I understand being a protective parent.
The urge to shelter the tiny humans you create never goes away.
This was, inherently, the root of the rift that ended my marriage. As a mother, I wanted to protect my sons. Even if that meant protecting them from their own father. So, on some level, I understood why many fathers would posture against boys out of concern for their daughters.
However.
How-fucking-ever.
Joseph Kavinsky was the last human on Earth that I would tolerate intimidating my son. Ethan would never intentionally hurt someone he cared for, especially not the way Joseph hurt me. Joseph had no right to treat my son poorly for behaviors that he was already guilty of, and I would not let him.
Luckily, Joseph was so distracted by staring down Ethan that he didn’t catch me approaching in his peripheral vision. His lack of awareness gave me an open opportunity to distract him as ostentatiously as I wanted.
I shoulder checked him as I passed.
His size compared to my petite frame minimized my impact, but it was so unexpected that he still grunted at the contact.
“Excuse you,” he snapped before he even looked at me.
He was probably on edge because an attractive boy was chatting up his daughter, but the result was utter perfection. As he turned to look at the culprit who had rudely invaded his space, he found me.
“My apologies,” I said sweetly, casually maintaining eye contact as I moved to stand by Ethan.
It was a crime that I could not capture Joseph’s face, because he moved through fury, irritation, shock, deduction, and blatant fear in the span of a single second. Mouth agape, his eyes shifted between Ethan and I, the resemblance a clear indication that I was Ethan’s mother.
“Mom!” Ethan said in surprise, “I didn’t see you come down from the bleachers. Let me introduce you to my friend, this is Jessica Hernandez.”
As soon as Ethan had called me mom, Joseph had abruptly clamped his mouth shut. Whatever he had been planning to say to Ethan was firmly trapped, and I noticed him swallow the words away before I turned my gaze towards Jessica.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Masterson!” Jessica said sweetly, though she seemed a tad apprehensive upon my arrival.
She might be presuming my imperious energy towards her father was my own form of protective mom energy. Little did she know that I was on her side. I was down here to scare her father.
“Please call me Tiffany!” I exclaimed warmly towards her, giving her first name privileges immediately, “You played wonderfully tonight. Congratulations on that winning shot!”
“Thank you,” she said with a blush as her shoulders rounded forward at the compliment. As if remembering her father, she perked up and then gestured towards Joseph, “This is my dad—”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Hernandez,” Ethan jumped in quickly and politely offered his hand to shake.
Joseph and Jessica both visibly winced.
“It’s Mr. Kavinsky, actually—” Joseph said, with obvious irritation in his tone, not reaching for my son’s proffered hand.
Ethan’s hand began to droop, uncertain what to do with how things were going.
Joseph’s eyes slid off Ethan and found mine. The daggers in my eyes greeted him, and I raised one eyebrow at him. If he denied Ethan’s courtesy over an innocent misunderstanding, I would spike his head like a volleyball. My pursed lips and irritated stare seemed to spur him to action.
“–but you may call me Joseph,” he said with obvious effort, finally taking Ethan’s hand.
“I see,” Ethan said, his voice still nervous, “It’s nice to meet you, sir.”
Their handshake went longer than it needed to, the only thing happening as an awkward silence began.
“Mom’s family prioritizes preserving matrilineal descent,” Jessica blurted in a rush to clear up the confusion and fill the silence, “so daughters take their mother’s last name and sons take their fathers.”
“That’s very progressive,” I offered, to try and smooth over the situation.
Though I was irritated with Joseph right now, I also couldn’t help feeling a bit impressed. Robert would have never been comfortable with me keeping my last name after we got married, let alone having our children take it. Though he was obviously irritated at the mix up, Joseph still respected his wife enough to agree to the surname situation.
His wife.
Shame and embarrassment began to assault me.
Last week I had an inappropriate sexual fantasy about a man that had a whole life I knew nothing about. He had a family now. A wife, a daughter, and possibly other children. Maybe a whole brood of children, with a wife that eagerly kissed him as he got home from work.
A big happy family that lived in a suburban neighborhood filled with white picket fences.
A perfect husband that probably volunteered for the neighborhood watch.
Imagining it was surprisingly hurtful, and while I didn’t wish him unhappiness, I also didn’t want to know the blissful details. In the stress of his reappearance, I hadn’t stopped to consider what his life included now, but I also wondered if I had willfully ignored it.
As his daughter, with her dark brown hair and hazel eyes looked at me with a cautious smile, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. As much as Ethan resembled me, Jessica resembled him.
