A Son I Didn't Know

After twenty years of being childfree by choice, my husband, Marcus, suddenly wanted to adopt.

The moment the paperwork was signed, he turned to me with a casual air. Oh, I forgot to mention. Kevin is actually my biological son.

A little something from a few years back, he said, shrugging. His mother died. I had to bring him home.

The air hitched in my lungs. "Then what were the last twenty years What was our agreement for?"

"Consider it a blessing?"

Marcus slid a pen toward me, his voice devoid of emotion. "You got to play around for two decades, and now you get a devoted son without the pain of childbirth."

"Most women would kill for this."

My hand, clutching the strap of my purse, trembled.

Inside that purse was a medical report. The one confirming Marcus's sterility.

I was still reeling from his words when the boy, who looked to be in middle school, bowed his head respectfully and called out to me.

"Mom."

His voice was clear, laced with a deliberate attempt to please.

Marcus smiled, ruffling the boy's hair before his gaze fell back on me.

"What's done is done, Autumn. You can't honestly expect me to abandon my own flesh and blood, can you?"

Seeing the blood drain from my face, Marcus softened his tone, trying to coax me.

"I only found out last month when I was here for a charity event. I wasn't trying to deceive you."

My throat was so dry I could barely speak. It took all my effort to force out a single question. "Are you so sure he's yours?"

Marcus let out a soft, confident laugh.

"She was a sweet girl from the countryside. Incredibly pure. I was her first."

He leaned in, his voice a low whisper. "Theres no way he could be anyone else's."

His words struck me like a bolt of lightning.

My fingers flew to Kevin's file, tracing the information until they landed, hard, on his date of birth.

I stared at Marcus, my voice shaking with dawning horror.

"This was This was when my grandmother died? When you went back to my hometown with me for the funeral?"

Marcus nodded, not a flicker of guilt on his face.

"You wouldn't even let me touch you back then," he stated flatly.

"And I've never been one to deny myself."

The last thread of my composure snapped.

I snatched the stack of adoption papers and hurled them at his face.

"Marcus!"

The papers scattered like fallen leaves, but Kevin suddenly lunged in front of his father.

The bulk of the files missed Marcus, but the sharp edge of a page sliced a bright red line across Kevin's cheek.

The warmth vanished from Marcus's face, replaced by a mask of ice. He pulled Kevin behind him, his eyes filled with a disgust I had never seen before.

"You women who've never had children," he spat, "you have no maternal instinct at all."

He turned, pulling Kevin with him toward the door.

"You'd better think long and hard about this."

His voice, cold and laced with threat, drifted back to me.

"Don't make this difficult for me, Autumn. Or our twenty years of marriage will have to end right here."

He paused at the door as if remembering something.

"Oh, and your mother's medical bills," he added, the words a final, devastating blow. "Those will end right here, too."

A violent tremor wracked my body.

The wind whipping around the entrance of the adoption agency felt like it was seeping into my bones, chilling me from the inside out.

My mind, against my will, drifted back to when I first met Marcus.

He had been so good to me.

So good that hed thrown himself in front of me when a group of thugs had me cornered in an alley, even though he didn't have a penny to his name. I found out later hed worked three jobs to pay them off, working until he collapsed in his tiny apartment from a bleeding ulcer.

But when I asked him about it, he just said, "It had nothing to do with you."

"I needed to save up anyway."

Slowly, I learned that Marcus was an orphan.

So every school holiday, I made up excuses to bring him home with me. I'll never forget the day my grandmother slipped him some cash for his books; he was a tall, strapping man of six-foot-two, but his eyes welled up with tears.

He once mentioned offhand that hed never had real, homemade meatloaf.

My mother spent the entire afternoon mincing meat by hand, presenting him with a massive, steaming loaf just for him. I don't remember how many plates he had that night.

I only remember that he ate so much he landed himself in the hospital.

Then, in my junior year of college, my father died unexpectedly.

The pillar of our family was gone. My mother's medical bills and my own tuition suddenly became an impossible mountain to climb.

It was Marcus who dropped out of school without a second thought.

He worked day and night, grinding away at any job he could find to support me and my mother.

"Don't be afraid," he promised me. "I'm your family now."

I truly believed our love could withstand anything.

So when the doctor gave us the results of his fertility test, I didn't hesitate for a second. I hid the report. I took all the pressure, all the questions from our families, and told everyone that I was the one who didn't want children.

We were childfree for twenty years.

I thought it was just another beautiful chapter in our love story.

But now, reality had just delivered a brutal, stinging slap to my face.

"Ma'am? Are you alright?"

A staff member from the agency was calling out to me, her voice gentle.

I raised a hand to my face and was shocked to find it slick with tears. The sweeter the past, the sharper the pain of the present.

My phone buzzed. It was my mom.

"Autumn? Where are you? I thought you were just popping out to buy a few things for the new boy?"

In the background, I could hear Marcus's voice, smooth and reassuring, making excuses for me.

