My Son Called Me the Other Woman

Catherine Delaine.

Lumia's violin teacher.

Her dark hair was spread across the white pillow. Her red lipstick was smeared at one corner. She was still smiling.

Three months ago, David had come home with a brochure in his hand.

"Lumia should learn an instrument," he'd said. "Violin. There's a new teacher at his school. Juilliard graduate. Gentle, patient, really elegant. Perfect for kids."

I had been thrilled. I had thanked him for thinking of it.

Two weeks later, I wrapped a silk scarf in gold paper for her birthday. I cooked lamb for her. She sat at my table and told me I was "the warmest mother she'd ever met."

And I'd believed her.

Inside the room, she rolled onto her side and traced a finger down David's chest.

"Do you remember the night before I left for Vienna?"

"Every second of it," David said. "You told me music came first."

"I was twenty-two. I was stupid."

"You broke me, Cathy." His voice went soft in a way I'd never heard. "I met Giselle a month later. She was easy. She was there. She wanted a family, and I wanted to stop thinking about you."

Easy.

I pressed my back to the wall.

"And now?" Catherine asked.

"Now you're home. And the plan's working." He laughed quietly. "Every Tuesday and Thursday, one hour alone with him. He talks about you all weekend. He asked me yesterday if you could come to his birthday."

"He's such a sweet boy." She sighed. "He already lets me hug him goodbye."

"Give it a few more months. He'll want you more than her."

I didn't hear the rest.

I was already in the elevator, staring at my own face in the brass doors. My lips were white.

---

The house was dark when I got back.

I didn't go to bed. I went to Lumia's playroom and pulled his sketchbook from the shelf. I don't know why. Maybe some part of me already knew.

Dinosaurs. Rockets. A purple dog.

Then, on the last page, a family.

A tall man in a tie. A little boy with a violin. And a woman with long dark hair and a red dress, holding the boy's hand.

Above them, in his wobbly crayon letters:

*MY FAMILY.*

I wasn't in it.

I sat on the playroom floor until the sky turned gray. I didn't cry. I just held the page in my lap and stared at the woman in red until her face stopped looking like crayon and started looking like a promise.

---

The next afternoon, I drove to Westbrook Academy.

I told myself I was only picking up my son.

The music room door was open. Lumia was sitting on Catherine's lap. Her arms were looped around his middle, and her chin was resting on top of his head.

"Again," he begged. "Play the twinkle song again."

"Only if you say the magic words."

He giggled. "Please, Mommy Cathy."

The floor seemed to tilt.

"What did you just call her?"

They both looked up.

Lumia's smile slid off his face. Catherine's didn't. She just loosened her arms, slowly, like she had nothing to hide.

"Giselle! You're early."

"Lumia. Come here."

He didn't move. He pressed back against her.

"Lumia." My voice cracked. "Now."

"Hey." Catherine lifted a hand. "Don't yell at him. He didn't do anything wrong."

"Did you teach him that? *Mommy Cathy?*"

"It's just a nickname. The kids are silly." She tilted her head. Her eyes were wide and wet in an instant. "He's a child, Giselle. He likes me. Are you really going to be jealous of that, too?"

"Too?" I took a step closer. "You were in a hotel room with my husband last night."

The music room went dead quiet. Two other parents by the door turned to stare.

Catherine's lower lip shook. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Room twenty-two-fourteen. Red dress. You want me to keep going?"

"Giselle."

David's voice came from behind me.

I turned. He was striding down the hallway in his gray coat, phone still in his hand. Someone had called him. Of course someone had.

"What the hell are you doing?" he said through his teeth.

"Ask her."

"I'm asking *you.* You're screaming in a classroom full of children."

Lumia had started to cry. Big, gulping sobs. David walked straight past me and scooped him up off Catherine's lap.

"Hey, buddy. Hey. It's okay. Daddy's here."

Then he turned to Catherine, and his free hand touched her shoulder.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded, blinking hard. "I'm fine. I just don't understand why she hates me."

"She doesn't hate you. She's having a bad week." He looked back at me, and his gray eyes were flat and cold. "Isn't that right, Giselle?"

Something in me snapped clean in half.

I crossed the room in three steps and slapped him.

The crack echoed off the music stands. His head turned with it. A red mark bloomed across his cheek.

One of the parents gasped.

"You can stop loving me," I said. My hand was burning. "That's your right. But you have no right to hand my son to another woman."

For a second, David didn't move. Then he turned his face back to me. He didn't touch his cheek. He didn't raise his voice.

"Lower your voice," he said quietly. "You're scaring him."

"*I'm* scaring him?"

"Look at him, Giselle."

I looked.

Lumia was twisting in his father's arms, kicking hard. David set him down. And my son ran.

Not to me.

He planted himself in front of Catherine, spread his small arms wide, and glared up at me with his face red and soaked with tears.

"Bad Mommy!" he screamed. "Why are you being mean to Cathy?"

"Lumia, baby, I'm not..."

"Daddy said you took him away! Daddy said he was supposed to marry *her!* She was supposed to be my mommy, not you!"

The words hit harder than any slap.

Behind him, Catherine rested her hands on his tiny shoulders. Gently. Like they belonged there.

Over his head, her eyes met mine.

And for just one second, she wasn't crying at all.

David bent down and picked up the violin case from the floor. He handed it to Catherine, not to me.

"We'll talk at home," he said.

I stood in the middle of that music room with my palm still stinging and finally understood.

He hadn't just cheated on me.

He had sat our son down, night after night, and taught him how to leave me.

And as the three of them walked out the door together, Lumia's hand tucked inside hers, I heard Catherine whisper something to David that made my blood run cold.

"Did you tell her about the papers yet?"