“Devin. What are you doing here?” She swallowed and I noted that her hands shook as she put her notebook in her bag.
“I’m looking for you. I’ve had an epiphany.” Not sure what to make of her reaction, I sat on the bench next to her.
“Ah…now?”
I frowned. “Is now a problem?”
“I just…ah…”
I cocked my head to the side. “What’s going on?”
“Mommy look at me!”
Her head turned toward the voice of the child standing at the top of a slide.
“Watch how fast I go,” he called out.
“I’m watching,” she said to him.
It took me a minute to make sense of what was going on.
Her eyes glanced at me before focusing on the boy. He sat on the slide and whooshed down with his arms out wide like an airplane.
“Did you see me, Mommy?” He ran toward her.
“I did, honey. You were so fast.”
He ran to her. “Can you come with me?”
“In a minute, baby.”
The boy looked up at me. “Who are you?”
“This is Mr. Roarke. I work for him. Go play and I’ll be there in a minute.”
I turned to her, my mind in a whirl. She was a mom? And why was she introducing me as someone she worked with? Was there a dad somewhere around here?
“You’ve got a son.” My voice sounded distant to my ears.
She nodded. “Andrew.”
Well, that answered the question about who Andrew was.
I studied her. “You didn’t tell me.”
She shook her head, her eyes held a mix of worry and strength.
“Why? Why wouldn’t you want me to know you have a child?” At least now it made sense why she thought we couldn’t overcome limits. I’d told her I didn’t want kids and she had one. I felt a little set-up and duped by that.
“You said you didn’t want a family.”
My brain felt like it was wading through muck as I tried to sort out what was going on. “That was the other night. What about all the weeks before? You could have said something about being a mom.”
She simply shrugged.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t buy it.”
She flinched.