One More Chance: A Secret Baby Second Chance Romance

by Amy Brent

  “Okay. Sure.”

  “Start with why you do,” she said.

  “I want to tell him because he’s Brody’s father. That’s an important thing, something Brody has gone without for a long time. And I want to tell him because he has a right to know.”

  “Those are good reasons. In my eyes, they’re the only reasons that matter. So, tell me why you don’t want to tell him.”

  “Besides him getting upset and us having yet another fight where we both might say things we regret for the rest of our lives?” I asked.

  “Yes. Besides that.”

  “His mother is a big one.”

  “His mother?”

  “I know he wants to help his mother, and I know he wants a good relationship with her. Which means I know he’ll try to use Brody as a healing mechanism for her, and I don’t want Brody around her.”

  “That’s—not actually something I considered. But I see your point.”

  “I also don’t want to tell him for the same reason I didn’t want to tell him when I first found out I was pregnant. I don’t want to hold him back, Mom.”

  “Why would you think a child would hold him back?” she asked.

  “Because it held me back. Don’t get me wrong, my life is incredible now. I’ve got a business I can be proud of and a son I love more than life itself. But it stunted me in a lot of ways.

  “He’s just getting a business off the ground. He’s going to be working insane hours. And then we throw fatherhood into the mix? Brody’s going to want Tyler around the second I tell him who Tyler is, and what if Tyler doesn’t have the time? What if he becomes that father who never makes it to football games or soccer games or can’t teach him how to do things or can’t spend weekends with us? In my eyes, Brody’s better off without someone like that in his life.”

  “That’s assuming Tyler will be like that. Do you really think he’ll be that kind of father?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s a risk I take in stepping over that line. It’s not something I can take back once it’s out.”

  “Are there any other reasons?” my mother asked.

  There was one, but I couldn't talk about it. I couldn't admit that one out loud just yet. I didn’t have all my ducks in a row and wasn’t done emotionally processing it.

  “There are, but they’re complicated, and I don’t have the mental forethought to get into them yet,” I said.

  “The good news is that you’re coming at this from a protective mother’s perspective. The bad news is that none of that overrides the right thing to do.”

  “Mom—”

  “They both deserve to know, sweetheart. I know that isn’t what you want to hear, and I know it’s going to be hard, but honestly? Nothing is harder than what you’ve already done. You took care of an infant, took weekend classes to further the business you opened all while raising a colicky and sick little boy. You did the hard part, Ana. There is absolutely nothing in this world that will be harder than what you’ve already done with your life.”

  “I never thought I’d get Brody to sleep through the night,” I said, groaning.

  “And now you can’t get him up in the mornings,” my mother said, giggling.

  “One day I’ll cherish that. When I’m not working so hard at my business and can actually sleep past seven in the morning, I’ll really enjoy it. But right now? It sucks.”

  “Ana, let me let you in on a little secret.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Motherhood always sucks.”

  I laughed as I sipped my coffee and rocked next to my mother. I knew she was right. I knew Kristi was right. Tyler and Brody had a right to know about one another, especially with Brody now asking questions about what his father was like.

  I felt myself giving in to the idea. I allowed myself to daydream sometimes about what it would be like to be a family together, to raise Brody with Tyler and experience the magic of the relationship they would cultivate with one another. But all of those cons and potential failures loomed heavily in the back of my mind, and worry bubbled up my throat again.

  “What if Tyler doesn't want to be a father, Mom?”

  She stopped rocking and turned her head toward me as I finished my first cup of coffee for the morning.

  “Then fuck him.”

  “Mom!”

  “Now, I’m serious, Ana. Tyler was a good boy in high school, and I don’t think he has it in him to pull something like that, but eight years changes a lot about someone. If you tell him about Brody and he looks at you and tells you it isn’t something he wants, then fuck him. Brody’s an amazing kid, and the only one losing out on it is Tyler. But, that brings up another point.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Tell Tyler before you tell Brody. If it goes worse than expected, you’ve still protected your son from the brunt of it,” she said.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “And, Ana?”

  “Yeah, Mom?”

  “No matter what happens, we’ll always be here. Your father and I will always be here for you and Brody. If Tyler doesn't want to step up and be a father to him, your father will always fill that male-figure role. In fact, I think he’s enjoying it a little too much.”

  I giggled as tears crested my eyes. The idea made me sick to my stomach. What if Tyler didn’t want Brody? What if I told him about his son and he got up and walked away from us? I couldn't imagine Tyler doing something like that. It didn’t seem like him. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. But children always changed things. It had for me. I became a completely different person after having Brody.

  Talking with my mother had helped to make things simpler, but that one fear—that one question—threw me right back to square one. Now I wasn’t sure about anything again.

  Tyler

  “Mr. Richard! Come in. Sit down. I’ve been expecting you.”

  “So, I know you’re technically a trial lawyer and deal mostly with criminal cases, but I was wondering how well that translated into the business sector.”

  I stood and tucked my tie into my coat while Richard took a seat in my office.

