I looked at Cole.<\/p>\n
“What little boy?”<\/p>\n
For the first time since I’d known him, he seemed completely caught off guard.<\/p>\n
My father folded his arms.<\/p>\n
“I saw him Tuesday. Cole came out of Children’s Hospital holding a boy’s hand. Five or six years old, maybe.”<\/p>\n
My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n
Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Cole had told me he’d been rehearsing with the band.<\/p>\n
“Is that true?”<\/p>\n
Cole looked at me.<\/p>\n
“Yes.”<\/p>\n
One word.<\/p>\n
My father gave a humorless laugh.<\/p>\n
“I knew it.”<\/p>\n
“Dad, stop.”<\/p>\n
“No. You deserve to know what kind of man you married.”<\/p>\n
I turned back to Cole.<\/p>\n
“Who is he?”<\/p>\n
Cole rubbed a hand over his face.<\/p>\n
“His name is Jamie.”<\/p>\n
The silence stretched.<\/p>\n
“Is he your son?”<\/p>\n
“No.”<\/p>\n
My father immediately said, “Then why was he calling you Dad?”<\/p>\n
Cole’s head snapped toward him.<\/p>\n
“He wasn’t.”<\/p>\n
“I heard him.”<\/p>\n
“He called me Cole.”<\/p>\n
Dad started arguing, but I raised my hand.<\/p>\n
“Both of you, stop.”<\/p>\n
I looked at my husband.<\/p>\n
“Start from the beginning.”<\/p>\n
Cole sat down on the edge of the couch.<\/p>\n
Seven years earlier, before we met, his older sister Rachel had given birth to a boy named Jamie.<\/p>\n
Rachel had struggled financially, and Jamie’s father disappeared before his first birthday.<\/p>\n
Cole helped whenever he could.<\/p>\n
Then, three years ago, Rachel died suddenly after an undiagnosed heart condition.<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
“You told me your sister died.”<\/p>\n
“I did.”<\/p>\n
“You never told me she had a son.”<\/p>\n
“I know.”<\/p>\n
“Why?”<\/p>\n
His eyes dropped.<\/p>\n
“Because Jamie doesn’t live with me.”<\/p>\n
After Rachel died, Jamie went to live with his paternal grandparents in another state. They loved him and could provide stability Cole couldn’t offer while constantly traveling with his band.<\/p>\n
But Cole remained part of Jamie’s life.<\/p>\n
He sent money.<\/p>\n
Called every week.<\/p>\n
Visited whenever he could.<\/p>\n
Six months earlier, Jamie had been diagnosed with leukemia.<\/p>\n
My anger vanished beneath a different kind of shock.<\/p>\n
“Oh my God.”<\/p>\n
Cole nodded.<\/p>\n
“The treatment’s been rough. His grandparents brought him here because the children’s hospital has the specialist his doctors recommended.”<\/p>\n
“Why didn’t you tell me?”<\/p>\n
That question hurt to ask.<\/p>\n
Cole’s answer hurt more.<\/p>\n
“Because I was afraid you’d look at me differently.”<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
“You thought I’d be angry because you help your nephew?”<\/p>\n
“No.”<\/p>\n
He glanced toward my father.<\/p>\n
“I thought you’d worry I was hiding financial problems. Or that your parents would hear about it and use it as proof that marrying me was a mistake.”<\/p>\n
My father shifted uncomfortably.<\/p>\n
Cole continued.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been paying part of Jamie’s medical expenses. I sold my motorcycle last month to cover some of them.”<\/p>\n
I remembered asking where the bike was.<\/p>\n
He’d said a friend was working on it.<\/p>\n
Another lie.<\/p>\n
Not an affair.<\/p>\n
Not a secret child.<\/p>\n
But still a lie.<\/p>\n
“You should have told me.”<\/p>\n
“I know.”<\/p>\n
“We’re married, Cole.”<\/p>\n
“I know.”<\/p>\n
“You don’t get to decide what truth I can handle because you’re afraid of how I’ll react.”<\/p>\n
He nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
“You’re right.”<\/p>\n
Dad looked almost disappointed that the story hadn’t become what he’d expected.<\/p>\n
Then Cole stood.<\/p>\n
“But there’s something you need to know too.”<\/p>\n
He walked to a drawer and pulled out an envelope.<\/p>\n
