The years passed in a blur. The twins were in school and Rosie
was now three.
Syrah had moved in a few months into my pregnancy and we got
married in a small courthouse ceremony about a month after Rosie was born.
Syrah
had wanted to make sure the girls and I had full access to his benefits… should
something happen to him on the job. I hated when he talked like that, but it was
an undeniable truth of his career. I’d invited my parents, but it fell at an
inconvenient time. Election year and all.
We’d made renovations to the house. Syrah had talked about
moving, but I couldn’t. This place was home to me. The only place I’d ever felt
at home so we built up and made it work.
The relationship with my parents remained barely there. They
called, even came to see the kids once or twice, but for the most part they’d
moved on. Though dad was talking about retiring soon since Cotton was now
poised to take over and follow in his footsteps. Without me. I’d been freed
from that life and he had some other trophy on his arm.
I enjoyed my life. It was always busy with the girls. And
Syrah made a wonderful husband. Attentive, loving, and he never treated Iris
and Lilac any differently. I could honestly say I was happy with life.
“Mom?” I turned to find the girls standing behind me.
“What’s up sweeties?”
Lilac dug her toe into the ground while Iris elbowed her.
Neither of them wanted to talk. This couldn’t be good.
“Girls?”
“We need to know about dad. Our real dad. For a school
report,” Iris blurted out
And there it was. I’d always known it’d only be a matter of
time, I mean Syrah was great to them, but there was no denying he wasn’t their
biological father.
“What’s the report?”
“A family tree,” Lilac said.
I dried my hands on the dish towel and tried to ignore the
small corner of my heart that still ached for what could have been. Tyrian was
my first love. My life would have turned out so differently if not for him. I
loved Syrah and sometimes it felt wrong to acknowledge the love I still held
for another man. But I always kept those thoughts to myself.
He knew the twins were a result of a teenage affair and I’d
tried to downplay how much it’d meant to me because of that underlying guilt
over my feelings. The girls and I settled at the kitchen table.
“So, what do you need to know?”
Iris ran off to get her book bag then came back. “Um…his
name, his parent’s names, things like that.”
Easy enough, I could do this. “His name was Tyrian Rosette.
His parents were Mulberry and Violet. That it?”
The girls looked at each other then back at me. That was not
it. This report was an opening, I saw it in their adorable faces.
Iris turned her beautiful white eyes on me. “Why…why doesn’t
he like us?” she whispered.
My breath caught, and the choice I’d made years ago now
haunted me in the face of my sweet girls. There was no way around this, nothing
to sugarcoat. They were smart girls and I’d told myself when they’d ask about
their father, I’d tell them. No matter how painful for me, I wouldn’t waiver.
They deserved to know.
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