/ We loved with a love that was more than love./ -Edgar Allen Poe
At first it was silent, Grace was unaware of the huge gap growing between her parents, she was unaware of her dad's late nights at Paige's house or her moms early mornings at the office with Jake. She didn't really understand what was going on, so she kept quiet and cherished her time with both her parents and with the new people in her life. She especially liked Paige. Paige played dolls with her and told her stories about her daddy, Paige could braid hair and do make up, Paige could do flips on the trampoline. It was in a car ride one afternoon, as she sat in her car seat in the back and looked innocently up at her father in the drivers seat that the silence broke.
"Daddy is Paige going to be my new mommy?" She asked, a Mike almost crashed at the sound of this question, but regained his composure,
"Mommy is always going to be your mom dear." He replied calmly,
"Haley says when her daddy moved she got a new mommy too. She had two mommies and two daddies! " the girl explained, Mike sighed,
"Well honey is don't know whats gonna happen but there's gonna be some change, are you okay with that?" He asked softly, hoping his daughter wouldn't freak out.
"I love Paige daddy! She'd be a good mommy!" Grace said smartly, Mike chuckled at that statement-he had no idea how true this would ring in the months to come.
Sarah still hadn't signed the divorce papers, she was dead set on having complete custody and Mike refused to allow it.
"This is going to get really messy." Mike admitted to Paige one night when they were lounging around in her new apartment, Paige had been unusually silent the whole night.
"She's your daughter, Sarah can't just take her away from you." Paige said softly, Mike looked at her, worry lines creasing his face.
"If she can prove I'm unfit she can get full custody." He replied,
"But you're not unfit." Paige countered, rubbing a circle on his back,
"I work for the FBI, I don't have a stable residence outside of our house, I cheated on her in her own home. She can use it all against me." Mike whispered, Paige could hear the pain in his voice.
"You can live with me. She cheated on you too remember?" Paige tried,
"Yeah but she did it on neutral territory, I brought our daughter into this." His voice broke as he talked.
"Babe it's going to be okay. Maybe you should get a lawyer?" She comforted him with a warm embrace,
"Yeah I guess so. Look I need to go home and make dinner for Grace, love you." He kissed Paige quickly before walking out of her apartment, still stressed out.
Paige had a big secret, she was not about to add the the mess of the divorce with her problem, but she was dying inside. She knew she couldn't lie to him about it forever, and she knew he'd find out eventually, but he was so stressed out that she was worried he would go into the deep end if she told him what was going on with her. So she kept it inside, and she let it eat at her.
"Sarah if you don't sign the damn papers I'm getting a lawyer. This divorce needs to be finalized." Mike exclaimed when Grace was sound asleep, he was exhausted from fighting with Sarah at every turn and he just wanted the whole ordeal to be over.
"Do you really want this?" Sarah asked, she was borderline tipsy at the moment and her thoughts weren't totally coherent. She was stumbling over her words and seemed vulnerable, yet still completely cruel and undeniably bitter.
"Yes Sarah, I've moved on." He answered, his voice deep and demanding,
"Did you even want to marry me?" She questioned, Mike thought about being honest, telling her he had wanted nothing to do with marriage, that he had wanted to run away (back to the blonde in California) and that he had never been more relieved than the day she had found the box so he could share Paige with someone else.
"It was the right thing to do for Grace's sake." He replied and she looked at him with sad eyes, she had never realized that Mike had never truly been with her, that he had always been with Paige in his mind, every girl wants to be loved unconditionally, and Paige would always be that girl to Mike.
"Isn't this just more pain for her?" She said in a quiet voice, she wasn't really worried for Grace, Grace was so open to change and adjustment. She was, in all factuality, worried for herself. Mike had been her world for so long, that even when she had cheated on him she had felt guilty, even though he had been off screwing the love of his life, she so desperately wanted to salvage her heart. When she had seen him with her she had felt broken inside, like that nagging voice in the back of her head for the past five years that had been telling her he didn't love her, had been telling the truth all along.
"Grace understands, she loves Paige." Mike told Sarah. Mike felt a lump rise in his throat, he wanted to make everything okay, he wished he had never had to break Sarah's heart to be with the one who had stolen his, but life had a funny way of fucking him over like that.
"Well don't we all just fucking love Paige." Sarah snapped and she walked away angrily. She made it around the corner before the tears started falling, and she heard the slam of the front door. He was going to Paige, he was going to be with the one he truly loved. Sarah stopped for a minute, peering into her young daughter's room, watching her baby sleep like an angel.
