His Surprise Son

“I accept that, but Josh, am I really that far off? Do you know how many days you took off during the time I was out in California with you? Three. You proposed to me on the front steps of your office building.”

He planted his hands on the table, rocking it a bit with the force of his gesture. “We were sharing our success together.”

“No. You were enjoying your success. I was just grafted in. Has it changed?”

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me, when’s the last time you took a vacation? How many nights this week did you sleep at the office? Violet’s been telling me how hard it was to get you involved in this.” She looked right into his eyes. “I chose to give Jonah the gift of not being ignored or sidelined by a long-distance man too busy to be a father. That’s not a life for a child.”

“I loved you, and you kept this from me. You never gave me a chance to keep loving you. You let my father win.” The memory of what he felt for her rose up with a force just as strong as his freshly roused hate for his father.

“I believe you loved me,” she said, her voice soft, “but I don’t think you ever really knew what that meant. You thrilled me when you paid attention to me, Josh. But it was too rare. And I tried to tell you how unhappy I was, only you didn’t hear it. You never really acknowledged how sick Dad was getting. It made me realize I could never really be the center of your attention. And then I couldn’t risk that the baby wouldn’t be the center of yours, either. Or become some pawn of your father’s. So I chose what gave Jonah the best chance at happiness, and that’s here in our valley.”

Her accusations pulled at him like an undertow. “Were you ever going to tell Jonah? Or me? I mean, if I didn’t show up here today, would he or I ever have known who we are to each other?”

* * *

Who we are to each other. The words landed heavy with significance.

“I meant to,” she began. “Someday. I never set a deadline or anything, but I knew Jonah would eventually grow up and ask questions. I think I was waiting until Jonah showed signs of wanting to know.”

She rubbed her hands together. She’d always known this conversation would be hard, but in reality, it was excruciatingly painful. “That week, when one of your top engineers was out for a week with a sick child, do you remember what you said? You said families could be a distraction for a man bent on success.”

“We were late for a deadline. I was frustrated.”

“But even I could see it was how you felt. And really, isn’t it the only kind of fathering you’ve known?” Oh, Father, she prayed, seeing his expression, this is such a tangle. Only You can fix this for all of us.

“But Jean—five years?”

She didn’t have an answer for that, except to say, “Secrets get harder to reveal the longer they stay hidden. Dad always used to say we think they’re staying hidden, but they are really just piling up damage, gathering weight and pain to release when they come to light.” Gathering weight and pain. Oh, Dad, how right you were. How right you always were. “I wanted to be in a strong place when I told you. To be standing on my own two feet because I had no idea how you would react. I still don’t. Do you want a family—a real family, Josh?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t classify what I had as a real family. I hardly remember Mom. I just know Dad and his weapons-grade wielding of expectations.”

She couldn’t argue with his assessment. Josh’s father had been alone since Josh’s mother died in a car accident when Josh was ten. He’d never remarried—until he met Violet’s mother sometime in the past five years. Bartholomew Tyler was the furthest thing from what she knew a father to be, the furthest thing from the loving acceptance she’d known from Dad.

“I could have helped,” Josh offered. “I would have helped. You had to know that. I can still help. I’ve got access to all kinds of technologies, adaptations...”

And there it was. Already. A glimpse of what she feared. “Helped?” she questioned. “Or tried to fix? This is exactly what I meant. You hurl solutions at a problem until it surrenders. That’s who you are, what makes you successful, but that’s not how to love a child like Jonah.” She picked up the frame and held it toward him. “We know what technologies are out there. We see a specialist in Charlotte twice a year. But Jonah isn’t a problem to solve, Josh. He’s a boy to love.”

“I get that.”

“Do you? Do you really?”

She got up and picked up an old little wind-up truck that sat on the counter. “Roma Tompkins—she owns the antique store in town—she gave this to Jonah for his first birthday.” She wound it up, and it made the wild buzzing that always made Jonah laugh. “It tickles his palms, and he laughs. His laugh is one of my favorite sounds in the world.”

She set the toy down in front of Josh. “It’s not slick or fancy or even new. But Jonah loves it. To you, it may look like Matrimony Valley may lack for a lot of things, but people here love us. For who we are. Can you do that?”

“I deserve the chance to try, don’t you think?”

Do you deserve the chance to break my son’s heart? she thought. I don’t know yet. “People here have learned sign language just so they can talk to Jonah. The church set up a class and all kinds of people came.” Jean remembered being moved to tears at the standing-room-only sessions. She may be a single mother, but she was never alone here. She knew, even then, that she’d have been far more alone surrounded by strangers in San Jose.

“The kindergarten teacher here has a sister who is deaf, so she’s fluent in sign language. He doesn’t need a special class or an interpreter—do you know what a blessing that is?” she went on. “Jonah finds a way to talk to everyone, and everyone manages to find a way to talk to him. He’s not lacking for anything, really.”

