Author's note: Thank you all so much for sticking with me and my muse on this one through all the twists and turns. Thank you all for your feedback.
John stared at her in disbelief as the room fell silent and all three of them froze where they were. "What?"
"Oh Jonas and Michael share some family resemblance I'll admit," she said, "something about the shape of his eyes… the way he scrunches them up when he smiles. Something not altogether unexpected considering Michael comes from the same genetic material as his father."
"His father-?" John echoed blankly. He felt suddenly like he'd had too much to drink, the world was spinning.
"You John," she said the anger not gone from her eyes, "he's not your nephew, he's your son."
He shook his head as though that would clear his thoughts. As though it would help him process this.
"I thought the name was a dead give away," she said. When his expression clearly indicated he didn't understand what she was talking about she continued, "I was going to name him John Thomas, after you and your father, but it occurred to me that giving my son a name that was also a euphemism for a part of the male anatomy might be cruel, so I combined them. Jonas."
He tried to find a way to respond—something to say to her but found no words; he turned instead to Michael who seemed to be desperately looking for an escape. "You knew?" he finally managed to ask.
Michael shook his head, "I'm sorry, Johnny, I-"
"Michael's only known a couple of months," Natalie said, "don't blame him. If you want to be mad at someone-"
"Oh I think I can manage to be mad at both of you," John said.
"As soon as he found out he insisted that I tell you," Natalie said.
"Which you didn't," he pointed out.
"I wanted to be able to tell you in person, he said he could get you up here-"
"So that's what this whole trip has been about?" he said reexamining every conversation that he'd had with either of them since his arrival. It made so much sense. "Who else knows?" he asked suddenly. He wasn't sure why it mattered, but for some reason it did.
"No one," Natalie said softly.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"I honestly don't care," she said. "There are a few people who might suspect."
"Rex?"
She nodded. "He's never asked me directly but I think so. Although to be honest your visit has probably confused the hell out of him since I'm pretty sure the scenario he was imagining had you knowing and leaving us anyway."
"And so why out of all the people in this town would you pick my brother to confide in?" he asked.
"She didn't," Michael spoke up.
"He figured it out."
"Apparently I'm the only one in this town who can count to nine backwards," Michael said with a grim smile.
"It helps that you're one of very few people who know his real birth date," Natalie said glaring at Michael.
John ran his hand through his hair, still unable to quite believe what he was hearing. "Can one of you please explain to me what you're talking about?"
Natalie took a deep breath. "Jonas fell and broke his elbow playing soccer in September. Michael was the one who treated him in the ER. He looked at the medical records and saw Jonas's birth date and he confronted me about it."
"And what? The kid never had a birthday? How does nobody else know what day he was born?"
Natalie squeezed her eyes shut. "Because he was born at the beginning of August and we celebrate his birthday in October."
He stared at her, "That's how desperate you were to keep me from finding out? You gave our son a new birthday-?"
"It wasn't like that," she said tears starting to break through the mask of anger she'd been wearing.
"Really?" he asked trying not to let her tears dull his anger. "Well how was it then? Enlighten me?"
"Would you just give her a chance to talk, Johnny?" Michael interjected.
John turned to his brother ready to shift his anger back to him again but Natalie spoke first and said, "Michael, you should probably go."
Michael looked back and forth between John and Natalie, "I don't know."
"We have a lot to talk about and we should probably do it alone," she insisted.
"And by the end of it one or both of you will probably need a doctor," Michael said.
"I promise we'll keep the violence to a minimum," she said with a weak smile as she opened the door and motioned for him to step through.
Before he let the door close behind him Michael turned back to his brother and said, "Call me later."
John stared at the floor and didn't answer as Michael turned and disappeared. "This is why you left," he said as the door shut, "you left town to keep me from finding out about the baby."
"No," she said shaking her head slowly, "I had no idea I was pregnant when I left."
"Yeah right," he said dismissively.
"Look John," she said walking closer to him, "I realize that at this point you have no reason to trust me, but there's no point in us having this conversation at all if you're not going to believe a word I say. So let me promise you that everything I say tonight will be the complete and honest truth. My big secret's out, John—I don't think there's anything that could possibly make you angrier with me than you are already so why would I lie now."
"I don't know," he said, "how could you lie about this in the first place?"
"I didn't lie," she said softly.
"Well it was a pretty big omission!"
"Yes," she whispered.
"How could you?" he asked through gritted teeth.
"I don't know John!" she exploded suddenly, "but I imagine it might be kind of like letting the woman you're sleeping with believe her husband's dead when he's actually rotting in a prison cell."
He stared at her as the words washed over him; he could tell from her expression that she was regretting what she'd said, but it was too late. "So that's what this was all about?" he asked after a moment of tense silence, "this was just revenge?"