Sarah still remembered the day she had Grace, with Mike squeezing her hand and promising her it would all be okay and telling her that he loved her and that he was so thankful for their family. She remember holding the sleeping infant in her arms and asking Mike if they could name her Grace, after the place he had become a man at before they had met, the place that had brought him back to her. She remembered the late night turns, kicking Mike under the covers (back when they still slept in the same bed) and his grumbles as he had gone to sooth the crying baby girl. She remembered eight months after she had been born, sitting in the cold stall at her office, another plastic stick in her hand, waiting to see if Grace was going to be a sister, planning how to tell Mike. She remembered the damn negative sign that had popped up three minutes later, and her initial relief being overcome by disappointment. She could still feel his warm embrace as she had sobbed over another negative sign a year later. She remembered going to the doctor, because they so desperately had wanted Grace to have a sibling. She remembered him holding her when the doctor had told her it was unlikely she would get pregnant again. She could still hear the whispers of consolement in her ear that whole year.
She remembered the day it all fell apart too. She remembered his unusually cold attitude, and Grace was crying about preschool and Sarah had been upset because she was late for work, and Mike hadn't left the bed all day. At first she had thought he was sick, but when she got home she and heard him whisper to his friend on the phone that it was Paige's birthday. That name had broken her heart and nothing had been the same after that. She started to ignore him, he started coming home later, she had started yelling and initiating fights. She wanted him to admit that he was still in love with the blonde bombshell from his past, but he had kept everything bottled inside. Grace had gone through her terrible two phase and had given both of them immense trouble, if they weren't fighting about work they were fighting about the right way to discipline,the right way to feed her, dress her, school her. Everything was a fight.
It was three weeks later, the papers still not signed, that Paige came over to meet Mike. Unfortunately, Mike was running late so Paige was left in the house alone with Sarah. Sarah just glared at her the whole time,
"What's so fucking special about you?" Sarah said loudly, her heart broken in her chest when the blonde who had stolen her husband had glanced her way with a pitiful look.
"Nothing is special about me, I'm just me." Paige answered, feeling her stomach turn and quickly jumping up and dashing towards the bathroom. She didn't have time to close the door before she threw up in the main hallway bathroom, Sarah followed her.
"Sick?" Sarah said cruelly, inside Sarah was screaming, she knew exactly what was going on, Mike had gone to another girl because she hadn't been able to give him what he wanted-a big family- and now she was faced with the whole scandal.
"It's nothing." Paige replied, her hand clutching her abdomen. Her secret was still buried into her chest, no one knew except herself, she didn't want to complicate things, she didn't need Mike to have to deal with this right now.
"Does Mike know?" Sarah asked with a smirk,
"Know what Sarah?" Paige said, pissed that Sarah was intruding,
"That you're pregnant." Sarah said with seemingly effortless conviction( inside she was breaking into a million pieces, this girl had both of the things she had wanted so badly) Paige swallowed hard, her voice caught in her throat and she found herself unable to answer. "I knew it." Sarah raised her eyebrows as the front door sounded as it opened. "Oh wonderful lets talk to Mike." Sarah spat before she turned on her heels to go confront Mike.
"Sarah where's Paige?" Mike asked as he ran into his wife in the hallway, he could tell something was off and he saw the sad twinge in his wife's eye, the look he hadn't seen since that doctors appointment almost three years prior.
"Oh you mean the whore you knocked up while you cheated on me?" Sarah said, flaring her nostrils, she was hurt and angry, and was obviously very proud of herself for degrading Paige. Paige quickly came out of the bathroom, her hand wrapped around her stomach, she looked like she was going to be sick,
"Paige...?" Mike asked as she stood in the hallway, his wife between them.
"Tell him Paige, tell him the truth." Sarah poked, hands on hips and a nasty smirk on her face,
"Mike I..." Paige started,
"My lawyer is going to love this! A cheating husband with a pregnant mistress!" Sarah crowed, looking between the couple,
"Paige are you?" Mike said calmly, Paige just nodded, tears running down her cheeks, Mikes heart jumped, he was met with conflicting emotions. In one sense he was so so so happy that he was going to have another kid, but in another he could feel Sarah breaking at the news. He may have not been in love with her, but he certainly didn't want Sarah to think he had left her because of her inability to have more kids, he needed her to know that he truly had left because he was in love, not for a selfish reason.
