
“You wrote this?”
She swallowed.
“Yes.”
Emma’s voice cracked behind me.
“That wasn’t the only one.”
My head turned.
She pulled another envelope from her handbag.
This one was addressed to me.
Her handwriting.
I recognized it immediately.
She handed it over.
The envelope had been opened years ago.
I unfolded the letter.
Nathan, I’m pregnant.
My knees almost gave out.
Emma had written four pages.
She told me she knew our marriage had been failing.
She knew I was working constantly.
She knew we had been fighting over money and my obsession with keeping the company alive.
But she wanted me to know.
She wanted us to talk.
At the bottom:
Whatever happens between us, this child deserves both of us. Call me. Please.
There was a phone number.
An address.
A date.
I looked at my mother.
“You got this?”
She nodded.
“And you never gave it to me?”
“I thought—”
“You thought?”
My voice rose loud enough that people near the restaurant entrance began looking over.
“I spent seven years believing Emma walked out because she hated me.”
Emma laughed bitterly.
“I spent seven years believing you knew about Oliver and wanted nothing to do with him.”
I looked at her.
“Why didn’t you call?”
“I did.”
My anger stopped.
“What?”
“At first. Dozens of times.”
“I never got them.”
“Your number changed.”
My mother whispered, “I changed the family plan.”
Emma continued.
“I emailed your company account.”
“We lost that server when we changed providers.”
“I came to your office.”
My mother looked down.
Emma stared at her.
“She met me in the lobby.”
My blood turned cold.
Margaret whispered, “Nathan was barely holding his company together.”
Emma’s voice became hard.
“And that gave you the right to tell me he had instructed security never to let me upstairs?”
I stared at my mother.
“You did that?”
“I knew you.”
“No. You controlled me.”
“I saved your future.”
“You stole my child’s childhood.”
That finally silenced her.
Oliver began crying quietly.
Not loudly.
That somehow made it worse.
Emma put her arm around him.
“We’re leaving.”
“No.”
The word came out too quickly.
She stiffened.
I lowered my voice.
“Please. I’m not ordering you. I’m asking.”
I looked at Oliver.
“I just found out I have a son.”
Emma’s expression softened for one second before becoming guarded again.
“And he just found out his father might not have abandoned him.”
That word cut deeply.
“Might?”
“I have one forged letter and your surprise. I need time.”
“I’ll take a DNA test.”
Oliver looked at his mother.
“What’s a DNA test?”
Emma rubbed his shoulder.
“A science test.”
“To see if he’s my dad?”
The innocence of the question made every adult freeze.
Emma nodded.
“Yes.”
Oliver considered that.
Then looked at me.
“I think you are.”
My throat tightened.
“Why?”
He pointed toward my left hand.
I looked down.
“You bend your thumb like me.”
I almost laughed.
Instead I nearly cried.
My mother tried to step closer.
“Oliver…”
Emma moved instantly between them.
“No.”
Margaret stopped.
The look on Emma’s face made her seem capable of physically blocking a freight train.
“You do not speak to him.”
“Emma, I’m his grandmother.”
“You gave up the right to introduce yourself that way when you decided his father’s career mattered more than his existence.”
Margaret’s face crumpled.
For the first time in my life, I saw my mother without an argument prepared.
Emma looked at me.
“If you want the DNA test, I’ll agree.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
“And after that?”
“After that, we talk.”
I nodded.
Then something occurred to me.
“Why were you here?”
Emma hesitated.
“We live three blocks away.”
I stared at her.
“In Chicago?”
“For six months.”
“You came back?”
“I got a nursing position at Northwestern Memorial.”
Six months.
My son had been living three blocks from where I held half my client dinners.
The universe had almost let us pass forever like strangers.
Oliver tugged on Emma’s sleeve.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Can I show him?”
Emma looked confused.
“Show me what?”
Oliver opened his backpack.
He pulled out a battered blue notebook.
Emma suddenly looked alarmed.
“Oliver—”
But he had already opened it.
The first page contained childish drawings of planets and rockets.
Then he turned to a page filled with handwritten song lyrics.
My lyrics.
Not only the four lines he had sung.
The entire unfinished song.
Including the second verse.
The second verse I had never even sung for Emma.
I stared at the page.
My heart stopped.
“Where did you get this?”
Oliver smiled proudly.
“Grandma gave it to me.”
Nobody moved.
Emma looked at him.
“What?”
Oliver’s smile faded.
“The grandma lady.”
I slowly turned toward my mother.
Margaret looked as if the sidewalk had opened beneath her.
Emma’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“You’ve met him?”
I stared at Margaret.
She had claimed she was protecting me.
She had claimed she sacrificed one relationship for my future.
But now my seven-year-old son was holding lyrics that had been locked for years in a box inside my mother’s house.
Which meant she had not merely known Oliver existed.
She had seen him.
May you like
Behind my back.
And apparently, this was not the first secret she had buried.
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