Luke worried about how much pain Sarah had locked inside herself. He understood now why she was so cautious and how hard it must have been for her to trust him.
Jason tapped the table to get his attention. “I wonder how much more Jack remembers.”
Luke wished Jack only remembered the good things Sarah told him. No kid, especially one so young, should think about how his father hurt his mother and made her cry. “He’s a smart kid. He was about four when Sean died. I think the affair had been going on for a while.”
“My God.” His mother’s distress was nothing compared to how he felt. “That poor girl has been through so much in her life. Go find her. She could use someone on her side for once.”
No doubt. And Luke wanted to be there for Sarah, to see her through whatever happened next. He knew contacting Trish would open a Pandora’s box of past hurts, but hoped Sarah was ready for it when she’d decided to try to bring the kids together.
It was one thing to know Sean cheated and had a child with another woman, but it was another to hear Jack talk about the reality of what that had been like in the moment for them.
Margaret still looked emotionally drained and utterly disappointed and disillusioned by the revelations she’d learned about Sean. He wondered how she’d take finding out about Jamie.
They’d all agreed to hold off telling her until Trish made contact—if she ever did—and agreed to meet with them.
After all Sean had put Sarah through, maybe this was too much to ask of her. She seemed to have gotten past Sean’s deceit and the hurt he’d caused, but this visit with Margaret and finding out about Jamie had to have opened old wounds.
All Luke wanted to do was make everything all right for Sarah. He wanted to give her everything she’d never had with anyone else. What he’d never had with anyone else.
They had a connection that included a genuine affection and love he’d always wanted and never had with a woman. Just thinking about her made him smile. When she was away from him, he couldn’t wait to see her again.
And when she was unhappy, all he wanted to do was lighten her heart and put the smile right back on her beautiful face.
He wanted to give her everything, but all she wanted was him. And if she gave him a chance, he’d be the best husband and father to her kids she could ever want, because she deserved it.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sarah walked out the back door simultaneously heartbroken because her son was crying and happy because she’d seen how Luke took care of him. Held him. Loved him.
She loved him right back for that and so much more.
With a heavy heart and a lot of reminders that this was for the boys, she greeted the woman she’d hated for years. “Hello, Trish.”
“Hi, Sarah. It’s been a long time.” The tentative words held a lot of trepidation. “I was surprised to hear from you. Well . . . your lawyer.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t say anything about being pregnant after the accident.”
Trish paused, then sighed. “The accident woke me up in a lot of ways. I realized I’d been doing a lot of things that I made excuses for because I wanted them. I didn’t think about how my actions affected other people.”
“Like me.”
“Yes. I told myself we loved each other so it was okay. I told myself he loved me, not you, so it was okay. I told myself that as long as we were together, everything would work out. That you’d be happy to move on because you wanted out of the marriage as much as Sean. I told myself a lot of things to justify my behavior. I just never looked at things from your perspective.”
“You didn’t think about me and the boys at all,” Sarah accused.
“No. I didn’t. Because then I’d have to think about how wrong it was to be with Sean even when he made me feel so good. Any doubts I had, he erased them with promises and romantic gestures. He showered me with the kind of love I’d never felt.” Trish paused. “But there was always something there, lurking in the background, that I couldn’t quite dismiss.”
“Me.”
“Yes. But it was more the attachment he had to you. He needed you. He refused to let you go, even while telling me how much he loved me.” Trish sucked in a ragged breath. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear that.”
Sarah had heard Sean’s pretty words of love and devotion and found them meaningless. She didn’t hold much stock in him having deep emotions for Trish either, but didn’t say anything about it. “Sean made it clear he wanted you, not me.”
“And yet he wanted to fight the divorce. After months of assuring me he’d leave you to be with me, that we’d make a life together, he wouldn’t do the one thing I’d begged him to do.” Sadness filled her voice.
Sarah found that she did have some sympathy for the other woman, though it was more for her gullibility and believing in a man who’d cheat on his wife.
“Sean needed me to save the company. That’s all.” It hadn’t been because he’d loved her or wanted to salvage their marriage. She was a means to an end.
“Even the pregnancy didn’t persuade him.” The admission held a lot of sadness.
Sarah wondered if Trish got pregnant on purpose to force Sean’s hand, but didn’t ask. Instead, she gave Trish another dose of reality. “He barely spent time with his sons because he spent all his free time with you.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. They must miss him terribly.”
“They miss the idea of him. Because let’s face it, Sean didn’t care about them. He only cared about himself.”
Trish sighed again. “I know that now. I realized it in the moments before the crash. After, when he was gone, I tried to understand why I grieved but also felt . . . relieved.”
Shocked by the admission, Sarah took it in and thought it through. “You realized you weren’t the most important thing in Sean’s life. Neither was your child. You played out what life with Sean would really look like. Him fighting to keep me at the company by using the boys as leverage. Him making promises to you again and again and again and hardly ever keeping them. Him appeasing you all the time just so you’d do what he wanted.”
“Him ignoring our child the way he did his sons,” Trish added.
