His Surprise Son

by Allie Pleiter

  “I want a bunch of kids someday.” Violet sighed. “Lyle does, too. Being an only child is a hard thing. Was for me, and I know it was for Josh. Lyle comes from a big family, and I just love all that noise.” Her face reddened. “Was that a crass thing to say, seeing as...?” She waved one hand awkwardly in the vicinity of her ear.

  People often did that—feel odd about describing sounds if Jonah was nearby. “It’s fine, really. I’m an only child myself, but I get what you mean. Sometimes it’s nice to feel surrounded.” Jean thought about the townspeople who’d surrounded her in the first days after Dad died. She thought she’d been used to silence, but it threatened to drown her right after Dad passed. There were too many nights where the only sound was the sobs of her grief, and she’d tried to feel blessed that she could cry as loud as she wanted in the middle of the night without fear of waking Jonah.

  “Is it hard, raising him by yourself?”

  The question drew a pointed look from Josh, totally misinterpreted by Violet. “What? Women talk about deeper subjects than this year’s make and model. I think Jean’s pretty amazing for what she’s done, don’t you?”

  Poor Violet. She had no way of knowing she was happily skipping through an emotional minefield of history and secrets. Josh was going to have to tell her, and soon. They’d never make it through the wedding at this rate.

  “Amazing,” Josh said, looking rather lost.

  Violet mistook his stumbling reply for disinterest. “I can’t wait for him to wake up to the rest of the world outside his office door,” she remarked, nodding with amused annoyance at her stepbrother. “Josh has been too much ‘all work and no play.’ He says he’s trying to change, but as I expect you learned, once you wave an engineering problem under his nose he’s lost.”

  Violet chatted away, and Jean tried hard to follow the conversation while watching Josh interact with Jonah. Once the milkshakes were done, however, and the trucks had been reassembled half a dozen times, Jonah began to grow bored and squirmy. She tried to be grateful he’d lasted as long as he had, but when a toy dropped on the floor and he bumped his head as he picked it up, peace was lost.

  “We’d better get home,” Jean said above Jonah’s wailing. “This has been fun.” It seemed like such a banal way to describe such a monumental meeting.

  “Yeah,” Josh said, looking equally lost. Would this be the last time they met? Of course not—he’d be back in a matter of weeks for the wedding. But what about after that?

  She didn’t know. She couldn’t know, at least not yet. All she could know was that protecting Jonah from hurt had to be her top priority. But how? I’m trusting You’ll show me how, Lord, she prayed as she gathered the trucks and headed for home. Because I have no clue.

  Chapter Six

  Violet stared at him as they ate the breakfast Josh had ordered up to his room Saturday morning. Her mouth hung open in shock. And she had every right to look shocked, given the bombshell of information he’d just dropped on her. “So, that’s why I’m not coming back with you tomorrow. Not just yet. I need to figure out what to do here, and I don’t think I should do that from California.”

  She planted one hand on her hip. “Well, that’s good, because I think I would call up and cancel your flight reservation myself, considering what you just told me.” She peered out his window in the direction of the ice-cream shop where they’d been yesterday afternoon. “He’s yours? Truly? I can’t get my mind around that, Josh.”

  Josh ran a hand through his hair as he came up beside her at the window. “Believe me, I can barely get my own mind around it.” He looked at his stepsister, feeling more unsteady than he could ever remember. “What do I do here?”

  Her eyes softened, and Violet touched his elbow. “What you do, genius, is be a dad. It’s the how that gets tricky, I suppose.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “You’re there, he’s here. And she’s here. And then there’s the two of you. I mean, there’s history, and then there’s this. It’s a whole lot more complicated than just her being your ex, you know?” She grabbed his hands. “You have a son, Josh. A five-year-old son.”

  “I know.” Josh squinted his eyes shut for a moment, the words hitting him all over again. Would it ever stop feeling like someone had just dumped him down in the middle of a tornado?

