A Father's Secret

She cut off before she could lay herself open to even more hurt. There was no way she was going to bare her heart to him, to expose the feelings he’d ridden roughshod over.

“Making you what?” he prompted, leaning forward slightly in his seat.

“No,” she shook her head vehemently. “This isn’t about me. It’s not even about Riley. It’s about you trying to ease your guilt—first your guilt about the accident and now the guilt you feel for taking the one thing left to me that has any meaning at all.”

She could see she’d struck a blow as his lips firmed into a straight line and his eyes darkened ominously.

“Okay, so if I admit I feel guilty, will you accept the money?”

She laughed, a sharp bitter sound that hung on the air like acrid smoke from a fire.

“I don’t believe this. Do all people like you, people with money, think that if you throw enough of it at a problem that it will solve everything? Sam, don’t you understand, this offer of yours is an insult.”

“What, it’s not enough?”

She could hear the beginning of anger in his voice and she welcomed it. It was better than the emotionless, rational man who’d sat at her table the past few minutes.

“It could never be enough.”

“Why? Because you can’t buy a baby? Is that what you think I’m trying to do?”

“You tell me. It sure as hell looks like it. People think they can do it all the time, don’t they?” she fired back. “But that’s got nothing to do with this, with us. You will have Riley. I signed your papers giving up my rights as his mother.”

She closed her eyes and fought for some semblance of control. “Do you have any idea of what that did to me? To just give him away? I didn’t enter that pregnancy as a surrogate. I entered it believing the child I carried belonged to me and my husband. Every step of that pregnancy he was ours. Every single step. Riley couldn’t be more my son if he was my own flesh and blood. I had to do what was best for him. He deserves, more than anyone, a real parent who loves him and who will do the best for him, always. God help you if you ever fail him.”

“I won’t fail him. If I thought I would, I would never have worked so hard to get him. I’ve learned my lesson and I’ve been lucky to be given a second chance. There is no way on this earth I am going to jeopardize that.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Look, I know you love Riley. I want you to have access to him.” Sam’s voice was annoyingly reasonable—placating, almost.

“Access!” She virtually spat the word at him. “I don’t want access. I wanted to be his mother, to be a full-time part of his life, not just some woman who comes to visit him the occasional weekend. Seeing him only briefly and then having to walk away, time and time again—do you have any idea of how hard that will be for me? How cruel?”

“Are you telling me you don’t want to see him?”

“It’s what’s best, for both of us. What happens if you marry again, when your new wife becomes Riley’s mother? Having me around will just confuse things for him.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

“Just leave it, Sam.” Erin shook her head emphatically. “I’m not changing my mind.”

“I still want you to have the money. It’s important to me and before you jam it down my throat again, it’s not to assuage my guilt. Nothing will ever lessen my responsibility for what I did, for the choices I made that day. No amount of money could ever repay you for what you’ve been through. That’s why, more than ever, I want you to have it. Name a figure, any figure. It’s yours.”

Erin shook her head again. He’d never understand.

Sam continued, oblivious to the deepening sorrow in her eyes. The sorrow now consuming the anger that had fired her up only seconds ago. The sorrow that now leeched all the fight out of her.

“Erin, I want you to have the money so you can make a new home, and maybe have another baby. So if you want to, you can have IVF again and not have to rely on a lottery to do so. This way—”

Wham! And just like that, the anger was back. Buoying her up from the pit she’d been descending to.

“This way, what?” She slammed her hand on the table. “This way you think I can just have another child and that how I feel about Riley, about feeling him grow inside me, about giving birth to him, about caring for him, loving him—that it will all just go away? That I’ll forget because of something new?”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” He was raising his voice now, too.