The Best Man's Baby(50)

Jake stopped speaking abruptly, the last words out of his mouth echoing around them. His ragged breathing made her heart throb as she waited for him to continue.

“And then I knew, I knew it was me because I had never heard those words, I love you. But I couldn’t figure it out, and I couldn’t tell anyone.”

Claire fought the tears she knew were threatening. She wrapped her arms around her waist, hoping to rein in some of the trembling.

“Then one day when I was ten, I was listening outside my parents’ door. They were arguing.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not my father’s son. I was never supposed to be born,” he said in a hoarse voice.

“What are you talking about?” She felt an icy wind steal her breath away despite the fire blazing in the hearth. She didn’t say anything, didn’t move, didn’t breathe. She was scared that if she did, Jake might stop speaking. She watched as he took a deep breath, the muscles in his broad shoulders rising and falling tensely.

“My mother was raped.”

His voice echoed through the room, through the hollow being carved out of her heart for him. His last sentence sounded as though it came from a place buried so deep inside him that it hurt to pull it out. Claire couldn’t move, the weight of his pain anchoring her feet to the ground.

“That was the first time I’d heard that word. I had no idea what it meant, but I knew it was bad and I knew it was my fault. I remember staring at my parents that night at dinner, trying to figure it out. After everyone went to bed, I went into the den and grabbed the dictionary and a flashlight. I was so damn scared about what I was going to find, but I had to know. I wanted more than anything to go and ask Quinn, I wanted my big brother, you know? But then I was scared that he’d hate me too.” Jake walked over to the fireplace, his hands bracing the wide mantel, his back to her.

“So I went into my closet with the flashlight and sat in the corner, flipping through the pages until I found that word. I remember shaking so hard and when I read the definition I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the violence of it, of what it meant. What it meant for my mother. What it meant about me. Why they hated me. All I figured out was that something or some evil man hurt my mom, and she was mad at me for it. And then I looked up abortion and uh, I again struggled to get it,” he said hoarsely and the muscles in his powerful back tensed as he gripped the mantel tighter.

“I cried and I cried that night, and I didn’t come out of my closet until Quinn found me the next morning. And I looked at my mom that morning and I was so damn confused. I thought maybe I was wrong, but when I looked at her she did what she always did, she smiled and looked away quickly. And I knew. I knew that somehow I was bad and they didn’t want me. They never reported the rape to the police. They felt it would be too traumatic for the family. But it was shame. I know it was shame that stopped them. They went to your father. Your father convinced them not to, uh, terminate the pregnancy. And so they raised me without ever telling anyone else.

“They hated me. I thought I could get her to love me if I tried hard enough. I would do things at first, you know? I was looking for a sign that she loved me. But it was always there—who I was. I was the living example of the most violent act. And I wanted to say I was sorry, but whenever I’d start, she’d just cut me off, like she knew. Maybe that’s when I first figured out that she was incapable of loving me.” He placed his hands in his pockets and then turned around to look her. And it was as though he was that child for a moment, big eyes, messy hair, and a face so vulnerable that she wanted nothing more than to hold him. She could feel him looking for censure, for a reaction other than acceptance. She couldn’t hide the tears that were pouring from her eyes, or the trembling in her body as she tried desperately to maintain the space he needed.

“When I was sixteen and in so much damn trouble I knew I had no way out of the hell I was living in, I went to see your dad. The week before, I had totaled my dad’s car—I had been drinking and driving. I was hanging out with the wrong crowd and it was all so stupid, but I couldn’t find a way out. My mother would cry every night and my dad was so…” Jake shrugged, his eyes dark and distant. “I had been drinking and I remember feeling like the scum of the earth when I walked into your dad’s church. I swore at him and yelled at him, and he stood there, letting me get it all out, and then I remember…” Jake paused, rubbing his hands down his face. “I remember asking him why the hell he had told my parents to keep me. I told him they should have aborted me, and then I fell to his feet and I cried. I cried like a baby.”