  Her eyes teared up a bit. “It’s a gift, Josh. You see that, don’t you?”

  A part of him could see that. Snapping those pieces together, watching the puzzle-solving spark in Jonah’s eyes that was such an essential part of his own world, he could see the gift. “Yeah, but it’s so incredibly complicated. I’m still sort of blindsided, you know? I feel like I need a million years to figure it out, but I feel like I have to figure it out right now. We’re at a crucial juncture with SymphoCync. The timing couldn’t be worse.”

  Violet smiled. “Finally a puzzle the great Josh Tyler can’t solve right away. Or on his timetable. Would it be mean to say this is going to be fun to watch?”

  He shot her a dark look. “Yes, it would. This is going to be a lot of things, but I don’t think ‘fun’ is going to be one of them.”

  Violet crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you so sure? I get that I haven’t known you your whole life, but I’m not sure you’ve ever learned how to do ‘fun.’ Seems to me a five-year-old boy could be a great teacher of that.”

  “Hey, my staff thinks I’m fun.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “Even you should know that doesn’t count.”

  “So you’re okay if I stay?”

  “I’m twenty-six. I know how to get on a plane and go back to Nevada by myself. I did make it most of those years without your invaluable input, you know.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re making the right choice. Some things are more important than SymphoCync, even at this—” she made air quotes with her fingers “—crucial juncture.”

  Josh merely grunted in reply, not caring for the way Violet threw one of his favorite phrases back at him. But it did fit—this was feeling like an epic crucial juncture, for ways he couldn’t even put a finger on yet. All he knew was a deep, throbbing insistence that he couldn’t get this wrong. That all kinds of things were at stake, even if he didn’t know yet what all those things were.

  “Have you told Jean and Jonah you’re staying yet?”

  Josh looked back down Aisle Avenue toward Jean’s office. “No, that’s next. And then, I suppose, we figure out how to tell Jonah that...who I am.” It was like the word father couldn’t fit on his tongue yet. The title had all kinds of weighty baggage hanging off it that he couldn’t shoulder. He didn’t like the idea of anyone ever thinking of him in the sour, resentful ways he thought of his own father, and it felt completely beyond him to know how to prevent that. Every scientist knew the hardest thing was to prove a negative—how could he prove to himself that he didn’t have to be the kind of father his own dad had been?

  “I like her, you know,” Violet said. “I’m impressed with what she’s trying to do here, and I like being a part of it. Maybe you can help her out a bit while you’re here dealing with the other stuff. This place is like a giant wedding program, only with people and places instead of users and data. They’ll have a lot of bugs to solve. Could be a nice change for a guy like you.”

  That made him laugh. “Me? ‘Debugging’ Matrimony Valley? I’m not who anyone would want as a wedding planner.”

  “No, but you are a systems creator. And a problem solver. And very close—” she pointed to her chest “—to the person who would like Matrimony Valley’s first wedding to come off as a spectacular success. That makes you a...what do you always call it? A high-value stakeholder.”

  Josh handed Violet the rental car keys. “You definitely need to go back to Nevada now.”

  “How long will you stay?”

  He rubbed the bac
k of his neck. “A day at least, maybe more. I can’t stay long, but I’m not leaving until...well, I don’t know what that is yet.”

  “Human beings are so much messier than machines, aren’t they?” She gave him a hug. “Call me tonight—and every night you’re here—and tell me how it goes. I’m pulling for you. ’Cause that’s what sisters do.”

  This trip was supposed to result in less stress. It was supposed to nail down all the details for Violet’s wedding so he could focus his attention on key upcoming events at SymphoCync. Now he felt like problems and complications were exploding around every corner. “I will.” A small curl of anxiety wound up his back. Everybody in this little town seemed to love Violet instantly, but he didn’t know how to connect with any of these people. He didn’t even know how to talk on the most basic level with Jonah. There were no manuals, procedures or programming tactics to fall back on here—he was in uncharted waters.

