Logan turned to his mother, chest heaving with each labored breath.
“He didn’t want either of us.”
She swayed when she stood, and both Max and Sky took a step toward her.
“I didn’t want you to know.” She extended one hand out, then let it drop. “I wanted to protect you from…from that.”
A tormented silence once again engulfed the room.
Max put his arm around Sky and pulled her to him, needing the comfort of her nearness.
Logan shook his head. “How could he not want his own kid?”
Tears trailed down Anna’s cheeks as she hugged herself tightly and shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Because he’s an asshole,” snapped Max, “who never thinks about anything or anyone except himself.” He pulled away from Sky and stepped over to Logan, who didn’t resist as Max urged him back in his chair.
This is crazy. I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. Even as denial screamed through his brain, he pulled a chair close to Logan and sat down.
“I wish my mother would have been as strong as Annie and told her old man to go to hell.”
Max clutched his hands together in front of him, gaze locked on Logan. “Believe me, kid, we would have all been better off.” He paused. “Being forced into something against your will doesn’t bode well for happily ever after.”
Logan’s stiff posture didn’t change as Max continued.
“When her old man found out my mother was pregnant, he insisted they get married right away. So they did.”
“What happened?”
Logan’s hesitant question opened the door to a past he never wanted to remember much less reveal to anyone.
“They made life miserable for all of us.” Max took a steadying breath and marginally relaxed at Sky’s gentle touch on his shoulders. “I was too young to remember a lot of it, but I do remember the fights, the yelling, the name calling.” Painful memories, long buried out of self-preservation, were exhumed one by one.
“He blamed her for ruining his chance to be a big-time football star. She blamed him for drinking away what little money he made.” He had to swallow hard before unearthing the next one. “And they both blamed me for being born in the first place.”
Sky’s grip on his shoulders tightened, but he didn’t react. The floodgates opened, and words poured out. Words he’d never spoken to a single human being before.
“I never understood what I did wrong. Tried to be good, do as I was told.” Chest so tight he feared something would break, he forced a painful breath. “But…I was nothing more than excess baggage forced on them…and they hated me for it.”
Perspiration dotted his forehead and edged its way into his left eye. The sting was nothing compared to the pain of knowing your own parents wished you were never born.
“I was eight when she dropped me off at school one day.” He couldn’t keep the shake from his voice now or stop the muscle spasms in his chest as the memory washed over him. “I never saw either of them again. I sat outside on the steps till almost dark before the cops came and got me.”
Sky listened with rapt attention, her heart breaking with each new revelation. She could not imagine doing something so heinous to Maddie. Or Logan. Or any child.
Torn by what to do, she settled for keeping her hands on his shoulders. When he reached up and grabbed them, holding them against his chest, she knew it was the right thing to do.
“I spent the next ten years going from one foster home to another.”
He squeezed her hands so tight, she gritted her teeth against the pain. His chest rose and fell on a long, measured breath, as his head tipped back against her chest, and he closed his eyes.
“Because young boys with anger issues are not considered adoptable.” The words came out in a hoarse whisper, filled with pain, bitterness, and resignation.
A flash of grief so intense it took her breath away swept through Sky. Grief for the small boy who didn’t understand what he did wrong. And grief for the man who still carried the pain of that rejection.
But fast on the heels of that came a rush of love for the man he’d become, a man willing to sacrifice himself for his friends, to lay bare his deepest hurt in order to help someone else.
No one spoke as each digested what he had said.
“Oh, Max,” said Anna at last. “I didn’t know.”
He focused on Logan. “You see what she did as lying to you.”
Sky glanced at the boy whose dazed, open-mouthed stare remained fixed on Max.
“But I see it as putting your welfare above all else.” He paused. “She made sure you had a stable home, food on the table, and never once doubted that you were loved. Because that’s what a mother who loves her child does.” His voice cracked. “…I wish mine had done the same.”
She heard Anna’s light gasp but didn’t glance her way. Instead, she hugged Max closer. How that revelation must have hurt him.
“She made a mistake by falling for the wrong guy,” said Max. “Marrying him would have made bad matters worse.”
Defiant, Logan sat up in his chair. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes. I do,” said Max firmly.
