“I should’ve told you,” she said, voice unsteady. “I was twenty and terrified. You were drowning in grief. I didn’t know how to walk into that with something else.”
“I lost him too,” I said.
“I know. But I was alone. Pregnant. Scared you’d take him from me. Or think I was trying to hold onto you through him.”
“This is my son’s child.”
“And he’s my child,” she replied firmly. “I carried him. I raised him.”
“I’m not trying to take him,” I said quickly. “I just… want to know him. Even just pancakes or the park—”
“No,” she said sharply.
Heat rushed to my face. “You’re right. Too fast. I’m sorry.”
The door opened. A tall man stepped inside.
“This is Mason’s dad, Ryan,” Claire said.
He looked between us. “What’s going on?”
I stepped forward. “I’m Linda Carter. Ethan’s mother.”
He frowned slightly.
“Ethan was Mason’s biological father,” Claire said.
Ryan went very still.
“You told me Mason’s father was gone,” he said carefully.
“He is. He died before he knew.”
Ryan absorbed that quietly. Then he looked at me.
“So you’re his grandmother.”
“Yes. I just found out today.”
He exhaled slowly. “This isn’t about DNA. I’m his dad in every way that matters.”
“And I respect that,” I replied.