I’m a coward.
“I can’t.” As soon as I say those words, I turn around and run.
***
I look in the mirror hanging over the sink where I got the water to repeatedly splash my face and realize I don’t even recognize the scared shell of a woman staring back at me.
“Not so easy was it; walking away from the person that doesn’t just hold your soul, but is your soul? I instinctively flinch, because I hadn’t heard my mother walk in the hotel restroom.
Looking in her eyes, I lay it all out there. “No Mom, it wasn’t easy. But at least I can survive it. I wouldn’t be able to if he took his love away from me again.”
“How do you know that he would walk away?”
I quickly look up into my mom’s eyes. In them I see the understanding that she has always shown me. After Toby got me away from Travis; after I had found out about Christien and had to disappear for awhile; after I agreed to help Toby raise Seamus; after Toby had died and I had taken in two more sons. Daddy Samee has always given me love, support, and the courage to be who I needed to be; while my mom has always given me love, support, and understanding. Without either one of them I wouldn’t have made it through my life. Finally I attempt to answer her. “Mom, seven and a half years ago he cut me from his life in the cruelest way imaginable. He let me find him with another woman and told me that while I had been a good lay but wouldn’t “fit in” with his life back home. The only reason I survived was because of the DEA and Toby and Seamus. Now, after listening to him call me a whore and a child molester, after seeing him with that woman, I am supposed to believe him when he says he loves me and always has? What happens when he wakes up one morning, laughs in my face and says it was all just a joke? That he doesn’t love me and could never love me?”
I have barely finished my sentence when I hear high heeled shoes walk further into the restroom. “Honey, you have to know my baby would never do that. He has loved you more deeply these past seven years than you can possibly imagine. “
As I look at the woman, the similarities with Wyatt are eerily similar. She is a tall statuesque woman with dark brown hair with a very few strands of gray. With her shapely body, high cheekbones and startling silver eyes, I knew that Wyatt Master’s mother has broken plenty of hearts herself in her heyday. Probably still does for that matter.
“Mrs. Masters, with all due respect, you haven’t lived my life, so you can’t begin to imagine the pain and suffering your son has heaped on me.”
She smiles sadly at me. “No I can’t. And even though he has told me everything, including how he feels, I don’t know you, or your feelings.”
My mother takes a step closer to me. “Honey, when your Dad told you that you had to be strong and protect yourself, he didn’t mean for you to become too strong for love. He wants you to have the house, the cars, the husband of your dreams and a family.”
“Bu...”
“No buts, just answer this simple question; if you walked out of here tonight without giving him a chance, would you walk out with or without your heart and soul? And remember, you have someone else you have to think about now as well.” With that she looked pointedly at my belly.
***
As I run down the hallway to the valet parking area, I can’t help but to be thankful for both mothers. They are right. Without Wyatt in my life, I will just existing. I have to take a chance, and that doesn’t make me weak. I realize now that the only true weakness is turning your back on love.
As I reach the loading area, I arrive just in time to see a black limousine pull out of the parking area into the light. As I stand there staring at the limo, even after it disappears, I can’t help but feel like Wyatt had given up on me, and I finally understood how he felt when he found out I had left; even though I know him leaving is ultimately my fault, it still hurts that he didn’t care enough to try again.
As I stare off into the night, my mind full of entangled thoughts and ideas of how to fix everything between us, I don’t hear Wyatt behind me until he asks, “What do you want?” I turn around because he sounds mad, but when I look in his eyes I see that he isn’t mad, he is just hurt.
I take a deep breath and tell him. “I haven’t had possession of my heart since that day in the rain when we met. I don’t want my heart back, it’s yours. Just let me be yours too.”
I look up into his eyes for so long that the swirling emotions in his sliver gaze make me dizzy. Just when my heart starts to slowly drop from my chest to my feet, Wyatt mouth slowly lifts into a tender smile. As he pulls me to him, I hear his whispered prayer of thanks, “Thank you God,” just before his lips meet mine.
Time seemed to stand still as we kissed. When our lips finally parted, my brain was beyond mush. Wyatt tenderly cupped my face with both hands. “I love you so much Kye, and want so much to be a family with you and all three of your sons and any other children we might have down the line.”
I could feel my mouth form a smile so big that I was afraid my face would break. “I love you Wyatt, and while I never thought that I could love you any more than I do, your acceptance of my sons just caused me to love you even more. I hope that you are serious about wanting to build a family.”
“Of course Kye. I want you and the boys to be mine. I know that I will have my work cut out getting them to accept me, especially Tiarnan, but I love them already simply because you love them, and maybe one day they will see me as a father. And when you are ready, I hope we can add more children to our family.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes as a happy laugh escapes. “That is the best news I have ever heard, but I hope you are not planning on waiting to increase the size of our family.” As I finish that sentence, I slowly pull one of Wyatt’s hands down from my face and gently place it on my stomach.
At first Wyatt was confused. As comprehension slowly dawned on him, I saw hope and doubt creep over his face until he finally was able to ask, “Really?” in a choked voice.
