Chapter 5 The Second Meeting
Three days after their visit to Sean's office, the triplets made their plan.
They had snuck into his office once. They could do it again.
But this time, Molly almost caught them.
"Where are you three going?" she asked as they tried to sneak out of the apartment while she was getting ready for work.
"To the park," Alex lied quickly. "With the other kids from school."
"The park is in the opposite direction," Molly said. She was looking at them suspiciously.
"We changed our minds," Ben said. "We want to go to the different park. The bigger one."
Molly looked at each of them carefully. She had raised these three children alone. She could read their faces like a book.
"You're hiding something," she said.
"No, we're not," Claudia said, and her bottom lip started to shake. She was the worst liar of the three.
Molly sighed. She was too tired to push them. She had worked fourteen hours yesterday and had to work another ten hours today.
"Okay," she said finally. "But you stay together. And you be back here by four o'clock. No later. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Mommy," they said together.
\---
Getting into the Anderson Building for the second time was easier.
The security guard at the entrance was different. He didn't know about the small children who had caused a scene three days ago. They walked right past him.
The elevator climbed to the top floor.
When the doors opened, Margaret the assistant looked up. She recognized them immediately.
"You can't be here," she said, standing up. "I'm calling security."
"Wait," Alex said. "We just want to talk to him. Please. We're his children."
Margaret's face went soft a little bit. "I know who you are," she said quietly. "Mr. Anderson has been... different since you left last time. He's been sad. I've worked for him for eight years, and I've never seen him sad."
She looked around to make sure no one was watching. "Go. Go in. But be quick."
\---
Sean was at his desk, looking at something on his computer. When the children came in, he didn't look up.
"I'm not surprised to see you," he said. "I knew you would come back. Smart children always come back when they're looking for answers."
"We want you to meet Mommy," Alex said. "She's our mother. And you should know her. You made us together."
"I don't remember her," Sean said, still not looking at them. But his voice wasn't angry this time. It was sad.
"She didn't remember you either," Ben said. "She never told us anything about you. We found your name in her papers by accident."
Sean finally looked at them. "Your mother never tried to contact me? Never asked me for anything?"
"No," Claudia said. "She never even said your name. She just worked and worked and worked to take care of us."
Something in Sean's face changed. It was like a wall was cracking. Like all the things he had been holding inside were pushing to get out.
"I need to tell you something," Sean said. "I need to tell you about what happened with your mother."
The children sat down, even though no one asked them to sit.
"Your mother and I met six years ago," Sean began slowly. "I was very lonely. I was working too hard. I was not a good person. I was cold and I was mean and I didn't care about anyone. And then I met her."
He paused and looked out the window at the city below.
"She was kind. She was real. She was the only honest person I had ever met. And for one hour, I felt like I was actually human. Like I was worth something."
"Then what happened?" Alex asked.
"Then I made a choice," Sean said. "I was scared. I was scared of how I felt. I was scared that someone so good would discover that I was bad. So I decided to forget her. I convinced myself it had never happened. I pushed her away so far inside my mind that she became like a ghost."
He looked at the children.
"And I never knew that she was carrying you. I never knew that my choices had consequences that affected three beautiful children. If I had known, I would have... I don't know. I like to think I would have done the right thing. But I'll never know because I was a coward."
Tears were coming down his face now.
"I deserve to not know you," he said. "I deserve to not know your mother. But I want to. If you'll let me, I want to know all of you. I want to be your father. I want to know Molly again."
"Mommy will be angry," Claudia said. "She'll be angry that we came here without telling her."
"Yes," Sean said. "She will be. And she should be. Your mother has every right to be angry with me."
Alex was quiet for a long moment. Then he said: "You need to come to our apartment. You need to tell Mommy that you remember her. You need to tell her that you want to be our father."
"She won't want to see me," Sean said.
"Maybe not," Alex said. "But you have to try. That's what fathers do. They try."
Sean nodded slowly. "Okay. I'll come. When?"
"Tonight," Ben said. "After Mommy gets home from work. Around seven o'clock."
Sean wrote down the address the children gave him.
And as they were leaving, he said something that made them stop.
"Tell your mother... tell her I'm sorry. Tell her I've been sorry for six years, but I didn't know it. Tell her I never forgot her. I just pretended to forget her because I was afraid."
The children left his office.
And Sean sat alone again, holding the address of the woman he had loved and forgotten.
He had six hours to figure out what to say.
\---
That evening, Molly came home from work at six-thirty.
She was exhausted. Her back hurt. Her feet hurt. She just wanted to sit down and not move for a very long time.
But she could see immediately that something was wrong.
The triplets were dressed in nice clothes. Their hair was combed. They were sitting very still on the couch, and they looked nervous.
"What's going on?" Molly asked.
"Mommy, we need to tell you something," Alex said.
And before she could stop them, the children told her everything.
They told her about finding the name in the hospital papers. They told her about going to the office. They told her about Sean Anderson. They told her that he was their father.
Molly's face went very white.
"You did what?" she whispered.
"We found our father, Mommy," Claudia said. "And he's coming here tonight. He wants to meet you."
There was a knock on the door.
The children looked at each other. It was exactly seven o'clock.
Molly stood up, and her hands were shaking so badly that she could barely open the door.
And when she did, she saw him.
The man from her dream. The man from the fog. The man whose scar she had felt beneath her fingertips years ago.
Sean Anderson stood in the doorway of her small apartmen
t, looking like he didn't belong anywhere he stood.
But his eyes... his eyes looked at her like she was the most important thing in the world.