13
REINER
I have a son.
That was the only thought I was able to formulate on the drive from Madison Square Garden to Mark’s house, it went on and on in my head like a broken record, and meanwhile, in the
background of my mind, images of that night went along with it. From seeing Becky and the
kid on the screen to her hiding behind Wayne Baker and then leaving with the boy in her arms. She had held him so close to her chest since she had seen and recognized me, probably to
keep me from seeing his face.
All that time, only one emotion had camped on her face: pure, genuine terror, which I had also
smelled in her scent when I’d managed to reach out and hug her, after four endless years. Not
that that move had turned out to be particularly clever, on my part.
Even the pup had been frightened. I had seen him clinging to her, calling to her in an
intimidating little voice, and it had killed me.
That had been the first interaction I’d had with my son, and the only thing I had managed to
make him feel was fear.
Great first thirty seconds as a dad, Reiner.
My first thirty seconds, and probably the last: the way Becky had run away and the way Wayne
had then threatened me, I doubted I would have an easy time getting to know our child.
I have a son.
And he was so beautiful, so perfect, it almost hurt. The perfect, precise union of Becks and me. The child I had always dreamed of having with her. The answer to the countless prayers to the Moon Goddess, to the endless attempts, to every tear shed and wiped after a negative
test.
“Bro?” I heard Mark call me, but my mouth was completely dry.
I had a son.
And Rebecca hadn’t bothered to tell me. Even though we had been trying for that child for two
years.
The boy could not have been more than three years old, and she must have found out about the pregnancy shortly before or shortly after she left me for that lover of hers. Perhaps… there
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was a possibility that she had passed the child off as his?
Still, they were alone at the stadium. It was usually fathers who took their children to sports events. Moreover, she had called Wayne to help her, not her lover.
Maybe he was no longer in her life.
She didn’t tell me. We have a child, but she didn’t tell me.
The more that realization sank in, the more it hurt. The more it ripped my heart.
“Nice shitty situation.” Mark commented, only then did I realize I had spoken out loud.
I sighed, getting out of the car and following him into his house. I didn’t wait for him to offer
before dropping down on the couch.
“Here.” He said, tossing me a can of beer.
I threw him a look. “Look, not that I don’t appreciate it, but… don’t you think you’re making me
drink a little too much today?”
“With the shitty day you’ve had? I don’t think so.” He replied simply.
Yeah, because that day had started with my brother and mother exauthorizing me and kicking
me out of the pack… precisely because of my failure to produce an heir.
At the thought, a hysterical laugh escaped my lips, a laugh that soon became thunderous and frankly inappropriate to the whole situation. But I couldn’t stop, and nor did I care.
“Okay,” Mark did after a few minutes, giving me a strange look. “Maybe it’s not a beer you
need, but a sedative. Please tell me you’re not having a hissy fit.”
“A kid…” I laughed, almost out of breath. “A f*****g kid… and I’ve been exauthorized… ha, ha,
ha!”
In less than twenty–four hours, I had lost my role and pack because I didn’t have a child, and I had held that same child in my arms. It was as if a prankster god was working to make my
life, or at least that day, as absurd and senseless as possible.
“Drink,” Mark sighed, putting a glass of water in my hand. I didn’t even need to smell it to know that he had put a good dose of medicine in it. Nevertheless, I downed it all in one gulp. After
all, I needed it.
Already after a few seconds, I felt the drug begin to take effect, as a strange feeling settled over me. Honestly, I preferred being hysterical. Now, my mind was filling up again with questions, uncertainty… and anger.
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We had a child, and Rebecca had told me nothing. This was not just wrong or bitchy. It was just plain cruel.
I couldn’t get my head around it. The Becky I knew would never, ever act like that. The Becky I
knew was kind, loving, brave, and honest. The way she had behaved contradicted everything I
knew or thought I knew about her.
“I have a son.” I said in a half–voice.
“Apparently,” Mark nodded. “The mega–screen kid, huh?”
I nodded. “Have you seen him?”
“I’ll tell you. I saw him first and knew who he was before I even saw Becca.” He commented. In the back of my mind, I flinched at that diminutive – I knew she hated it, because kids at school used to taunt her calling her Chew–Becca. “The resemblance… holy s**t, it’s impressive.”
Impressive is an understatement.
“I can’t… understand why she didn’t tell me.” I sighed. “I mean, we’ve tried for a baby for two years… I mean, the fact that she f*****g left me for someone else is a good indication as to why she didn’t tell me – maybe she had doubts about paternity, though…”
What about the bond, though? A little voice inside me added.
f**k, even that detail was jarring.
I remembered very well the moment I had felt the bond with Becks break. It had been the most painful, most terrible thing I had ever felt as if my whole body was on fire. It had left me stumped, deprived of the bond that I had now come to feel as natural and as much a part of
me as a limb.
Yet, as soon as I had seen her again, there it was again. It had not snapped into place, as it had the first time I had seen her after her wolf had manifested fully, but had simply… reappeared. As if it had been there all along, just weakened by the distance.
That could only mean one thing. That she had never broken it.
This doesn’t make sense, I thought, as I felt the warnings of a really bad headache start to come on. Too much beer and too much s**t that day, never a good combination. Her leaving me, the bond breaking but not breaking, that kid…
“You should get some sleep, now.” Mark said. “You’re not capable of reasoning right now. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
I nodded weakly, dazed, and got up from the couch to the guest room.
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Not that there’s much to talk about, really, I thought shortly before the sleep–inducing drops Mark had given me weighed down my eyelids.
I knew very well what I wanted. To meet my son and be in his life in my rightful role.
Only, I had to figure out how.
