His Surprise Son

by Allie Pleiter

He didn’t move. “Is he?”

  She hadn’t expected him to blurt it out like that—as if the question hurled out of him beyond his control. Then again, she’d lived with the certainty for nearly six years, and he looked as if he’d lived with the possibility all of six minutes.

  Jean pulled in a slow breath, gathering her strength and willing calm into her voice. “Come inside, Josh.”

  He came through the doorway, stopping to stare at a photo of Jonah she kept on the hall table. It was one of her favorite photos of her son, bobbing up with glee out of the water at the swimming hole, all wild hair and bright eyes. Josh stared at it, hard, his whole body on edge. He picked up the photo. “Is he? Mine?”

  How many years had she pondered her response to the huge moment that question was asked? “Yes, Josh, he’s ours.”

  He held the photo up toward her. “Ours? He’s not ours, he’s yours. How could you sit there and call him ours if you never even bothered to tell me?”

  “It’s complicated. Come into the kitchen and let’s sit down.”

  He followed her into the kitchen, still clutching the photo. “I have a son. This boy...is...my son.” He turned in a slow circle, raking his free hand through his hair before he sank into one of the chairs at her kitchen table. Not because she’d asked him to sit down, she felt, but because the power of the moment wouldn’t allow him to stay standing.

  “I’ve known I was going to have to tell you one day,” she said as she took the chair opposite him. “I just planned on having a bit more time to figure out how to do it right.”

  “Right?” he snapped at her choice of words. “Doing it right would’ve been, how about—I don’t know—six years ago.”

  “He is five. And I am sorry.” She owed him that much. She owed him an explanation and an apology for what she’d done, even though she doubted he’d accept it at the moment. “California was a mistake. We were caught up in something that wasn’t strong enough to last. We became different people once everything started for you out there.” That seemed true for him, from her perspective. Had she changed as well without realizing it? Or had Dad’s illness just realigned her priorities? “We weren’t ready to be married to each other, and not at all ready to be parents. Not the way your life worked out there.” You were consumed with work, she thought, but chose not to say.

  “Are you kidding me? Everything was starting for us. You came out there with me. You said you’d marry me.”

  “I loved you. I loved who you were in school, back when all the success was bright and shiny. Once it became reality—the twenty-hour workdays, the crazy social circles—you had to know that wasn’t ever really me, even back then. I knew I’d be alone. Married, but alone.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Maybe not, but when Dad got sick...the Josh I knew in school would have been worried and cared and asked me about how I felt. That wasn’t who you were when he got sick. You were too busy to care. I know you didn’t mean to be that way, but you were. And once I found out I was pregnant while back here...” She sighed. “I knew it wouldn’t work. You’d think you were capable of it all, of being there for everyone.” She ventured a glance into his angry eyes. “But all I wanted was someone who would be there just for me.”

  “So sure of my faults, were you?” Josh’s words were cold and sharp.

  She put her hand to her forehead. Give me better words, Lord. I can’t botch this. “Of course I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of anything except that I was unhappy. Dad was...I don’t know...sinking...and suddenly I had this baby to think of. Here you were, the son of this powerful judgmental father, and I was just this girl from a tiny town in the mountains. Then I got sick and Dad was getting worse, and...it seemed a better choice to stay here where I knew I had support than to be out there fighting for your attention.”

  That last part seemed to bristle through him. “That’s what you think of me?”

  Jean met his angry eyes. “Dad needed me here. You needed to be in California. I couldn’t be in both places.”

  “So you decided how I’d react. And then you lied to me.” He squinted his eyes shut. “This isn’t how...this isn’t the you I remember... Did I even know you at all?”

  “I accept that I hurt you in this. But making a go of it alone with Dad felt easier than having to beg you for time and attention.” She steeled herself to tell him all of it. “Or fight off your father’s idea of what should be done.”

  She watched the words hit him, felt her spine stiffen as Josh stood up. “What do you mean, ‘my father’s idea of what should be done’?” The words were dark and dangerous.

  She drew in a breath, willing the distance of the years to calm her words. “I don’t know how he found out,” she began.

  He wasn’t interested in preamble. “What did he do, Jean?” The words were sharper and louder this time.

  “He came here a month after Jonah was born. He offered me a great deal of money never to contact you. I think he worried that if you ever found out, we’d be in your life.” She’d never forget that afternoon when Bartholomew Tyler had shown up on her doorstep. The man was horrible. “He saw me—and Jonah—as beneath your potential. A liability best kept out of your life.”

  Josh put his hand to his forehead. “Of course he did. It’s how Dad looked at everything.”

  “It made him furious that I wouldn’t take the money, even though things were really tight then. But really, how could I live with myself if I had? He stomped out, swearing to find another way. A week later a very legal-looking document was delivered to our door, declaring I lacked the resources to properly care for someone like Jonah, and that he would sue for custody and have Jonah placed ‘in a suitable boarding school’ if I ever tried to let Jonah into your life.” She shivered, remembering the disgust in Bartholomew Tyler’s eyes—such a contrast to the loving way her own dad gazed at Jonah. “I think he wanted to make sure his faulty and illegitimate grandson was kept out of your shining future, and if I wouldn’t see to it, he would.” She made no attempt to keep the bitterness from her voice.

