Her Secret Son

by Hannah Mary McKinnon

  “Course you would,” Grace said. “We’re common law.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” I said. “I’ve looked into it and—”

  “But why does it matter? We’re young and healthy.” She squeezed my hand. “Stop worrying. Nothing’s going to happen to either of us, okay?”

  I’d bugged Grace for ages. Finally convinced her to at least speak to Harlan with me. When he told her I was right, if something happened to her, her parents would be legally recognized as next of kin, she blanched.

  “I don’t want anything to do with them, even if I’m dead. Especially if I’m dead,” she said, and finally agreed to a domestic partnership agreement we’d signed a few weeks later.

  When Harlan gently cleared his throat and asked if I was okay, I realized he’d probably been speaking all this time but whatever he’d said, I hadn’t heard. Leila was right about one thing at least; my focus was shit these days.

  “Did you put anything in writing about Logan?” Harlan said. “Or discuss the situation?”

  It was another conversation I could recall almost word for word, one that had happened even before I’d brought up the domestic partnership. We were lying in bed early one Sunday morning. Grace had been woken by the rain belting against the bedroom window, and decided if she couldn’t rest, neither would I. I’d been in the middle of a dream about driving a motorbike down a deserted and dangerously curvy road when Grace had lulled me back to reality by pressing her soft, naked breasts against my back.

  The sex had been slow and gentle, with her on top doing most of the work, me hardly able to open my eyes and grateful she was happy to take control. Afterward she’d rested her head on my shoulder and pulled the covers back over us with a contented sigh.

  I stroked her arm, her skin soft and luxurious as a velvet robe. “That was unexpected.”

  She laughed gently and ran her fingers over my chest. “Unexpected but...hot?”

  “Always hot,” I said, pulling her closer still.

  “Well, you were there for the taking...”

  “Apparently.”

  “I couldn’t resist.” She sighed again, and despite it still being dark, I knew she was frowning. “I need to ask you something.”

  “And you thought having Sunday morning sex would be the best way to butter me up?” I kissed the top of her head. “Okay. Yes to anything you want.”

  Grace didn’t laugh this time. “No, and this is serious.”

  I reached for the light and flicked it on before propping myself on my side, looking down at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “You look like someone’s died.”

  “That’s as good a segue as any, I suppose.”

  My throat went dry. After my parents passed, I’d built myself a cocoon of resilience, told myself if anybody else close to me died, I’d be able to handle it because I’d survived before, however barely. Looking at Grace, I knew if something happened to her, my protective bubble would instantly burst, and I hoped Death had already had his or her fill of Josh’s plate of misery, that I’d be left alone until I was an old grandpa. As all this swirled around inside my head, and I studied Grace’s face, my gut turned itself inside out.

  “Baby, are you ill?”

  “No—”

  “Because whatever it is, we’ll beat it. I’ll be there every step of the way and—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’m not sick, Josh. It’s about Logan. And before you ask, he’s not sick, either. I need to know what you’d do if I died. What would happen to him?”

  “I’d take care of him.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course I would.”

  “But you’ve only known us a little over a year. I don’t expect you to make that commitment when you’re not his—”

  “Please don’t say father. That’s semantics.”

  She touched the Big Dipper–shaped set of freckles on my stomach with her finger. “Are you sure? Because I promised to keep him safe, always and forever. And if, for whatever reason, I can’t keep that promise, then I have to make sure someone else will.”

  “Grace—”

  “It can’t be my family, or his...dad. So if you’re sure, I mean really sure, will you promise? Will you look after him, no matter what?”

  I kissed her gently on the forehead. “I promise. No matter what.”

  Grace exhaled, seemingly satisfied. “Thank you.”

  “But it’s irrelevant, anyway,” I said in an attempt to lighten the mood, “because Brits have fish-and-chip grease in their veins, not blood. Ask Lisa, she’ll tell you. I’ll be dead before I’m fifty. You’ll live to a hundred and ten with all the kale and quinoa you eat.”

  Grace’s head snapped upward, the glint in her eye telling me my comedic skit had come too soon, so I added, “We could ask a lawyer to put something in writing. Make it official? I could ask Ivan’s uncle. I’m seeing him next week about a project.”

  I felt Grace stiffen, exactly as she had when I’d asked her to marry me. Admittedly, we’d been seeing each other for only six months, weren’t living together and I didn’t have a ring when I’d dropped to one knee in the middle of an ice-cream shop. Unsurprisingly, she’d said it was too soon. After that I’d quickly understood Grace didn’t like to rush things, or easily let people get close, which was why her presenting me with a house key a few months later had meant even more. I’d officially moved in a year after we’d met, and another rebuffed marriage proposal followed on her birthday. I’d remained hopeful there was some truth in saying “third time’s a charm,” but had decided I’d give her more than enough space until I asked again.

  “I don’t want to get a lawyer involved,” Grace said. “And that’s final.” She kissed my chest, reached over me and switched off the light, pressing herself against me once more, rendering me incapable of further debate.

  The sound of Harlan tapping his pen on his notepad whisked me out of the memory and back to his office. He’d taken off his glasses, polished them with a fluorescent-green cloth as he observed me. “Should I assume there’s nothing in writing?”

