My heart stopped as I stared down at my son and prayed he didn’t take off his mask.

I grabbed his shoulder and turned him around toward the bedroom.

“Sweetie, go back to bed please. I’ll be there in just a bit,” I said sternly.

His shoulders slumped.

“But, but…” he whined.

“What did I say?” I asked sweetly.

The truth was I was about to lose it. My nerves had hit their breaking point and I was about to snap and slam the door in Finn’s face out of fear.

I could feel Finn’s eyes burning into the side of my face. Sweat began to gather above my brow and it felt like it was going to drip into my eyes and blind me.

“But, Mommy, I miss you,” Jimmy said sweetly.

“I miss you too, baby boy. I’ll be in there in just a minute okay?”

I felt like I was going to pass out. This was not happening. No way was this really happening.

“Okay!” Jimmy said happily as he ran back to our room.

A few seconds later, I heard the springs of my mattress when he began to jump up and down on the bed.

Finn looked down at me with hurt-filled blue eyes. His eyebrows pinched down in confusion.

“You have a son.” He stated the obvious.

Panic rolled through my body again, and I felt as if my heart was going to beat out of my chest. My throat felt so dry that I couldn’t swallow. I had to push out my words.

“I do,” I rasped. “He’s the only reason I’d ever scrub toilets.” I tried to lighten the situation.

It didn’t work.

Finn continued to stare back at me like I was a different person. His eyes moved across my face like I was a puzzle he was trying to figure out. The hurt in his eyes burned me and I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. I could see the gears in his head working, and I waited for smoke to come from his ears.

I couldn’t take his scrutiny anymore. I needed him gone so I could breathe and have time to think things through. My life was about to take another massive shift, and I didn’t know if I could handle that right now.

“We’ll talk about it more tomorrow. I really need to get him to bed,” I said as I grabbed the knob on the door.

Finn was suspiciously quiet, and I was starting to worry. He opened his mouth to say something but stopped to swallow. Again, he reached out and fingered a piece of my hair.

“You know, I used to dream about having a family with you,” he said sadly. My heart broke when a salty tear slid down his cheek. My fingers ached to capture it and smooth it away. “But now I can see that you already have a family of your own. I’m so happy for you, Faith. I only wish I hadn’t been stupid enough to let you go.”

I had to tell him. I couldn’t do this to him anymore. He needed to know the truth. I opened my mouth to tell him to come in, but his face froze and turned three different colors before settling on a ghostly white. He was staring just beyond my shoulder as if the answers to all of life’s great mysteries resided in my living room.

I didn’t have to look back to know who he was staring at. I knew and I could only imagine the thoughts that were exploding his mind.

“Mommy, I broke my dinosaur mask,” Jimmy said behind me with a sniffle.

When I turned around, he was standing there without his mask, wearing a big frown. His blue eyes popped and in that moment, he’d never look more like his daddy.

I turned back around quickly and looked at Finn. He looked back at me with tears in his eyes.

“Faith? Is there anything you need to tell me?”

And then I broke down in tears. There was no going back. I had to fess up and have faith in Finn.

Twenty-Eight

Finn

I missed her. It had been weeks since she walked out of my life again, and I wanted her back. I didn’t care about anything else. I wanted Faith. I wanted a life with her. Nothing else mattered. I’d be a tied-down puss if it meant having her with me every day the way she should’ve been years before.

We played three shows and every show I played, all I could think about was getting back to California and talking to Faith. We needed to fix things. I didn’t know what she meant when she said, “Something like that,” but I needed to know what hell was going on and where we stood.

When I got back to the condo, I wasted no time calling Mrs. Cooper at the temp agency. She’d called and left me a voicemail telling me that we’d have to find a new maid since Faith had quit. I figured she would.

I wasn’t sure how I managed it, but somehow I talked Mrs. Cooper into giving me Faith’s address. I knew it was weird just popping up at her place unannounced, but a man in love did crazy things.