Josh leaned on his elbows and made eye contact with each one of them. “Mom, Dad, everyone... I have a son.”
Dad’s fork paused midair. Mom’s mouth dropped open. Erin blinked. Patrick frowned in thought.
“Whoa, dude,” Owen said.
Dad lowered his fork. “That’s... that’s not possible. Is it?”
“Honey... how can that be?”
“I know it’s a lot to take in. Let me explain. I’ll start at the beginning.” He told them about the mystery man Maggie spotted at the carnival. “He was the spitting image of Ethan. I’ll show you.” He pulled up the photo Maggie had taken of Will and showed it to them. Mom gasped. Erin covered her mouth.
“The resemblance is uncanny,” Dad said.
Josh took them through the ups and downs he and Maggie had experienced as they tried to figure out who Ethan’s doppelganger actually was.
When he got to the part where they visited Ethan’s friend in Rock Hill, his mom’s eyes turned glassy. “You actually thought Ethan might still be alive? And you didn’t tell us?”
“We just had to rule it out, and we didn’t want to put you guys through that.”
He told them about finally finding Will working at the carnival and about adding him to his crew. Told them about the DNA test he’d taken weeks ago. Along the way they stopped him for questions.
“This was going on all summer?” Erin said. “I could’ve helped you guys.”
“We didn’t want to get your hopes up. It was hard enough having our own hopes up.” He turned to his parents. “And we didn’t want to ruin your big trip. We knew you’d fly home.”
“Who did you think he was, once you knew he wasn’t Ethan?” Mom asked.
Dad gave Josh a knowing look. But there was no reason to go into that part of it. “We thought he must be Ethan’s. Given Will’s age, he would’ve conceived him when he was away for his first year of college.”
“Ethan was with Maggie then,” Mom said. “He never would’ve cheated on her. He loved her to pieces.”
Josh shrugged. “We just didn’t know what else to believe.”
“This doesn’t explain how he’s your son,” Dad said.
“I’m getting to that. So yesterday I got a call from Will’s mom, asking if I could come over and talk. Maggie was there. She told us that Will was conceived through artificial insemination and later found out the cryobank had accidentally switched up the sperm samples.”
Mom gaped. “Yours?”
“Mine.”
“What’s sperm, Mommy?”
All eyes darted to Mia.
Erin cleared her throat. “Um, that’s a good question, sweetheart. We’ll talk about it later.” She shifted her attention to her son. “Owen, can you take your sister inside, please?”
“Oh, man.”
“Now, please.”
He got up. “Come on, Mia. We’re going inside.”
“I’m not finished eating.”
“We’re gonna have a great big piece of apple pie—with all the ice cream you want.”
“Yippee!”
