My Babies and Me

Jeremy looked up at her and his silent anguish broke her heart.

“What is it?” she asked again. Fear was burning her stomach. Something was very, very wrong.

It seemed he was finally going to answer her, but then he shook his head and lowered his eyes.

“Jeremy.” With a hand under his chin, Laura gently lifted his head until his gaze met—and held—hers. “We don’t shut each other out, you and I.” Her voice was as firm as her insides were not. “We promised, remember?”

“I just don’t want to go no more,” he said sullenly, pulling away from her.

She was getting more frightened by the minute, but that only made her more determined. “I’m not letting this go, Jeremy,” she told him. “We’ll sit here all night and all day tomorrow if we have to, but you’re going to tell me what this is about.”

Chin quivering, he gazed up at her again, his eyes filled with bitterness. With anger. And with a whole load of hurt.

“I saw Seth with another woman.”

“What?” Laura’s throat closed on her. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it certainly hadn’t been that. “Where?”

“Across the street from the park.”

“Where across the street? When?” Seth had been in the neighborhood? She couldn’t even contemplate the rest of her son’s bald announcement. Not if she was going to keep her composure.

“Under that big droopy tree, the one that practically covers the road,” he said.

“You’re sure it was Seth?”

“He was in his Bronco.”

“You’re sure it was his?” Jeremy had to be mistaken. That was all there was to it.

“It had his work parking sticker on it, Mom,” the boy said as though he was questioning his mother’s mental capacities. “I could tell by the shape.”

“When was this?”

With a shaky sigh, Jeremy slouched back in his chair. His chin was planted firmly on his chest.

“He’s been coming practically every week since he quit.”

“What?” Laura was so shocked she yelled the word.

As though he’d expected the reaction, Jeremy calmly nodded. “I don’t think he wants us to see him the way he always hides under that tree and doesn’t ever get out of the car.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she whispered, her lips frozen. Seth had been around, watching Jeremy, every week all these months?

Not looking at her, the boy shrugged. “I was scared you’d send him away from there, too.”

Oh, God. “Jeremy, I told you—”

“I know, Mom. Seth didn’t want to marry you. He was going to move on sometime....” He parroted the words she’d said so often those first weeks after Seth had gone.

“But, Mom, I didn’t see why you couldn’t let him stay around until he decided to move on.”

She stared at her son silently. Lost. Alone. Afraid.

“I liked having him there,” Jeremy said defensively. “Watching us...”

“And that’s why you stayed on the team?” she asked, reality dawning.

“A little bit.”