Chapter 4 - The Living Room of Ghosts
"Go wash up, Leo," Lauren repeated. Her voice was lower this time, almost pleading.
The boy looked at his mother, sensing the heavy, suffocating atmosphere between the adults, and finally scurried off toward the kitchen. The sound of running pipes soon vibrated through the floorboards.
I stood by the fire, the warmth washing over my cold jeans, but inside, I was freezing. I looked around the room. It was painfully familiar, yet entirely foreign. The walls had been painted a soft, warm sage green—a color Lauren had always loved. The bookshelf against the far wall was filled with children's books, school folders, and small wooden carvings.
On the mantel sat a series of framed photographs.
Leo as a newborn, wrapped in a hospital blanket, with only Lauren smiling weakly from the bed.
Leo taking his first steps in a sunlit backyard, clutching Lauren's skirt.
Leo in a tiny soccer uniform, holding a cheap plastic trophy.
In not one of them was there a man. No shadow of a father. No surrogate husband. She had done every single day of it completely alone.
"Why didn't you look for me?" I asked, the words tearing out of me before I could filter them. "Lauren, you knew my brother lived in Spokane. You knew where my cousin worked."
Lauren let out a sharp, bitter laugh that cut deeper than any scream could have. She walked over to the armchair by the window, folding her arms tightly across her chest as if trying to hold herself together.
"I called your brother, Liam," she said, her voice trembling with a quiet rage that had simmered for seven years. "Do you know what he told me? He told me you said you never wanted to hear my name again. He told me you asked him not to give me your number because you were 'starting fresh' and didn't want the baggage of our failed marriage dragging you down."
I stared at her, horrified. "Mark said that?"
"Yes! He said you were working the pipelines up in North Dakota, making ten grand a month, and that if you wanted to talk to me, you would have called!" Tears finally welled in her hazel eyes, spilling over her pale cheeks. "I had eight dollars in my checking account the day my water broke, Liam! I had to sell my mother's wedding band to pay the deposit on the pediatrician's clinic!"
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"Mark was lying," I choked out, stepping toward her, though she instantly flinched back. "Lauren, I swear on my life, Mark was lying! I never made ten grand a month. I lived out of my truck behind a lumber yard for six months! I never told him you were baggage. I told him I was too ashamed to face you!"
"It doesn't matter!" she cried, keeping her voice muffled so it wouldn't carry into the kitchen. "Don't you understand? It doesn't matter what lies were told or who was ashamed! The outcome is the same! My son spent seven years without a father because you were too weak to come back and face the mess you made!"
