Connor listened without expression. “Did you love my mom?” he asked. “I cared about her once. That night was not love.”
Connor looked down at his coffee. “Good.” David almost asked why, then understood. If the affair had been a grand love, Connor might feel pressure to make meaning out of it.
The uglier truth was strangely freeing. He did not need to be the destined child of some hidden romance. He was simply a person who came into existence because adults made choices and then failed to handle the consequences honestly. Megan left for college in late August.
The goodbye was harder than usual because leaving home meant leaving the crisis before it felt resolved. David helped load the car. Connor came by to say goodbye and brought her a ridiculous keychain shaped like a DNA helix. Megan stared at it, then laughed so hard she cried.
“You are awful,” she said. “Genetically,” Connor replied. David groaned. Sarah, standing beside her car, laughed despite herself.
Humor became one of the first signs they were healing. Not because the situation was funny, but because jokes require enough safety to touch pain without reopening it completely. Megan kept the DNA keychain on her dorm key all year. When people asked about it, she said, “Long story,” and left it there.
Sarah and David’s relationship remained the most difficult. There was no romance, no nostalgia worth reviving, only shared accountability and a son who had the right to know both of them without managing their discomfort. They met once in October at a coffee shop to talk about Connor’s medical insurance, college costs, and whether David should contribute retroactively to expenses. Sarah had never sought child support because Paul provided and because secrecy complicated everything.
David offered money now. Sarah initially refused out of pride. Connor later told both of them to stop making his childhood into a debt argument. “If you want to help with college, help with college.