It is my turn to cup his face with my hands. “Yes, really. We will have a new son or daughter in roughly six months.” Suddenly Wyatt has me raised up in his arms and is twirling around and around.
When he finally stops, he lowers me until I am standing on the floor and stares into my eyes. He starts to lower his head, but right before his lips reach mine I hear him say, “You know what you said earlier? It is true for you too. Just when I think you can’t make me love you anymore, you do.”
One Year Later
"Someone once said that being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections; and that is what we did and do every day.”
Wyatt
Wyatt
“Daddy, why are Mommy and Shameface crying? And why did we have to bring flowers here today.” God, I love all my children, but Cian is the one that always makes me want to crack up, and sometimes he doesn’t even have to put any effort in it. About a month and a half ago, Cian walked in on Kye telling me it was a shame that Cale and Charity couldn’t work out whatever was between them, and picked up on the word shame. “Hey Mommy, Daddy, that word sound a lot like Seamus. Seamus, Shame face. Seamus the Shameface!” Since then he has been calling Seamus “Shameface” every chance he gets.
As I readjust Shonna Elizabeth’s sleeping form in to my other arm, I take a minute to form an answer to that question. “Kiddo, we are all here today to show how thankful we are to the man that helped bring us all together so we could become a family.”
Cian pondered that a solid ten seconds before he posed his next question. “So why aren’t we all over there?”
Even though he was only five-and-half years old, this boy could ask more questions than Anderson Cooper could ever begin to imagine. “They knew him before any of us did. They just need an extra minute or two.”
“Ok.” And just like that, the questions stopped.
The day Kye told me she loved me and that she was pregn
ant, I figured that we would just ride off into the sunset and live our happily ever after. It hadn’t been quiet that easy.
When I had finally gotten around to popping the question to Kye, I had presented her with the ring that I had bought her a month and a half after we first met; she had broken down and cried. It was a beautiful gold and platinum bezel set diamond with small aquamarine stones in the center of the band. After I had put it on her finger, I had looked down on it and grinned. “You know, I always knew this ring was suited you, even before I knew your birthdate and birthstone. But you should know that my birthstone is a diamond, so I guess we were always meant to be.”
But being meant to be didn’t mean being together was easy. We had our share of problems, the greatest of which was the boys and our time apart.
All three of the boys wanted Kye to be happy, and if being with me made her happy they were all for it, but it took time for me to form my own relationships with them. Cian was the first to call me Daddy, and that made sense because he had never really had a dad of his own. Even though Tiarnan hadn’t known if he was Cian’s father or not, he hadn’t pushed for a fatherly role. Tiarnan would say that it was because he was too young and selfish. I would say it was really because he wanted what was best for Cian and he thought that he just wasn’t it.
Surprisingly, Tiarnan had been more accepting of me as a presence in his life that Seamus. After we had continued our talk about how much I loved Kye and Tiarnan promised to rip my balls off if I ever hurt her again, we formed a truce. Gradually when he called to talk to Kye and the boys he would talk more and more to me, until one day in July and we were all on the lake while he had weekend leave, he told Cian not to run to me, because “Dad can’t save you now.” After he threw water on Tiarnan while he was sleeping. I never imagined I would be the father of a twenty-one year old at the age of thirty-one, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Seamus didn’t call me “Dad” until two months ago. It had been a Saturday, and I had been working in the office at home, trying to get the quarterly report for Masters Shipping done and Seamus stuck his head in. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” Seamus is six and a half years old, and for the most part he is a happy carefree little boy, but there are moments when he seems to have the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Sure Little Man, come on in. What do you want to talk to me about?”
I don’t know what I had been expecting, but I hadn’t been expecting him to ask, “Can I call you Daddy?”
Tears came to my eyes but I quickly pushed them back. “Well Little Man, if that is what you want, I would be both happy and proud to be your daddy.”
Seamus slowly nodded his head. “I know I have another Daddy in Heaven that loves me, just like I have always known that I have another Mommy in Heaven that loves me too. I know a bunch of kids at school that have two Mommies and two Daddies, none in Heaven though, so I guess it would be ok?”
I couldn’t help it, I had to hug him. As I picked him up in my arms and he laid his head on my shoulder, my tears finally broke through. “Well Little Man I know your Mommy and Daddy in Heaven love you, but I want you to always remember that your Mommy and Daddy here love too. We love you so, so much!”
Not surprisingly, Kye was much more understanding about my time away from her than I was of her time away from me. Then again all she had to get over was two drunken attempts at a one-night-stand that had ended with me screaming out her name and two nameless females highly insulted and pissed at me. I had to get over her being in a relationship with a man that had helped her through some of the worst experiences in her life. To frustrate me even further was the fact that I was the cause of one of those experiences.
