The following afternoon the house was nicely decorated for Drake’s party. Well, it wasn’t much of a party. A few days prior I had tried to convince my parents to come out, but my mother refused to as long as Ben was still in my house. And as it turned out, he wasn’t.

Ben had called just after ten on his cell phone saying he wouldn’t be able to make it home in time. I couldn’t see what could be more important than your own son’s birthday. It wasn’t like he was working or anything of that sort. I was half tempted to call Aidan over to celebrate with us, but I knew that was just asking for trouble.

Drake mauled his cake as expected, and it wouldn’t be complete without mashing it into his adorable little blonde curls. He wasn’t too happy about getting a bath soon after, but he dealt with it.






Despite his father not being there, Drake and I still had fun by ourselves playing with his new toys and being silly. He was a smart little buggar though; he mastered his puzzles pretty early on.

By the time Ben made it home from wherever it was he had gone Drake was already napping in his room. He hadn’t apologized for missing the party nor did he go in the nursery to look in on Drake. He simply went into the bedroom and sat at the computer.

I had to wonder how he was when I was gone to work, and the two of them were alone. Obviously I’d never come home to find any broken bones, but did he give our son all the love and attention he needed? What if we divorced and Drake was more or less ignored while with his father? Well then again, he wouldn’t see him as often so it might not be that way.

“Ben?” I asked, stepping into the bedroom. He typed away on the keyboard, his eyes forward at the screen. “Can I talk to you?”

“I hope so, you’re my wife after all.”

Well now, he actually remembers.


“I wish you could have been here for Drake today,” I began, crossing the room and standing behind the chair he was seated in. “He only turns one once.”

Ben sighed and continued to type.

“His birthday doesn’t stop after the party,” he replied dryly. “It’s not like he knows the difference anyway.”


“I do. And it bothers me that you skipped it because you felt something was more important than your son.”


“Yeah,” he breathed, moving the mouse over the pad and double clicking. “And it bothers me that you’re a fucking nag. Leave me alone, woman.”

With a low grumble, I turned and stomped out of the room slamming the door behind me.

“Hey, you’re going to wake him up!”

“Like you give a shit!” I screamed back, kicking the door with my heel.

I wanted to pick up Drake and disappear, to leave everything behind in the dust. Forget my house; forget the photos on the wall, and the knick-knacks on the shelves. I didn’t care about any of that! Any good memories had been replaced by ugly, dark ones that started the moment I married that asshole. I just wanted my son and my man, and to live the way I had always wanted!

But I would just have to calm down for the moment. I wasn’t going to leave; not yet.

Finally the day had come.


Aidan sat quietly on a wooden bench below a large tree, looking up and down the road for a sign of her jeep. Since he’d gotten up that morning all he could do was think about her, and how hard it would be to see her with Drake in her arms.

It had been weighing on his mind tremendously since she’d stopped by a few days before.

Drake was her child, and not his. He was sure he’d come to love him as his own in time, and he would do anything to keep them both happy. But how could he forget what had happened? It was a very big deal, what they’d been through. Such valuable time had passed, time they could never get back. And perhaps in a way it could be like starting over with this boy, but it wasn’t quite the same. Was he even really ready for this? Maybe not enough time had passed to allow him to heal. But then, would he ever really?


A silver glimmer caught his eye, a flash of her blonde hair in the wind as she stepped out and reached for the boy in the back. In an instant his nerves pulsed quicker within his body. Taking a deep breath he rose from the bench and waved, flashing a nervous smile.


“Hey,” she half-sang, hugging him with one arm as Drake chirped on her hip. He watched Aidan with curious eyes and extended his wet fingers to touch the fibers of his shirt. “I’m so glad you agreed to do this, you have no idea how happy it makes me.”

Aidan could only smile, casting nervous eyes at the little boy wiggling on her side. He couldn’t see much of her within him, except the eyes. They were the exact same bright shade. It almost made him familiar.

“How did the party go?” he asked suddenly, turning his eyes on her once more. How relieved he was to think of a subject to force away the uncomfortable silence.


