Confession

"Hey, Mom, who's this with Dad?" Tommy got up off the kitchen floor, eyes on an unfamiliar photograph, and navigated the maze of cardboard boxes to his aging mother. She sat in the center of the chaos at the table. He flipped the picture over and read the date on the back: January 1st, 1993. He handed the image to her.

"Oh," his mother’s eyes widened behind thick glasses in recognition.

"Well?" Tommy studied his mother's face. She had gone elsewhere, transported by the photograph. "Mom, are you all right?"

Victoria’s eyes fluttered and she shook her head. "Just someone your father used to work with."

"So, toss it?" Tommy tilted his head. He had been helping his mother thin out her belongings over the last week. The family had decided the space was too big for Victoria by herself, so the house would be rented out and she would move into an apartment in a senior community. His three older sisters were conveniently too busy with their careers and own families to find time to assist.

Tommy had dragged box after box up from the stale basement and created a labyrinth on the main floor of his childhood home. Some boxes were an easy decision to toss: old receipts and paperwork too faded to read, broken and grubby holiday decorations, school mementos, and moth-eaten linens. Other boxes required them to go through. Tommy found it tedious. His mother regaled in memories with nearly every item.

Freshly graduated from college barely two weeks ago, Tommy earned a degree in accounting just like his father. His grades had been impeccable, recommendations from his internships glowing, and he had his first job lined up at a reputable firm. He was scheduled to start at the beginning of next month, which gave him just enough time to settle his mom, tidy up the house, and unpack his own apartment.

"Toss it? No," Victoria clutched the photograph to her chest. "It's the only one I have."

"Mom, I put together a whole box of pictures of Dad years ago," he sighed and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. "How many more do you really need?"

Putting together a box of photos and mementos of his Dad wasn't just for his mom; it was a healing process for him too. His father had died years ago, not long after Tommy's fifteenth birthday, from stomach cancer. It was diagnosed late and the end came fast. There was hardly time to process. His sisters were all moved out by then, and Tommy was closest to his father. He had grown up feeling more like an only child with a small entourage of personal babysitters rather than sisters because of their gap in age. With the glue of the family gone, the dynamics changed more. Once their mourning abated, his sisters left their mother to him, suddenly always too busy to look in on her.

Victoria's eyes watered and her chin trembled. "I don't know if I can let this one go."

Tommy was puzzled by her reaction. He'd never seen this particular photo before, but it was taken the same year he was born. The picture itself wasn't even that good. The flash was washing out the color and his father wasn't even centered correctly in the photo. The other man seemed better focused.

Victoria frowned and ran a wrinkled finger along the edges of the photograph. "This is all that’s left to remember. The only one," she whispered to herself.

"Mom, there are lots more photos of Dad, better photos of Dad," he stressed. Was she tired from sorting already or having some sort of senior moment? He held his hand out to take the photograph back. "Mom, just let me toss this one. It's okay to let this one go," he nodded. She continued to stare at the picture, lost to him.

"I think you should get something from my room," she looked up, reservation in her eyes, and held the picture to her chest again.

Tommy sighed. "Okay, sure, why not? Another trip down memory lane to delay the task at hand," he shrugged. He could have gotten the house done a lot faster without having to run things by her. He wished he never asked about the picture.

Victoria instructed her son to find an envelope hidden in the top drawer of her dresser. She warned him it was filled with undergarments, but Tommy reminded her he had done laundry many times before. Through the cardboard labyrinth, up the stairs, down the hall to her room, he walked with heavy steps. Tommy located the envelope and headed back downstairs with quicker feet.

"Found it," he held the envelope out to her.

"Open it," she twitched nervously. Tommy felt the desire to protest but obeyed. The envelope had already been sliced through the top neatly. He pulled out the letter, unfolded it, and regarded the content. The correspondence was dated the year after he was born.

"Mom..." he tilted his head and divided his gaze between letter and parent, “What am I looking at here?" Tommy had asked the question but the document’s information was unambiguous.

"I'm sorry," Victoria sniffled, her eyes leaking tears over the aged skin of her cheeks.

"This is a joke, right? Did Jenny put you up to this?" Tommy was shaking his head.

"I'm sorry, Tommy, baby. It's true." She wiped her cheeks. Tommy continued to shake his head at her.

"You tell me this now? Like this?" his voice pitched. Tommy looked away from his mother and crushed the letter in his hand. His jaw clenched and his face twisted. "Did Dad know?" he asked through his teeth.

"He knew it was a possibility but he said it didn't matter."

"It didn't matter?" he raised his eyes and his voice.

