Chapter 4 - The Father's AgonyThe room went completely dead silent.
Nathan stood up so fast his chair tipped over backward, crashing against the hardwood floor.
"NO!" Nathan roared, his face red with raw, unadulterated agony. "No! I won't do it! You can take the company! You can take my money! You can take my house! But I will NOT sign away my children!"
"They aren't your children, Nathan," I said calmly, remaining completely unbothered by his outburst. "You threw them away eight years ago."
"I DIDN'T KNOW!" Nathan screamed, tears raining down his face as he dropped to his knees in front of my chair, reaching out to grab the hem of my coat. "I didn't know there were four of them! I didn't know they were real! Claire, please... I am begging you on my knees! Look at me! I am your husband!"
"Ex-husband," I corrected him softly, pulling my coat out of his reach. "And you didn't care if one baby was real, Nathan. The number doesn't change your cowardice. If I had been carrying one child, you still would have left me."
"I was stupid! I was terrified!" Nathan sobbed, pressing his forehead against the rug near my boots. "I was twenty-six years old and my mother was whispering in my ear every day that you were using me! I let my pride ruin my life! Please... give me a chance to be their father! Let me see them! Let me make it up to them!"
In the doorway of the living room, a soft sound rustled.
We all turned.
Noah and Ethan stood in the archway, holding their warm cups of cocoa, watching their biological father weeping on the floor like a broken child.
Nathan looked up, catching sight of his sons. He froze, his chest heaving with desperate sobs.
"Noah... Ethan..." Nathan whimpered, stretching out his hand toward them. "Please... tell your mother... tell her to give me a chance..."
Noah looked at his brother Ethan. Then Noah walked slowly into the living room, stopping three feet away from Nathan.
Noah looked down at the man kneeling before him. There was no hatred in the eight-year-old’s eyes—only a profound, quiet understanding that was far beyond his years.
"When I was six," Noah said softly, "I asked Mama why all the other kids at school had daddies who came to soccer games. Do you know what Mama told me?"
Nathan shook his head slowly, fresh tears pouring down his face. "N-no..."
"She told me that our daddy was on a very long journey trying to find his heart," Noah murmured. "And she said that until he found it, she would be our mommy and our daddy all by herself."
Nathan let out a strangled, heartbreaking sob, burying his face in his hands.
Noah looked back at me, then at Nathan.
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"You found your heart too late," Noah said quietly. "Mama already gave us hers."
Noah turned on his heel, took his brother's hand, and walked back toward the sunroom, leaving Nathan making gut-wrenching, silent weeping sounds on the floor.
