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the ‘scandal‘ was reduced. But I was working long hours, and she was stuck with a baby in a small apartment.”
    “Couldn’t you have stayed with your parents or hers?” asked Nelly.
    “Yeah, but I was a husband and father and I was going to provide for my family, so we got a little apartment. It was my pride that kept me from asking for help from the family. My stupid pride. I didn’t see how it was affecting Jenna. She was bored and tense all the time. Maybe even some postpartum depression. But I refused to listen to her when she wanted us to move in with her folks.
    “By the time Tyler was three, it was clear that it would be best for all if we separated.”
    “You don’t have to tell me this.”
    “I want to.”
    She hugged him tight and his arm tightened around her.
    “We decided to stay together through the holidays, Thanksgiving with my family then Christmas with hers. Only she and Tyler wouldn’t leave after the holidays. They would stay there and I’d go home to my small lonely apartment alone.
    “But then the tobogganing incident. He’d had a bit of a tumble and I stuck on a Ninja Turtles Band-Aid and he was good to go. But when she saw it, she went ballistic. She screamed she couldn’t do it anymore. She was leaving for her folks’ home now.
    “She picked him up and carried him to the car. I can still hear him screaming, ‘Daddy, Daddy.’” His voice was bleak and thick with unshed tears. Nelly sat up and pulled his head to her, cradling him against her chest as she ran her hand over his back.
    “I just stood there, paralyzed. I wanted to grab my son back and make a run for it, but I knew he was better off with her. I knew she’d be generous with the visitation. And she loved my parents. She wouldn’t deprive them of their grandson. So I let her go. I stood there and watched her buckle Tyler into his car seat and back down the driveway. I walked to the end of the drive to wave at Tyler until the car was out of sight. I watched her drive to the four-way stop sign at the end of the street. I watched her stop and signal her left-hand turn. And then I watched her start the turn and then I watch the drunk driver in the SUV plow into the passenger side. Poor little Tyler didn’t have a chance. That side of the car was absolutely crushed.
    “So many people came rushing to the car. They pulled me away when they saw me cutting my hands trying to pull the door open when it was clear there was nothing to be done for my little boy. Some others got the driver’s door open and pulled Jenna out. But I could tell from their faces she was gone, too.
    “And then he came staggering out of the SUV. Not a scratch on him. He looked at the destruction he had caused and tried to get back in the SUV. I was on him, pulling him out and pummelling before anyone could stop me. It took six of them to pull me off or I’d be in jail for manslaughter.
    “It’s been more than ten years, but sometimes it feels like it was yesterday.”
    She cradled him tighter. He pressed his head against her breasts and sobbed until he could cry no more. She made soothing noises and held him tight. Eventually, he quieted and the tension seeped out of his shoulders and seemed to have moved lower.
    “I’m sorry for getting your top all wet and stuff.” He was clearly embarrassed by his weakness, talking to her breasts since she still had a tight grip on his head. She loosened her hold slightly. He turned his head slightly to stare at one of the nipples poking through the thin fabric. He suckled the nipple through the fabric, biting down slightly.
    Nelly moaned. He moved his mouth to her other nipple and repeated the action.
    “You know, Jack, I think you have just gotten my top even wetter. Maybe I’d better take it off?”
    Before she could even move, before she could change her mind, Jack had her, top off, and she was on her back with his head buried in her breasts again. If his mouth had felt great through the top, the