Lost and Found Family by Jennifer Ryan

Sarah walked out the back door simultaneously heartbroken because her son was crying and happy because she’d seen how Luke took care of him. Held him. Loved him.

She loved him right back for that and so much more.

With a heavy heart and a lot of reminders that this was for the boys, she greeted the woman she’d hated for years. “Hello, Trish.”

“Hi, Sarah. It’s been a long time.” The tentative words held a lot of trepidation. “I was surprised to hear from you. Well . . . your lawyer.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t say anything about being pregnant after the accident.”

Trish paused, then sighed. “The accident woke me up in a lot of ways. I realized I’d been doing a lot of things that I made excuses for because I wanted them. I didn’t think about how my actions affected other people.”

“Like me.”

“Yes. I told myself we loved each other so it was okay. I told myself he loved me, not you, so it was okay. I told myself that as long as we were together, everything would work out. That you’d be happy to move on because you wanted out of the marriage as much as Sean. I told myself a lot of things to justify my behavior. I just never looked at things from your perspective.”

“You didn’t think about me and the boys at all,” Sarah accused.

“No. I didn’t. Because then I’d have to think about how wrong it was to be with Sean even when he made me feel so good. Any doubts I had, he erased them with promises and romantic gestures. He showered me with the kind of love I’d never felt.” Trish paused. “But there was always something there, lurking in the background, that I couldn’t quite dismiss.”

“Me.”

“Yes. But it was more the attachment he had to you. He needed you. He refused to let you go, even while telling me how much he loved me.” Trish sucked in a ragged breath. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear that.”

Sarah had heard Sean’s pretty words of love and devotion and found them meaningless. She didn’t hold much stock in him having deep emotions for Trish either, but didn’t say anything about it. “Sean made it clear he wanted you, not me.”

“And yet he wanted to fight the divorce. After months of assuring me he’d leave you to be with me, that we’d make a life together, he wouldn’t do the one thing I’d begged him to do.” Sadness filled her voice.

Sarah found that she did have some sympathy for the other woman, though it was more for her gullibility and believing in a man who’d cheat on his wife.

“Sean needed me to save the company. That’s all.” It hadn’t been because he’d loved her or wanted to salvage their marriage. She was a means to an end.

“Even the pregnancy didn’t persuade him.” The admission held a lot of sadness.

Sarah wondered if Trish got pregnant on purpose to force Sean’s hand, but didn’t ask. Instead, she gave Trish another dose of reality. “He barely spent time with his sons because he spent all his free time with you.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. They must miss him terribly.”

“They miss the idea of him. Because let’s face it, Sean didn’t care about them. He only cared about himself.”

Trish sighed again. “I know that now. I realized it in the moments before the crash. After, when he was gone, I tried to understand why I grieved but also felt . . . relieved.”

Shocked by the admission, Sarah took it in and thought it through. “You realized you weren’t the most important thing in Sean’s life. Neither was your child. You played out what life with Sean would really look like. Him fighting to keep me at the company by using the boys as leverage. Him making promises to you again and again and again and hardly ever keeping them. Him appeasing you all the time just so you’d do what he wanted.”

“Him ignoring our child the way he did his sons,” Trish added.

The line went quiet as they both remembered Sean for who he was and their lost hope that he’d ever be the man they’d wanted him to be for them.

Sarah hated that they had that in common. It made it hard to hate Trish when they’d both fallen into the same trap with the same man.

“He was so angry that night in the car, ranting that you’d demanded the divorce and how he wouldn’t give it to you without a fight. I didn’t know about the trouble with the company. Well, some of it, yes, but not that he’d taken money from it and could end up in jail. He let that slip that night. When I told him he could turn things around without you, that we could live a good life together, he turned on me. He said I didn’t know what I was talking about, that you were the only one who could save him, and all I was good for was a fuck.” Trish’s words held the strain of threatening tears. “I know he was upset, drunk, not thinking clearly, but those words cut deep, and I realized that he’d been using me as a fun distraction and that he really didn’t have any deep feelings for me.”