  With an apologetic shrug I said, “I promised Grace I’d look after Logan, and that hasn’t changed. He needs me. I have to sort something out.”

  “Very well,” Harlan said. “Now, you’ve been involved in Logan’s life since he was two... What about the biological father?”

  “Well, it’s a bit...complicated.”

  “Josh,” he said gently. “Please rest assured I’m not here to judge.”

  “Grace only knew his first name,” I said quietly. “And seeing it was...less than a one-night stand, she thought it might’ve been fake.”

  It wasn’t a story I’d shared with anyone before, how Grace went out with her work colleagues from Portland one balmy summer evening, ended up having sex in the park with a guy she’d met at the restaurant that night and never saw again. It had never been my tale to tell, but now, I wondered, at some point would Logan have to know? If it was this uncomfortable speaking to Harlan about it, how impossible would it feel to discuss it with Logan as he grew from boy to man? He’d have questions about who his father was, be it for health-related issues, his background or simply to know. The problems that could affect Logan in the near and distant future—physical ailments, mental illness—and the immensity of the situation made it difficult for me to breathe.

  “Grandparents?” Harlan looked up from his notepad, half a page already scribbled in dark blue ink, his handwriting indecipherable swirls. I’d yet to mark a single thing on mine.

  “No... Grace and her family were the definition of estranged. She hasn’t spoken to them in years. Certainly not in the time I’ve known...knew her.” I looked out the window. It had started to rain, and the gray fog hung low in the sky, intent on devouring entire rows of build
ings, making the room, and my mood, darker still. “Grace didn’t talk about them much. I’ve tried to contact them, but I haven’t found them yet.” I exhaled, shook my head. “Do you have a prize for the most messed-up family? I bet we’d win.”

  Harlan smiled and put down his pen. “In my line of business, I see all kinds of things. Like I said, I’m not here to pass judgment, but to help.” He paused, read over his notes. “No birth father, no grandparents to argue they’ve been a constant in Logan’s life...well, I’m cautiously optimistic of the outcome when we apply for guardianship.”

  Relief—a sensation I’d all but forgotten—invaded me. “Nobody’s going to come and take Logan from me?”

  He gave me a quizzical look. “Such as Child Protective Services, you mean? No, they might make an inquiry, but they’d have no reason to take him from you. You’re the only stable factor in his life. There’d be no benefit, or logic, in putting him into any kind of care.”

  “And what about adoption?”

  “It’s more complicated and time-consuming but not impossible. We could start with guardianship.”

  I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, rubbed the back of my neck, its touch like a cold, damp washcloth. “I’ll feel better when it’s official.”

  “I’ll push to have the application wrapped up within two to three months, once we have all the documents.”

  I pictured the den covered with papers and open binders, the contents of the bookcases askew. A thought, thin and slippery as an eel, darted through my mind, but it was too quick for me to grab hold of and sped back into the darkness. “I’ll get everything together.”

  “Wonderful. Send it all to me when you do.”

  We continued with small talk about landscaping, the terrible weather and how much he was looking forward to his pool house extension, until Shirley knocked on the door, announcing the next client’s arrival. Harlan stood and shook my hand. “We’ll get things arranged as quickly as possible, and, Josh, I’m doing all of this pro bono—”

  “I can’t accept—”

  “You can, and you will.” Harlan smiled. “I’m afraid that part is nonnegotiable.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The nagging thought about the den returned almost immediately after I’d walked out of Gingold, Garner & Greene’s offices and back to my truck. By the time I got home, it felt as if it had latched itself to my body and taken root, spreading throughout. An image popped into my head, the paper bag with the photographs I’d found as I’d searched for Logan’s birth certificate, and my subconscious kept whispering in my ear that something wasn’t quite right.

  I drove home slowly, parked the truck and opened the front door, shed my boots and coat like a snake would its skin, abandoning them in the middle of the hallway as I wandered to the den. My feet dragged as if I’d poured concrete around them, my brain deliberately trying to delay me from seeing what was there. What wasn’t there.

  I pulled out the bag, emptied it on the desk and examined the photographs of Logan one by one. Instead of my heart swelling with pride as I looked at them, it shriveled away, almost disappeared from my rib cage completely with a tiny pop.

  The oldest picture was of Logan at three months old; it said so on the back in Grace’s elegant hand. There were none of him before, maybe because she’d been a single mom, short on time, no family or grandparents to help out or fuss over her baby boy. Except Grace had told me she hadn’t any photos at all, not a single one before Logan was eighteen months old; they’d all been on a phone she’d lost.

  “I never backed them up or printed them,” she’d said. “And it sucks I can’t show you a picture of when I was pregnant. You wouldn’t believe how big my boobs were.”

  I looked at the photos again. There definitely weren’t any of her pregnant, or otherwise. Maybe she’d forgotten all about the bag. After all, she’d laughed about her terrible case of baby brain, said she could barely remember her own name after Logan had arrived, regularly found her keys in the fridge and almost put a load of clothes in the dishwasher until Mrs. Banks—who helped out with babysitting Logan in the early days—asked her what she was doing.

