Page 70 of Small-Town Secrets
"Why did you run out here?" Laurence asked, giving the kid some room to breathe.
"Because..." Tyler paused, his nose wrinkling as if the memory of the phone call he'd had smelled bad. "I don't know. Dad was really mean!"
"What did he say?" Laurence asked, kneeling next to Tyler and stroking a hand through his hair.
"He called me a bastard." Tyler glanced at his brother. "And Chris too."
I sucked in a breath. Howard really was the scum of the earth, wasn't he? Suddenly, I wanted to introduce him to my fists in the worst way.
"That was very mean," Laurence agreed calmly. I had no idea how he managed to stay so level-headed when all I wanted to do was return to my car, find Howard and bash his head in.
"He said he didn't want to be our dad anymore," Tyler continued, throwing the stone he'd been holding all this time out the door. It sailed right by my head, but I decided not to comment on it. The boy had a right to be mad. I would have been livid too, if my dad had abandoned me like that.
It was time that Tyler knew he had another dad he could count on.
I knelt on the floor before Tyler, next to Laurence, and beckoned Chris to take a step closer too. Chris eyed me suspiciously, but did as he was told anyway.
"We have something to tell you two," I started.
Laurence glanced at me. "Are you sure this is—"
"Yes, I'm sure." We couldn't delay this conversation any longer. Not even for the time it would take to get back home. I focused my attention back on the twins. "The reason your dad was so mean to you is because he's not really your dad."Andbecause the man was an asshole, but that didn't matter now.
"What do you mean?" Chris crossed his arms in front of his chest and pierced me with a stare.
"Your daddy thought that your dad was your dad for a long time, but that was a mistake," I tried putting everything we'd learned into child-friendly terms.
"What kind of mistake?" Tyler asked, looking more confused than I'd ever seen him. I wasn't doing a very good job of this, was I?
Maybe it was best to just come straight out with it. "I'm your dad," I announced.
A second passed, and then another. Nobody said anything. Tyler stared at me. Chris looked like he was solving a very hard math puzzle in his head. Laurence took my hand and squeezed.
"Is that why the pictures look like us?" Chris asked finally.
"Yes."
"What pictures?" Tyler asked, gaze darting back and forth between Chris and me. "You're our dad now?"
"We look like Aaron when he was small," Chris explained to his brother. "Because he's our dad." Even as he said that, though, I couldn't at all tell how he felt about any of this.
"But why?" Tyler continued to ask.
I turned to him. "I was with your daddy before your daddy got together with Howard and then when your daddy had you he thought he got you from Howard but that wasn't true."
"And that's why Dad hates us now?" His gaze shifted to Laurence. "Is that why he hates you?"
"No." Laurence drew the boy into his arms again. "Howard is mean because he's a mean person. It's nothing to do with you or me or Aaron, okay? He doesn't deserve our love."
While Laurence was talking to Tyler, Chris' eyes burned into me as if he was trying to dissect me.
"Everything all right?" I asked.
"I don't know," he admitted. "Are you going to be mean too?"
"I'm not going to be mean," I promised. I might reprimand them if they broke the rules, but I was never going to be mean the way Howard was. More than anything, I wanted my children to be happy. I wanted us all to be happy together.
"Do you I have to call you Dad?" Chris asked next.