“I don’t think Sean really knew how to love.” Why Sarah offered the reason for Sean’s bad behavior, she didn’t know. Consoling Sean’s mistress had never crossed her mind, but in the moment, it seemed Trish needed it, and Sarah commiserated with the woman for finding out too late she’d put her hopes and dreams in the hands of a man who was too selfish to fulfill them.

Trish sighed again. “He loved himself. He wanted to save himself.”

“Yes, he did. But then he died in the accident and I had to save everyone from him.”

“I didn’t tell you about the baby because I just wanted to do the right thing and stay out of your life. I felt guilty for taking the payment you offered even as I thought I deserved it because Sean turned out to be such a shit.”

“Agreed.” If they were going to be in each other’s lives to facilitate a relationship between the kids, then they needed to find common ground. Agreeing that Sean was an asshole seemed like a good place to start.

“For a long time, I let my guilt about the accident rule my life.”

Sarah wondered about that. “Why did you feel guilty about the accident?” Aside from the fact she let her drunk boyfriend behind the wheel.

“We were arguing. I distracted him. The more I pleaded with him to leave you for me, the more furious he got. And yes, I know, I should have never let him drive that night. Truthfully, I’d only seen him down one scotch. I didn’t know he must have had several others before we left to confront you.”

Sean’s blood alcohol test came back showing he’d been well over the legal limit.

“He’d have gotten in that car no matter how hard you tried to persuade him otherwise.”

“He was on a mission that night,” Trish agreed. “And I didn’t help things. I could have lost my child.” The last was said on an anguished whisper.

“But you didn’t. And still you didn’t tell me the boys had a sister.”

“I didn’t think you’d care. I didn’t want to intrude in your life again. I watched you rebuild Spencer Software. You didn’t just move on, you thrived. It took me longer to put the past behind me.”

“I imagine being pregnant with Sean’s baby was a daily reminder of what you’d done and what you’d lost.”

“Yes. But then I had Jamie and a new world of possibilities opened up for me. I met someone new. Someone kind, who fell in love with both of us. A man I could really see being a good husband and father. And he is.”

“I heard you’re engaged.”

“Yes. And he wants to adopt Jamie. We’ll be a family.”

Because Sarah had found Luke, she understood all too well how Trish felt. “I hope you two have a wonderful life together.”

“I know we will.” Another tense pause ticked away the seconds. “About Jamie and the boys . . . I think it would be nice for Jamie to get to know her brothers. I’m just not sure how we’ll do this after what I did to you.”

Sarah sucked it up for the boys, but also because she didn’t want to hold on to this resentment and anger anymore. “I don’t know that we’ll ever be best friends or anything . . .”

“I wouldn’t expect that from you.”

“But I think we can agree to leave the past in the past and be nice to each other because in a weird way, we’re family.” She didn’t know any other way to put it. Except that sometimes you had to move on simply because what tied you together was far stronger than the bad things you could let tear you apart.

“Oh wow. Um, that’s more than I deserve or expected.”

“It’s what Jamie, Jack, and Nick deserve. Family is important. Their connection to each other matters. I hope they will come together, be sister and brothers, and have a bond that lasts them through their lives. That they will always be able to count on each other.”

“I want that for them, too. I’ll do whatever it takes to help facilitate that for Jamie and the boys without making it too difficult on you.”

“I appreciate that. I’ll need to have a talk with the boys and let them know they have a sister. Jack remembers a lot more than I thought.”

“I wondered if he’d remember me.”

“Apparently he does.” For better or worse, that would help him understand how Jamie was his sister. “I don’t know how you feel about this, but I’d like it if for the initial visit you let me introduce Jamie to them alone. You can wait outside if you want, but I’d just really like to meet Jamie, and be present with her, without you and the past staring me in the face.”

“I think I understand. You don’t want to put your feelings for me on her.”

“I guess. Something like that. Yes.”

“Okay. I can do that, but I hope, eventually, we can all spend time together.”

“Yes. Definitely.” She didn’t expect Trish to just drop her child and go every time. They would have to find a way to have a cordial relationship.

If she and Margaret could do it, why not her and Trish?

Sometimes, being a mom meant doing things for your kids you’d normally never do but you did them because they needed you to be a better person than even you thought you could be.