  “Being a trial lawyer means that so long as I have all the information at my disposal, I can defend or prosecute in court. Trial lawyer is more of an umbrella term that encompasses a range of things, from criminal suits to business ethics to civil suits.”

  “Then I’m hoping you can take a look at something for me—on the clock of course.”

  “Certainly. What is it?” I asked.

  Richard pulled out a file of papers and slid them toward me.

  “I just fired the in-house lawyer at my oil company because I found him engaging in some practices I didn’t agree with. Oil companies have shadows looming over them right now, and my lawyer was playing into those shadows. He’s made a mess of things, and I have no idea where to begin cleaning it up.”

  “What kinds of thi—oh boy.”

  I saw what he was talking about the second I opened the file. I scanned the documents and clocked unethical standard after unethical standard: cutting corners with pipelines and then writing legal mumbo jumbo that washed Richard’s hands of the whole thing, hiring practices that were less than appealing with missing paperwork that just so happened to be the most important pieces of the puzzle.

  “You’re being sued,” I said.

  “I am. And I want to clean it up.”

  “You want to make it go away or you want to clean up the paperwork I have in my hand?” I asked.

  “Both. This isn’t the way to run a business in this day and age. I don’t know what the rest of the world is doing, but I won’t be doing it. I want this to go away, and I want all of this shit I can identify in this paperwork to be reworded and fixed.”

  “I can make that happen. The one thing courts enjoy above all else is a decent redemption story. But your reputation will temporarily take the fall for this. If you walk into that courtroom and admit that this is shady at best, they’ll rake you over
the coals even once you do tell them you’re going to fix it.”

  “I understand that. It’s the price of doing the type of business I do. But it needs to be fixed. I won’t have a company in the future if it isn’t.”

  “Then I can fix it for you, Mr. Richard. I just don’t know where the hell you found this guy. This is rough stuff.”

  “Not at Harvard. That’s for sure,” he said, grinning.

  “You’re probably right on that one,” I said, laughing.

  “So how bad is it?” he asked.

  “It’s not as bad as some of the things I’ve seen, but it’s bad. I take it the employee paperwork at the back of this file is the person who’s suing you?”

  “It is.”

  “A lot is missing from their documents. Specifically, some things that aid medical insurance companies in identifying coverage and things regarding 401(k) benefits.”

  “I saw that early this morning. I’m starting to wonder if they were intentional errors made somewhere along the line.”

  “That isn’t my venue, so I don’t want to jump the gun. It could be that they’ve simply gotten lost in the system somewhere. That isn’t my concern, though it should be yours. It’s the wording on page fourteen, paragraph six, that does have me concerned: ‘An employee has sixty (60) days to turn in and finalize all paperwork regarding hire, until such time as the business requires it. After the sixty (60) days, any and all paperwork not received and finalized will default to company standards and require additional filing of paperwork to overturn.’”

  “Meaning?”

  “When an employee is hired, they have sixty days to get all their stuff in. If they don’t, it defaults to company standards. But, there are no company standards written out in the paperwork you’ve given me, which means there are none. So, in the case of the employee suing you, that could very well be interpreted to mean that since they didn’t get their 401(k) and medical documents in on time, they simply don’t have those benefits.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. I’m glad you got rid of that lawyer of yours. Had you not, I would’ve advised you to make the call immediately. That’s about as sleazy as someone can get in the business world,” I said.

  “Are you available for hire right now, Mr. Browning?”

  “For you? Yes, sir.”

  “I want this fixed, reworded, and settled in court—ethically. You bill me for your hours, and maybe after this thunderstorm is behind us, we can talk about a more permanent position for you at my company.”

  “With all due respect, I don’t do in-house counsel. I have retainership contracts, but I don’t seclude myself to one person because of situations just like this one.”

  “Don’t worry. I wasn’t planning on hiring you for in-house counsel.”

  “Then I look forward to discussing our future together once we can get you past this hump. It doesn’t seem like it now, but things will be all right, Mr. Richard.”

  “I appreciate you seeing me, Tyler.”

  “Drop by anytime. My door’s always open.”

  I shook the man’s hand before seeing him out of my office. Another client, another prospect for retainership. I looked at the file folder of papers on my desk and sighed. That case would take the bulk of my time on a good day. I was officially looking at my weekend work. The only thing that made it better was that Richard wanted to improve things, not force people underneath a table to suck his own dick while he screwed them over.

  Still, it would be a hell of a case in court.

  My cell phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out. My dad was calling me. I thought about ignoring it. I hadn’t talked to him since the party he threw me. Part of me wasn’t sure if I was ready to speak with him yet, but something in my gut told me to pick up the phone.

  And that made me nervous.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “You need to get to Ronald Reagan now.”

  My blood ran cold. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Your mother’s in the hospital, Son, and it doesn’t look good.”

  I grabbed the folder and stuffed it into my briefcase before I tucked it underneath my arm.

  “How long have you guys been there?”

