Page 82 of Please, Forgive Me

“Will I ever have a mom?”

The question hit me like a punch to the gut.

For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. I took a slow breath, trying to stay composed, but the truth came rushing back in painful flashes.

Arthur’s mother hadn’t stayed. She chose to betray me. Chose money over her own child.

“Why did my mom leave me, Dad?”

That look—it shattered me. He wasn’t to blame. He was just a boy trying to make sense of the world.

I closed my eyes briefly, breathing through the anger and the pain that those memories always brought back. The truth was cruel, but I could never tell him everything.

“Arthur, your mom…” I began carefully, choosing my words one by one. “She made choices. And one of those choices was not to stay with us. But you were never abandoned, understand? I’m here. I’ve always been here, and I always will be.”

I could still remember the last day I saw her. The damn suitcase in her hand.

We’d been fighting for weeks.

And then she asked for money.

She wanted a different life—far from all of this—and the only way she saw to get it was by walking away, taking with her what she thought mattered most: dollars.

She left Arthur behind without a second thought.

She sold her own son.

Maybe I made mistakes giving her what she wanted, but I didn’t want her near us after that. Not after finding out she’d betrayed me and didn’t care about her own child. So I played her game one last time, gave her what she asked for, and never saw her again.

“You’ll always take care of me, right?” he asked, a little lost but accepting it as truth.

“That’s right, champ. I’ll always take care of you.” My voice was steady, though my chest felt tight.

I’d always believed I could give Arthur everything he needed—everything he was missing.

But that one void… that was impossible to fill.

Arthur tilted his head, studying me with that sharp curiosity that saw more than I wanted him to. Then came the question that caught me completely off guard:

“But… will I ever have another mom?”

My eyes met his—so innocent, so full of hope. The silence stretched between us, long and heavy. And then, before I could stop it, one image flashed through my mind: Maria Gabriela.

She was just my secretary. A woman I’d gotten involved with casually—or at least that’s what I told myself.

But there was something else. Something that had been growing inside me for months, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it.

Maybe it was the fact that she was pregnant—carrying a life that could be mine.

Arthur kept staring at me, still waiting for an answer. I sighed and smiled faintly, running my fingers through his hair.

“Maybe one day.”

Right then, all I wanted was to give him a little comfort, a little hope.

Arthur smiled, satisfied with my answer, and went back to building his tower.

While he played, my thoughts tangled again. The idea of another woman in our lives had once seemed absurd.