Before Him

He gives a slow shake of his head. “It’s not like that. Matty is my nephew. It’s spooky how alike they look.” Roman suddenly blows out a breath, his eyes skating away. “Jesus.”

“What is it?”

“By. Byron, my brother, he’s the eldest of the four of us. I’m at the bottom of the pile.” The baby boy, I think. It’s not hard to tell. “Matty is his son and a twin. He and Edie are a year or two older than Wilder.” He blows out a breath, colour leeching from his face.

“Is something wrong?”

“It’s just a bit of a mindfuck, realising I have a son not much younger than my big brother’s kids.” His jaw flexes, his throat moving with a strong swallow. “Realising how much I’ve missed.”

“Roman, I—” I don’t know where I’m going with this. All I know is he isn’t the only one that’s feeling a little sick.

“No,” he says, brushing away my words, my concern. “That way madness lies, right? What’s done is done. What counts is what happens next.”

What’s done . . . I did.

And what comes next is what I’m afraid of.

“What about you? How have you been?” His hand begins to move across the table, though he seems to think better of it. “Does Wilder have brothers or sisters?”

“He has a dog,” I say with a laugh. “And that’s about all I can cope with.”

His demeanour is all relief, so I choose to believe he’s an animal lover.

“Do you have help? I seem to remember thinking your gin rickey drinking granny would get on like a house on fire with my old mum. And you’ve got a younger sister, right?”

I’m kind of blown away that he’d recall. I mean, I know he said he had brothers, but I couldn’t remember how many or what he’d said about them.

“Do they know about me?” he asks next.

“My grandmother died four years ago, and my sister lives in Scotland right now,” I reply, dancing around the truth. I’d usually relish the opportunity to talk about my favourite people in the world, but not right now. My stomach feels like it’s twisted itself into tight coils. Never in my imaginings did I anticipate feeling like this. I thought I’d be bold, all fuck you and the horse you rode in on! I am mother, hear me roar! Instead, faced with the prospect of telling him he’s a secret I’ve kept from his son, kept Roman’s existence from everyone, I feel more like a worm.

And worms squirm.

I know now this says more about me than it does him, but I wouldn’t blame him for hating me. How has nothing turned out the way I imagined, including my need to hurt him?

“Did you get to read people’s brains for a living?” For a minute, I don’t know what he’s talking about, but then I remember. Back then, I toyed with the idea of becoming a psychologist. Before I realised I didn’t want to deal with other people’s problems. That I had enough of my own.

“No. No, I didn’t. I dropped out.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He sounds sincere.

“Don’t be.” I don’t need him to be sorry or want his pity. “I enjoy what I do.”

“I guess that’s more than most people can say about work, right? What is it you do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I don’t read minds. I read the inside of coffee cups.” My words are careless, and I watch his expression work through a couple of things that are hard to define. I lift the recyclable paper cup to my lips to prevent myself from adding I like my life as it is. That I run my own business—businesses—and that this suits me. It was different back then, of course. I left PSU because I had no choice. I’d been just about managing the cost of college on my own, but that was with a full-time job on top of my study. Throwing a baby into the mix would’ve been madness. So there was no college degree for me, let alone studying all the way to a Ph.D. Not that I regret a minute of it.

“You work in the coffee shop from yesterday?”

“Yep.” Also not technically a lie. “Motherhood seemed to help me work out a lot of things,” I reply. It’s not as though a caretaking role was completely new. I’d been taking care of Holland for most of her life and later Nana when she became ill. But it was more than that and almost impossible to explain. “Wilder was an angel of a baby, and I loved every minute with him.” Roman’s countenance softens, this time without a trace of confusion or sympathy. “I would never have become a psychologist, not really.” I couldn’t financially, but also, my heart hadn’t been in it. It was just a fleeting, young Kennedy thought. “Being Wilder’s mom is the best thing ever. It gave me direction, quite honestly. Prioritised a lot of stuff. If I’d stayed in college, I’d probably be living in some apartment share right now, miserably trying to work my way up the corporate ladder.” Instead, I own a couple of businesses, my own home, and I live the kind of life that most people would envy. But I won’t tell him any of this. Because these aren’t just my achievements. They also belong to Nana and Holland. To my family.