The days that followed passed in a haze of grief and logistical nightmares. Jessica’s funeral took place at the First Baptist Church of Harmony Ridge, its pews overflowing with the faces of the community who had known her as the smiling mother at school events or the woman who always baked an extra batch of brownies for the church bake sale.
Mike stood stoically at the front, shaking hands, accepting condolences and an endless parade of casseroles, while Lily and Grace clung to his pant legs, their young faces streaked with tears and confusion. Caleb remained with Brenda, too young to be a part of the sorrow. Mike kept his own emotions under a tight lock and key, his heart encased in ice. He knew that if he allowed himself to feel the full weight of his loss, he would shatter, and his children needed him to remain standing.
His older sister, Megan, couldn’t get away from her high-powered marketing job in Seattle. They hadn’t seen each other in years, their lives having diverged significantly after their parents passed away. She sent a generous check and called, her voice strained and distant over the phone.
— “I’m just so sorry, Mike,” she said. “I feel terrible I can’t be there, but we’re in the middle of a huge product launch. Are you holding up?”
— “Not really,” he admitted honestly. “But I have the kids. I have to keep it together for them.”
— “You do. And that little boy you wanted so much—he’s here now. You pour all your love into him, and into Lily and Grace. They’ll be the ones to get you through this.”
Mike grunted a noncommittal response. He barely felt equipped to parent his daughters, let alone a newborn. Lily was obsessed with her science experiments and asked relentless questions about the universe; Grace lived in a world of fantasy with her stuffed dragon and would erupt into a tantrum if her sandwich was cut the wrong way.
Caleb was a complete unknown, his cries a constant, piercing reminder of what Mike had lost. If it weren’t for Brenda, he would have already drowned in the responsibility. She stayed on after the funeral, moving into their spare bedroom when Mike offered to pay her to be a full-time nanny. She had readily quit her cashier job at the local supermarket, seemingly thrilled to help.
To keep himself from spiraling, Mike threw all his energy into making his dream of a mechanic shop a reality. The detached two-car garage beside the house was already well-equipped with his tools and a hydraulic lift, making it the perfect spot for a small operation. He began taking on local work—oil changes, brake jobs, engine diagnostics—anything to keep him busy and close to home.
But as the weeks turned into months, he began to notice disturbing patterns. He would often come home to find Caleb wailing in his crib, his diaper soaked through, while Brenda was in the living room playing dress-up with Lily and Grace. One evening, after discovering Caleb cold, wet, and screaming with hunger, Mike finally lost his temper.
— “Brenda, what the hell is this?” he yelled, storming into the nursery. “I am paying you to look after all of my children, not just the girls! Caleb is a mess. What have you been doing all day?”
Brenda’s eyes immediately filled with tears, and her lower lip began to tremble.
— “This is the thanks I get? Look at Lily and Grace—they are happy and clean and dressed like little dolls! I do all of this for them because they’re yours, Mike. Can’t you see how much I care about you and your girls?”
She clapped a hand over her mouth as if she’d let something slip, her face turning pale. A chill snaked its way down Mike’s spine.
— “What are you trying to say, Brenda? ‘My girls’? What about Caleb?”
Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.
— “I shouldn’t have said anything. But you’re not a stupid man, Mike. Just look at Caleb—that blond hair, that strange birthmark. Now look at you and the girls. You were gone for weeks, sometimes months at a time. Jessica was lonely. She was only human.”
Mike’s hands, still stained with engine grease, curled into tight fists. He took a menacing step towards her, his voice a low, dangerous growl.
— “Are you telling me that Jessica cheated on me? That Caleb isn’t my son?”
Brenda flinched and took a step back, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and something else—triumph.
— “I have proof,” she stammered. “There’s a picture on my phone. I can show you.”
She scurried to her room and returned moments later, holding out her phone. The screen displayed a photo of Jessica at a local diner, laughing, with the arm of a fair-haired man draped casually around her shoulders. Mike’s vision swam, a nauseating cocktail of rage and betrayal rising in his throat. He didn’t want to see it, refused to believe it.
He snatched the phone from her hand and, with a guttural roar, snapped it in two over his knee. The sharp crack of plastic echoed through the silent house. Without another word, he turned and stalked out the door, not even bothering to change out of his steel-toed work boots, and drove to The Rusty Spur, a dimly lit bar on the outskirts of town.
The air inside was thick with the smell of stale beer and regret. Mike ordered a whiskey, then another, and another, trying to incinerate the image of Jessica and the stranger from his mind. He could destroy a photograph, but what could he do about Caleb? Every time he looked at the boy, he would see that blond hair, that teardrop-shaped mark.
Before this moment, he had felt a fragile, budding love for his son, a flicker of hope in the darkness of his grief. Now, that feeling curdled into a bitter poison. How could Jessica have done this to him? He had worked himself into the ground for her, for their family, missing school concerts and birthdays just to ensure they had everything they needed.
Hours later, Mike stumbled back into his house, drunk and disoriented, crashing into a floor lamp and sending it to the ground with a clatter. Brenda was waiting for him, her expression soft and full of a manufactured concern. She helped him to his bedroom, gently pulling off his heavy boots. As she lay down beside him in the dark, she whispered.
— “Not all women are like Jessica, Mike. I would never, ever hurt you like that.”
In a moment of profound weakness, half-conscious and drowning in pain, Mike pulled her close. He awoke the next morning to a throbbing headache and a deep, gut-wrenching sense of shame. Brenda, however, was beaming. She was already moving her belongings into his bedroom, acting as if they were now an established couple. Mike avoided her gaze, not having the strength for another confrontation. But she was the one who brought up Caleb.
— “Mike, I know this is incredibly difficult,” she said, stirring a pot of oatmeal on the stove. “But you need to think about what you’re going to do about Caleb.”
— “What is that supposed to mean?” he grumbled, fumbling in the refrigerator for a bottle of water.
— “Well, he isn’t your son. He’s the son of a stranger, a living reminder of what Jessica did. Why would you want to keep him? You know, foster care is always an option.”
Mike froze, the water bottle slipping from his grasp. It hit the linoleum with a dull thud, a small crack spiderwebbing across the plastic as water began to pool on the floor. At that exact moment, Caleb’s cries erupted from the nursery, sharp and desperate. Mike stepped over the puddle, his voice as cold and hard as steel.
— “Listen to me very carefully, Brenda, because I am only going to say this once. Caleb is my son, legally and in every other way that matters. I am raising him. If you want to stay in this house, you will treat all three of my children exactly the same, and you will never speak of this again. Are we clear?”
Brenda nodded, her hands trembling as she reached for a paper towel to clean up the spill. She understood the terms. Desperate to secure her place in Mike’s life, she never mentioned foster care again. But when Mike wasn’t around, Caleb felt the chill of her resentment in a thousand small, cruel ways—a bottle that was offered late, a diaper left unchanged, a complete and total lack of affection.
The years crawled by, and Mike found it impossible to love Caleb with the same effortless affection he felt for Lily and Grace. He went through the motions, God knows he tried, but the boy’s fair hair and the teardrop birthmark were a constant, painful reminder of the lie he believed.
He spoke to all three of his children with the same set of instructions—reminders about homework, rules about bedtime—but his voice always held a warmth for his daughters that was absent when he spoke to his son. Caleb received only clipped, perfunctory commands. The boy felt the difference keenly, his small shoulders often hunched as if carrying the invisible weight of his father’s conditional love.
