The next morning I slept in later than I normally
would and Brayden came and jumped on my bed
waking me up. “Momma! Momma! I’m hungry.”
Brayden said jumping up and down on my bed. I
sighed the last thing I wanted to do right now was
get out of bed. “Is Grandma downstairs?”I asked
pulling Brayden down to sit beside me. “Yeah.”
“Okay will you do mommy a favor and go ask
Grandma to make you breakfast?”I asked.
“Okay.”Brayden said bouncing out of the room.
Sigh. I wish I had the carefree lifestyle of a four
year old. Why did everything have to be so
complicated. Why did I have to go and have sex
with Justin when I did. If we’d never had sex I
wouldn’t have any of these problems. I can’t say
that though. I love Brayden more than the world
and I would not change what happened for
anything. But why does Justin have to be such an
ass. He wasn’t even really an ass he was just upset
at me for hiding it from him. It’s really not his fault
at all, its mine. Just then my mom walked in to find
me curled up in a ball on my bed crying to myself.
“Abby what’s wrong?”My mom asked as she sat
down beside me and brushed the hair out of my
face. “I told him and he got mad at me. Not that I
can blame him but he yelled at me and then he just
left saying he needed time to wrap his head around
everything.”I whispered willing my voice not to
crack. “Oh Abby.”My mom said “You did the right
thing and I’m sure he’ll come around he just needs
some time. That’s a lot to take in and he didn’t
have nine months to prepare for it like you.” “But
whose fault is that.”I snapped as I turned away
from her. “You can’t beat yourself up over this
Abigail. You did what was best for you at the time
and honestly I think if you have to do it over you
would do that exact same thing. You have a chance
to make it up now and you need to make the best
out of the situation.”My mom said running her
fingers through my hair. I knew she was right but it
didn’t make it any less of a fact that I just wanted
to crawl in a hole and die right now. “Listen, I’m
going to take Brayden out for the day to give you
some time to calm down and figure out what you
want to do alright?”My mom said getting up off the
bed. I just nodded and waited for her to leave me
alone to my thoughts. The next couple
days I walked around like a zombie trying to figure
out a way to make everything up to Justin. Despite
everything that happened my mom was right
Brayden still needed his dad. It killed me to think
that Justin could just walk away and not look back,
but after the other night I wasn’t sure I was going to
hear from him again. J.C. and my mom both told
me to give him time but I wasn’t sure that was
going to work. It had been three days and I still
had not heard a word from Justin and as time went
on I started to get more and more worried and I
started to distance myself further from the people I
loved most. Brayden even noticed something was
wrong even though I tried to put all of the energy I
had into making him think that everything was
okay. He calmed down a lot which was saying
something for him because he was never really a
hyper child. He would just kind of follow me around
and curl up into my lap. I can’t say that I minded,
but it killed me to know that my mood was affecting
him so much. Part of me knew I should just let it go
and not worry about it. Brayden knew nothing that
had happened and if he never got to meet Justin as
his dad then he wouldn’t notice the difference, but
the thing was I was. I would know and it would kill
me. “Mom.” Justin sighed as his mom
walked into his house and he ran to hug her. “Hey
sweetheart how’ve you been?”Lynn asked pulling
away and saw how weary and ragged Justin looked.
“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”Lynn asked
leading Justin into the living room “Why did you
insist that I fly out here so quickly?”Lynn asked
sitting down. Justin sighed and rested his head in
his hands not sure where to start. Lynn started to
get worried as she watched her oldest son fall apart
in front of her. This was not like him and she had
no idea what could have possibly happened to
make him act like this. Finally Justin looked up at
her with tears streaming down his face. “Justin, talk
to me.”Lynn prodded as she took his hand into
hers. Justin wasn’t sure where he should start so he
figured the beginning would be the best place.
“Mom, do you remember Abigail from when I was
on the Mickey Mouse Club?” Justin asked wiping
tears off his face. “Uh…yeah.”Lynn said confused
not being able to fathom how any of this could have
anything to do with Abigail. “Okay well you know
how she just disappeared and no one knew where
she went?”He asked again. “Right. So what does
any of this have to do with her?”Lynn asked still
confused. “Hold on I’m getting there.”Justin sighed
“Okay so a couple weeks ago we had new neighbors
move in and it took J.C. and I awhile but we finally
realized that the girl was Abigail or Abby.”Justin
said. “Okay so she’s back? What’d she do to
you?”Lynn asked all of a sudden getting protective.
“Okay, so she was acting all shy at first because
she didn’t want J.C. or I to recognize her but we
finally figured it out and then after figuring it she
felt the need to tell me the truth about some
things.”Justin sighed stopping again trying to regain
his composure. “And?”Lynn anxiously asked. “And
she introduced me to her four year old son.”Justin
whispered without looking at his mom. “So she
cheated on you?”Lynn asked her voice filled with
hope and a hint of confusion. “No mom.”Justin
voice cracked and he stopped as Lynn just looked
at him expectantly. “I don’t know what to do.”Justin
cried falling into Lynn. Lynn wrapped her arms
around Justin and just held him speechless. Finally
Lynn was the one to break the silence “Did she
come here looking for you?”Lynn asked very tight
lipped. “No mom she didn’t even know we were here
and when she realized we were she tried everything
in her power to avoid us, but when she realized she
couldn’t she felt she had no other choice but to tell
me what happened.”Justin sighed sitting up to look
at Lynn. Lynn sighed “Justin I love you more than
anything and you know that and I will always be
here for you no matter what and I can’t imagine
having a child that I didn’t get to see and interact
with.”Lynn started “I know that this all has to be
really hard on you, and I can understand any
resentment you might have towards Abigail, but you
cannot punish your son for this.”Lynn said her
voicing cracking when she said ‘your son’. “I know..
I just don’t know what to do I’ve missed the past
four years of his life.”Justin said. “Once again you
can’t blame him for that. Does he even know
you’re his dad?”Lynn questioned. “No.”Justin sighed
“And last time I saw him I was fighting with Abby
and I think I kinda scared him.” “You can’t expect
to be perfect overnight.”Lynn sighed “How about we
go to dinner and we’ll figure out what to do.” Lynn
said getting up. “Sure.”Justin agreed getting up and
following her to the door.