When we were on Route 3 and cruising along, I asked him questions about school, Chloe, the team; told him what I was planning for dinner （roast chicken, mashed potatoes, blackened carrots and a coconut cake for dessert）。
“Sounds great,” he said. After a moment, he asked, “So it’ll just be the two of us?”
I read into his question, his tone, wondering if he was envisioning lonely dinners with his mother, year after year after year. “Actually, I invited Pop and Hannah, too. They’re dying to see you.”
“Oh, awesome!” he said, sounding genuinely happy, and I was glad I’d included them.
I wanted to tell him that Hannah and I were getting closer, and that I suspected his grandfather had a girlfriend, and that I’d taken two weeks of vacation during this break so I could have as much time as possible with him. But it was hard, knowing how much to say to your almost-adult son, especially when he had so much to face here at home, thanks to Brad.
I glanced at him. “Anything you want to talk about, honey?”
He looked out his window. “Dad asked me to come over for dinner with them.”
“Mm.” Even though I knew this had been coming, the pain hit me in the heart.
“I kind of have to see him, Mom. He’s still my father.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“And . . . you know. The . . .”
“The baby.” I kept my gaze forward.
“Yeah.”
With me driving, we didn’t have to make eye contact. We’d had so many conversations this way, in this very car, from him admitting in first grade that a boy bullied him on the bus to the awkward questions about puberty, and later, to whether or not he should have sex with his high school girlfriend. He never went to Brad with these issues, or if he did, Brad never told me.
“How are you feeling about that, honey?” I asked gently.
“Shitty.” I waited. “That’s it, Mom. Shitty. I haven’t even met her, I don’t want to meet her, but apparently I’m a stepbrother and have a half sibling in the making.”
“It’s a lot,” I said.
“And I’m still like, ‘Fuck you, Dad, you cheated on my mother,’ but also . . .” His voice trailed off.
“What, Dyllie?”
He looked out his window. “Also, I . . . I miss him. I’ve barely even talked to him since you guys told me you were splitting up. He’s texted and left messages and emailed. Then he sent me a text about becoming a big brother. And I saw the video, like everyone else in the world.”
Brad had texted our son. He texted that news. The shithead.
“I don’t know how to feel,” Dylan said, sounding wretched. “But I feel like I have to see him. And then I feel like that’s stabbing you in the back, and I hate that. I hate this whole thing. Everything’s so different now, I feel like I’m gonna start bawling when I walk in the door.”
“Listen, sweetheart,” I said, glancing at him and taking his big hand. “It’s a mess, and you get to be mad about it. And you get to miss your father, too.”
“I don’t know who he is anymore. He has an Instagram and a TikTok, Mom. No offense, but you guys are way too old for that.”
“No, I agree,” I said with an inner eye roll. I was forty-one. I wasn’t too old for anything. “I don’t know what to tell you, Dylan. But you don’t have to worry about stabbing me in the back. You only have one father.”
I doubted that Brad would ever stick up for me this way. Instead, he’d try to manipulate Dylan into believing that yes, Brad did deserve joy, and it didn’t matter how that happened or how he lied and cheated, because “it takes two” and we’d “grown apart.”
But I was trying to be a selfless mother. It really sucked sometimes.
Dylan wiped his eyes on his sweatshirt. “So if I do go over, you won’t be mad or feel . . . I don’t know. Betrayed?”
“No,” I lied. “He divorced me, honey. Not you. He loves you, and even if he’s a little . . . embarrassing right now, he’s always loved you. We both have, and we both always will.”
Dylan squeezed my hand. “Thanks, Mommy,” he said, giving me the rare gift of using the name he’d called me the first twelve years of his life. “I really appreciate the lack of a guilt trip.”
I squeezed his hand, too. “You’re welcome. But I have plenty planned for the future, just in case.”
He laughed at that, then let go of my hand.