Chapter 2 - Four Sons He Never Once Looked For
I never hid my sons out of shame, and I certainly hadn't spent eight years quietly plotting some elaborate Christmas reveal. Life just moved forward the way it always does, one exhausted day at a time.
When the boys were infants, survival ate up everything else. Feeding schedules covered our entire refrigerator door in sticky notes. Appointments filled every square on the calendar. Laundry never once stopped, and ninety uninterrupted minutes of sleep felt like winning the lottery.
My mother moved in for a while. My brother Marcus showed up whenever his own schedule allowed, usually with takeout and clean towels. Friends from the hospital dropped off casseroles. Neighbors sat at my kitchen table folding tiny onesies into stacks while I finally showered for the first time in three days.
Slowly, the boys turned into themselves. Owen became our quiet reader, the one who'd rather finish a chapter than answer a question. Miles could take apart almost anything mechanical and, more often than not, put it back together working better than before. Colton was fearless and charming and personally responsible for at least half the gray hair now threading through mine. Dean was soft-hearted and funny, and he always noticed sadness in a room before anyone else did.
They looked unmistakably like brothers. Worse — for Grant's peace of mind, anyway — they looked unmistakably like him. The same dark eyes, the same straight nose, the same crooked eyebrow that lifted just slightly whenever they were skeptical, the same stubborn set to the mouth. My brother watched Colton press his lips together in irritation once and nearly dropped his coffee mug on the spot.
"If Grant ever actually asks for a DNA test," Marcus told me, half-laughing, "he might be the one man alive who could save the lab the trouble entirely."
My sons had always known Grant's name. I never lied to them about him, though I also never once taught them to hate a man they'd never actually met. When Owen spotted the invitation open on my laptop screen, he asked, quiet and direct, "Does his family even know about us?"
That question landed harder than I expected. "They know I told him I was pregnant," I said carefully.
"That's not what I asked, Mom."
No. It wasn't. I glanced toward the living room, where his three brothers were mid-construction on a couch-cushion fortress that was threatening to take out a lamp. "No," I admitted finally. "I don't think any of them know you were actually born."
Owen took that in quietly, turning it over. Then he said, simply, "Maybe they should know, then."
Within minutes, all four boys had crowded around my laptop. Colton frowned hard at the screen. "So he thinks you just made up four whole people?"
"Technically he thinks she made up one," Dean corrected.
"That's not really better," Miles pointed out.
Then Miles asked the question that ended up changing everything. "Can we actually go, though?"
I hesitated. "Why would you want to?"
He shrugged like it was obvious. "Because they're kind of our family too, aren't they?"
May you like
That night, I accepted Grant's invitation. His reply came back six minutes later. Glad to hear it. I think this could be good for everyone.
I smiled at that sentence for a long moment. He had absolutely no idea what was actually coming for him.