  Josh drew both hands into fists and closed his eyes. “My father has been gone eighteen months. He died over a year ago. Why didn’t you contact me then?”

  “I didn’t know he was gone.”

  “You could have known. You would have known, if you’d just told me any of this. Five years, Jean. Five whole years.” Josh walked over and leaned up against the kitchen counter. Her heart ached for him—this was so much to take in all at once. Much of that had been her doing; she was paying the price right now for not telling him in all these five years, instead watching him stagger under the blow of the things she’d just revealed.

  “I’d like to say I’m surprised at my father,” he said with a sigh. “I’m shocked, but not surprised. It sounds exactly like something old Barty would do.”

  The force that was Bartholomew Tyler was part of what had made Josh the driven man he was, but it had such a dark side, too. Josh had grown up believing he was destined for greatness, but for his family, it was a binding obligation, not a vote of confidence.

  “Your father never approved of me, you knew that. This just added fuel to the fire. We were welcome here, whereas we’d have to fight tooth and nail there. I was tired, still healing, and Dad was really starting to fail. It was looking like it would be his last Christmas. I’m not proud of how easy it was to throw up my hands in surrender.”

  When Josh said nothing, she went on, determined to say what she felt ought to be said. “Jonah is not a liability. He’s not faulty, and he’s not an accident. He’s a gift.”

  “A gift you hid from me.”

  “Parenthood doesn’t work as a second priority. Jonah comes first in my world. He has to. Now, I suppose, you’ll need to decide if he’ll be anything more than on the fringes of yours.”

  There was a long, raw moment where they didn’
t look at each other. Josh walked back to the table and picked up the frame again.

  “What’s he like?” The single question seemed to pierce through all the pain in the room.

  She felt herself smile. “Curious and smart, like you. Stubborn, like his grandfather. Opinionated, like his mother.” She looked straight at him. “And deaf. Your son is deaf.”

  * * *

  Deaf.

  Josh felt the word push at him, like a typhoon trying to knock him over. He, a man who made his career in an electronic music application that was lauded for how perfectly it worked, had a son who couldn’t hear.

  The whole idea of Jonah’s existence was such foreign territory, Josh could barely get his head around the fact that he had a son. His entire body felt still and cold. His lungs couldn’t pull in enough air; his brain hurt from slamming together facts he had with possibilities he couldn’t grasp. He had not just a son, but one with needs he couldn’t begin to understand.

  His thoughts whirled in a million directions as he tried to sort it all out. He stared at the photograph, somehow wanting the image to give him a foothold into the world he’d just entered.

  It offered no grounding. As a matter of fact, it was a few moments before he realized he hadn’t given Jean any kind of response.

  “He’s deaf.” Not exactly genius dialogue, but he was working in shock mode here—eloquence was far beyond him.

  “Yes. Since birth.”

  “So he can’t hear anything at all?”

  She was watching him, waiting for his reaction. Josh wanted to get it right, to say and do the right thing at this incredibly crucial moment. Still, the idea of a deaf son—disjointed speech, hearing aids, isolated from communication the rest of the world took for granted—was all so overwhelmingly new. Suddenly, being introduced to Jonah presented ten times the test it had been minutes ago.

  How do I meet and get to know someone I can’t even communicate with well? He wasn’t even especially good with kids. The path to Jonah’s silent world gaped like an impassable bridge.

  Her eyes flashed just a bit at his hesitation, and he saw a glimpse of a mother’s fierce protection. “He’s not broken, Josh. He’s perfect the way he is, just different.” Her words and the jut of her chin dared him to try to pronounce otherwise. He didn’t think of the boy as broken—at least he didn’t think so—but he couldn’t sort through the riot of thoughts going on in his head right now.

  “Jonah is profoundly deaf,” she went on. “Perhaps as a result of a high fever I had when I was pregnant—we don’t really know. When he wears his hearing aids, he can sense extremely loud noises, but not speech.” She paused just a moment as if guessing his next question. “Or music.”

  He’d worked that out almost immediately, but the words had a stunning weight when he heard her speak them. My son cannot hear music. As ironies go, this one was huge and dramatic. Another realization hit him as hard as the first, and he stared deeply into her eyes. “Did you never tell me because you didn’t think I could handle his disability?” Direct, maybe, but Josh felt he was entitled to be direct given the circumstances.

  She paused before answering. “I didn’t know he was deaf until he was three months old. It made things harder—especially when your father found out...”

  “How did he know?” Josh started to shout, then remembered Jonah was upstairs asleep—then remembered Jonah was deaf—it was all tangling into knots inside his head. How was he supposed to act here? He didn’t have a clue.

  “I told you, I don’t know how he found out. Does it really matter?”

  “Yes,” he shot back. “No. I don’t know.”

  “It made it easier to come up with reasons not to tell you.” When he shot her a look for that, she sighed and said, “You never had much patience for things that don’t work the way they’re supposed to.”

