My Wife's Secret Son Isn't Mine novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Story Lydia Told

Lydia says she gave a baby up before they met, but the school portal on her laptop lists Archie with her as a secondary contact.

Lydia came out of the bathroom with her hair wrapped in a towel and her face scrubbed pink.

She sat down on the far end of the bed.

I had put my phone in my pocket.

I did not mention the text.

"Tell me about the son," I said.

She nodded.

"Before I met you, I was twenty-six and married to a man I didn't love anymore."

"You told me that part."

"I got pregnant, Cal."

The room went very still.

"I hid it from everyone until I couldn't. I had the baby alone, at a hospital two counties over."

She was looking at her knees.

"I gave him up the same week."

"You never told me."

"I was ashamed. And then you were so happy that I didn't want children, and it was easier to let you be happy."

I tried to find some kind of anger in myself and found only a numbness.

"I'd have married you anyway," I said. "I did marry you anyway."

"I know."

She started crying then, quietly, with her hand over her mouth.

I should have gone to her, and I did.

I put my arm around her and she folded into my chest.

She smelled like the lavender soap she has used since the day we met.

"The tuition," I said into her hair.

"A lawyer handled the adoption. He sends me one invoice a year for the boy's school, and I pay it."

"The family knows you pay?"

"No. It's all anonymous. They never learn who I am, and I never learn who they are."

"Then why the note?"

She sniffed.

"Because every year I stare at that little box and I can't type anything else. It's the only place I ever get to call him mine."

It was a lovely answer.

It was the kind of answer that makes a man feel like a monster for doubting it.

"And the wrong name?"

"I have two Penroses saved in the app. Yours and..."

She stopped.

"And what?" I said.

"And a cousin of yours, from the church fund. I tapped the wrong one. I was crying when I did it."

I did not have a cousin in the church fund.

I had a cousin in Cincinnati, whom I had last seen at my father's funeral.

I let it go.

"Please don't tell anyone," she whispered.

"Not your mother, not Dane and Willa."

"Willa would hug me and cry, and then the whole family would know."

"I won't tell anyone yet."

I felt her shoulders loosen.

"Thank you," she said. "I love you. You know I do."

I kissed her forehead.

It felt like kissing a stranger who happened to look like my wife.

An hour later she was asleep with the towel still on her head, and I was lying beside her with my eyes open.

I kept hearing Archie.

Aunt Lyd, is that my school money?

A six-year-old didn't pull a sentence out of the air.

And my brother had gone to wash his hands before anyone asked him to.

I kept thinking, too, of Willa's cold fingers on my arm.

Oh honey, send it back.

She had been so kind about it.

I didn't know why that bothered me more than anything else, and I was too tired to ask myself.

At two in the morning I went down to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Lydia's work laptop was open on the table.

She must have been using it before dinner and left it, because the screen woke up when I walked past.

It was a school website, in a red and white theme.

ALDER HILL ACADEMY, PARENT PORTAL.

Under it was a student card with a small photo.

A boy with dark hair that stuck up at the crown.

I knew that cowlick.

I had seen it asleep on my mother's couch every Sunday for six years.

Beside the photo, in tidy type, it said, "Archie Penrose. Grade 1."

Below that, "Primary contact: Willa Penrose. Secondary contact: Lydia Overholt."

I stood in the dark kitchen with the glass of water in my hand.

An anonymous family, she had said.

She never learns who they are.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend