Jocelyn’s POV
I barely sleep.
Helena insists I stay at her place, and I don't have the energy to argue. Mia is already asleep in the guest room, curled around her stuffed tiger like it can protect her from the truth that's coming.
My phone stays silent all night—no calls from Zayden, no texts. Just the hollow absence where our marriage used to be.
At seven in the morning, I get the call from Mia's school.
"Mrs. Wolfe, I'm so sorry to bother you." The principal's secretary sounds nervous. "But there's a woman here who says she needs to speak with you. She has a boy with her, and she's insisting it's urgent. Family matter."
My stomach drops. "What's her name?"
"Natasha Reeves."
Of course it is.
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."
Helena drives me. She doesn't ask if I want her to come along, just gets in the car and drives because she knows I can't do this alone.
The school parking lot is nearly empty this early. A woman and a boy sit on the bench outside the principal's office.
The woman wears designer clothing that hangs too loosely on her frame—the kind of rapid weight loss that comes from illness rather than intention.
Her posture is perfect despite the obvious exhaustion shadowing her features, spine straight like she's holding herself together through sheer force of will.
The boy beside her hunches over a sketchbook, pencil moving with focused intensity. Dark hair falling across his forehead. Slim shoulders curved protectively around whatever he's drawing.
Something about his profile makes my chest constrict.
The woman looks up as I approach. Her eyes are intelligent, assessing. She knows exactly who I am before I say a word.
"Jocelyn." Her voice is softer than I expect, almost gentle. "I'm Natasha Reeves, this is Eli. We haven't introduced ourselves properly."
The boy glances up briefly, then back to his sketchbook. Shy, or maybe just trained not to engage with strangers. But in that brief moment, I see his eyes.
Zayden's exact shade of green.
My legs feel suddenly unsteady. I sit on the bench without meaning to, my body making decisions my brain can't process yet.
"I wanted you to meet him," Natasha says calmly, even too calmly, like we're discussing weather instead of the implosion of my entire life. "I thought it might be easier this way, more human."
"Human." The word tastes bitter on my tongue. "Is that what this is?"
"It's a chance for you to see him as a person instead of a problem. Before everything gets... more difficult than it needs to be."
Eli's pencil keeps moving across the page. I can see the edge of his drawing now—buildings, precise architectural sketches that show understanding of perspective and proportion far beyond what I'd expect from an eight-year-old.
"You draw buildings," I say, my voice barely functioning.
He nods without looking up. "Like my dad. Mom showed me pictures of his work."
The words hit like a physical blow. Zayden isn't his dad. Not in any way that matters. Not in presence or guidance or any of the thousand small moments that build a parent-child relationship.
But Eli doesn't know that. To him, Zayden is the absent father his mother speaks about with careful neutrality. The man who builds towers and pays for his education but never comes to his birthday parties.
"Why are you here?" I ask Natasha. "What do you want from me?"
"I want you to understand what's at stake." She gestures to Eli. "What Zayden took from him, what you're complicit in now that you know."
"I didn't know he existed."
"But you do now." Her gaze is steady, unforgiving. "And you're going to have to decide what kind of person you want to be. The kind who helps a dying woman give her son a father, or the kind who keeps him away to protect your comfortable life."
Helena shifts beside me, a warning in her posture. Don't engage. Don't give her ammunition.
But I can't stay silent. "What do you want from us?"
"I want Eli to have what Mia has." Natasha's voice doesn't waver. "A father. A family. His sister. And I'm running out of time to make sure that happens. I'll do whatever it takes."
The threat hangs in the air, unspoken but crystal clear.
The school bell rings, early arrivals start filtering in. I see Mia's teacher through the window, setting up for the day.
"I need to get Mia ready for school," I say, standing on legs that feel like water.
"Let her meet him first." Natasha's words stop me. "Let them see each other. Before things get complicated."
Every instinct screams to refuse, to protect Mia from this. But I look at Eli and see a boy who didn't choose any of this. Who just wants to know his father, his sister.
"One meeting," I hear myself say. "Supervised. And then you leave."
I get back to Helena and she texts her wife. Twenty minutes later, Mia arrives, still sleepy, confused about why she's being brought to school early.
Then she sees the boy on the bench. Her eyes widen, she stops walking completely, her small hand gripping Helena's wife's fingers tight.
"Mommy?" Her voice is small, uncertain in a way I haven't heard in years. "Why does he look like Daddy?"
I open my mouth, close it. No words come.
"Because he is your daddy's son," Natasha says quietly. Matter-of-fact.
Mia stares at Eli. Eli stares back. Two children with identical green eyes looking at each other across distance that suddenly feels impossible.
"I have a brother?" Mia's voice holds wonder, confusion. "Mommy, I have a brother?"
"Half-brother," I manage to say through a throat that feels too tight. "We’ll talk about this."
"But why didn't Daddy tell me?" She takes a step toward Eli, then stops. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"
Eli finally looks up from his sketchbook. Really looks at me, his gaze is intense, searching.
"Are you the woman from the picture?" he asks. His voice is quiet, careful. "The one in the silver dress?"
"What picture?"
He reaches into his backpack with movements that are too practiced and pulls out a photograph protected in a plastic sleeve. Hands it to me with trembling fingers.
It's me at the gala, three years ago. I'm wearing the silver dress, mask still in place, face turned toward the camera with hope I can barely remember feeling.
"Where did you get this?"
"Mom has lots of pictures from that night," Eli says, his eyes are too old for eight. "She says this is why Dad didn't want us. Because he saw you and forgot we existed."
The cruelty is breathtaking.
Natasha has spent eight years showing her son photographs of me, building a narrative where I'm the villain—the home-wrecker who destroyed his family before it had a chance to form.
"Eli," Natasha says softly, "why don't you show Mia your drawings?"
The children move away. Eli is shy where Mia is curious. They sit together on the grass, his sketchbook open between them, and I watch my daughter see her father's face reflected in a stranger's features.
"You've been planning this," I say. "For eight years."
"Ever since the diagnosis gave me a deadline." Her smile is bitter. "I couldn't leave Eli alone without giving him his father, but I also couldn't let Zayden pretend he'd changed. That he's a good man who made one mistake."
"So you want me to feel what you felt. Watch someone else raise my child."
"I want you to understand," Natasha says, voice cracking. "What it's like to be outside looking in while someone else gets everything you wanted."