Joseph having a sixteen-year-old daughter also meant that not long after we had been in contact during my marriage, he would have been expecting a child and starting his own family. I had gotten pregnant with Ethan a few months after we stopped talking for the last time.
Around that same time, he had found love, started a family, and launched a successful career.
I suddenly felt desperate to get away from him. The idea of him living as a blissful family man clawed at my conscience. Unconsciously, my right hand closed around my left forearm, my thumb rubbing lightly across my skin in a feeble attempt to sooth my anxiety away.
“What happened to your arm?” Joseph asked, his eyes drawn to my hand.
“What?” I said in confusion, not hearing what he had said during my shame spiral.
“Your arm,” he said, reaching for me, but Ethan had already pulled my arm up to inspect it.
I had pulled my sleeves up during my raging walk over here and I had forgotten about the bruises I had been hiding from my two appointments this week. They were green and purple, dark, and obvious on my pale complexion.
“Geez, mom,” Ethan said in concern, “did you go donate blood or something?”
“Yeah, I did,” the lie fell from my lips without hesitation, as I quickly pulled my sleeves down to cover the bruises back up.
“You do have that special blood,” Ethan said, managing a half smile but I could see the worry on his face, “but these bruises are a lot worse than usual. Why didn’t you say anything while we were moving?”
“It’s fine, sweetie.” I assured him, “They look worse than they feel.”
That was at least a truthful statement. I was totally fine in a physical sense, just giving away my body fluids for money. I gave Ethan a reassuring look and then snuck a quick look at Joseph. His face told me that he absolutely did not believe the blood donation lie, suspicion written across his handsome features.
The moment for Ethan and Jessica had long passed, and it was time to get away from Joseph before he started poking at more truths he didn’t deserve to know. I looked at Ethan and tilted my head towards the exit.
“Well,” Ethan started, “I need to get my lovely date to dinner.”
He offered me his arm and I took it, standing tall at my sons respectful behavior.
“It was nice to meet you,” I said to Jessica but then looked at Joseph to make it seem like I meant him too.
“Nice to meet you too, Tiffany,” Jessica replied, hesitating as she said my name. “It was really nice of you to come watch my first game.”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Ethan said affectionately, and the blush that crept across Jessica’s face as she avoided her father’s gaze made me suppress a laugh.
“I’ll see you Monday, Ethan,” she said shyly.
“Have a good night, enjoy your dinner,” Joseph said in goodbye, side stepping any ‘nice to meet you’ commentary.
We turned and began to leave the school gym, small groups of people still meandering about as we made our way towards the door. As we reached the exit, Ethan turned to look back, worry crossing his face.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?”
“I don’t think her dad likes me very much,” he said, his voice filled with concern, “He’s still giving me the stare down.”
I turned to look back as well, resulting in Joseph and I immediately making eye contact. He hadn’t been staring at Ethan, he had been staring at me. Again. I couldn’t exactly comfort Ethan with this news though.
“He’ll come around eventually,” I consoled, “Most dads only give you a hard time in the beginning.”
“I know, I just—” he paused and looked at his feet as we walked, “I was just hoping it would be different this time is all.”
It was obvious that he really, really liked this girl. I didn’t know for how long, but apparently it was long enough that he had some sort of vision in his mind of how he wanted the ‘meeting the father’ moment to go. The desire to absolutely throttle Joseph for the disappointment my baby boy was feeling washed over me immediately.
“You know,” I started, “If Mr. Kavinsky doesn’t like you, you can always win over her mom instead.”
Ethan laughed and his smile brightened at my truthful joke. As much as fathers despised him, mothers loved him. They usually attempted to welcome him into the family after a single date and one even invited him over for Christmas dinner last year.
“Besides,” I continued, “it takes a good man to recognize one. If he doesn’t see it in you eventually, then I think that means he’s probably a piece of shit.”
“Thanks, mom,” he said, shaking his head with a chuckle, “but her dad is a good man. Jessie really admires her father. I just hoped he wouldn’t hate me off the bat.”
Of course, he was a good father. I always knew he would be. The thought caused a wave of shame that threatened to knock me over. I looked at Ethan, his face giving me focus to not let myself get swept away.
“I think he’ll come around eventually.”
Ethan sighed loudly, then leaned over to bonk his head against mine.
We got to the car, where Ethan opened my door, a chivalrous gesture I had ingrained in both my sons. He was a catch, and anyone would be lucky to date him. Joseph just needed to give Ethan a chance to show that he’d treat his daughter right.
Better than how Joseph treated me in the end.
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