Our Finest Hour (The Time #1)(29)

She’s walking away, and I’ve yet to move. There’s still one more bombshell I need to drop on her, and I don’t know if I should do it when she has knives at her disposal.

“Isaac, come on.” She turns and sends me a questioning look from her spot seven feet away. When she sees me moving, she starts again.

Once we’re in the kitchen she grabs a head of lettuce from the fridge and tosses it to me. I’m tearing it for a salad when I ask, “Aren’t you going to ask why Jenna and I broke it off? We were engaged, you know.” As if she needs the reminder.

My mom reaches past me and flicks on the faucet, so the water washes the leaves I’ve dropped into the colander.

“Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” She snickers like she’s just made the funniest joke ever.

I can’t help but laugh. My mom liked Jenna well enough in high school, but when I ran back into her and brought her to my parents’ house, I could tell right away Mom wasn’t rekindling fond memories the way I was. Maybe it was the way Jenna asked for cream and sugar when my mom served her coffee. My mother is more of a double shot of espresso, no-nonsense lady. Love pours from her, even when she's pissed and cussing in Spanish and her black eyebrows are pulled so close together she starts looking like Frida Kahlo.

Mom managed to keep her opinion to herself, or at least from me, and I assumed she’d grown to like Jenna.

I guess I was wrong.

What I want to say is Jenna left me because she thinks I have feelings for another woman. Who? Oh, just this girl I got pregnant five years ago. Now I have a daughter I found out about when I was her emergency surgeon.

As priceless as the look on her face would be, I can’t do that to her.

Shifting the lettuce in the colander, I start what is surely to be a long, painful, and possibly embarrassing conversation. “Jenna and I broke up because something I did in the past came back to the present.”

My mom’s hand stills, poised with a peeler pressed to a carrot.

“And what might that be?”

Her eyes are careful, as if she knows she’s treading into dangerous waters.

I turn off the faucet and dry my hands on a kitchen towel, then toss it on the counter between us. “After that night, five years ago, the night that…”

“No reminder needed,” she says softly. “Go on.”

“I went to a bar. And I met a woman. Aubrey.” Twenty-one-year-old Aubrey fills my head. She was so beautiful, but with an air of sadness. Maybe that was part of the instant attraction when I spotted her sitting alone at that table. The sadness in me saw her, needed her, wanted a person to hurt with.

“She was upset that night too. About her ex-boyfriend and her mother.” Unwilling to air Aubrey’s dirty laundry, I don’t offer any more explanation than that. “We went back to my place.” My cheeks heat, but thanks to my tanned skin, I don’t redden.

Still, my mom somehow knows I’m flustered. “It’s OK. Sex is normal. Besides, you’re thirty-five.” She winks at me. “So, you ran into Aubrey while you were with Jenna? That hardly seems like a reason to end an engagement.”

“Jenna left because she couldn’t handle what Aubrey and I created that night.” I really should just spit it out. My mom’s eyes narrow, the pieces of the puzzle shifting, so I put it out there. “Aubrey got pregnant that night, and she had no way to tell me. By the time she took a test, I was in Africa.”

Fingers pressed to her lips, my mom drags in a shocked breath. “Did she have the baby?”

I nod. Despite the seriousness of our conversation, I smile.

“I’m a grandma?”

I nod again. Still smiling. And so is she.

“Oh my god.” Her fingers curl away from her lips, except for one, which stays poised on her top lip. “I need to meet her. Or him?”

“Her. Claire.”

“Now I really wish your dad were home. This is so exciting. I can’t wait to meet Claire. When? She can come over here. I’ll need…” She starts listing things, ticking her fingers up one at a time. “Toys. Dolls. Does she like dolls? Crayons and coloring books.”

I place a hand on her shoulder. “Mom, slow down. This is new. Aubrey is…” I pause, thinking. What is Aubrey? Hesitant? Guarded? Defensive? Yes, yes, and yes. “This is a lot for her. She’s been on her own with Claire. She’s already been accommodating. I don’t want to push her too hard.”

I think my words bring my mom back down to reality. “How are you handling this? Wait, how did you find out about Claire?”

I open my mouth to answer, but she cuts me off with another question.

“Are you going to file for custody? Shared, I’m sure.”

It would be a lie to say I haven’t thought a lot about it, but Aubrey’s been flexible so far, and I don’t want to burn any bridges.

“Not immediately. Eventually, we’ll have to get the legal aspect figured out. But right now, I’m only interested in learning about Claire.”

“What about Aubrey?”

“What about her?” I know what my mom’s getting at, and it pulls up Jenna’s words from my memory. The way you looked at her. You’ve never looked at me like that.

Aubrey’s beautiful and strong. The moment I saw her again I felt that same pull in my chest as I had five years ago. Like there’s a tether tying me to her. Pulling back that curtain and finding those blue eyes staring back at me, it was as if my heart was reaching out to hers. And then I’d managed to look past her, to the tiny patient in the big bed, and my heart had faltered.