Too Late to Be His Father

Tessa's POV

On the day Carter and I remarried, our son Finn had been in the hospital for forty days.

The line at City Hall was long. Carter spent the whole time with his head down, texting, wearing a smile I hadn't seen on him in years.

The person on the other end was Wren Dalton, an art student getting by on a scholarship and part-time jobs. She'd turned Carter down three times. When he sent her a full set of art supplies, she shipped it back untouched with a note: Leave me alone.

Carter said nobody had ever treated him like that before.

The look in his eyes when he said it was the same look he used to give me, back when he was trying to win me over more than ten years ago.

I didn't call him out on it. The last time we divorced, I fought with everything I had and still walked away without a dime or a job. I walked out on him, and he still found a way to drag me back.

After City Hall, Carter dropped me off at the hospital and said he wouldn't be home that night. I nodded and watched his car pull away.

Around midnight, our housekeeper sent me a video. It was from our house: Carter carrying Wren up the stairs toward the bedroom, and her laughing, bright and happy.

Everyone was waiting for me to cry. But this time, I just pushed my ring down to the base of my finger so it wouldn't slip off.

What they didn't know was that this remarriage was an act. Sooner or later, I'd be the one to take that ring off.

When Carter opened the door to the hospital room, I was writing my fifth appeal letter to the insurance company.

He was obviously in a good mood. He even closed the door more gently than usual.

"Didn't sleep?" He glanced at my laptop. "I figured you'd be crying."

I didn't look up. I saved the letter first.

"The insurance company's still stalling. You'll have to cover this month's bills for now."

"That's it?"

"And his meds went up this week. Three grand more than last month."

Carter let out a low laugh, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"Tessa, you're not even going to ask?"

"Ask what?"

"About her."

I closed the laptop and looked at him calmly.

"What does that have to do with me?"

His smile froze for a second. Then he loosened his tie and his tone turned careless.

"Good. You're finally being reasonable."

"She's just a kid. She's stubborn, which is kind of fun. I'll get bored in a couple days. You're still the one running things at home."

He set a takeout box on my lap.

"Brunch from that place downstairs. You've gotten way too thin."

Inside was lobster Benedict. The smell of butter filled the room.

I stared at the chunks of lobster and remembered a night years ago, when he picked every piece of shrimp off my plate right in front of the waiter and laughed, "My wife can't have these."

Now he'd forgotten.

I closed the box and set it on the windowsill.

"Okay. Thanks."

Carter looked at the box sitting there on the sill, and his face slowly went cold.

I didn't get what his problem was. I checked the IV bag. It was almost empty.

"You can go now. If Finn wakes up and sees you, he'll have a million questions."

"Me? Leave?" His eyes narrowed. "Tessa, this is my son's room."

"What, I need your permission to be his dad now?"

I didn't answer.

The fact that he still remembered he was Finn's father was a joke all by itself.

The first time I found out he was seeing someone else, I was in the middle of designing our house.

I found a pearl earring in his car that wasn't mine. It was raining that day. I took off my wedding ring and threw it into the fountain in Central Park.

Carter spent the whole night feeling around in that freezing water. By morning he was soaked through, standing in front of me with the ring in his fist, his lips blue from the cold.

"I screwed up, Tessa. I was an idiot."

"If you won't forgive me, I'll stand right here until you do."

I looked at his shaking hands and caved.

After that, he behaved himself for three months.

Then the earring turned into lipstick on his collar, and the lipstick turned into hotel bills. There was a new name on every bill, and eventually I stopped bothering to keep track.

He didn't stand in the rain begging anymore, either. The last time I confronted him, he was leaning back on the couch going through paperwork. He didn't even look up.

"Tessa, a guy needs a little fun. It's not like I'm not coming home."

That day, I slapped the divorce papers down in front of him.

He signed fast. When he was done, he snapped the cap back on the pen and smiled.

"New York's not that big. How far do you think you'll get?"

I found out soon enough.

His lawyers dug up the prenup, and when I left, all I took were a few boxes of my own sketchbooks. Every résumé I sent out went nowhere. Every time I finally landed a private client, they'd back out the day before signing.

Then one day at the park, Finn suddenly went limp on the slide. His lips were turning blue when he collapsed into my arms.

Heart failure. The doctor said he needed a new heart.

And I couldn't even keep his insurance going.

When I called Carter, he didn't even ask why.

"Come home," he said. "I'll be waiting."

Now I was back, and somehow he still wasn't happy.

There was a rustling from the bed. Finn was awake.

He squinted until he could make out who was standing there. He didn't say "Daddy." Instead, his little hand slid out from under the blanket and quietly grabbed the hem of my shirt.

Carter froze, still half bent over the bed.

He straightened up and awkwardly brushed off his pants.

"Finn, Daddy's going on a business trip for a while, so I won't be around much. Listen to your mom while you're in the hospital, okay?"

Then he turned to me.

"You too. Quit walking around with that long face. The kid barely smiles anymore because of you."

A business trip. More like taking that girl to an art show.

Finn thought about it for a second, then nodded like a good boy.

"Okay, Daddy."

"And when you're on your trip, don't forget to send Mommy money, okay?"

Carter just stood there and didn't say a word for a long time.