Sunshine After The Rain

Chapter Ten

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I invited her to meet the family," Sophie repeated as she slouched against the couch while Lucas continued pacing the sizeable living room, weaving around all the furniture. "She never knew he was still with his wife. He told her he was going through a divorce and she believed him. Anna isn't a terrible person, Lucas, and she's carrying your brother's child."

"That doesn't mean you have to become besties with her, Sophie," Lucas retorted. "Her child has nothing to do with you."

That was true, but it was only a half-truth. The turn of events were frustrating to Lucas, and rightly so. As he said before, what we feel is our right and his reaction to this situation was no different. "Her kid will be my children's half-sibling. That has something to do with me." Sophie lifted herself off the couch enough to ensure her children were still in the front yard, then rested her body back on the couch.

"So, what are you going to tell Ella and Justin, huh? This is your mommy's friend, Anna. Your daddy knocked her up?"

Sophie couldn't help but roll her brown eyes at him, earning an immediate glare and arm cross from Lucas. "I'll let everyone else get to know her first, and when the time comes, I will introduce her as someone I met in a grief group. Once they get older, I'll tell them the truth, but they're too young to understand who she was to Jason."

The plan was one she'd been thinking of since she left the park and began fleshing it out the best she could. Sophie hoped that everyone would be on board for the deception. Either way, her kids weren't ready to hear the truth about who their father really was.

Justin idolized his father, despite Jason not making as much time for him as he should have. Because of this, he would find a new way of blaming Sophie on his father cheating, something she wasn't mentally prepared to handle right now.

And Ella? Considering they told her a story about how babies were born that contradicted how this baby was conceived, she was not ready or able to handle the truth of her dad's indiscretion. The truth would only confuse her daughter more.

Lucas uncrossed his arms to run his fingers through his black, wavy hair, an action that was still catching Sophie's attention, much to her irritation. "This woman really got to you, didn't she?" His tone was not accusing, nor was it sharp or scolding. It was a simple question.

"Anna isn't an evil person, Lucas. I wanted her to be," Sophie confessed, "because it would have made things a hell of a lot easier. We ended up talking about all sorts of things once we got the affair out of the way, and it honestly felt like I was talking to a friend."

"Instead of a woman your husband was inside of while you were married to him?" This time his tone was more scolding, and a tad annoyed.

Maybe Sophie went too easy on her, but she didn't want to hate just for the sake of it and didn't want to put a woman down who wasn't in the wrong.

It was Jason who cheated on her, Jason who deceived them both, and Sophie decided to put blame on the right person. Anna wasn't to blame, and the child inside her wasn't.

Though Lucas had a right to feel whatever he felt, he was acting the opposite of what she expected. Maybe he was just protecting Sophie and didn't want to see her getting hurt. Maybe he thought keeping this woman in her life would act as a constant reminder of Jason's choices. If those were his reasons, it was strange and welcome having someone care for her well-being so much. But either way, the choice remained her own.

"What am I supposed to do, Lucas?" Sophie asked, looking him dead in the eye. "Am I supposed to just force them both under the rug and pretend they don't exist, like your dad did with you? Should I let her feel alone, like your mother felt? Tell me, Lucas, just fucking tell me what you want me to do here."

Lucas dropped his head before shaking it and pinched the spot between his eyes. "No one should have to go through that."

Sophie stood from the couch, checking once again to confirm her kids were still in the front yard, and walked over to Lucas. "The life growing inside of Anna is a piece of your brother. You have a niece or a nephew coming that you can be there for from day one. You don't have to miss anything this time around, Lucas."

Lucas let out a huff of air and his shoulder's seemed to relax as he looked out the window at the children and all the things he missed in their lives. "I know all that, and I want to be grateful for a second chance. I really do. It's just that..."

Lucas ran his fingers through his hair again. "It's just that I don't want to see anyone getting hurt, even Laura, and that's saying something. And I'm worried about you, Soph. I'm worried that you're making this decision too fast and grasping for the nearest straws, not even looking to see what they are or what they mean before you bring them into your life.

"We don't know each other well, I get that, but if my opinion counts for anything, I think you're going through something painful right now and trying to distract yourself with whatever you can find, good or bad and whatever's in between, so you can avoid confronting that pain.

"I think that because I did the same thing after Arianna died." Lucas walked around her and went to sit in the same spot on the couch she'd occupied only a minute before. "I threw myself into work in the day and drank myself to oblivion at night. I picked fights anywhere I could find them, because physical pain was the only pain I was ready to feel. I lost my wife, my sanity, my friends and my business. I lost everything trying to avoid dealing with the loss of my daughter.

"I'm going to be there for this woman and her kid whenever and however I'm needed. But you don't need to be there for her, Soph. You don't need to surround yourself with the reminder than he cheated so you can avoid the feelings that come with the loss. His death is a fact, whether you put another fact in front of it. It's still there."

Lucas stopped speaking when Sophie felt the tears fill her eyes before falling to her cheeks. She hadn't realized it fully until the words flowed out of him, but she'd been focused on everything else, including all the little details that came with his death, to avoid the death itself. She'd focused on his betrayal because anger was so much easier than heartbreak.

Although she knew in her heart and in her bones that this child deserved the family they would have had if Jason lived, Sophie couldn't be certain if her reasons for that were as pure as she thought.

Was Lucas right? Was she trying to surround herself with anything and everything she could find to distract from one of life's certainties? Her husband was dead. He would never again sleep beside her. He would never again walk through the doors of the house they shared. It was true he'd never again do those things either way, but she would also never see his face again. He would never watch his children get their driver's license, graduate high school, walk down the aisle or have families of their own.

Jason would never do or experience anything again. He was gone forever, and that was a fact that Sophie hadn't yet allowed to consume her.