"I swear I was going to tell you." She pleaded, Mike could hear the fear in his beautiful lovers voice so he made his way toward her and before she knew what was happening she was being wrapped into a tight hug, he kissed her cheek and ran his fingers through her hair, pushing the strand out of her face and tucking it behind her ear. He dried the tear that had crept down her bronzed cheek with his thumb,
"Get ready for him to be absentee and never home. He's a shitty father and an even worse husband." Sarah quipped, Paige just let Mike hug her tighter, trying to ignore Sarah's evil words.
"I think daddy's a good daddy." A small voice said aloud, all three adults heads snapped up, in the open doorway was the small brunette in braids who looked like she had heard everything. "Also what's pregnant?" She added in a whisper, she looked confused and afraid, she had heard her parents fight a lot but never sound this serious and she had never seen Paige cry before.
"It means your father lied to you and me and is having a family with someone else." Sarah answered before Mike could, Mike tensed up, he hated that Sarah would say something like that to his baby girl.
"Daddy I thought you said we never lie to people we love?" Grace said, her voice soft, her innocence pulling his heart apart.
"Baby I didn't lie to you..." He said, Sarah cut him off,
"He doesn't love you Grace, when he wasn't home to tuck you in he wasn't fighting bad guys, he was off making a family with someone else." Sarah told her daughter who looked like she was going to cry,
"Daddy was I not a good daughter? Is that why you have another family?" She asked, Mike's heart snapped at his daughters words.
"Baby girl I love you so much, I would never lie to you." Mike tried to keep his baby girl from crying,
"Do you love Mommy?" Grace asked,
"I did." Mike answered,
"Do you love Paige?" Grace asked,
"Yes baby girl I do. And I love you just as much." He said, reaching out to give her a hug,
"Are you and Paige going to have another family?" Grace questioned,
"No baby girl, we're just having a bigger family, you'll have a new brother or sister, isn't that exciting?" He asked and she shrugged,
"Is Paige gonna move in?" Grace said as she looked between her father and her mother,
"No honey, Paige and I will have another house, with a room for you too!" Mike replied, Grace seemed ok with this answer, because she gave Mike a hug,
"Please keep being my daddy." She mumbled into his chest,
"I would never stop being your daddy." He whispered into her ear.
The car ride back to Paige's was awkwardly silent,
"Mike I didn't want to complicate things." Paige said aloud,
"Don't you think I should know that I'm having another kid?" He asked, kind of upset she hadn't told him earlier. After all the struggles him and Sarah had experienced he had sworn that if he ever had a chance to be a father again that he would be there for every moment and wouldn't take it for granted.
"Mike you had too much on your plate, it just wasn't the right time to tell you." Paige justified,
"What if what happened last time happened again, what if I hadn't known." He brought up the previous loss Paige had suffered after his departure, they still hadn't fully discussed the miscarriage, or the effect it had had on Paige.
"What happened last time was very rare Mike, barely anyone loses a baby after the first trimester." She cautiously reasoned,
"Did you have them do tests last time? To see what went wrong?" He asked, she had hidden that part of her life from him,
"They told me I had a low conception rate and the reason I lost the baby was because of stress and malnutrition." The words spilled from her mouth before she could stop them, she immiedietly covered her mouth with her hand, realizing what she had said,
"So you lost our baby because of me. Because I stressed you out and you didn't eat." He realized and she just bit her lip,
"I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to blame yourself." Paige mumbled, she had no idea of what else Mike had been through while she was absent from his life.
"Paige how could I not blame myself! I'm probably putting you through the same amount of stress this time around with this whole divorce ordeal, what if you hadn't told me and I'd pushed you to your limit." He said, clearly concerned,
"You didn't and both me and the baby are fine Mike." She tried to comfort him, that's when he had dropped the bombshell,
"You know Sarah and I were trying to have another baby for about two years after Grace was born." He started Paige looked at him, confused as to how this was relevant, " Sarah can't have anymore kids, we went to specialists and we tried everything but she couldn't have the one thing she had wanted most. So I told her it might have something to do with me, maybe I was to fault, and I think she honestly believed that for all these years and we kind of blindsided her now that I've fathered two kids"
"Three." Paige corrected, clearly feeling sorry for Mike,
"and she's probably just hurt and I'm sure she'll come around eventually. I doubt she'll pull that whole lawyer thing, and if she does we'll fight it." He finished and Paige looked at him, seeing the pained expression on his face,
"I love you Mike." She said softly and he smiled,
"I love you too." He echoed.