Chapter 4
Tobin did not understand paternity.
He understood rooms.
His therapist learned that in the first session.
“Grandma said the bigger boy needed my bed.”
“Why?”
“Because Daddy boy.”
“And you?”
Tobin frowned.
“I’m Mommy boy.”
Brenna heard the summary later and had to leave the room for a minute.
Sybil had taken a complicated adult issue and converted it into something a three-year-old could understand in the cruelest possible way.
One boy belonged to Daddy.
The other belonged to Mommy.
Therefore one could replace the other.
Gavin asked to see Tobin.
Brenna allowed it with the therapist’s recommendation.
She did not use their son as punishment.
Gavin sat on the playroom floor while Tobin held the stuffed shark Sybil had thrown into the suitcase.
“Are you moving me?” Tobin asked.
“No.”
“Grandma said.”
“Grandma was wrong.”
“Owen gets my room?”
“No.”
Tobin looked at him.
“Is Owen your boy?”
Gavin took too long to answer.
Brenna watched from behind the observation glass.
Finally he said:
“We’re figuring something out.”
Tobin hugged the shark.
“I don’t want figure.”
Gavin closed his eyes.
Neither did Brenna.
But adults had already created the problem.
They did not get to avoid complexity because a child preferred simplicity.
After the session Gavin asked Brenna to talk privately.
“My mother went too far.”
Brenna looked at him.
“You helped pack.”
“Not all of it.”
“Enough.”
“I thought Owen was coming tomorrow.”
“You thought that meant Tobin should lose his bedroom?”
“No. Mom said she was rearranging the upstairs rooms.”
“And you carried the suitcase.”
Gavin had no answer.
Brenna continued.
“You weren’t protecting Owen. You were avoiding an argument with your mother.”
He looked away.
That was closer to the truth.
Gavin had grown up with Sybil making decisions before anyone else had time to object.
She organized schools.
Jobs.
Relationships.
Family obligations.
He called it efficiency.
Brenna had always called it control.
Until now, their disagreement had been theoretical.
Then Rachel called.
The laboratory named on the paternity report had no record of Gavin Ashford, Owen Cole, or Marissa Cole ever being tested.
The report number belonged to another case.
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The document in Gavin’s hand was not simply questionable.
It was false.