Aimee smirked and hefted the boy higher onto her small hips, leading them further into the wooded park. He could tell it hadn’t gone well. He almost wished he hadn’t asked.

“What party?” she groaned. “Ben didn’t even come home until like six hours later. And then he yelled at me when I said I wished he could have been there.”
“You can’t be serious,” he offered. He knew she was, and he wasn’t at all surprised.

“I don’t know what can be more important than his son, but whatever he was doing kept him away for a while,” she continued, lowering Drake to the smooth grass and setting down the basket. He helped her straighten out the blanket in the shade and sat down.

“Then he had the nerve to say I was a nag and to leave him alone. He called me woman.”

“Asshole.”

“Oh I can think of better words to describe him,” she sneered, putting toys out for Drake. “But anyway, let’s not talk about him anymore. I want to have a nice day with my favorite boys.”


He allowed his eyes to settle on the boy with his colorful blocks of plastic. Chewing madly on them, they began to gleam under the shifting rays of sunlight through the trees. Aside from the fact that it wasn’t a terribly attractive thing to witness, Aidan felt a warmth building in his chest.

So maybe he wasn’t his kid, but one day he’d make a better father to him than the one he was born to. He couldn’t see himself blowing off a birthday party, especially one as special as the first. He wouldn’t quit his job insisting it was to make her feel better about leaving him every day. He also didn’t think it was possible not to love Drake’s mother or to scream at her for no reason at all. He was capable of loving.

He could do this. No matter what emotional baggage he carried along with him. Together they’d get through all the pain from the past, and build a bright new future.


“You know, I used to dream about this,” she started, the words falling softly away from her lips. “Spending a beautiful day at the park doing absolutely nothing, with you and –her.”

Aidan’s eyes quickly shifted from Drake to her, studying her unmoving form. She was not crying, but he couldn’t bear the sad smile that rested on her lips. At her stomach, folds of her top twisted between her fingertips. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her forehead and tell her everything would be alright. He’d done it before and he had believed things would change, but she’d run away. Instead, things had gotten worse.

Aimee sighed and lay down on the blanket, staring up the through the leafy greens at the sky. Her arm propped under her head, she closed her eyes.


“Do you think she’s happy where she is?” she asked, barely above a whisper. “I hope they love her as much I would have –how much I do. I hope they tell her every day so she doesn’t have to go through life without it.”

“She had the face of an angel; how could they not?” he whispered, his eyes low. He struggled to blink away the memories, the vision of his own eyes on another little human being. He sighed and let his eyes fall on Aimee.


He hated that she didn’t have a name. His own damn flesh and blood was gone and wasn’t even granted an identity. All he had was a few short memories of her, just small things he remembered here and there. Her birth had scared the hell out of him.


He remembered Aimee’s troubled screams from the dining room, the fear in her eyes as she clamped her hands around his with each passing contraction. She had whimpered at their end, looking nervously from him to her father. Things had only gotten worse, he remembered. The horrible sounds that came out of her mouth as she delivered had shaken him so badly he passed out. When he came to minutes later, he had a moment to look over the little girl before she was snatched away. Their lives had snowballed from there.

That night he vowed to himself he’d never have sex again until they were married, and then they would look for her together. He’d never gotten the chance, however, and he had broken the vow the night he’d run into her at the club. None of it really mattered now though, he figured. She was going to leave Ben anyway, and soon they could have everything they’d ever wanted.


Or at least, that was what he hoped.

Drake and I returned home later than expected that night, having followed Aidan to his place and staying there for a little while. I was a little nervous about his safety as the kitchen opened up to the backyard pool, and there were steep open stairs that he could climb on. Let us also not forget the various expensive décor scattered around the house. Thankfully he was fairly well behaved.

Passing through the dark living room and into the nursery, I helped Drake into his pajamas and tucked him into bed. He was very happy to have a big boy bed now, though I knew before too long he’d be climbing out of it and getting himself into trouble.


Kissing Drake goodnight, I turned off the light and ventured out into the dark of the living room and into the bedroom. I stopped dead on my feet as soon as the door closed behind me. I couldn’t believe it! I had never expected such a thing.

“What the fuck!?”

Continue to 1.26