Russell laughed. “Very funny. Where are you?”
“On the South Side.”
“The South Side? What the hell are you doing there?”
Preston looked up at the building’s windows. “Trying to get back something worth more than any building I could ever put up.”
“If you don’t come, we lose the opportunity.”
“Then we lose it.”
He hung up. For a few seconds he sat motionless. Then he got out of the car, crossed the street, and pressed the buzzer.
“Yes?” Naomi answered.
“It’s Preston.”
A long pause. At last the door buzzed open.
When he reached the third floor, Naomi was waiting at the door. She had shadows under her eyes, her hair pulled up, and a plain T-shirt. But she still had the same steady gaze he had known when she was twenty-four, working at a tutoring center while she studied for her teaching certification.
“You shouldn’t have come so early,” she said.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Naomi looked away. “The boys are eating breakfast.”
Preston glanced inside. The apartment was small, but spotless. Drawings were taped to the refrigerator, children’s books sat on a shelf, and a table was covered with a checkered cloth. The smell of toast filled the kitchen.
“Mom?” a small voice called. “Who’s here?”
Naomi closed her eyes for an instant. “A friend, sweetheart.”
The first boy came running in, round-cheeked, with a smudge of chocolate beside his mouth.
“Hi,” he said, perfectly at ease. “I’m Theo.”
Preston crouched down. “Hi, Theo. I’m Preston.”
“Are you Mom’s friend?”
Preston looked at Naomi before answering. “I’ve known her for a lot of years.”
“Do you know how to make paper airplanes?”
The question threw him. “I think so.”
“Eli makes really good ones. Mine always crash.”
Then the second boy appeared. He was quieter, holding against his chest the same planet notebook Preston had seen at the bakery. Eli studied the stranger seriously.
“Are you the man in the picture?”
The silence was absolute. Naomi put a hand over her mouth. Preston felt his heart pound against his ribs.
“What picture, champ?”
Eli ran to a shelf and came back with an old photograph. It showed Preston and Naomi leaving a church in Galena on their wedding day. She was smiling, and he had an arm around her.
“This one,” the little boy said. “Mom looked really pretty.”
Preston touched the edge of the photograph. “Yes. She looked beautiful.”
Eli studied him carefully. “Why aren’t you in the new pictures?”
Preston couldn’t find any words. Naomi stepped in gently.
“Eli, honey, go finish your milk with your brother. We need to talk.”
The boy obeyed, though he turned his head several times on the way.
When they were alone by the entrance, Preston spoke in a broken voice. “Naomi, I need to know the whole truth.”
She led him into the small kitchen. They sat facing each other. For a few moments neither knew how to begin. Finally Naomi opened a drawer and took out a blue folder, stuffed with medical records, letters, and photographs.
“Here are the pregnancy reports, the ultrasounds, and the birth certificates.”
Preston picked up the first photograph. It showed two tiny babies in incubators. One had a hand raised. The other was surrounded by thin medical tubes.
“Is that them?”
Naomi nodded. “They were born at thirty-one weeks. Theo weighed three and a half pounds. Eli, barely three.”
He moved slowly to the next picture. Naomi sat beside an incubator, completely exhausted.
“Were you alone?”
“My coworker Joanne came whenever she could. And Frank, the baker, brought me food, because a lot of nights I didn’t want to leave the hospital.”
Preston looked at the photograph again. “I should have been there.”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “You should have.”
That word hurt more than any reproach.
“When I found out I was pregnant, we were already separated,” she went on. “I tried to call you, but your number had changed. I sent letters to your office and I went to your old building in person.”
“My mother…”
“Your mother met with me. She told me you’d started seeing someone in your circle and didn’t want me bothering you again.”
Preston shook his head slowly. “There was never another woman.”
“That doesn’t matter now.”
“It matters to me.”
Naomi took a deep breath. “That afternoon, I still thought it might be a misunderstanding. So I tried again when the boys were born.”
She took out another sheet, a request for contact that she had submitted through the firm handling their separation.
“Your attorney at the time answered that any communication had to go through legal channels and that you didn’t want personal contact.”
Preston recognized the signature of his company’s former general counsel, Gordon Pierce. His mother had recommended him to handle the divorce, and Preston had signed every document without asking many questions.
“Why didn’t you go to court afterward?” he asked carefully.
Naomi lifted her head. “Because I had two babies in the hospital, a job I needed to go back to, and doctors telling me Eli might have lasting complications. I didn’t have the strength for a legal battle against your family.”
A silence followed.
“And there was another reason.”
“What?”
“I was afraid you would try to take custody, using your money and your lawyers. Your mother warned me about it, in so many words.”
Preston felt a deep shame. “I would never have tried to separate you from them.”
Naomi looked at him sadly. “The man I knew wouldn’t have thrown his wife out of the house for refusing to quit her job, either. But it happened.”
Her answer reminded him of something he had avoided for years. The failure of his marriage hadn’t begun with his mother’s lies. It had begun long before. With the dinners he showed up late to. With the forgotten anniversaries. With all the times he had let his mother belittle Naomi’s profession. With that argument where he had put his career ahead of everything.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “I was a terrible husband even before my mother got involved.”
Naomi looked down. “I didn’t need a millionaire, Preston. I needed a partner.”
He wanted to move closer but stayed in his seat. “I can’t change what I did. But I want to know my sons, if they’re mine and if you’re willing.”
“They’re yours, Preston. I never doubted it.”
“Then I want to take responsibility.”
She studied him for a few seconds. “I don’t want you showing up with expensive toys and then disappearing when you get busy again.”
“I won’t.”
“The boys need stability. Eli wakes up some nights because he still remembers the hospital visits. Theo pretends to be brave, but he cries when he thinks nobody’s listening.”
Preston swallowed. “I want to really know them. What they like, what scares them, what they dream about.”
