“I don’t have a daddy. Mommy says so.”
Owen still didn’t falter. He gazed at Ben’s face with a loving expression of reassurance. “Just this once your mom made a mistake. I am your dad, and I always will be.”
“But I’m a big boy now. I didn’t see you when I was a baby.”
Lilah’s eyes burned as her son seemed to panic. She reached for his hand, trying to make it seem as if this situation only rated a little bit of comfort, and she wasn’t scared. She couldn’t help feeling guilty.
She’d love to believe she hadn’t set up this well of pain for her child the moment Owen walked away from rehab.
“Where’s he been, Mommy?”
“Owen’s been at his house. He didn’t know about you.”
“If I had known, I would have been with you,” Owen said, and Lilah’s guilt increased.
She hadn’t been wrong. She refused to consider the possibility. Owen reached for Ben’s hand, but Ben pulled away from both of them. He threaded his fingers together in his lap, looking down.
“We had a nice time today, didn’t we?” Owen asked.
Ben nodded, looking up with suspicion in the ice-blue eyes he’d inherited from his father. Owen had told her once that his father and all his siblings shared the same color.
“Well, we’ll get to have fun together from now on. We’ll have good times and bad times, but we’ll learn more about each other with every day that passes, and I can’t wait, Ben.”
“Do I have to call you Daddy?”
Lilah bit her lower lip and leaned forward. Trying to save her son, she’d given him grief and confusion. And she still didn’t know if Owen was capable of being a good father to Ben. “I thought you wanted a daddy like your friends,” she said.
“How do I know he’s my daddy?”
“I can help you with that.” Owen pulled two small photos out of his shirt pocket, along with the gift tag her parents’ assistant had draped around the neck of every wine bottle he’d sent to the gallery’s artists. Owen set down the tag, folded to display only Ben’s photo. Beside it, he lined up two pictures of himself, one at a beach, holding up a bright yellow bucket, the other of him perched on a dirty white picket fence, his face more solemn. “Daddies and sons sometimes look alike,” Owen said. “Those two pictures are me when I was your age, and you and I look almost exactly the same.”
Ben looked even more confused. He turned toward Lilah. “I don’t get it, Mommy.”
“You know when people say I look like my mother?”
“Yeah.”
“Owen is saying you look like him, and you really do.”
“But I don’t want to call him Daddy. I’ll call him his name. Own.”
“Sounds perfect,” Owen said, sounding relieved. He must have thought Ben didn’t want a dad, or if he did, he didn’t want this stranger who’d shown up on his doorstep.
“We’re going to Tennessee,” Lilah said, startling herself, as well as Owen and Ben.
“That place where Own lives?”
She nodded. “He wants you to meet his family because they’re also your family. I want to go with you because I’ll miss you too much if you go on your own.”
Water bubbled over the pasta saucepan to sizzle on the stovetop. Lilah sprang to her feet. “I may have to start this over.”
“It’ll be fine.” Owen appeared beside her. “Looks good.”
She had a feeling he was thanking her for making this sojourn in Tennessee look like her idea. She didn’t want his thanks. She looped a piece of pasta on a fork and tasted. “It is good. Ready, Ben?”
“I’m done with my salad.”
Owen collected the salad plates from the table and took them to the sink. He picked up the top plate on a stack of three for the pasta. His frozen gaze had melted a little when he looked into hers.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Fighting you is pointless.” She couldn’t pretend she’d been wrong, and if she let him see she had any awareness she’d cheated him of these years with Ben, he’d grab back all the time he could. “We’re not moving to Tennessee.”
Owen glanced at Ben, but answered with a smile. “We’ll work out a custody schedule. I don’t mind flying to pick him up and bring him back.”
She resented him all over again for acting as if he were being perfectly amenable. “You are not human.”
He laughed, but the sound lifted all the hairs on her arms, while Ben watched them, his mouth open.
“You might have a point,” Owen said in a tone only she could hear. “And I still can’t believe you took Ben from me. But I’m going to make sure I make things different for him.”
“I DON’T WANT you to go, Own.” In the bright sunlight flooding into Lilah’s living room, Ben clung to Owen with all his might, legs and arms wrapped around his newfound father.
“I don’t want to leave either,” Owen said in a voice gone thready with emotion. His face was taut with sadness, his eyes closed as if he wanted to keep Lilah out of his private suffering.
He was probably right. She didn’t trust this instant love he seemed to feel for Ben, and he blamed her for the years he’d lost with his son. It didn’t matter that she’d believed she was making the best choice for Ben.
“Come on, buddy.” She tried to peel Ben away, but both males locked their arms around each other. Despite herself, her throat tightened.
She’d never wanted to hurt either of them. That hadn’t been her goal.
Finally, Owen eased Ben to the ground. “You know what?” He straightened, blinking as hard as his son. “It’ll only be a few days. Seven, before I come back to get you. And then we’ll have lots of time together, and you’ll meet your uncles and aunt and your grandma. They’ll be so glad to see you.”
“And the goats?” Ben asked. “You said the goats are nice?”
“The goats will be your best friends.”
“Okay.” Ben slapped his forehead with sweet, little boy exaggeration. “Wait, Own. I forgot something.”
Without further explanation, he bolted toward the stairs. Owen looked at Lilah.
“I’m mystified,” she said.
He took a quick glance at his watch. “I hate to leave, but I have to make the flight.”
“You know, I could bring him, myself. There’s no need for you to come back.”
“I want Ben to know he matters to me.”
“I think he’ll realize that anyway.”
“He’ll remember how he learned about me and the rest of his family all his life. I want him to know I’ll always take the extra step for him.”
Unspoken was his accusation that she’d made those extra steps necessary. Lilah swallowed, pretending she didn’t feel the slightest guilt.
Ben skidded into the room, brandishing a piece of white drawing paper. He held it up for Owen. “This is me and you, duck bowling.”
Two happy stick figures in clothing were flinging balls at objects