“It’s obviously important. It’s not hard to guess he just needs to know you two are serious before he tells you,” she’d opined.
“But we are serious.”
“Have you told him you love him?”
“No.”
“Then how does he know how serious you are?”
I wondered now, after he had said, “I love you,” if there hadn’t been some truth in what Joss said. We had grown much closer over the last two weeks. Perhaps Joss was right. Maybe he had just needed to know I was serious about him.
In an attempt to take my mind off it until he returned to finally clear up the whole mystery, I decided to do some housework, starting with my bedroom.
I’d barely begun when my phone went off. Assuming it was the text message from Marco, I was more than a little surprised to see Suzanne’s name on the screen. I swiped it, opening her message.
Don’t shoot the messenger. I was at the German Market last weekend and saw this. I thought it through and finally decided you needed to see it.
My heart now flipped in a much less pleasant way as I clicked on the photo attachment to enlarge it – and felt the world narrow around me.
The photo captured Marco by one of the market stalls. He was carrying a little boy and smiling at a pretty brunette who was laughing up into his face.
The little boy… he had Marco’s coloring… Marco’s smile…
The phone slipped from my hand and I felt my knees wobble.
Suddenly I was on the carpet, attempting not to throw up at the implications of the photograph. My heart was racing too hard. I couldn’t breathe properly.
I willed myself to calm down, exhaling and inhaling in measured breaths until my heart rate slowed.
Trembling, I reached for my phone and flicked open the picture again.
Suddenly everything began to make sense and I knew, I just knew, what Marco was returning home to tell me. I forwarded the picture to him so he’d know I knew too.
Suzanne just texted this to me.
It felt like forever as I waited on the floor for an answer, but it was only a minute or two at most before my phone rang. I clicked the ANSWER button.
“Hannah” – Marco sounded out of breath – “I can explain. I’ll be ten minutes.”
“Marco —”
I heard the click as he hung up.
This was bad. This was… I knew it. I was right. If it were anything else he would have explained over the phone. I knew what he’d say when he walked through that door.
Just like that, the past blindsided me, taunting me for my earlier smugness.
Not wanting him to find me on the bedroom floor, pale with shock, I got to my feet and walked into the sitting room. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was a jittery mess.
The buzzer went off.
In a daze, I let Marco into the building, opened my door for him, and returned to the sitting room. I frowned at the mess I was supposed to be tidying up. I had books scattered all over the flat because I was reorganizing them into the bookshelves Marco had built for me.
“Hannah.”
I whirled around to face Marco as he strode into the room, his eyes glittering, his face flushed. He was coming straight for me. “Don’t.” I held up my hands to stop him. He froze. “Explain first.”
I watched the muscle tick in his jaw. “I was going to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
He cursed under his breath, rubbing a hand over his close-cropped hair. “That I have a son.”
The words hung heavy in the cold air. I closed my eyes against the truth.
“His name is Dylan. The woman in the picture is Leah, his mom. I was at the market with them last weekend along with Leah’s fiancé.”
Breathe, Hannah.
“You have a son?” I opened my eyes, sure the pain of that truth was blazing clear for him to see. “That’s what today’s talk was supposed to be about?”
Marco’s features were strained as he nodded. “He’s three.”
I did the calculations in my head and they took my breath away. “When you…” I was starting to shake. “When you came back to Scotland you… you knocked someone up?”
He took a placating step toward me, as though I were a wounded, abandoned dog, unpredictable but needing comfort. “Hannah, Leah and I were friends at school. Sort of. We hung around with the same people. I was back in Edinburgh a couple of months and I was still trying to sort my head out about Nonno, everything, and a friend invited me to a party. I thought loosening up might help. I got really drunk. Leah was there and she was wasted too. We hooked up.” He said it gruffly, like he felt guilty about it. “She got pregnant. We didn’t want to be together, but I’d never leave my kid the way I was left.”
He was saying it all. Explaining the situation. I heard it. I know I did. But the past was so much louder than his explanation.
“I get Dylan every other weekend and we alternate holidays, but his mom, me, and her fiancé, Graham, are pretty tight. We have a good relationship, which is great for Dyl. And Dyl…” Despite my distraction I saw a happiness in his eyes I’d never seen before. “Hannah, he saved me. You want to know why I got over all the shit my grandfather dealt me? Dylan. Everything changed when he came along. I have someone who needs me to have faith in myself so that he can grow up and have faith in himself. But also I need to have faith in myself so that he has faith in me that I’ll always be there for him.” He gave me that half smile of his I loved. “Kid thinks I’m a goddamn superhero… but he’s the one that saved me. He’s the reason I wanted another chance with you. He made me feel like maybe I could deserve you.”
I knew that was a good thing. I knew that.
But that feeling of happiness for him, that relief for him I knew was in me somewhere, was buried under a mountain of irrational fury.
“Hannah, baby, please say something. I’m sorry I kept this under wraps, but I wanted to give us a chance first. I thought if I told you right away it would scare you off, and I needed the chance to remind you how right we are for each other. I knew after last weekend that you and I are solid, so I was going to tell you today and then introduce you to Dylan next weekend. Leah already knows about you, but I needed to be sure about us before Dylan meets you. I’m sure, babe. You know that. But I had to be sure that you loved me back, that this was serious, and that we definitely have a future.”
It was the most he had said in one breath since the first night he’d come to my flat.
I stared at him, keeping my silence while I tried to keep a lid on my emotions. Something like panic flickered in his eyes. Beautiful eyes. Eyes I loved.
Eyes I wanted – no, needed – gone.
I searched for a semblance of numbness to get me through the next five minutes.
“Hannah —”
“I don’t want kids,” I said dully, holding on to the numb sensation.
Marco blinked in confusion. “What?”
I took a step toward him, trying to herd him out of my home. “I don’t want kids. Ever.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re a schoolteacher.”
“So?” I shrugged, my expression carefully blank. “I don’t want kids. Mine or anyone else’s.”
“Hannah, just take a minute. We need to talk about this. This is us.”
Looking him directly in the eye, I replied with calm and authority, “As of right now there is no us.” The calm slipped somewhat. “You should have told me you had a son.”
Suddenly my upper arms were gripped in his hands, his body brushing mine, his face close. “Why are you acting like this? This isn’t you.” He gave me a little shake, as if trying to loosen me up, get back to something that made sense.