"No," she said folding her arms tightly across her chest, "I mean it was at first, yes, I admit it. When I found out I was still so angry and hurt and yeah, I liked the idea of causing you that same pain."
"It's not the same," he said.
"No, but it's pretty close," she said before continuing, "but that was only at first. And after a little while… I don't know if it was sanity creeping in or the hormones making me soft or what… but after a while something happened and I started to forgive you. And I called you."
"Why don't I remember that?" he asked.
"Because your phone had been disconnected," she explained. "I tried your cell I tried you at the hotel and then I called you at work and I found out you were no longer employed there. Apparently, you'd left town."
"So what? You just stopped trying to get a hold of me?"
"No," she said, "it took me another couple days but I worked up the courage to call Michael. I didn't tell him why I just told him I needed to talk to you. And he told me you hadn't just left town, you'd gone to work with the DEA and left the country. You were in the middle of the jungle in South America somewhere and the only information he could give me was the number of some liaison in Lima who might be able to get a message to you. What kind of message could I leave for you? Tell Special Agent McBain to call his pregnant ex-girlfriend when he gets a chance?"
"So you just gave up," he said.
"No, John," she said her eyes flashing again, "you gave up."
"I gave up?" he asked in surprise.
"After Statesville," she said, "you just gave up on us. You just let me walk away."
"You left town!" he said with an angry wave of his hand.
"And made absolutely no effort to cover my tracks. I didn't bother to change my cell phone until after Jonas was born. I paid for everything with credit cards. Hell John, I still have the same email address that I used then. Cristian tracked me down. And let's face it, Cristian was brilliant artist but that was about all he was brilliant at. You're a detective, it's what you do! If he could track me down you should have been able to."
"I thought you left to get away from everything," he explained, "I didn't think you wanted me to track you down."
"I told myself I didn't," she said walking over to the couch and sinking down on it, "I told myself I wouldn't do something so stupid and manipulative. And part of me really did go to clear my head. But no matter how hard I tried not to I kept dreaming of you showing up at my hotel room one day… And who shows up instead, but Cristian. And I don't know if I was angrier at him for not respecting my privacy or because he wasn't you."
"If I had known-"
"You couldn't have," she said softly.
A thought occurred to him suddenly. "Does Cristian know?" It was stupid, but somehow the whole situation would be much worse if Cristian had known about his son before he did.
"I didn't tell him," she said, "he finally figured out I was pregnant. He didn't really take it well. That was a lot of fun. But I think he believed the story I made up. I don't think it ever occurred to him that it was yours. But that was what finally got rid of him."
"He couldn't stand the idea of you having another man's baby," John said, not really surprised.
"No," she said, "so he left. And then I was alone. And it was stupid but I just kept thinking that somehow you'd know. I kept waiting for you to show up one day. But you didn't and I went through it all alone. I took a cab to the hospital when I was in labor. All of those diapers all of those middle of the night feedings, I did it all by myself."
"I'm sorry," he said. He was still unbelievably angry at her, but that didn't mean that she deserved to have gone through all of that alone.
"Don't be," she said, "first of all it wasn't your fault and second… in the end it was good for me. Sometimes there's no one there to rescue you and you have to rescue yourself. I had forgotten that until then."
"All this time," he said, "after you came back to town you had Michael around, you've been keeping tabs on where I was. Why didn't you ever try to get a hold of me?"
She looked up at him tears in her eyes, "Because you know what it's like John—once you start telling a lie, even if it's a lie of omission, it's really hard to stop. And I knew you would find out eventually. After Michael figured it out and he brought you up here… I've spent the last couple days talking to you and making love with you and knowing that sooner or later the bomb was going to drop and it was all going to be over. Which is actually kind of appropriate, because that must have been pretty close to what was going on in your head when Jonas was conceived."
He tried to do the math in his head, "He was born in August?"
"August sixth," she said, "which means he must have been conceived one of the last nights we were together before the Statesville riot."
"And it all comes back to that," he said softly. "And because of what I did then you kept me in the dark for nine years. You kept Jonas and me apart- Jonas. How are we going to tell him?"
She stared at the floor. "He already knows."
"He knows?" It hadn't even occurred to him, but then he thought back to their first meeting. The glare Jonas had given him—it wasn't a glare directed at a stranger but someone he knew and distrusted for a reason. He should have seen it. And yet she worried over her son growing up too fast… How could she possibly put the burden of such knowledge on her own child? "He knew before he even met me, didn't he?" he asked.
She nodded. "Since he was born. I had a picture of you I kept with me the whole time. He's always known what you looked like."
"What did you tell him?"
"That I loved you very much and that you were a good man. And that it wasn't your fault or his fault that you couldn't be with him. He's never asked me anything beyond that."
"That's sick," he said shaking his head.
"It is," she admitted. "Which is a pretty good way to describe what I've done. It was sick and it was wrong and if I could undo it- I would give my life to undo it, but I can't. And there is no apology I can give you that will make up for it. But I am so sorry."