  As I put the pictures back in the bag, I picked up the shreds of what I’d dismissed as blank scraps of paper that morning. Most of them were plain white, but I now noticed some had bits of printed letters on them, light gray and faded, made by one of those ancient dot-matrix printers I’d once seen in my school’s aging computer lab. I laid the pieces out on the desk and set to work, fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle. Despite missing a few parts, three words became clear enough to decipher.

  TELL NO ONE.

  I stared at the words, felt my brow furrow as I read them a fifth, sixth time.

  TELL NO ONE.

  Tell no one...what? My mind raced through the possibilities. Why would Grace print that? What did she mean by it? What was it for? Was the note torn up and stuffed in a bag of forgotten photos because it meant something, or nothing? Had someone sent her the message? Or...my shoulders dropped. The note must have been part of a treasure hunt Grace made for Logan—she did them every year for his birthday and for Easter, and sometimes just because. This had to be a discarded clue, one she’d probably printed at Ruby & Rose’s. They had all kinds of ancient stuff in that shop, probably long-redundant printers, too. Yes, of course. That made total sense. Although how it had ended up with the photos and the card, I really didn’t know.

  I picked up the bits of paper and, after a moment’s hesitation, threw them into the garbage. The message was irrelevant now, and I didn’t want Logan to see it, not if it would upset him. Besides, I had one mission that afternoon, and one mission only.

  Impatience quickly turned to frustration and culminated in anger as I searched the rest of the house for Logan’s birth certificate. No nook or cranny was spared. Cookbooks in the kitchen were flicked through and held upside down, and entire spider villages from the cupboard under the stairs now lay in silky tatters on the laminate floor. Even Logan’s plastic tubs filled with Lego and army men hadn’t stopped my unnecessary attack. And still—nothing.

  As I shoved the multicolored blocks back in their place, I wanted to kick myself for not asking Grace about these things when she was alive, for not begging her to tell me every detail about her past. In the very beginning, she’d given me the abridged version of her history. She’d grown up an only child near Waterville in Maine with strict parents she’d never really got along with, but whom she assumed would still have her back, despite their differences.

  As her trust in me grew, she shared more of her story in little dribs and drabs, told me about the abuse she’d suffered—albeit not in great detail—and how her parents had blamed her for it. On the day after her eighteenth birthday she left home, when she was sure her parents couldn’t force her back. She’d moved to Portland, worked in coffee shops and diners, then for accountants and insurance brokers until she’d had Logan and decided to come to Albany, happy for the change of scene. I’d always suspected it was more, maybe something to do with Logan’s dad, but I’d been reluctant to press her for details when she clammed up, and I’d decided she’d tell me what she wanted me to know, in her own time.

  I should’ve kept her awake at night instead of accepting there was no urgency, that we had all the time in the world, but Grace had always said her life had only truly begun when we’d met, and I’d laughed at the übercheesiness of the line. It had given me the warm and fuzzies regardless, because I felt the same way about her and Logan.

  I sank down on Logan’s comforter and picked up the framed photograph from his bedside table, the one of him, Grace and me. It was a classic selfie taken a few months after I’d moved in, the three of us smooshed in close enough to fit the frame, part of Grace’s arm visible in the picture. We wore baseball hats on backward, so the shadows didn’t cover our faces, and we stuck out our tongues. That had been a fun day
. A barbecue in the backyard, the three of us. We’d stayed up late, gorging on burgers and hot dogs, drinking pop and juice until the sun set and the cool air made them snuggle up to me, my arms around them, their heads on my chest.

  “I love you, Josh Andersen,” Grace had said later that night as we lay in bed after we’d made love. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  I’d stroked her arm, running my fingers through her soft red curls. “Don’t tell Logan,” I’d whispered. “He’ll kick me out.”

  Grace laughed softly. “Very funny. You’re both the best thing that’s ever happened to me... He called you Daddy today, did you hear?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it in case it was a fluke.”

  Grace kissed me on the cheek. “You’re such a softie.”

  I’d insisted we shouldn’t make a fuss when, in reality, I absolutely wanted to. Logan had always called me Josh, pronounced it Dsos at the beginning, and although I’d never have admitted it, him using my first name for over a year had stung way more than it should have.

  I put the picture down as a sudden surge of anger sped to my heart. If Grace had agreed to marry me, or sort out the legal stuff for Logan, it would all have been taken care of now. Yes, I’d still be an emotional, heartbroken, sniveling wreck, but at least the logistics would be fine.

  Running a clammy hand over my even damper face, I immediately cursed myself for thinking badly of Grace, whispered “I’m sorry” at the photograph and turned away before I imagined any judgment in her two-dimensional eyes.

  I shook out my arms, reminded myself I needed the birth certificate, and the movement kicked my brain cells into touch because an idea hit me. I grabbed my phone and searched for hospitals in Portland, Maine. A few came up, so I plumped for the first.

  “Maine Medical Center, how may I direct your call?”

  “Uh...” I hesitated, unsure how to explain I needed documents for a child who wasn’t mine, and who may or may not have been born in their hospital.