Five Years a Fool, A Lifetime Apart novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Birthday Gift
At Lorna's sixtieth birthday dinner Camille announces a five-year-old son with the man from their bed, and Dexter walks in with the boy; the divorce papers waive Caleb's rights to his own unborn baby.
At her mother's sixtieth birthday dinner, my wife straightened my tie, kissed my cheek, then put down her fork and told me she had a five-year-old son.
A dozen relatives sat at the long table, and not one of them looked surprised.
Five years earlier I had come home early and found a naked man in our bed.
Dexter Lyle, with our sheets twisted around his legs, still damp.
Camille dropped to her knees and grabbed my trousers.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please, Caleb, don't leave me."
I said nothing.
She got up, walked to the bedroom window and shoved it open.
"If you divorce me, I'll jump!"
I loved her, so I forgave her.
For five years she made my coffee, ironed my shirts and held my hand at every party.
Everyone who knew us said Camille Dunning would die for her husband.
Tonight she sat across from me in a cream sweater, seven months pregnant with our daughter, and I was cutting her steak because her fingers swelled in the evenings.
I had never seen the inside of her doctor's office.
The clinic barred partners, she said, and she wrote our due date on a card for the fridge.
Her mother tapped her glass with a spoon.
"Camille, where is my grandson? Why isn't he here?"
I laughed, because I thought my mother-in-law, Lorna, had lost her place in the evening.
"Lorna, you're ahead of yourself. The baby isn't due for two months."
Lorna looked at me calmly.
"Oh. So you still don't know."
I turned to my wife.
Camille set her fork on the edge of her plate and folded her hands.
"I have a son, Caleb. He's five."
The knife stopped in my hand.
"What?"
"That night with Dexter. I got pregnant."
She breathed out when she said it, relieved.
"It's better you hear it. I'm tired of hiding him."
I looked at Lorna.
"Come on, Lorna. It's your birthday. Tell me you two are messing with me."
Lorna sipped her tea and said nothing.
"The doctor told me an abortion could ruin me," Camille went on. "He said I might never conceive again."
She laid a hand on her belly. My daughter was in there.
"So be grateful, Caleb. I kept him. Otherwise we would never have had a child of our own."
I wanted it to be a lie.
But nobody at that table was lying.
The six-month business trip five years ago, when she video-called me every night.
She had spent it having another man's baby.
And every month since, a week away for work.
I had kissed her goodbye at the door sixty times.
I forced out a smile, and my eyes burned.
"You hid it well. Why tell me tonight?"
Lorna dropped her spoon on her plate.
"Because I want to see my grandson!"
Then she softened her voice and leaned toward me.
"Caleb, I have been good to you, haven't I? You're a good boy. But that child has been kept in the shadows for five years, and it hurts me."
Under the table I pressed my fingers into my knee.
Every person in the room had known.
Everyone but me.
Lorna opened the safe behind her chair and slid out a folder.
Inside was a contract.
A paid-off condo and cash, close to a million dollars in all.
"The Dunnings will not shortchange you. Accept the boy and you never need to worry about anything again. Camille has promised me she'll see Dexter only when she must."
She did not get to finish.
"And if you can't accept it," Camille said, "we divorce."
She took an envelope from her handbag and set the papers in front of me.
Her signature was already on the last page.
Five years ago I was the one who wanted out.
She had begged, and she had threatened to die.
Now I had barely started to forget that night, and she was the one asking to leave.
The clock on the sideboard ticked.
No one spoke.
Then the front door opened.
"Lorna, I brought Jasper for your birthday!"
Dexter came in holding the hand of a little boy in a blue blazer.
The boy had a front tooth missing and Camille's green eyes.
Dexter saw me and the grin dropped off his face.
"Caleb," he said.
I looked at the boy.
I looked at my wife, who did not look away.
So I stood up.
I picked up the contract and the divorce papers, one folder in each hand.
"I'll read both tonight," I said.
"Caleb, sit," Camille said. "Say hello to Jasper."
The boy waved at me with two fingers.
"Hi, Mr. Caleb."
I walked out without a word.
In the car, under the dome light, I turned to the last page of the divorce papers.
Above her signature, in plain type, was one more paragraph.
The husband waives all rights and claims to the child currently carried by the wife.
She was not offering me a choice.
She was taking my daughter.
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