He Married My Best Friend While I Gave Birth, So I Left novel · Chapter 45 of 48

Chapter 45: What It Cost

Byron's POV

My son walked to the lectern with his hands shaking and a folded page held tight in one fist.

I had sat in boardrooms and county offices and across from my mother for thirty-six years.

I had never been as scared as I was watching him cross that floor.

"Go ahead, son," said the judge.

Cal unfolded the page, looked at it, and put it down on the wood.

"I wrote the first letter at a table in Marysville," he said. "She told me what to put, and I changed some of the words. I thought that made it mine."

His voice was thin in the big room.

"I'd like to say what I would put now."

The judge nodded.

"I said I wanted my grandmother home for Christmas. I don't know what I wanted. I wanted someone to say I belonged to something, and she said it first."

He swallowed.

"She told me last month that my uncle forged my father's name on a paper when he was seventeen. She said it like it was a present. She said everyone in this family does hard things for her, and I would too."

Across the aisle, my mother's hands lay folded on the defense table.

She was watching him with a small, fond smile.

She looked like a woman waiting to correct him later.

"That's not a present," said Cal. "That's a pen."

Somebody in the gallery made a sound.

"I don't want to go to her," he said. "I don't want her to come to me. I've got a mom who took money and told the truth when it cost her. I've got a sister who says 'mine' about my roll."

A few people laughed, softly, and I heard the silver-haired woman blow her nose.

Cal turned his head and looked at me.

His eyes were gray and wet, and they held.

"And I've got my dad," he said. "He found out he had a son eight weeks ago, and he stood in my mom's kitchen and measured himself against a door. I'd like to go home with him. That's all I changed."

He picked up the page, folded it, and went back to our bench.

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