He thought about that little boy who'd shown up at his room that morning with a sincere desire to protect his mother. That little boy who was so serious but also seemed so sweet and genuine. His mind had been so preoccupied with his anger towards Natalie that it still hadn't sunk in that he had a son. That little boy was his son. What was he going to do?
Natalie sighed. "Have a seat John," she said motioning to the chair across from her, "and I'll tell you the rest."
He sat uneasily on the edge of the chair. "There's more?"
"There always is," she said with a weak smile. She took a deep breath. "I was almost five months pregnant before I found out. I know it sounds crazy—I used to hear women tell stories like that and think they must be lying. But I guess I just wasn't thinking clearly and with everything that was happening I just didn't notice when I missed my period. And when I felt sick to my stomach sometimes I thought it was just being on the road and eating too much take out which also explained the weight gain and… I don't know, maybe I was just in denial, but eventually I had to admit that there was something wrong with me. So I got out my laptop and went online and looked up my symptoms and I decided it was depression. And I thought it made sense, you know, considering everything that had happened but because of my family's history with mental illness I wanted to nip it right in the bud. So I found this doctor in the town I was staying in and I went in… I thought I was gonna get some happy pills and instead I walk out with prenatal vitamins."
"You really had no idea?" he asked skeptically.
She shook her head. "I mean the doctor agreed with me about the depression at first but he said he wanted to do an exam, just to rule out anything else. And somewhere during the exam he says that I have this abdominal mass. So I'm thinking, 'Great, on top of everything else I have some kind of tumor.' But then the doctor looks at me and he says, 'Ma'am, is there any chance you could be pregnant.' They'd asked me that already and I said, 'No' because I really didn't even think about the possibility. So I looked at him and kind of laughed and said, 'Well if I was I'd have to be like five months along.' And I think it hit us both at the same moment and that's when he ordered an ultrasound. Turned out my tumor had a heartbeat."
"I imagine that must have been quite a shock," he said.
"It was," she said, "but as awful as it was finding out like that the next four months were worse. Because I had to spend the next four months wondering what I'd done to my baby."
"You mean by leaving town?"
She shook her head and fought for words through the tears he saw welling in her eyes. "Do you know what fetal alcohol syndrome is?" she asked.
"I've heard of it," he said.
"Well it's not pretty. It happens when a woman drinks while she's pregnant and it can cause some really serious birth defects," she said biting her lip.
"You were drinking while you were pregnant?"
"I didn't know I was pregnant!" she insisted a tear rolling down her face. "I was really messed up when I left town, I think you knew that. Honestly, I thought I was being responsible about the whole thing. I wasn't getting smashed in bars I just spent a couple of nights here and there drinking on my own in the safety of my hotel room. I had no idea that I was pregnant, John you have to believe I would have never endangered my baby like that."
"I know," he said. Whatever else she'd done he knew she loved her son and he knew she cared about children, he'd seen it. She wouldn't have done this deliberately.
"They monitored me really closely, because they knew I hadn't had the prenatal care I was supposed to. And all of the tests came back okay but they told me there would be no way to know until after he was born." She paused to wipe a tear from her eye with the back of her hand. "So I spent the whole time just praying and begging God to let my baby be okay. And I swore that if he was I would do everything I could to protect him after that."
"But Jonas is okay?" he asked.
"He's great," she said, "they put this perfect little baby boy in my arms and all I could think about was keeping him safe and giving him the best that I possibly could."
Fixing her eyes with his he said, "And apparently that didn't include me."
She looked away and took a deep breath. "I don't want to say this John, but I need to. And I promised you I would tell you the whole truth and I might as well get this out there now while you're as mad as you possibly can be."
"Just say it," he pressed.
"Based on the information that I had then," she said slowly, "nine years ago, remember how different things were. How different we were. Nine years ago I didn't know if you were really ready to be a father."
She could have slapped him and it would have hurt a lot less. "Ah," was all he could manage to say for a moment.
"John you were so closed off and you spent half your time brooding and at the time I left you were blowing up at everyone and refusing to get help," she said, " I mean come on, John, how many times did you give me the 'I can't do this right now' speech. That's hurtful enough to hear when you're an adult I had no way of knowing if you'd be the same way with a child."
"It wasn't your decision to make, Natalie," he said seething.
"But it was the decision I had to make. And I was wrong. Seeing you these last couple days John, I realized that-"
He stood up wordlessly and walked towards the door. If he stayed he was going to totally lose control and that would only make things worse. If there was a way for things to get any worse.
"I was wrong, John!" she pleaded as she rose to follow him. Not heeding her he walked out the door and headed for his car. He heard her shouting his name as he slammed the door and started backing out of the drive. Saw her standing on the steps of the carriage house with tears running down her face. But he couldn't stop. Not yet.
To be continued.