The question I’ve been expecting. The one I don’t have a good answer for.
“I didn’t know you existed. Your mam didn’t tell me.”
“Why not?”
“That’s complicated.”
“Mam says you would have wanted us if you knew.”
My throat tightens. “She’s right. I would have.”
“But you didn’t know.”
“No.”
“And now you do.”
“Now I do.”
He nods slowly, processing this with the seriousness only small children can manage. Then he goes back to the model as if the conversation never happened.
But it sits in my chest, heavy and aching. I would have wanted them. If anyone had told me Aurelia was pregnant, if I’d known those boys in Ballycotton were mine, everything would have been different.
But nobody told me.
She kept them hidden from me.
I watch her across the room, and the mix of emotions is dizzying. Want, resentment, and admiration all tangled together. She raised good kids. Patient, curious, kind kids who ask questions and build things carefully and hug their father even though they barely know him.
She did that.
Without me.
Finn mentions Ireland again while we’re attaching the wheels.
“I miss the beach,” he says. “And the harbor where the boats are.”
“Ballycotton?”
“Yeah. Do you know it?”
“I do. My mother lives there.”
Both boys look up.
“We have a grandmother?” Liam asks.
“You do.”
“Does she know about us?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because I only just found out about you. But I’ll tell her soon. And maybe someday you can meet her.”
I can see it already. Taking them to the village. Showing them the cottage where I grew up. Letting them play on the same beach I played on as a kid. My mother would love them. Would spoil them with sweets and stories about their grandfather.