The line went quiet as they both remembered Sean for who he was and their lost hope that he’d ever be the man they’d wanted him to be for them.
Sarah hated that they had that in common. It made it hard to hate Trish when they’d both fallen into the same trap with the same man.
“He was so angry that night in the car, ranting that you’d demanded the divorce and how he wouldn’t give it to you without a fight. I didn’t know about the trouble with the company. Well, some of it, yes, but not that he’d taken money from it and could end up in jail. He let that slip that night. When I told him he could turn things around without you, that we could live a good life together, he turned on me. He said I didn’t know what I was talking about, that you were the only one who could save him, and all I was good for was a fuck.” Trish’s words held the strain of threatening tears. “I know he was upset, drunk, not thinking clearly, but those words cut deep, and I realized that he’d been using me as a fun distraction and that he really didn’t have any deep feelings for me.”
“I don’t think Sean really knew how to love.” Why Sarah offered the reason for Sean’s bad behavior, she didn’t know. Consoling Sean’s mistress had never crossed her mind, but in the moment, it seemed Trish needed it, and Sarah commiserated with the woman for finding out too late she’d put her hopes and dreams in the hands of a man who was too selfish to fulfill them.
Trish sighed again. “He loved himself. He wanted to save himself.”
“Yes, he did. But then he died in the accident and I had to save everyone from him.”
“I didn’t tell you about the baby because I just wanted to do the right thing and stay out of your life. I felt guilty for taking the payment you offered even as I thought I deserved it because Sean turned out to be such a shit.”<
br />
“Agreed.” If they were going to be in each other’s lives to facilitate a relationship between the kids, then they needed to find common ground. Agreeing that Sean was an asshole seemed like a good place to start.
“For a long time, I let my guilt about the accident rule my life.”
Sarah wondered about that. “Why did you feel guilty about the accident?” Aside from the fact she let her drunk boyfriend behind the wheel.
“We were arguing. I distracted him. The more I pleaded with him to leave you for me, the more furious he got. And yes, I know, I should have never let him drive that night. Truthfully, I’d only seen him down one scotch. I didn’t know he must have had several others before we left to confront you.”
Sean’s blood alcohol test came back showing he’d been well over the legal limit.
“He’d have gotten in that car no matter how hard you tried to persuade him otherwise.”
“He was on a mission that night,” Trish agreed. “And I didn’t help things. I could have lost my child.” The last was said on an anguished whisper.
“But you didn’t. And still you didn’t tell me the boys had a sister.”
“I didn’t think you’d care. I didn’t want to intrude in your life again. I watched you rebuild Spencer Software. You didn’t just move on, you thrived. It took me longer to put the past behind me.”
“I imagine being pregnant with Sean’s baby was a daily reminder of what you’d done and what you’d lost.”
“Yes. But then I had Jamie and a new world of possibilities opened up for me. I met someone new. Someone kind, who fell in love with both of us. A man I could really see being a good husband and father. And he is.”
“I heard you’re engaged.”
“Yes. And he wants to adopt Jamie. We’ll be a family.”
Because Sarah had found Luke, she understood all too well how Trish felt. “I hope you two have a wonderful life together.”
“I know we will.” Another tense pause ticked away the seconds. “About Jamie and the boys . . . I think it would be nice for Jamie to get to know her brothers. I’m just not sure how we’ll do this after what I did to you.”
Sarah sucked it up for the boys, but also because she didn’t want to hold on to this resentment and anger anymore. “I don’t know that we’ll ever be best friends or anything . . .”
“I wouldn’t expect that from you.”
“But I think we can agree to leave the past in the past and be nice to each other because in a weird way, we’re family.” She didn’t know any other way to put it. Except that sometimes you had to move on simply because what tied you together was far stronger than the bad things you could let tear you apart.
“Oh wow. Um, that’s more than I deserve or expected.”
“It’s what Jamie, Jack, and Nick deserve. Family is important. Their connection to each other matters. I hope they will come together, be sister and brothers, and have a bond that lasts them through their lives. That they will always be able to count on each other.”
“I want that for them, too. I’ll do whatever it takes to help facilitate that for Jamie and the boys without making it too difficult on you.”
“I appreciate that. I’ll need to have a talk with the boys and let them know they have a sister. Jack remembers a lot more than I thought.”
“I wondered if he’d remember me.”
“Apparently he does.” For better or worse, that would help him understand how Jamie was his sister. “I don’t know how you feel about this, but I’d like it if for the initial visit you let me introduce Jamie to them alone. You can wait outside if you want, but I’d just really like to meet Jamie, and be present with her, without you and the past staring me in the face.”
“I think I understand. You don’t want to put your feelings for me on her.”
“I guess. Something like that. Yes.”
“Okay. I can do that, but I hope, eventually, we can all spend time together.”
“Yes. Definitely.” She didn’t expect Trish to just drop her child and go every time. They would have to find a way to have a cordial relationship.
If she and Margaret could do it, why not her and Trish?
