As she drifts off to the kitchen, my attention turns to the twins. Mathilda is on her playmat, Ross beside her toying with a small cuddly animal. They both glance up at me as I draw a little closer, and I can’t keep the grin from my face. No matter how complicated things have gotten, my adoration for them has stayed the same, and nothing will ever change that.
“Hey, you two,” I murmur, reaching out to see the toy Ross is holding. “What are you up to, eh…?”
I kneel on the floor beside them as Lila lays out the food for us, and when she emerges from the kitchen, she laughs.
“You should add babysitter to your resume,” she remarks. “The way they light up around you, it’s crazy.”
“I don’t think I’m allowed to call myself that when I’m their father,” I reply, straightening up and taking a plate from her. “But I’ll think about it. Could be a good side hustle when I get tired of the medical stuff, huh?”
She sinks into the couch, grinning, as the twins go back to entertaining themselves. Mathilda reaches over for the toy Ross has, and he holds it out to her, letting her get a better look at it.
“He’s already got such good manners,” I remark as I start in on the pizza I picked up from Morton’s.
“Yeah, he’s a little gentleman,” she agrees with a fond smile. “Not sure I can say the same about Matty, though…”
I laugh. “Why not? She got more of an attitude?”
“She’s definitely the one who calls the shots,” she replies with a nod. “I mean, I know they’re barely old enough to hold their heads up yet, but you know….you get a feel for these things early on, right?”
“Right,” I reply, and all at once, my stomach sinks slightly. If these two were the only children I had out there, I might feel good about that statement, but I know it’s far from the truth. And with the enormous weight of everything that has happened recently resting on my shoulders, I know we have to talk about it.
I can feel her watching me, no doubt sensing that my mind is somewhere else. She hesitates for a moment, but then, finally, she broaches the topic.
“Speaking of children,” she adds. “I…the police filled me in on a lot of the stuff you and Martha gave to them the other day.”
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I even did it, to be honest. Martha was crying the whole time we were handing over evidence, but she didn’t let it stop her. In some ways, I wish I could have expressed my emotions that easily, but the protestant Irish in me kept it all under wraps.
Now, as I sit before Lila, I know I have to put it all out there, no matter how hard it is, no matter how much it might hurt. I draw in a deep breath and nod.
“Yeah, I didn’t know they were going to reach out to you about it,” I admit. “If I had, I would have let you know what we were planning in advance, but…”
“It’s okay,” she murmurs. “I’d glad I found out the way I did. Knowing that you and your ex had done that, it was like…it was easier for me to be honest about what he did to me.”
I wince. I’m still getting used to that part of it, the knowledge that my son hurt her so deeply.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, though it doesn’t feel like even close to enough to make up for the harm that he caused her. “I should have done it a long time ago, going to the cops about what he was doing. Martha, my ex, she’s a good woman and all she wanted to do was protect him, so whenever it came up that he’d been involved in something heavy, she just found some way to make it vanish. Nobody wanted to go against her or her social standing, and all the cases against him just…disappeared.”
“What changed her mind?” she asks curiously.
I look at her for a long moment, the twins playing in the corner of my vision.
“You did. You, and the twins.”
Her eyes widen. “You told her about us?”
“Part of it,” I reply. “I told her that he hurt you. That he kept you locked away from the world all that time, and that you were a mother now and he still wasn’t giving you or the children a break.”
She softens slightly. I guess she understands where Martha is coming from with all of this. At least, to some extent. I can understand a lot about parenthood, but there are aspects of being a mother that I’ll never be able to make sense of, and I’m all too aware of it.
“And that’s what changed her mind?”
I nod. “It wasn’t easy for her, but she did it,” I continue. “I don’t know if she’s sure about it even now, but I think she can tell that she can’t let things go on like this. He’s not our little boyanymore, some innocent who just let his temper get the better of him. He hurt you, and God knows what he would have gone on to do if he’d had the chance. It was the only thing we could do, at the end of the day.”
“You have no idea how grateful I am for that,” she tells me, her voice dropping to almost a whisper. “And Martha too—I can’t even imagine how hard that was for her.” She looks away for a moment, and I notice the tears glistening in her eyes.
I reach over to touch her knee, concerned. “Hey, are you alright?”
She nods at once. “More than alright,” she replies, managing a smile as she wipes away the tear that has escaped the corner of her eye. “It’s just…overwhelming. Knowing that all of this is coming to an end. And knowing that…”
