Mia stands to full height now, while Tammy takes over cleaning the mess on the floor. She moves to the other side of the island with whatever products she managed to salvage and dumps them in the sink. She runs the tap before turning to me, her arms crossed, eyes everywhere, all at once.
“Mama, mama, look!” I hear from behind me and spin around to see a little boy, around four or five, running up the porch steps. Behind him is a man I recognize as Mia’s dad. He looks different from the last time I saw him. Maybe it’s the lack of a suit, or perhaps it’s his smile. It all clicks then. Mia’s dad, Holden’s mom… the need for the divorce papers. He’s getting remarried.
The little boy swings the screen door open, and I notice the bucket in his hand. He lifts it with both hands and yells, “Mama, look!”
I stare down at Tammy, waiting for her response.
But the response doesn’t come from her. It comes from behind me. “What have you got there, buddy?” Mia asks, voice soft, sweet.
Like her.
I feel her move, stepping around me, but I can’t stop looking at the boy.
“I got rocks,” he tells her, his light brown eyes bright when she stoops down to his level. “Papa and me went to the creek.”
“I can see that,” she laughs quietly, shifting his dark hair out of his eyes. “Papa let you get all dirty, huh?”
“Sorry,” says Mia’s dad, stepping into the house. He quickly glances at me but doesn’t seem to care that there’s a stranger in the room. And that stranger is in the middle of a panic attack and it’s taking everything in me to just… be.
“I got this one for Uncle Holden,” the boy says, taking a rock from the pocket of his denim overalls. “Can we send it to him tomorrow?”
“We sure can. I bet he’ll love this one,” Mia says, inspecting it closer. Then she seems to look at everyone, all at once, before going back to her son. She rubs her hands up and down his forearms, then looks over at me. “Benny, this is Mama’s friend, Leo. Say hi.”
Benny.
Benny lifts a hand and smiles wide, revealing all his baby teeth. “Hello, sir.”
I raise my hand in return, but I don’t do anything else. I can’t. And it doesn’t matter that everyone’s looking at me, waiting for a verbal response. I literally can’t breathe. How the fuck can I speak?
Mia turns back to her son. “Why don’t you go with Papa and Tammy, so they can give you a bath?”
“Bubbles?” he squeals, dropping the bucket.
He starts to run toward the bathroom, but Mia’s dad picks him up. “Better not have you traipsing mud through the house, kiddo.”
In reality, all of this happens in less than a minute. In my mind, it was all in slow motion, from the second Mia walked in until right now, when it’s just me and her standing in the kitchen. Me, looking at her. Her, looking anywhere but at me. I finally speak. “How old is he, Mia?”
She looks up, meets my eyes for the first time since she walked in. “We both know that’s not the question you really want to ask, Leo.”
I swallow every single emotion that ever existed. “Is he mine?”
“Yes.”
Chapter Sixty
Mia
“Mama, why is that man walking up and down and up and down?” Benny’s standing at the living room window, looking out between the curtains, and he turns to me, his dark eyebrows pinched in the center.
“What man?” I ask, mindlessly cleaning the kitchen. I didn’t get much sleep last night, for obvious reasons, and I’m really not in the mood for a visit. Whenever we’re in town, people seem to flock to the house just wanting to check in and talk about Papa. Most days I don’t mind it. Today—it’s the last thing I want.
We’ve had a lazy morning, Benny and me, and we’re both still in pajamas even though it’s close to midday. “The man from yesterday.”
Before I can even begin to panic, the buzzer of the intercom goes off. Why we need an intercom when I’m in the barn and Dad and Tammy are in the main house, mere yards away and we have cell phones, I have no idea. Dad said it would be easier for Benny to communicate with them. He can’t even reach the dang thing. Reluctantly, I hit the answer button, already knowing what’s coming.