Splinters: Part One

Part One | 44

"Having another one!" she said loudly and angrily, leaning forward on the table, ultimately causing me to freeze and rethink everything.

What did she just say?

"You have a brother, Brayden. That's why I left."

I stared at her. No I don't. She's lying. It's an excuse. "What?!"

"I left because I met someone else and because I got pregnant-"

"You said you left because you couldn't be a mom!"

"I couldn't be a mom to both of you! Your father told me I had to choose either you or Brenden and I couldn't abandon my baby."

I waited for a long moment, feeling immense pain in my chest. I leant back on my cold, plastic chair, wondering how I couldn't have known this. "Why wasn't I your baby?"

Her face went sad. "Brayden, you were my baby, you were. But your father gave me a choice and I couldn't even think about giving my child away."

"You basically gave me away!" I pointed out. "And I guess him, too," I said once I realized it. "You don't have either of us."

"I have you now," she smiled sadly, going to touch me again.

What was I doing? I'm sitting here whining to my "mom" about how much she messed up my life. But everyone already knows it. Everyone knows she messed everything up, especially her, so why am I trying to prove it? I've got a brother! I've got another person who's blood-related to me. A brother. The last thing I should be doing is proving to Marie that she was a bad mom. The thing I should really be doing is asking her about him.

"So... I have a brother?"

She sat back uncomfortably and scratched her head. "His name is-"

"Brenden," I said. "Our names are similar."

She nodded, avoiding eye contact. "I did that on purpose."

"Why?"

"Because I never forgot about you. Despite what you think, you were always on my mind."

I slowly worked up the courage to ask her another question. "How old was he when he was..."

She drew a deep breath. "He was a newborn. I got arrested just a little bit before he was born."

"You were arrested?"

"I had taken a lot of money from Brenden's father," she admitted slowly. "He didn't want Brenden and so he put him under closed adoption."

She seemed like she had no emotion as she told me the story, which made me wonder. Had she thought about it so much it didn't make her cry anymore? Or did she just not care about Brenden?

"Did you, um... Cheat on my dad with him?"

In the back of my head, I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear it because a small part of me still gave her the benefit of the doubt.

"I'm not proud of it," she said, looking at her hands. "Our relationship was abusive, to the both of us." And me. "And to you." Thank you. "I wish I did many things differently, Brayden, but I chose the wrong choices and this is my consequence."

"Do you know where, um, where Brenden is?"

She watched me carefully and sadly. "No."

I nodded. "Oh."

We were both silent for a while until she leaned forward. "Brayden, I don't want you to think that I loved Brenden more or that I didn't care about you because I did. I'm not sure if you'd understand, but please try to put yourself in my shoes for a minute. If you had a relationship with a man you're not sure you want and you have a son with him and you know you've already caused too much pain on the both of them, and you know that the man can take care of your son, and you're pregnant with another boy, wouldn't you want to leave like I had to restart?"