"I... There's no excuse," Victoria lowered her gaze from her son's electrified expression. "Bill was a better husband than I deserved. He was such a good father..."

"You're damn right he was a good father!" Tommy snapped at her. "How could you? What the hell? How was he okay with this?" He shook the fist with the crumpled letter.

"I only told him right before he died," she answered quietly.

"So, he really wasn’t able to react," Tommy scoffed. "That was shitty, Mom. This is all really..." his face danced with expressions of anger, hurt, and disbelief. He felt them all.

"He said he knew all along. He suspected the affair, doubted his paternity, but..."

"But what?"

"He loved you too much. God, Tommy, he just lit up when you were born. When the doctor put you in his arms, he said everything else melted away. It was a fresh start and he decided right then he would never ask about it. You were his son. That was that. There was nothing else to it."

"But I'm not his son." The tears finally came despite his desperate attempt to hold them back. "This says I was never his son," Tommy choked and threw the letter to the ground.

"You were his son in every way that mattered, Tommy. You meant the world to him. After raising three girls, he got to do all the boy things. He never thought he'd have that chance."

Tommy lowered himself to the floor and sat cross-legged in front of his mother. His face rested in his hands and his elbows poked into his knees. "How couldn’t he say anything?" His question was only a whisper.

"I told you, you were his son no matter what," she reached to put a hand on his head. He jerked back, away from her touch, and she recoiled. “He didn't want to know the actual results."

"I can't believe you waited fifteen years, until his deathbed, to even bring it up," Tommy was shaking his head with disapproval.

"He was just so in love with having a son. I couldn't. There were several times I nearly summoned the courage to say something, and then... It was in those last moments, I couldn’t let him go without him knowing. He forgave me, Tommy. He loved me more than I deserved, always. And we had a good life together. He had fifteen wonderful years with a son and..."

"What about me?"

Victoria shook her head, not understanding.

"You think I'm going to forgive you?"

She nodded and took a deep breath. "I asked him that."

"And?"

"He said that if I chose to tell you..."

"If!" Tommy laughed and slapped his hands on his knees. "If? So I might have never known?" Victoria tried to speak but he cut her off again. "What prompted you to relieve your guilty conscience? Moving day looming over us? That lousy picture?" His anger dissipated. "That's him in the photo, isn't it?"

She held out the photograph to him. "Kevin Grant," she bit her lips. “Kevin worked with your dad, he had started with the firm the summer before, was a whiz-kid with numbers. Everyone said he was promising, would take over the firm before your father had a chance to."

Tommy took the photograph and studied it harder. Kevin and his dad both had dark hair and eyes, but now Tommy realized where his nose and jawline actually came from. His parents always said he looked like some distant relative. His dad had maintained the lie. Was it really love or just embarrassment? How could he ignore another man’s face on his son, one he even knew? "Was this guy married too?"

"No. He never married.”

"Lucky for you, I guess. God, Mom, he looks way younger than Dad," he shook his head.

"He was," she acknowledged. "He was much younger than me too."

"Why?" he emphasized his question. He struggled to picture a man fresh from college pursuing a woman almost twice his age.

“I thought my life needed excitement. I thought... No, I wasn't thinking, that was the problem. And Kevin hardly needed encouraging. We knew better," her hand drifted up to her mouth. "He was young, so young and impetuous. Kids your age don't think about consequences. You think about how much fun you can have now, wonder what you can get away with, how close you can get before the limit is reached... At that age, the world is a challenge and you're taking it just for the moment..."

"Did you love him?" Tommy looked back down at the picture. Kevin and his dad looked happy, or maybe drunk and without a care, buddied together without suspect. "Do you still love him? You said he never married. Why didn't you just go back to him after dad died?" His eyes returned to his mother.

"I could never go back to him," Victoria shook her head.

"Why not? Guilt? Me?" he shrugged. "He didn't want a kid, did he?" Tommy said sadly. He was sure that was the reason. He lived a lie because his real father wanted nothing to do with a son.

"We had just started our affair before Christmas. I took that picture believing I was being clever; it seemed innocent enough. I wanted a picture of Kevin and, well... A picture of your dad with a friend and coworker at the company party... Kevin died three weeks after that photo was taken. A terrible car accident in a snowstorm. A week after his funeral, I found out I was pregnant."

Tommy put the picture on the floor in front of him and rubbed his face. The man never knew. "That's... Mom..." he breathed and crossed his arms over his legs. "Were you going to leave dad for him?" he asked hesitantly.