  “Things,” he corrected, anger and betrayal churning in his gut. “Not people. I can’t believe the way you think I’d...” He stared at her before sinking back into the chair. “Did you ever really love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And still you think I’d reject you and our child.” It stabbed at him that she could think such a thing.

  “Not reject.” Her jaw worked, as if she was hunting for the right words. “You’re brilliant, and when you’re captivated by something, it’s astounding. I felt astounded by you in school.” She sighed. “But it was never about balance, Josh. I didn’t truly realize that until SymphoCync. You were captivated by work, not me. I don’t even think you noticed how unhappy I was. You can’t be that way with Jonah. Jonah requires—deserves—lots of attention and patience. I didn’t want to have to go begging for those things from you.” Evidently, her talent for prickling his temper by hitting too close to the bone hadn’t faded with the years.

  “That’s not fair,” he retorted. But she wasn’t wrong. He hated the fact, but she wasn’t wrong. Silicon Valley, his valley, worshipped obsessive, workaholic people like him. Success out there demanded 150 percent of a man. He was just coming to recognize the cost of that—he was working on that with Violet now that she was the only family he had left—but he had a long way to go. “It doesn’t change that I had a right to know. You had no right to keep this from me.”

  “I accept that, but Josh, am I really that far off? Do you know how many days you took off during the time I was out in California with you? Three. You proposed to me on the front steps of your office building.”

  He planted his hands on the table, rocking it a bit with the force of his gesture. “We were sharing our success together.”

  “No. You were enjoying your success. I was just grafted in. Has it changed?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tell me, when’s the last time you took a vacation? How many nights this week did you sleep at the office? Violet’s been telling me how hard it was to get you involved in this.” She looked right into his eyes. “I chose to give Jonah the gift of not being ignored or sidelined by a long-distance man too busy to be a father. That’s not a life for a child.”

  “I loved you, and you kept this from me. You never gave me a chance to keep loving you. You let my father win.” The memory of what he felt for her rose up with a force just as strong as his freshly roused hate for his father.

  “I believe you loved me,” she said, her voice soft, “but I don’t think you ever really knew what that meant. You thrilled me when you paid attention to me, Josh. But it was too rare. And I tried to tell you how unhappy I was, only you didn’t hear it. You never really acknowledged how sick Dad was getting. It made me realize I could never really be the center of your attention. And then I couldn’t risk that the baby wouldn’t be the center of yours, either. Or become some pawn of your father’s. So I chose what gave Jonah the best chance at happiness, and that’s here in our valley.”

  Her accusations pulled at him like an undertow. “Were you ever going to tell Jonah? Or me? I mean, if I didn’t show up here today, would he or I ever have known who we are to each other?”

  * * *

  Who we are to each other. The words landed heavy with significance.

  “I meant to,” she began. “Someday. I never set a deadline or anything, but I knew Jonah would eventually grow up and ask questions. I think I was waiting until Jonah showed signs of wanting to know.”

  She rubbed her hands together. She’d always known this conversation would be hard, but in reality, it was excruciatingly painful. “That week, when one of your top engineers was out for a week with a sick child, do you remember what you said? You said families could be a distraction for a man bent on success.”

  “We were late for a deadline. I was frustrated.”

  “But even I could see it was how you felt. And really, isn’t it the only kind of fathering you’ve known?” Oh, Father, she prayed, seeing his expression, this is such a tangle. Only You can
fix this for all of us.

  “But Jean—five years?”

  She didn’t have an answer for that, except to say, “Secrets get harder to reveal the longer they stay hidden. Dad always used to say we think they’re staying hidden, but they are really just piling up damage, gathering weight and pain to release when they come to light.” Gathering weight and pain. Oh, Dad, how right you were. How right you always were. “I wanted to be in a strong place when I told you. To be standing on my own two feet because I had no idea how you would react. I still don’t. Do you want a family—a real family, Josh?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t classify what I had as a real family. I hardly remember Mom. I just know Dad and his weapons-grade wielding of expectations.”

  She couldn’t argue with his assessment. Josh’s father had been alone since Josh’s mother died in a car accident when Josh was ten. He’d never remarried—until he met Violet’s mother sometime in the past five years. Bartholomew Tyler was the furthest thing from what she knew a father to be, the furthest thing from the loving acceptance she’d known from Dad.

  “I could have helped,” Josh offered. “I would have helped. You had to know that. I can still help. I’ve got access to all kinds of technologies, adaptations...”

  And there it was. Already. A glimpse of what she feared. “Helped?” she questioned. “Or tried to fix? This is exactly what I meant. You hurl solutions at a problem until it surrenders. That’s who you are, what makes you successful, but that’s not how to love a child like Jonah.” She picked up the frame and held it toward him. “We know what technologies are out there. We see a specialist in Charlotte twice a year. But Jonah isn’t a problem to solve, Josh. He’s a boy to love.”

  “I get that.”

  “Do you? Do you really?”

  She got up and picked up an old little wind-up truck that sat on the counter. “Roma Tompkins—she owns the antique store in town—she gave this to Jonah for his first birthday.” She wound it up, and it made the wild buzzing that always made Jonah laugh. “It tickles his palms, and he laughs. His laugh is one of my favorite sounds in the world.”