"Mom, she's just being a little overeager. It's her first time being a mother, you know. She sees something, she wants to buy it for Kevin."

My blood ran cold.

Marcus he had taken that boy to my mother's hospital room.

The phone was passed over, and Marcus's voice filled my ear.

"You should get back here. We're all waiting for you, the whole family."

I grit my teeth so hard my jaw ached. Grabbing my purse, I bolted from the agency, flagged down the first cab I saw, and raced to the hospital.

As I arrived, I saw Marcus and Kevin coming out of the main entrance. Marcus headed toward a nearby convenience store, leaving Kevin to wait by a corner, where he pulled out his phone.

I was about to confront them when I heard Kevin's voice, dripping with a venom that was completely absent from the polite boy I'd met an hour ago.

"Just some stupid old hag and her sick old bag of a mother," he sneered into the phone.

"I wonder how much money they're gonna drain from my dad."

"If that old witch doesn't play nice, I'll find a way to finish off the old lady myself."

A roar filled my ears as all the blood rushed to my head.

I stormed forward and, with all the strength I could muster, slapped him hard across the face.

"Say that again!"

Kevin clutched his cheek, his eyes burning with pure hatred.

Before he could speak, a powerful kick slammed into my lower back. I was thrown forward, crashing hard against the brick wall of the building. The impact jarred every organ in my body.

Marcus was back.

"Autumn, I've spoiled you rotten, and you've forgotten your place!" he roared, his face contorted with rage.

"If you don't want this life, then fine! I'll grant your wish!"

The next day, the hospital's billing department called.

"Ms. Autumn? Your mother's account is overdue. If the balance isn't settled, we'll have to discontinue her medication."

I couldn't bring myself to tell my mom that Marcus had cut off her lifeline.

But when I went to pay with my own card, the machine read: INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.

I tried another. And another. Every single one of my cards had been frozen.

It was then I remembered. The company we had built together after our marriage Marcus was the sole legal owner. Hed always said he wanted to protect me, to keep me from the stress of business dinners and let me be a carefree homemaker.

I once thought that was love.

Now I understood. It was just a gilded cage he had been building for me all along.

With no other options, I began selling the things Marcus had given me over the years. Anniversaries, birthdays, even the day we first metfor twenty years, he had never forgotten a single occasion.

Jewelry, designer bags each item had once been a testament to our love.

Now, they were just proof of how masterfully he had deceived me.

My mother saw how haggard I was becoming and assumed we were just fighting.

"Autumn, dear, all couples argue," she said, her voice soft.

"I know Marcus. That boy has eyes only for you. Just try to be a little more patient with him."

I looked down, hiding the tears that threatened to spill.

Patient?

How do you find patience for betrayal?

Just then, the door to her room swung open. Marcus walked in, carrying a fruit basket. He moved with a familiar ease, peeling an apple for my mom as if nothing had happened.

"Mom, Autumn is just being a bit stubborn," he said, his tone gentle. "I'm here to take her home."

He even pulled Kevin forward, presenting him to my mother on her bed. "Mom, once you're feeling a bit stronger, we'll take Kevin back to the old town to visit Grandma's grave."

My mother smiled, her face filled with relief. "Stop being silly, Autumn," she urged. "Go home with Marcus."

Under her hopeful gaze, I reached out and let Marcus take my hand. His palm was warm, but it felt like being coiled by a venomous snake.

The moment we were out of the hospital room, he flung my hand away.

"Autumn, for your mother's sake, I won't divorce you," he said, his voice cold.

"But you will listen to me. And you will treat Kevin as if he were your own son."

I looked up at him. "Marcus, it's not like I can't have children of my own."

A strange, chilling smile spread across his lips.

"You can't."

My entire body went rigid.

He looked at me, his expression calm, almost placid.

"Last month, when you had your appendix out I had the doctor tie your tubes while you were under."

"You will never have a child of your own."

I was plunged into an icy abyss, every limb frozen in shock. Marcus stepped closer and, just as he had a thousand times before, gently stroked my hair.

"Autumn, I want to spend the rest of my life with you," he murmured.

"But I couldn't risk it."

"This is the only way I could be sure you would love Kevin with your whole heart."

I broke. Pointing a trembling finger at the boy who was engrossed in his phone down the hall, I choked out, "For him?"

Marcus nodded.

"I have to take responsibility for my actions. That girl I took advantage of her all those years ago."

I couldn't breathe. It felt as if an invisible hand was squeezing my heart, crushing it.

But Marcus simply pulled me into his arms.

"Autumn, I really do love you," he whispered. "That's why I didn't want to lie to you about this."

"Can't we just go back to how things were? Can't we just be happy?"

In that embrace I had once cherished more than anything, I felt, for the very first time, the suffocating grip of true despair.

Marcus continued to whisper in my ear.

"There's a new experimental drug from Europe. It's very effective for your mother's condition, but it's incredibly expensive."

"Be a good girl, and I'll find a way to get it for her. Okay?"

I don't know if it was exhaustion or pain, but in the end, I gave a weak, defeated nod.