  “A few hours. Your mother collapsed on the floor with yellow eyes this morning and I had to call an ambulance.”

  “Do they know what’s wrong? What room are you guys in?”

  “They’re admitting us now, so I don’t know the room. I’ll text it to you once we get there.”

  “I’m locking up my office now. See you in thirty.”

  I raced down to my car and chucked my briefcase into the back seat. I raced across town to the hospital and skidded my car into a parking spot. I grabbed my briefcase and raced inside, digging my cell phone out of my pocket to check if I had any messages.

  402.

  My parents were in room 402.

  I ran straight to the elevator even though people were yelling at me to slow down. I shoved my hand repeatedly against the up button until the door finally opened. I stepped in and slammed the button for level four, then shuffled on my feet until the elevator stopped.

  As the doors parted, doctors were rushing a gurney past, and I stepped out.

  “Mom?” I asked.

  Her hand flop over the side of the gurney as they turned the corner.

  “Mom!”

  “Son.”

  “Mom!”

  “Come here, Tyler.”

  “Mom!”

  My father whipped me around and wrapped me up in his arms. I buried myself into him like I used to do when I was a child. Tears flowed down my cheeks as I shook in his grasp, and he gripped my suit tightly to try to pull me closer into him.

  “What’s happening to her?” I asked breathlessly.

  “They’re running some tests, but they’re almost positive it’s cirrhosis.”

  Just hearing that word made me pull away from my father.

  “How could you let this happen to her?” I asked.

  “Tyler, now isn’t the time—”

  “You enabled this behavior for years.”

  “Son, we can’t—”

  “Why did you let Mom die!?”

  “Because I had no control over the situation!”

  His voice boomed across the waiting room so loudly that a nurse came in to quiet us down. He took my arm and yanked me down the hallway, pulling me into the room that had been designated for them.

  For us.

  For my mother.

  “We can argue about this later. I know you blame me for the condition your mother’s in, but there’s so much about this you don’t understand, and I don’t have the time to explain it. Just—they’re running some tests, but the whites of her eyes are very yellow. So are the beds of her nails, which signals a failing liver at best.”

  “What do you mean you had no control over the situation?”

  “Tyler, listen to me.”

  “No, Dad. For once, you listen to me. For years, Mom’s been like this. And for years, you allowed alcohol in your home. I’ve never known Mom not drunk, not intoxicated in some form. Why didn’t you put your foot down? Why didn’t you enroll her in rehab? Why didn’t you do more to stop this?”

  “I did, Son.”

  My father grew ten years older right before my eyes as he flopped down onto the edge of a chair.

  “I did. I enrolled her into rehab four times, and she walked out all four times.”

  “She could do that?” I asked.

  “Only patients who have mental issues can’t walk out. Your mother had an alcohol problem, not a mental problem. At least none she stayed long enough to figure out.”

  “Four times?”

  “Yeah, four times. Twice we fought about it. I mean really fought about it. I put our marriage on the line for it, said I’d take you and move us elsewhere and leave if she didn’t get her act together. You know what she did?”

  I was scared to ask.

  “She start
ed acting sober. Even when she was sneaking drinks, she acted sober, Tyler. I caught her late one night hunched over the bathroom sink, chugging a small bottle of wine she’d been hiding underneath her side of the fucking bed.”

  I shook my head as tears rolled down my cheeks.

  “It was like your mother was hell-bent on being an alcoholic, like it was her life’s mission. She wasn’t always like that, but one day she woke up and drinking was all she could think about. To this day, I still don’t know what triggered it. My biggest fear is that it was me, something I did or said. And even though I threatened it, I was always afraid that leaving her and taking you would somehow makes things worse.”

  I pulled up a chair beside my dad and sat down. For the first time, I saw how this had eaten away at him. I heard his side of the story and could honestly sympathize with him. I took his hand and held it silently, listening as the clock on the wall ticked off the seconds.

  An hour later, a doctor came walking into the room.

  “Mr. Browning?”

  “Yes?” we both asked.

  We stood and shook the doctor’s hand before my father started rattling off questions.

  “What’s going on with my wife? Is she going to be okay? Where is she? When can I take her home?”

  “Slow down, Mr. Browning. You won’t be taking your wife anywhere for a while,” the doctor said.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I take it you’re her son?” he asked.

  “I am. Tyler Browning.”

  “Tyler, your mother has severe cirrhosis of the liver. She’s actually just shy of it being a fatal turning point for her. We have her stable at the moment, but we’re transferring her to an ICU room while she goes through withdrawal.”

  “Oh my god,” my father moaned.

  “She’s most certainly going to need a transplant. There’s no recovering her liver at this point, as it is shutting down,” the doctor said.

  “I want to be tested as a match,” I said.

  “Me too,” my father said. “I want to be tested as well.”

  “There’s some paperwork that goes into it, but we can get you started on that. First, a blood test to match blood type, then a small biopsy to make sure the livers will be compatible. There’s also health history and things of that sort to take into account, but we can get the ball rolling,” the doctor said.