  Violet must have seen it on his face. “Hey,” she said softly, “you’ll be okay. You’ll figure this out. You always do.”

  Somehow his technical prowess felt like no use at all in the problems ahead of him. “This is different.”

  She kissed him on the cheek. “Not really. Just use this part—” she laid a hand on his chest “—more than this part—” she moved her hand up to poke at his forehead “—and you’ll be okay.”

  Josh wanted to believe that, but the faith wasn’t coming easily at the moment. While he knew she wouldn’t, a panicked, irrational part of him feared that Jean would tell him he couldn’t stay. That he couldn’t get to know his son and be part of his life. She’d made it clear that she left because she’d felt him incapable of offering her any real support. Looking back, he was coming to see just how much he’d taken her for granted. How he’d given her reason to think he wasn’t ready for the commitment of marriage and especially family. She had no real reason to suddenly welcome him into her life. Not now, when she had no evidence that he’d changed and she was already facing the huge challenge of launching Matrimony Valley.

  Violet opened the hotel room door. “I’ll expect an update by the time I reach Asheville and get on my plane.”

  “Since when did you start ordering me around?”

  She simply grinned. “Lots of things have changed this weekend, haven’t they?”

  As Josh watched her head down the hall to her own room, he felt like lots wasn’t nearly a big enough word for all that had tilted in his life lately. He finished his bagel, grabbed his phone and set off for Jean’s house.

  * * *

  Jean stared at her email inbox as Jonah watched Saturday morning cartoons. She tried to work up the enthusiasm necessary to convince an interested bride that Matrimony Valley could deliver on a lovely wedding. Instead, she felt as if she could barely deliver a coherent sentence. Her thoughts and emotions felt as if they’d been swirling like the pool at the bottom of Matrimony Falls lately. Seeing Jonah and Josh together at Marvin’s yesterday had pulled the rug out from under her in more ways than she could count.

  Logistically, her son and his father were total strangers—but they weren’t. They’d already connected, even over something as small as his “puzzle trucks.” Josh had always been most alive, most vibrant—and most charismatic—when solving a puzzle or problem. There had always been moments when Jonah would look at her or crack a sly smile in ways that reminded her strongly of Josh. But seeing them together at Marvin’s, both tinkering with those trucks, trading pieces and connecting without words, had made her question everything. It forced her to ask the frightening question: Keeping them apart had felt easier, but had it been right?

  Had the cost of that separation been too high? Could any of that damage be repaired? Lord, I have to believe You brought Josh here, now, for a reason. I’m just scared how all this will turn out. My brain knows I can trust it will turn out well, but the rest of me feels tied up in knots. He’ll be leaving this afternoon, and I don’t know how we move forward from here.

  Jean looked out her kitchen window, craning her neck to see if she could catch a glimpse of Josh and Violet’s rental car in the lot beside Hailey’s Inn Love. She couldn’t see the blue sedan, and for an awful moment she wondered if the pair had left without saying goodbye. He wouldn’t do that, would he? She didn’t think so, yet who could predict how anyone would react in the wild situation they found themselves in?

  Her eye then caught his figure walking across the street toward her. Without Violet. Even after so many years, she recognized the changed set of his shoulders—Josh’s whole body seemed to change when he hit on a solution or even just a course of action. The man leaned into life in ways she’d never seen in anyone else; it was part of what made him an unstoppable force—for both good and bad.

  She felt her pulse pound as Josh caught her eye for a split second before walking up her front steps. Even the way he knocked on the door was a declaration. He’d chosen a course of action, and she had no idea what it was or if she’d have any say in it—and wasn’t that exactly how things had gone wrong in the first place?

  Josh walked straight into her hallway. “I’m staying another few days. I’m not sure how many, but I want to get to know Jonah. I want to figure out how to do this.”

  Jean’s heart tumbled in a dozen different directions. “I want us to figure out how to do this, too.” She emphasized the us, fighting a wave of doubt. Too many shadows of Bartholomew’s ultimatums flashed in Josh’s eyes.

