Free The Truth is in the Wine by Curtis Bunn

father was your father.”
    â€œWhat? What do you mean?” Paul said.
    â€œI mean that I was dating someone else, in love with someone else, when I got pregnant by your dad,” Brenda said. Suddenly, she became almost sullen. She sipped more wine and spewed more truths, truths she never thought she would share with her son.
    â€œThe man I was in love with was special to me,” she explained. “We were young and in love and used to talk all the time about the life we would have. But he got drafted into the Army and before I knew it, he was gone.
    â€œHe wrote me and I wrote him, but he wasn’t sure when he was going to come back home. Finally, he did come back home, and nothing changed. He was fun and exciting and he loved me. We had fun for about a week before he had to go back.
    â€œHe was stationed in North Carolina but was going overseas somewhere, Germany, I think. We were barely twenty years old. I was mad that he left and, at a most vulnerable point, I met your father. He was the friend of a coworker. He was outside our building when we got off work, waiting for his friend, who I was walking with.
    â€œHe invited me to go out with them, and I did. And it grew from there.
    â€œA little while later—about a month or two—I realized I didn’t have my regular cycle. And that’s where the confusion came in. But when the doctors told me how long I had been pregnant, I knew it was James’ baby.”
    â€œWhy is it I never heard this before?” Paul asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” his mother said. “It’s not a good story, really. When he came back home, I was eight months pregnant and it broke his heart when I told him he wasn’t the father. And it broke my heart, too. I should have waited on him, but I really didn’t think I would see him again. My friends were telling me, ‘Brenda, he’s going to travel the world and you think he’s coming back to you?’ And after hearing it enough, I started to believe it.”
    â€œWhere is he now?” Madeline asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” Brenda said. “After I told him I was pregnant, he still wanted to marry me. That’s the kind of man he was. But I had already made plans to marry James and I thought it wouldn’t be fair to you, Paul, to not have your father in your life. My friend understood, but he had tears in his eyes when he left me. And I cried.”
    Brenda actually developed tears in her eyes as she told the story. And Paul noticed.
    â€œYou still love him, don’t you, Ma?” he asked.
    She wiped her face. “I guess I still love the idea of him and what we could have had together,” Brenda said. “But your father and I got married before you were born—yes, I went down that aisle with a big ole stomach—and went on and had a good life together for a long time.”
    â€œBut it wasn’t what you planned for yourself?” Paul asked.
    â€œIt wasn’t; but you have to walk in your life. It is already planned for us,” his mom said. “James was a good man; is a good man. I was joking about wanting him dead. That would devastate me. But he wasn’t the man for me. And over time, it just got to be that I had to breathe again. I couldn’t breathe being in a marriage that really didn’t do anything for me.
    â€œWe had our greatest gift—you—and some really good times, times I will never forget. But you were long gone and I was left dealing with the man in front of me. And that wasn’t enough—for either of us.”
    â€œDon’t you feel lonely, though?” Madeline asked. “I know I do.”
    â€œYes, you’re right,” Brenda admitted. “At times it’s very lonely. But the peace I have within myself balances it out.”
    The burgers came and they ate mostly in silence—except for an occasional outburst by Paul about the football game. They enjoyed