Part 1: Thirteen Years And Ten Minutes
My name is Marianne Tate, and I had not stood face-to-face with Stuart in thirteen years. I had imagined it a thousand ways, in grocery store aisles, in parking lots, in the nervous hours before sunrise when a single mother does too much thinking. None of those imaginings looked anything like a registration counter at a state academic competition, with a laminated name badge pinned to my cardigan and my two sons waiting behind me.
Then I spotted him. He stood at the front of the line, taller than I remembered and a little grayer at the temples, and for a second my body forgot how to move. Simone was standing beside him, looking perfectly calm, one manicured hand resting on the strap of her handbag. Their son wore a blazer from an expensive private school, the crest stitched in gold thread across the pocket.
I should have turned around right then. Instead I stayed where I was, and Stuart, as if a cold draft had touched the back of his neck, glanced over his shoulder. His eyes landed on me. Stuart noticed me.
“Marianne?”
For a moment, he seemed genuinely stunned. His mouth stayed half open, and something flickered across his face that might have been guilt, or fear, or simply surprise at seeing a ghost. Then it vanished, and his expression turned cold.
“What are you doing here?”
Simone moved closer, wearing a faint smile that never reached her eyes. She looked me over once, from my sensible flats to my tired hair, and I knew exactly what conclusion she had reached about me.
“This is a private event.”
“It’s a state competition,” I replied. “That’s literally what it’s called.”
Stuart leaned toward me and lowered his voice, the way he used to when he wanted to win an argument without anyone noticing he was arguing. His breath smelled faintly of coffee and mint.
“How dare you come here today?”
Several people standing nearby heard his words. A father with a clipboard stopped talking mid-sentence. A girl holding a poster tube looked up, and then quickly down again. Heat climbed my neck, but I held my ground.
What he failed to notice were the two seventeen-year-old boys just a few feet behind me. Or perhaps he did see them but simply had no idea who they were. The last photograph Stuart had ever seen of our twins was taken during their christening, two red-faced babies swallowed by a white gown that had belonged to my grandmother.
“I’m here for my children,” I told him.
He laughed. It was a short, dismissive sound, the laugh of a man who had never once been made to wait for anything.
“Your children?”
His gaze swept over the boys, over their pressed navy blazers and their matching curly hair, but there was no sign of recognition. It slid across them the way eyes slide across strangers in an airport. Something inside me, something I had kept tightly folded for thirteen years, cracked a little.
“This weekend is important to our son.”
“It’s important to mine as well.”
I chose not to continue arguing. I could have said so much. I could have listed the thirteen years of birthdays, medical appointments, science fairs, school performances, homework sessions that stretched late into the night, and simple family dinners that separated us. I could have told him about every fever I had sat through alone. But the clock above the counter said registration closed in ten minutes, and my sons deserved better than a scene.
“Come on, boys,” I said. “Registration closes in ten minutes.”
We walked away together, my shoes loud against the polished floor. I could feel Stuart’s eyes on my back, and Simone’s, and I kept my chin lifted the whole way to the table where a volunteer was handing out schedules.
As we walked away, one of my sons leaned toward me and whispered, “Mom, that was him, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Our dad?”
“Yes.”
Neither of them spoke again. I assumed they were still trying to process what had happened. They collected their packets, thanked the volunteer, and followed me toward the auditorium with their shoulders squared and their faces unreadable. I thought they were hurting, and I wanted desperately to fix it, and I knew I couldn’t.
I was mistaken. They were not simply hurting. They were waiting.
The morning passed in a blur of timed exams and hallway whispers. I sat in the café area with a cup of tea I never drank, watching the doors, watching for a man in a good suit who never came looking for me. Whenever the doors swung open, my heart stuttered. Whenever they stayed closed, it ached in a different way.
At four o’clock, the awards ceremony got underway. The auditorium was packed, every seat taken, parents fanning themselves with programs while students in blazers fidgeted in the front rows. I found a seat on the aisle and pressed my hands together in my lap so no one would see them shaking.
When the announcer reached the applied mathematics category, my eldest son’s name rang out across the auditorium. Gold medal. I had barely caught my breath when they announced the winner of the physical sciences category. My other son had won gold as well.
The room applauded, and I couldn’t hear it. All I could hear was the rushing of blood in my ears. Then came another announcement. He had achieved the highest raw score of any student in the entire state.
Two brothers. Two gold medals. The same surname. A murmur rolled through the rows like wind through tall grass.
I turned toward Stuart. He was sitting several rows behind me, one arm draped over the back of his son’s empty seat. I watched the realization slowly dawn on him. First, he heard the name Tate announced twice. Then he watched both boys stand up together. Finally, my second son walked onto the stage and smiled in my direction.
His face was identical to Stuart’s. The same eyes. The same jawline. The same expression. Stuart’s color drained so quickly that the woman beside him touched his sleeve.
A man sitting nearby leaned toward his wife.
“Who are those boys?”
She glanced down at the program.
“The Tate twins. Their mother raised them by herself.”
Her voice carried farther than she meant it to. And as the applause swelled, Stuart rose halfway out of his seat, staring at the stage like a man who had just read his own name on a headstone.