For a long time I didn’t want to ask her about him and her relationship with him, but finally I had to know; had she been in love with him. She looked me in the eyes and grabbed my hand, causing me to fear for the worst, when she said; “Did I love Toby? Yes, I did. He helped me through some pretty tough times in my life. He saved me from Travis, gave me a way to move on from Christien and the life I had when dated him, and I know you hate to hear this, but he helped me make it after I thought you threw me away. When I had thought I would never have a family, he let me help raise his son as my own, and even when he died he helped to make my family bigger and stronger. So yes, I loved Toby, and still do; but I was never in love with Toby. That might have been the reason why after being a couple for six months we had never gone further than kissing.” That little fact allowed me to move past Kye and Toby, not that there aren’t times that I am jealous of the stories that they shared, or feel a little hesitant when I see pictures of Kye, Seamus and Toby, but for the most part the only thing I feel for him is gratitude. I can’t resent the man that protected my world when I was unable to do so, or the man that gave me the sons that I love so much.
Looking down at Cian, I ruffle his hair. “I think we have given them enough time, don’t you?” I quickly grab his hand with the one not supporting Shonna Elizabeth. Right at that time, Tiarnan joins us.
“Hey guys, I am sorry I’m late. The last connector I was catching to Phoenix had a two hour delay before it could get wheels up.” When Kye had first asked for the family to go to Toby’s gravesite on his birthday I had been a little hesitant. Only a few days before I had found the letter that Tiarnan gave her five years ago in the graveyard, and the depth of his love for Kye was pretty plain to see. But, when she said she felt like she needed to go to let him know how happy she was, I relented. Who in the hell am I kidding? There is nothing I wouldn’t do to make her happy.
But truth be told, I know that there is a lot that I need to thank Toby for. He saved the love of my life more times than I can count, and he was there to help her get through some of the toughest times in her life. He had been responsible for bringing the sons that I love so much into her life and eventually mine.
So the next time that Tiarnan called home, I told him all about. He hadn’t known if he would have time off, but if he did he would do everything he could to be there. Three days ago he was told that he could have leave. Of course, that gave him no time to find transportation so he had to get to Phoenix by flying standby. Standby is the old practice of military men and women of catching a flight on a cargo plan to wherever they were going. The problem with traveling standby and the reason why hardly anyone ever did it anymore is that often times you had to make countless connector flights that could be delayed and would take you two thousand miles west before you get to your destination five hundred miles east.
I chuckle as Cian jumps into Tiarnan’s arms and squeezes his big brother; or as Seamus likes to say, his “biggest” brother. Seamus liked to tease him, but just like Tiarnan, he would do anything to help his “baby” brother and keep him and the rest of the family safe.
My free arm came around his shoulder in a manly hug. “Well let’s go see your mom and brother. I think they have had enough time alone.”
Tiarnan smiles and shakes his head. “My God; no wonder the guys give me such grief about our family dynamic. I have a “mother” nine years older than me, and my “father” is eleven years older. If that doesn’t equal a “what the fuck” moment, I don’t know what is!”
I can’t help but burst out laughing. “You are just pissed because Skully said you mom was definitely a MILF!” When one of his platoon buddies had seen a family picture Tiarnan had, he had started giving him tons of shit about Kye being one hot MILF. I probably would have been pissed when Tiarnan told me about it when we came to visit one weekend, but when he pointed Skully out and I noticed his two black eyes and looked down at Tiarnan’s bruised knuckles, I couldn’t help but laugh.
As we approach the tombstone, Kye turns around and uses the hand not holding Shonna Elizabeth’s twin, Sharon Renee, to wipe the tears from her face. When Kye sees me she smiles, but her smile gets even wider when she sees her oldest son. “Tiarnan! I didn’t know you even knew we were coming here!”
After I finally end our kiss, I look down into her eyes and ask, “Are you ok Darlin’ Princess? Do you need some more time?”
Her head is lying on my chest, so I don’t see, only fee, her shake her head no. “No, Toby knows that you are taking care of us. He is at peace.” We all stand there a few minutes more. Kye, Tiarnan, and I in silent reflection; Seamus and Cian stand there as well, just as silent. I am sure they are much too young to understand the bittersweet nostalgia permeating in the air.
I don’t know just how long we would have stood there if it hadn’t been for an unmistakable odor that wafts through the air around us. The silence is broken by Cian. “Shewwww! Boy, am I glad I am too little to have to do dirty diaper duty.”
For some reason the girls almost always go to the bathroom at the same time, so everyone knows it is a two person job. I look over at Tiarnan and ask him to take Shonna Elizabeth, and he looks at me like I lost my mind. “Uh, seriously? You really think I am going to do that, no questions asked?”
“Look man, I have something I need to do here alone, so could you please just help a “Daddy” out?” When Tiarnan’s lips started to twitch, I knew I had him. “Fine, but I don’t have to do dirty diaper duty until after Christmas.”
As Tiarnan and the boys walk away, I look over my shoulder to see Kye still standing there, a sweet look of confusion on her face. “Go to the car Darlin’ Princess, I will be there in a minute”
Find A Way Or Make One Page 18
