Joshua stood when I entered the office.
His phone remained on the desk.
“Who is Patrick?” I asked.
“My brother.”
“And what did you promise him?”
Joshua rubbed both hands over his face.
“It isn't what you think.”
I almost laughed.
People always say that when it is exactly what you think.
“You said you couldn't keep doing this to me.”
“I didn't mean—”
“You said the boys weren't the reason you adopted them.”
His mouth tightened.
I waited.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “I should have told you something before we brought them home.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
He looked toward the hallway.
“Not here.”
“Why not here?”
“The boys could wake up.”
I stared at him.
Even then, even after hearing what I had heard, my first thought was still about protecting them.
“Then talk quietly.”
Joshua sat back down.
I remained standing.
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
Patrick.
Joshua rejected the call.
That small movement told me more than another ten minutes of excuses would have.
“You're not going to tell me,” I said.
“I will.”
“When?”
“I need time.”
“You've had months.”
His face changed.
I saw guilt there.
Real guilt.
But guilt doesn't tell you what someone did.
It only tells you they know they did something wrong.
I left the office.
I didn't tell the boys anything.
I didn't confront Joshua again that afternoon.
Instead, I made dinner.
That sounds absurd now.
But the boys were hungry.
Oscar wanted pasta.
Felix wanted the blue plate.
Joshua barely touched his food.
At bedtime, Felix asked if Daddy was sick.
“No.”
“He looks sad.”
I tucked the blanket beneath his chin.
“Adults get tired.”
Felix accepted that.
Children often accept the explanations we give them because they don't yet know how many things adults leave unsaid.
After they were asleep, I sat alone in the living room.
I opened my laptop.
I pulled up the adoption documents.
I read them differently now.
Not because anything had changed on paper.
Because I was looking for what I had missed.
Felix.
Oscar.
Simone.
The unidentified father.
The agency's efforts to locate him.
The old contact information.
I read the section twice.
Then a third time.
There was a name.
Not Joshua.
David Ellis.
I frowned.
I remembered that name from the file.
At the time, I assumed it was someone the agency had been unable to locate.
I wrote it on a piece of paper.
David Ellis.
Then I looked at the bedroom door.
Joshua was standing there.
I nearly jumped.
“What are you doing?”
“Reading.”
He looked at the paper in my hand.
His face drained of color.
“Where did you get that?”
“The adoption file.”
He stepped forward.
“Give me that.”
“No.”
“Please.”
That frightened me more than anger would have.
Joshua rarely pleaded.
I stood.
“Who is David Ellis?”
He didn't answer.
“Joshua?”
He sat down slowly.
I could hear the refrigerator humming in the kitchen.
Finally, he said, “It's complicated.”
I put the paper on the coffee table.
“Make it simple.”
He stared at it.
Then at me.
“I knew that name was in the file.”
My throat tightened.
“How?”
Silence.
“Joshua.”
He looked away.
“I knew because Simone knew me by that name.”
Everything inside me went still.
“Who is Simone?”
He closed his eyes.
I already knew the answer.
I just didn't know how deep it went.
“She was someone I knew before.”
“Before me?”
“Yes.”
“An ex?”
He shook his head.
“No.”
The word hung between us.
I whispered, “An affair?”
Joshua nodded.
I sat down.
For a moment, I couldn't feel my hands.
Ten years of marriage.
Ten years of fertility appointments.
Ten years of believing that the worst thing we had suffered together was infertility.
And all this time, there had been another woman.
“Did you sleep with her?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
He swallowed.
“Years ago.”
“While we were married?”
“Yes.”
I looked at him.
He had finally said it.
But something still didn't make sense.
“Then why were you so desperate to adopt Felix and Oscar?”
He didn't answer.
My voice rose.
“Why those boys?”
His eyes filled with tears.
I stood.
“Are they yours?”
Joshua looked at the floor.
That was the answer.
I stepped backward.
“No.”
He whispered my name.
“No. Don't.”
“They're my sons.”
The room tilted.
I grabbed the back of the sofa.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Before the adoption?”
He didn't answer quickly enough.
“You knew before we adopted them?”
“Yes.”
I walked toward the kitchen because I needed something solid beneath my hand.
Joshua followed.
“I didn't know for certain at first.”
“You knew enough to choose them.”
“I suspected.”
“You chose them.”
“Yes.”
The word landed like a slap.
I turned.
“You made me leave my career so I could stay home with your children.”
“They needed someone.”
“You made me believe they were our children.”
“They are.”
“They are yours.”
He flinched.
I hated that part of me still noticed when I hurt him.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
Joshua sat at the kitchen table.
Years earlier, he had been working in another city.
He met Simone.
She didn't know he was married.
She knew him as David Ellis.
When she became pregnant, Joshua said he wasn't sure the children were his.
He had been afraid.
Afraid of losing his marriage.
Afraid of being exposed.
Afraid of becoming responsible for a life he had never planned.
So he disappeared.
Simone later contacted him.
He ignored her.
She contacted him again after the twins were born.
He ignored that too.
Then she became sick.
She told him the boys were in temporary care.
She begged him to come forward.
He still did nothing.
I stared at him.
“How many times did she contact you?”
“Several.”
“And you ignored her?”
“Yes.”
I felt something inside me break, but it wasn't love.
It was respect.
“You knew those children existed.”
“Yes.”
“You knew they were yours.”
“I suspected.”
“And you did nothing.”
Joshua's voice cracked.
“I was scared.”
“You were married.”
“I know.”
“You had a wife who was going through fertility treatment.”
He looked at me.
That sentence hurt him.
Good.
“You knew what I wanted.”
“I know.”
“You knew how much I wanted children.”
“I know.”
“And then years later, when those boys needed a home, you suddenly decided we should adopt.”
Joshua covered his face.
“I wanted them out of foster care.”
“That's not the whole reason.”
“No.”
“Then tell me the rest.”
He lowered his hands.
“I wanted my sons.”
The room went silent.
“You could have told me.”
“I thought you'd leave.”
“You had no right to decide that for me.”
“I knew you might refuse.”
“And if I had?”
He couldn't answer.
That was when I understood.
Joshua hadn't simply hidden an affair.
He had built an entire plan around my love for him and my longing to become a mother.
He had counted on me wanting those boys badly enough not to ask why he wanted them.
And I had.
The realization was almost unbearable.
Then Joshua said something that made it worse.
“I had the DNA test done after they came home.”
I stared at him.
“You tested them?”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
He looked down.
“They're mine.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: The truth about their father explained his desperation, but it could not explain why he had made me carry his secret
The adoption was supposed to fill the silence in our house, but my husband had already chosen two boys for reasons he refused to explain
Part 2 of 28