Inside was a photograph.<\/p>\n
Our wedding.<\/p>\n
I recognized it immediately.<\/p>\n
Cole and I stood beneath the string lights outside the reception hall.<\/p>\n
Near the edge of the photograph was a little boy in a tiny black jacket.<\/p>\n
Jamie.<\/p>\n
“He was at our wedding?”<\/p>\n
Cole nodded.<\/p>\n
“His grandparents brought him. Rachel always wanted to see me get married. After she died, I asked Jamie to come.”<\/p>\n
My throat tightened.<\/p>\n
“Why didn’t I meet him?”<\/p>\n
“You did. Briefly. He was shy and left early.”<\/p>\n
Then I remembered.<\/p>\n
A quiet little boy who had handed me a card and told me my dress was pretty.<\/p>\n
I hadn’t known who he was.<\/p>\n
Cole looked at my father.<\/p>\n
“Jamie was sitting in one of the seats you refused to use.”<\/p>\n
Dad’s face changed.<\/p>\n
The room went silent.<\/p>\n
My father looked down at the photograph for a long time.<\/p>\n
Then he asked quietly, “How is the boy?”<\/p>\n
Cole’s anger softened.<\/p>\n
“He’s responding to treatment.”<\/p>\n
Dad nodded.<\/p>\n
He moved toward the door.<\/p>\n
“Dad?”<\/p>\n
He stopped.<\/p>\n
“I owe both of you an apology.”<\/p>\n
It wasn’t the apology I’d imagined receiving for the past year.<\/p>\n
There were no tears.<\/p>\n
No speech.<\/p>\n
He simply looked embarrassed.<\/p>\n
“I saw what I expected to see,” he said. “A man hiding something from my daughter. I didn’t bother asking what.”<\/p>\n
Cole answered, “I was hiding something.”<\/p>\n
“Yes. But not what I decided it was.”<\/p>\n
Dad left.<\/p>\n
Two days later, I went to the hospital with Cole.<\/p>\n
Jamie was smaller than I remembered from the wedding. He wore a knit cap and was building something from plastic blocks when we entered.<\/p>\n
He looked at me suspiciously.<\/p>\n
“You’re Cole’s wife.”<\/p>\n
“I am.”<\/p>\n
He smiled.<\/p>\n
“You had the giant cake.”<\/p>\n
I laughed.<\/p>\n
“That’s me.”<\/p>\n
Over the next several months, Jamie became part of our lives in a way he should have been from the beginning.<\/p>\n
So, unexpectedly, did my parents.<\/p>\n
Dad started driving Jamie’s grandparents to appointments whenever Cole was working.<\/p>\n
Mom brought meals.<\/p>\n
Neither of them suddenly became different people overnight.<\/p>\n
But they started trying.<\/p>\n
Cole did too.<\/p>\n
No more protecting me from difficult information.<\/p>\n
No more deciding alone what burdens belonged inside our marriage.<\/p>\n
Almost a year later, Jamie finished his main course of treatment.<\/p>\n
We had a small backyard party.<\/p>\n
Cole played guitar while Jamie attempted to accompany him on a cheap plastic one.<\/p>\n
My father stood beside me watching them.<\/p>\n
“I was wrong about him,” he said.<\/p>\n
I smiled slightly.<\/p>\n
“Which one?”<\/p>\n
Dad looked at Cole.<\/p>\n
“Your husband.”<\/p>\n
Then he added, “Probably the guitar player too.”<\/p>\n
I laughed.<\/p>\n
My parents had skipped our wedding because they thought tattoos, motorcycles, and a rock band told them everything they needed to know about Cole.<\/p>\n
They didn’t.<\/p>\n
But neither did I.<\/p>\n
The difference was that when the truth finally came out, I stayed long enough to hear the whole story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I looked at Cole. “What little boy?” For the first time since I’d known him, he seemed completely caught off guard. My father folded his arms. “I saw him Tuesday. Cole came out of Children’s Hospital holding a boy’s hand. Five or six years old, maybe.” My stomach tightened. Tuesday. Cole had told me he’d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7429,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428\/revisions\/7429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappyli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}