  Her reaction must have shown, for she watched him back off and soften a bit, running a hand through his hair. “Yes, us. I meant us. I’m...well, I’m not sure how good I’m going to be at this. Ever.”

  The warm smile she felt creeping across her face surprised even her. “Welcome to parenthood. It’s just one giant doubt after another. And they tell me that’s true under ordinary circumstances.”

  Josh rolled his eyes. “And these circumstances are anything but ordinary.”

  “Come in and have some coffee.” As she pulled a cup out of the cupboard, she had to ask, “Can you afford to be away from SymphoCync that long?” The answer would tell her a lot, wouldn’t it?

  He shrugged as he leaned against the counter. “Actually, no. It’ll make an epic mess of things.”

  And yet he was choosing to stay. Something the old Josh would never have done. It was an undertow of a revelation, shifting the ground under her feet. His staying would create an epic mess of things on her end, as well.

  “Things are already an epic mess, wouldn’t you say?” She didn’t have to specify that it wasn’t work related; they both knew what she meant.

  He cast his glance toward the den, where Jonah sat. “I want him to know who I am, Jean.”

  The statement, and the insistent way he said it, set off a little cascade of relief in her stomach. She’d never really believed Josh would deny his son, but dismissal had always loomed as a fear for her. She’d do anything to spare Jonah his father’s inattention. Now, for the first time, Jean let herself believe she might not have to worry about that. Josh wouldn’t ignore him. He’d struggle, try and probably make a dozen mistakes—goodness, hadn’t she?—but he wouldn’t ignore Jonah. She could finally believe that.

  “I want him to know who you are, too.” The words caught with surprising thickness in her throat. “I’m just not sure how to go about it. Somehow I don’t think, ‘Hey, Jonah-boy, this is your dad,’ is the way to go.”

  “I want to be the one who tells him.” There it was again, the Tyler brand of determination—she had to remind herself it wasn’t meant to feel so oppressive this time. “I want to talk to him. Learn whatever it is I need to in order to do that. I learned advanced coding in three weeks, I’ll learn—” he waved his fingers in a bumbling approximation of sign language “—this faster.”

  But the “I’m your daddy” conversation was one that would require more than fumbling skills in sign language. O
r would it? Somehow this felt like both the most complex issue in the world and the simplest. Still, a few more of the knots in her heart loosened at his determination to enter Jonah’s world.

  “So...is it okay with you if I stay on a bit?”

  Jean had to swallow her astonishment. The determined force who had walked into her house a minute ago did not look like the kind of man to ask permission. The Josh she’d known rarely asked permission for anything—he hadn’t even asked Dad for his blessing to propose to her, even though Josh knew Dad would expect something like that. With a start, she realized that while Josh didn’t know Jonah, she no longer knew Josh.

  “Yes, it is,” she agreed.

  “I’m glad.”

  An awkward silence filled the room, as if neither of them knew quite what ought to come next.

  Evidently, Josh had given this some thought, for he reached into his hip pocket and pulled out what looked like a small black leather envelope. She realized it was some kind of fancy holder for a stack of index cards and a sleek silver pen. It was a flashback to the old Josh, who always walked around with similar supplies in his back pocket, ready to jot down whatever new burst of genius appeared. Back then the stack was usually a crumpled collection; now it was an executive-looking accessory—and was surprisingly “old-school” for a man who made his living in the digital world.

  “Yeah,” he said, following her gaze. “I still do this.”

  “No cyber-dictated notes downloaded to the cloud or whatever?”

  He gave a boyish grin. “Uploaded. Yes, I do those, too. But I never quite could kick this habit.” He pulled a card from the holder, and she noticed they were not the kind of index cards you could get at the five-and-dime down the street. These were a rich sky blue color and engraved with his initials, JBT, in one corner. She couldn’t see the words, but could see it was a list. “I’ve put together some questions,” he said, clicking the silver pen.