There was always something strange in his voice when he spoke about his father and his childhood, but I never questioned it.
I was such an idiot.
A shadow crossed his face
Wesley’s father, Mike, could be difficult.
He had opinions about everything — how Wesley worked too much, how we raised the girls, even where we spent Christmas.
Wesley went quiet when Mike spoke.
Then he’d change the subject.
I read his silence as patience rather than pain.
Wesley went quiet when Mike spoke.
When I found out I was pregnant with our fourth child, Wesley was thrilled.
We decided not to focus on gender at all.
But I made a decision at my last appointment that I couldn’t resist.
“Do you want to know the gender?” the doctor asked.
I glanced at the empty chair beside me, the one where Wesley usually sat.
“Do you want to know the gender?”
He’d been called into work that morning.
“Just me,” I whispered. “Can you tell just me?”
She smiled and nodded.
“It’s a boy.”
I pressed a hand to my mouth and cried.
It felt like I’d just been handed the answer to one of Wesley’s oldest wishes.
I never imagined our son would expose the wound that had festered between Wesley and his father for years.
“Can you tell just me?”
That night I started planning a surprise to tell Wesley.
“I want to make it special,” I told my sister on the phone. “Matching outfits, a family photoshoot, and a little box for him to open at the end.”
“He’s going to lose it,” she laughed. “In the best way.”
“That’s the plan.”
“I want to make it special,”
I bought the outfits the next day.