“Except a father,” Josh said, sounding as if someone had just pulled the rug out from underneath his perfectly engineered life. She supposed, in some way, that’s exactly what she’d just done.

“Jonah has a father,” she replied. “He’s just never had a daddy. Are you ready to change that?”

Chapter Four (#uf7516e7b-8d45-5ff2-9900-e6ef51831b73)

Josh stood next to his stepsister at the foot of “Matrimony Falls” the next morning. The site was as beautiful as Jean had described back on those starlit evenings lying on a blanket on the college lawn. As he stared at the sheets of water tumbling urgently down the endless staircase of stones, it was easy to see why she spoke of them with such awe. The gentle roar drowned out the whole world—not in the loud sense, but in the sense that it felt like a bastion of peace. Violet was right; there was something frozen in time about this place that made it an ideal setting to capture a milestone moment like getting married.

Still, the strange discord of being here with Jean Matrim, knowing what he knew now, challenged any real sense of peace. He’d barely slept after leaving Jean’s home, and he doubted she fared much better from the circles under her blue eyes.

“We’ll be the first to marry here?” Violet asked again.

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Jean replied. Josh marveled at how she was able to play it so cool when he fought the dizzying sensation of his world turning in loopy, tangled circles, of his past colliding with his present while staring down his future. “I’m sure you can see why local brides and grooms have chosen Matrim’s Falls for their ceremonies for years. You and Lyle, however, will be the first to tie the knot at the foot of Matrimony Falls.”

Violet beamed and offered Josh the love-struck smile she’d been giving him with every such comment since they arrived. It was sweet, in a slightly obsessive way, how taken she was with the place and the idea of being Matrimony Falls’ first official bride.

“You’ll be the first to use this lovely new gazebo built just for weddings, too. And the first bride to walk down that flagstone aisle.” She pointed to a path of carefully laid stones that wound its way between the two wooden platforms where he assumed the guest chairs would be placed. “God’s very own chapel of leaves,” she said.

Jean talked about her dad and grandpa spouting lines like that all the time. Neither Josh nor she had much time for spirituality back in school, and he still didn’t, but the tone behind her words and their conversation last night told him priorities had shifted for Jean. Didn’t everyone say becoming a parent did that to people?

One thing hadn’t changed: she was as beautiful as he remembered. The long blond hair that entranced him back in school was cut to a sensible crop just off her shoulders. The crazy, dangly earrings she’d favored were now replaced by small gold knots. She didn’t look old by any means, but she didn’t look young, either. Now a quiet grace filled her features. There had been a time when he felt he knew everything about her, but had he really? This morning it felt as if he knew next to nothing.

When would they get more time to talk about this? He was here for only forty-eight hours—and this felt like it would take weeks to untangle.

“It’s stunning,” Josh said, mostly for Violet’s sake, but the scenery really was breathtaking. If all these wedding-ready amenities were Jean’s doing, he was impressed. “You built all this up recently?”

“The whole town’s pitched in to create what we’ve got now,” Jean replied. “Rob Falston from the hardware store built the gazebo. Dave and Maureen Rodgers laid the flagstone aisle from stone their son gave them.” She gestured toward the falls. “Of course, no one takes credit for the natural beauty and atmosphere of Matrimony Falls—that’s God’s doing.” She leaned in. “But even God’s green grass can stain a white dress and be tricky in heels, so we added the stones.”

“See?” Violet smiled. “I told you Jean thinks of everything.” His sister held up the swatches of fabric—the wedding party’s colors—and the three lengths of ribbon the florist, Kelly, had given them yesterday. “See how it all works together, Josh?”

He could see that. He’d just grasped the full extent of it two meetings ago and had a whole lot of other things on his mind now. “Very pretty, Vi.”

Jean gave him a look that told him he hadn’t entirely hidden his level of distraction. “There are so many details to a wedding,” she commiserated. “It can get a bit overwhelming. We hope to add another wedding planner at the end of the year so that we can keep up the individualized attention to each bride as we grow. But you, as our first, get my full attention.”

Violet grinned even wider. Josh really was happy for her. They had only each other now, with the father they shared and both their mothers gone, so he wanted to help—logistically and financially. It was just that Jean and Jonah had completely blindsided him.

“Why don’t you go stand at the top of the aisle, Violet, and take in the view,” he suggested to his stepsister. “I always look out from the podium an hour before I give a big speech. It makes it feel familiar, and you’ll be less nervous when you stand there on your wedding day.”

“Great idea,” said Violet, who handed Josh her notebook and turned to walk up the aisle to the trellis that marked the bride’s entrance into the clearing.

When Violet was a dozen yards away, Josh took half a step closer to Jean. While still keeping his smiling gaze on his stepsister, he leaned in and said, “When can I see him?”

Her sigh was enormous. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? I’m his father. When can I see him?”