“No,” she said without pause. “I don’t. I didn’t talk to him after that night. I saw him around town a couple of times, once when I was really pregnant. If he suspected it was his, he never said anything. At the time I didn’t care. I never wanted to see him again and I had enough to deal with.
“A week after she was born, I went to his house so he could see her, just for Casey’s sake, just in case he really didn’t know. Though I’m sure he did. It was a small town.”
“And?”
“And it wasn’t exactly a Hallmark moment. A girl answered the door. She had a cigarette in her mouth, wearing a tank top and panties. She looked me up and down, asked me who the hell I was. Then Gary came to the door and…he wasn’t interested.” Her fingers were still on his arm.
“He never knew about her leg. I thank God for that. Just in case Casey ever asked me, I can honestly say it had nothing to do with that. Her father was just a selfish asshole. He didn’t want her. First he said she wasn’t his, then he said even if she was, he didn’t want her. So I left.”
Paige had no idea that the breath had been knocked from his chest by his own past. His heart raced, the blood pounded in his ears. He carefully lifted her from his lap and set her on the swing beside him. He desperately wanted to get up, put distance between them, but he couldn’t move. He felt physically ill.
“Jake?” She laid a hand on his thigh. “It’s nothing to be upset about. I thank God he’s not in her life.”
He couldn’t speak for a long time, staring at his leg like it was the source of all evil. A vivid reminder of what he’d done, who he’d been. Even more blatant when he raised his eyes to Paige, so beautiful, so responsible and unselfish. She looked at him like he was a hero, and it was eating a hole right through him. “Do you want to know how I lost my leg?”
“You said it was a car accident.”
Even with the uncertainty in her voice, she didn’t take her reassuring hand from his leg. “It was, but I didn’t say my girlfriend was in the car, that I was driving. Or that she’d just told me she was pregnant.” He shook his head, wishing so badly he could make it go away.
“What happened?”
“I was nineteen, just home from college for a few days for my brother’s wedding and…I didn’t want it. Any of it. To be a husband, to be a father, not then, at the time I thought maybe never. That wasn’t my plan.” He forced himself to meet her eyes. “I was paying more attention to this blow to my plans than the road. It was my fault. I wrecked the car and she lost the baby. It was early and…she lost it. Because of me.”
“Jake.” She said his name softly, lovingly, in a way he knew he didn’t deserve.
“I look at Casey and I think…how could I not have wanted that? What’s wrong with me that I didn’t want that? I’m just like Casey’s—”
“No. You’re not.” Wearing only his T-shirt, she straddled his lap and took his face in her hands. “It’s not the same. How long did you have to process what she told you? A minute? A second? Gary had nine months to think about it. He saw her, he could have held her, but he didn’t want to. Can you honestly tell me that you would have looked in your child’s eyes and wished them away? Not wanted them? Not cared about them and loved them?”
“I don’t know.” He met her eyes. “I don’t know.” And that was the problem. Because how could he know?
“Well, I know. I know at least that much. Your words didn’t kill the baby, Jake. Not your words or your thoughts. It was a horrible accident that came at a horrible moment. What if she hadn’t told you while you were driving? What if she’d told you in a different way? A better way?”
Funny, he’d never thought of that. He’d only thought if he had been different. If he had been better.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and laid her cheek on top of his head. “Did you ever even let yourself grieve?”
“I don’t deserve to.”
“Yes, you do,” she whispered against his head. She slid her fingers through his hair and pulled his head to her breast. “A child and the idea of a child are very different things. Don’t you think I felt the same way? Do you think I was thrilled at the prospect of being a mother? Do you think everyone who finds out they’re having a baby, especially an unplanned baby, is excited about it?”
Yeah. He had. Figured all normal, loving human beings were ecstatic about the imminent birth of their baby.
“Don’t you see it? The fact that you want to grieve, that you’re still beating yourself up? That even after all this time it’s still hard for you to come home. That should tell you what I already know.”