Episode 1079: You Need To Calm Down

Then there was the other part of him. The part who liked being the only person Jesse considered his dad, who had felt so excited and honored when Jesse had asked to join him in the landscaping business and didn’t want that plan derailed.

“You were going to tell him and changed your mind,” Bowie said, his voice far flatter than the emotions roiling inside him.

Their lives had come so close to irrevocably changing, all at his wife’s whim. “How could you have been that close to doing something so life-altering without even talking to me first?”

Lila nodded. Her eyes grew teary. “I know. I shouldn’t be running around scheming behind your back, it’s too much like how I used to behave, but at least I’m being honest with you now, I didn’t have to tell you any of this. But I want to tell you. I need to. I haven’t been thinking straight. I’ve been panicking.”

“Panicking over what?” Bowie asked, genuinely baffled. His wife had been more vehement than anyone about keeping Xavier in the dark. It made no sense why she’d suddenly thought to do the opposite.

“Xavier’s been lingering in our lives, which, you know, kind of feels like a time bomb. And Ava, well, I don’t entirely trust her not to feel sorry for him and spill.”

“She promised.”

“People break promises especially when they’re soft touches like Ava. And Sebastian’s my friend, so I say this with love, but he is a screw up not unlike myself. I never fully trusted that he had a handle on the situation, that he would get Xavier to leave. But then his mom got involved and I thought okay, she’d get the job done, she and her husband are like pros at getting what they want. Only she hasn’t succeeded either and today she was talking about backing off.”

“Finally a good idea,” Bowie said. “If we don’t want him to find out, the best solution is to leave him be so he has nothing to be suspicious of.”

“See you say that and it sounds logical but I, I just I thought about the road Xavier might lead Jesse down, how scary and dangerous it could be, and I thought about how much you’re looking forward to working with Jesse and I just panicked. I didn’t want Xavier hurting our kid and messing things up.”

“Okay, I see where that line of thinking might lead to panic but how did you make the leap to telling him? I thought that was the last thing you wanted.”

“It was. It absolutely is. But when I walked into that garage today, it hit me that maybe the truth was my best defense. He ran away from marrying Ava when that magazine made him think he wasn’t good enough. I thought I could scare him out of being a father using the same ammunition, that he’d think it was better to leave than to be in Jesse’s life. I realize now how dicey that plan was, but in that moment… Luckily Bas’s niece showed up and she’d lost some dog and well, Xavier was pretty impressive with how he comforted her, he was pretty dad-like. It convinced me that knowing about Jesse probably wouldn’t chase him away, he might do just the opposite, like try to take your place as Jesse’s dad.”

“There’s a comforting thought. Thanks for sharing this with me, Lila, thanks a lot.”

Episode 1080: Tracks Of My Tears