Sometimes, being a mom meant doing things for your kids you’d normally never do but you did them because they needed you to be a better person than even you thought you could be.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sarah said goodbye to Trish with a promise that she’d be in touch soon to set up an introduction and playdate for the kids when she returned to her home in Silicon Valley. She couldn’t believe this had become her life. Cleaning up Sean’s messes, reconciling with his family, now inviting his mistress to her home.
Add in work and she had way too much on her plate. All of it took an emotional toll.
She wanted to keep on hating Trish, but it was hard to hold on to anger for a woman who had made the same mistake she had by falling for Sean.
Yes, she still blamed Trish for going into the affair knowing Sean was married, but Sean was the one who’d made Sarah and Trish promises and didn’t keep them. In order to reconcile Trish’s role in the affair with finding a way to have a relationship with her, Sarah had to find the strength to forgive Trish, or at least set aside what she did so they could be what their kids needed them to be: a good person. A role model for finding solutions to tough problems.
But sometimes it sucked to have to be the bigger person and do the right thing.
Sometimes, she just wanted to be mad.
She picked up a rock and threw it as hard as she could. She bent to pick up another when Luke’s boots crunched on the gravel behind her.
“You’ve got a good arm, sweetheart. I see why the boys are such good ballplayers. I definitely want you on my team next time we play.” He was giving her a minute to collect herself.
The tension drained away and she found a smile for the lovely image his words evoked and the feelings running through her that he’d always pick her to be by his side.
She turned to him and sighed, so happy to see his handsome face and the patience in his eyes. “I did the right thing.”
“I knew you would.”
Yeah, well, it sucked to swallow her feelings. “Is Jack okay?”
“Yes. Just a little upset that the lady who made his mom cry called. I made sure he was distracted kicking my dad’s ass at video games and happy again before I came out to see you.”
“Okay. Good.” When Luke didn’t say anything else, she stared at him. “No twenty questions?”
Luke held her gaze. “You can say anything to me. I promise you, Sarah, you can lean on me and count on me for love and support whenever you need it. You don’t have to put on a front when you’re hurting and angry and feel like you have to do all the hard stuff while others hurt you. Talking to your husband’s mistress, opening your life to her and Jamie, that can’t be easy.”
“It’s not. I feel like I can’t escape him.”
“It certainly feels like he’s been here the last few weeks. But you’ve also put him behind you in business, with Margaret and Bridget, and now Trish. You rose above all the turmoil he brought into your life. And I know it sucked that you had to fix it all, but you did it. And while you’ll have to introduce Jack and Nick to their sister, I’ll be there to help you and them through that. I’m here for you right now. I’ll always be here with you, Sarah.”
She ran to him and threw herself into his arms. “I’m so lucky to have you.” She pressed her cheek to his chest and held on tighter.
Luke held her close, offering every bit of comfort she needed. “You’ve done a really good job keeping it all together and not giving in to what has to be a huge urge to lash out at everyone because of what Sean did. You’d be well within your rights to rage, but you’ve found a way to rise above it for your boys. That’s what makes you so amazing.”
“I don’t feel amazing. That wasn’t easy.”
“You make handling the hard stuff look easy. But tel
l me. Are you okay? How did it go?”
“It went better than I thought, and I hate her a little less.”
“Well, that’s something.”
“She really loved him. I understand her having those feelings and wanting the life Sean promised her. I suspect Trish got pregnant hoping Sean would finally leave me for her and their child.” She shrugged one shoulder, not exactly sad for Trish, but understanding her desire to get Sean’s full attention. Early on, Sarah had tried, but when it became clear the only thing he appreciated about her was her work output, she gave up on their relationship and focused on the boys. “Trish miscalculated. Sean had no interest in the boys. I doubt that would have changed with Jamie, but who knows.”
“But he didn’t want to leave you because he needed you. Sean led her on. He didn’t want the divorce. He needed you to keep working, so he could keep taking the money. And as his wife, you couldn’t testify against him if he got caught.”
“Now you’re thinking like Sean. Manipulations. Lies. Anything to get what he wanted.”
“He threatened to take the boys away from you to force you to keep working for him.”
“Jack told you that,” she guessed, and Luke confirmed it with a nod. “He remembers a lot more than I thought he did.” Her heart ached for her sweet boy. “Sean had nothing but empty threats. He didn’t really want the kids. They took away from his traveling and partying. As for Trish, she wanted our divorce and fought hard for it right up until the seconds before the crash.”
“They were arguing in the car?”
“Yes. She feels guilty for distracting him. He was drunk and in a rage. The roads were slick from the rain we’d had earlier in the evening. It was dark, the lights from oncoming traffic may have distorted visibility. Was it one thing? Two? All of it? None of it? Who knows? Sean died.”
Sarah pressed her hand to her forehead, then dropped it. “Trish confessed that during the argument in the car right before the accident, Sean said some terrible things, including that he needed me more than a good fuck.” Sarah sighed. “I’m paraphrasing, but you can see why Trish took the money I offered her and disappeared to grieve and reconcile having Sean’s baby with knowing she wasn’t the priority she deserved to be with Sean.”
Lost and Found Family Page 25
