The room had become quieter.
Not silent like it had been when we first arrived.
This was different.
People were speaking again, but Terrence seemed disconnected from everything happening around him.
His eyes kept returning to the children.
I noticed him watching Mason laugh at something Wyatt had said.
Then he looked at Delilah and Savannah.
He seemed to be studying their faces.
Perhaps he was trying to recognize himself in them.
Perhaps he was wondering how four children could have grown up without him knowing.
I couldn't answer those questions.
I had already spent eight years living with the answers to my own.
Lorraine was sitting beside the girls.
She seemed reluctant to let the moment pass.
Every few minutes, she asked another question.
Nothing complicated.
Just the ordinary things grandparents wanted to know.
"What do you like doing at home?"
Savannah answered first.
Delilah joined in.
Mason and Wyatt had their own answers.
I watched Lorraine listen to all four of them.
She was smiling more now.
But there were tears in her eyes whenever she looked at me.
I understood that feeling.
Meeting grandchildren for the first time should have been a happy occasion.
But this happiness came with eight years of absence attached to it.
Terrence eventually moved closer.
He stopped beside the seating area.
"Can I sit with you?"
The children looked at him.
Mason glanced at me.
I nodded.
Terrence took a seat nearby.
He didn't try to touch anyone.
He simply sat there.
For a few seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Mason looked at him.
"Do you live here?"
Terrence seemed surprised by the question.
"No, I don't."
"Where do you live?"
"Not too far from here."
Mason nodded.
That was apparently enough information for him.
Wyatt looked at Terrence.
"Do you know Grandma?"
Terrence gave a small, uncomfortable smile.
"Yes. She's my mother."
Wyatt looked toward Lorraine.
Then back at him.
"Okay."
I almost smiled.
Children didn't always understand the weight adults placed on ordinary questions.
To them, Terrence was simply a man they had just met.
They weren't thinking about divorce papers.
They weren't thinking about eight years of silence.
They were trying to understand who everyone was.
Terrence looked at me.
I could see the questions building.
But he didn't ask them.
Instead, he looked toward Mason again.
"Do you boys like Christmas?"
Mason nodded enthusiastically.
Wyatt began talking about the decorations.
Delilah interrupted to mention something she liked.
Savannah laughed.
The conversation moved away from Terrence.
And I noticed him listening.
He looked almost surprised by how easily the children spoke.
Perhaps he had imagined that meeting them would immediately create some special connection.
But children didn't work that way.
They needed time.
They needed familiarity.
They needed someone to show up more than once.
One conversation couldn't replace eight years.
I knew that.
And I suspected he was beginning to understand it.
His fiancée remained standing near the Christmas tree.
She wasn't smiling anymore.
She watched Terrence sitting with the children.
Then she looked toward me.
I couldn't tell whether she was angry, confused, or simply overwhelmed.
I didn't blame her for being unsettled.
She had entered that Christmas gathering expecting an ordinary family celebration.
Instead, she had discovered that the man she planned to marry had four children from his previous marriage.
I would have had questions, too.
Terrence eventually stood.
He looked at me.
"Could we speak again?"
I nodded.
We moved toward the other side of the room.
He kept his voice low.
"I need to understand what happened."
I looked at him.
"You mean what happened after you left?"
He nodded.
I took a breath.
"Terrence, you weren't there."
He looked down.
"I know."
"No, I don't think you do."
He raised his eyes.
I wasn't trying to hurt him.
But I wasn't going to make the truth easier to hear.
"You missed their entire childhood so far."
He swallowed.
I continued.
"You missed their first steps. Their first words. Their birthdays. All the little things that happen when children grow up."
He looked toward them.
"I didn't know."
I nodded.
"That's what happens when you walk away and never look back."
He didn't respond.
For once, I didn't feel the need to fill the silence.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: The Woman in the Red Dress Began Asking Questions, and I Realized Terrence Had More Than One Past to Explain
Eight Years After He Abandoned Me, My Ex-Husband Sent an Invitation That Revealed Exactly What He Still Thought of Me
Part 9 of 20
