Terrence sat beside Lorraine.
For several minutes, he didn't say much.
He simply listened to the children.
Mason was explaining something to his grandmother.
Wyatt kept interrupting with corrections.
Delilah laughed whenever her brother got something wrong.
Savannah watched them all with a smile.
I sat nearby.
I wanted the children to enjoy themselves.
That was the reason I had brought them.
Not to punish Terrence.
Not to embarrass his fiancée.
Not to make Lorraine feel guilty.
I wanted my children to know their grandparents.
But I also knew that meeting someone once didn't automatically make that person family in the way children understood it.
Terrence seemed to be learning that.
He leaned forward.
"What do you boys like doing?"
Mason answered immediately.
"Lots of things."
Terrence smiled.
"Like what?"
"Playing."
Wyatt added something about games.
Terrence nodded as though every answer mattered.
Then he turned toward Delilah.
"What about you?"
She told him something she enjoyed.
He listened carefully.
Savannah followed with her own answer.
For a moment, I watched the four children speaking to him.
There was something familiar about the scene.
Not the people.
The possibility.
This was the kind of conversation I had once imagined happening when the children were little.
But now they were eight.
They already had their own personalities.
They already knew who they could depend on.
And they had learned to live without him.
Terrence looked at Mason again.
"Do you know what I used to like when I was your age?"
Mason shook his head.
Terrence began telling him.
The story was simple.
A memory from his childhood.
Mason listened politely.
Then he asked a question.
"Did you live with Grandma?"
Terrence smiled.
"Yes, I did."
Mason looked toward Lorraine.
"Then you were her little boy?"
Lorraine laughed softly.
"That's right."
The children seemed amused by the idea.
I smiled too.
It was an ordinary family moment.
But it carried something none of us could ignore.
Terrence had been a little boy once.
He had grown up in that family.
He had received the childhood memories he was now trying to share with our children.
And he had missed the chance to give them the same experience.
After a while, Wyatt looked at him.
"Are you going to see us again?"
The question came without warning.
Terrence stopped smiling.
He looked at Wyatt.
Then he glanced at me.
I stayed quiet.
This was not a question I could answer for him.
Terrence cleared his throat.
"I would like that."
Wyatt considered his answer.
"Okay."
Then he returned to what he had been doing.
It was that simple.
No dramatic embrace.
No sudden declaration.
Just a child asking whether someone would be there again.
I watched Terrence.
He seemed to understand the importance of the question.
He had spent the morning discovering that he was a father.
Now he was being asked whether he intended to act like one.
And there was a difference.
Lorraine placed her hand on Wyatt's shoulder.
She looked toward me.
I gave her a small smile.
I was glad the children were comfortable enough to ask questions.
I didn't want them to feel they had to pretend.
Terrence eventually stood and moved toward the window.
I noticed him looking outside at the snow.
The same snow that had covered the lawn when we arrived.
The same lawn where the helicopter had landed.
I walked over to him.
"Are you all right?"
He looked at me.
"I don't know."
I nodded.
"That's understandable."
He glanced back at the children.
"They seem happy."
"They are."
"You did a good job."
I looked at him.
"Thank you."
He looked down.
"I should have been there."
I didn't answer immediately.
Then I said something I had wanted him to understand for years.
"Yes, you should have."
He nodded.
For once, he didn't argue.
And I realized that perhaps the most honest thing we could do that morning was stop pretending the past had been anything other than what it was.
Click here to continue reading: PART 14: His Fiancée Finally Put the Engagement Ring Away, and I Understood That the Truth Had Changed More Than One Family’s Christmas
Eight Years After He Abandoned Me, My Ex-Husband Sent an Invitation That Revealed Exactly What He Still Thought of Me
Part 13 of 20