“I… don’t know,” Victoria sighed and leaned back in her chair. "I’ve wondered how much longer the affair would have continued had Kevin not died. I don’t think he loved me, Tommy, especially not the way your father did. I tried to picture Kevin being happy with the news, and I couldn't. What promising young man would want that situation? But when I told your dad I was pregnant, he was overjoyed. It surprised me. We had decided three children were enough. I thought he'd be upset with another baby at our age. I thought we'd fight and then I would tell him the baby wasn't even his... I was prepared for him to file for divorce."

Victoria’s hands went to her cheeks as she continued. "Every day I lived on edge, so scared the truth would come out and he’d leave me. I didn't realize how much I loved your father until you were born. It was only then I realized I didn't want to live without him, that I had nothing without him. I borrowed money from Auntie Dawn to get that paternity test done secretly. You looked enough like Bill when you were born, and I started to wonder if I had gotten my dates wrong. I had to be sure; at least know the truth for myself. But his love for you never slowed, never waned. Even when you started to look less like him… I couldn't ruin that bond he had. How could I be so cruel to take away his joy? I didn't open that letter until after we buried your father. He absolved me. He loved me despite anything it said. He loved you despite anything it said. You were his son and that was that.”

Tommy rose to his feet silently, digesting his mother’s weighty confession. He wondered if he could forgive her as his father had. Was he as good and kind of a man as the one who raised him? He contemplated whether or not he could look at his mother and still see the same woman, or again tell her he loved her with meaning. How could he now knowing this, after learning his whole life was a lie? How was his father able to love her regardless? Tommy desperately wished he could ask him. Should he continue to consider Bill his father? Obviously, his genes said differently. Circumstances could have been different if Kevin had not been out in a snowstorm, or if his mother had admitted her affair sooner. His life could have been drastically different, or he could have never existed at all.

His mind wandered and circled back. His father went to his grave at peace with this. Could he grant her the same reconciliation with him? It would have been better to have never known. He felt burdened by the knowledge. How many years did his mother have left anyway? She might have died before he ever discovered the letter, if she had wanted him to discover it at all? His insides churned and tightened. She never planned on telling him. It was only because he pressed her about tossing the photograph.

He bent down and picked up the photo and the crumpled letter. He crushed the two of them together as he walked to the sink. His mother gasped, “What are you doing? That’s the only picture of him!” Tommy jammed the wad of paper down into the garbage disposal. “Tommy, don’t!” Victoria stood and clumsily made her way toward him. Tommy turned the faucet on and met her panicked face. She shook her head. “Think first. Please, Tommy. You might regret this. It won’t change anything.” With his eyes remaining on her, he leaned over and flipped the switch. The blades angrily devoured their meal. Victoria placed her hands over her heart and frowned.

“Bill Wilder was my father. My only father. No picture, no tests, no confession is going to change that. And if anyone ever says different, I’ll deny it.” Tommy’s eyes teared again, and he closed the switch. “My father was a saint. He was the best dad. And you didn’t deserve a man like that.” He silenced the tap. His mother tried to reach for him and speak, but he pushed past her.

“Tommy, wait!” Victoria shouted as loud as she could. He stopped in the open frame connecting the kitchen to the living room, but did not turn to her. She breathed heavily. “Tommy, I’m sorry. The timing was always going to be terrible but…it’s something you needed to know.”

“Needed to know,” he scoffed. “I think you should call one of your daughters to help you finish with this,” he said over his shoulder. She pleaded with him once more. He put a hand up, turned it into a fist, and lowered it. “I need time with this. And I can’t be here, with you, right now.”

Victoria whimpered, tears stemming from her aching heart. Tommy was the last to know. His sisters had figured it out many years ago, Tommy looked nothing like them, but they swore to their mother not to say anything. They could see how deeply their father treasured their little brother and did not have the heart to spoil it either. Once Bill was gone, they urged her to tell Tommy the truth, but Victoria simply couldn’t. First, it was too soon after Bill’s death. Then, she didn’t want to distract Tommy from school. And after, she wondered if he actually needed to know? Her daughters just didn’t understand her. Victoria’s relationship with them had always been difficult to maintain and then became virtually non-existent. They had always loved their father so much more than their mother.

Tommy finally faced her, anger flaring from his eyes. “If you tell one of my sisters about any of this,” he swallowed, trying to ease the tightness in his throat, “I will never speak to you again. I swear it.” In another moment he was through the front door and gone.

Victoria remained standing and looked around at her emptying home with its bare walls and missing knick-knacks. She thought about how she finally had the correct amount of love she deserved from her family: none.