Page 53 of Cockpit
No fucking way.
“You know that isn’t true.” I will repeat the lie as long as I can to make my son feel better about himself. It won’t work much longer, and every time I mutter it, I feel like more and more of a complete asshole.
“Did you know the day you were born was the best day of my life?” I murmur into the crown of his head as he hiccups with sobs. “Your mom was eating a piece of chocolate cake, and all of a sudden, you let her know you were ready to meet us.”
“But she finished eating her cake first.” His voice is muffled, but he’s calmed some.
This is our routine. A set of memories to let him know he came into this world being loved. With parents who wanted him.
“Yes. She loved chocolate cake.”
“Just like I do.”
“Mm-hmm.” I think back to the panic. The excitement. The wonder of that day. “We ran around excited, getting everything together and getting to the hospital. Then, a few hours later, you were crying so loud when they put you in your momma’s arms.”
“And you were crying, too.”
“I was.” Looking back, I can see the panic on her face and the uncertainty that I thought was a normal thing because I felt it, too. We were responsible for this perfect little human. We were his smiles, his reassurance, his everything. How was I to know that look was a sign of what was to come? “And even though we’d only officially met you a whole five minutes before, we both knew we’d never loved anything as much as we loved you.”
Silence lingers as the story I’ve told countless times replays in both of our minds in completely different ways.
“If she loved me, why did she leave?” His whisper wavers.
“She still loves you, Luke. She loves you with all her heart, but sometimes, people are afraid they aren’t going to be enough for their child. They think that being around will hurt their kid more than help them.”
“If she loved me, she’d know that leaving was going to hurt me more than her being here.”
I sigh, knowing his words are true but needing to reinforce the narrative I’ve created over the years so he doesn’t feel unworthy.
“I know, but as a parent, you have to make hard decisions. Decisions that feel wrong but are for the right reason. That’s why she sends you birthday presents. She wants you to know she’s thinking of you and loves you. She wants to make sure you know how much you mean to her.”
I can’t look him in the eyes when he looks up. He’ll see the lie there. He’ll know it’s me sending him the gifts. That it’s me making him feel like a normal little boy with a mom who loves him instead of one who abandoned him because God for-fucking-bid the precious Hoskins’ bloodline be tainted by a blue-collar worker like me. It’s me working my ass off to sell the lie because telling him his mother was more worried about her inheritance and taking her parents’ yacht to Cannes than being a mom.
We shift some so that he sits cradled in my lap and his head rests against my chest. His breath still hitches, but I can tell the tears are done for now.
“Who was the woman in the photo?” he asks, circling back to the newspaper article.
“Just a friend.” I don’t tell him it’s Sidney. He’s met her. He’s asked about her. Telling him who it was will only make him more curious when there is nothing there for him to be curious about.
“Why were you kissing her?”
“It was her way of thanking me for something. In other countries, that’s how you do it.” And the award for Liar of the Year goes to Grayson Malone. “You kiss both sides of their cheeks.”
“Oh.” His voice falls. “It was just the cheek? He didn’t say that.”
“Yes, just her cheek.” I’m going to hell. Plain and simple. Especially when I’ve thought about that kiss more than I should have.
“So, she isn’t going to be my new mom?”
I chuckle to try to add some levity. “No, buddy. We’ve been over this before. A kiss doesn’t mean someone marries someone. It doesn’t even mean they love someone—I mean it does—but . . . just hear me out.” I fumble, my own head fucked-up over seeing the pain in his eyes. “Sometimes people like each other and they are lonely and need a friend. They go on dates to do things together.”
“They kiss.”
“Yes, they sometimes kiss. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to get married. Marriage is something you go into knowing you want to spend the rest of your life with that person. It isn’t something you do after a date or two.”
“Is that why you and mom weren’t married? Did you know she wasn’t going to be here forever?”
Of course, from all I said, he picked up on that. “Mom and I weren’t married because of other reasons.”
