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Bo's Journey Home - Chapter 20 Bo and Matthew finished eating their sandwiches, and then they cleaned up. They re-checked the cabin for any stuff they might have left behind, then Bo locked up and they climbed into the truck for the ride home. They pulled into Nora’s driveway around 8:00 o’clock. Bo grabbed Matthew’s arm as he was about to release the seat belt. “Hold up there a minute, son.”   “What?” Matthew asked, looking up at him.   Bo was nervous. “Time for your part of the rule-making. What about your end of our deal?”   Matthew released the seat belt strap. “What about it?”   Bo’s voice was soft. “Have you made a decision? Do you want me to walk away and leave you alone?”   Matthew couldn’t look at Bo. “Can I think about it?”   Bo was a little surprised. He thought for sure that the two of them had made a break through this weekend. But he wasn’t going to pressure Matthew. “Sure,” Bo said, trying to hide his disappointment. “Take all the time you need. Just let me say this one last thing.” He took Matthew’s face in his hands. “I love you more than anything in this world and I will do anything,” he emphasized it again by repeating it, “anything, to make you happy. Remember that.”   Matthew nodded his head between Bo’s hands. Bo pulled him into his chest across the seat and kissed the top of his head. “No matter what you decide, I will always be here for you.” He whispered into Matthew’s ear. “I’m always going to make sure that you are all right.” Bo released him and Matthew jumped from the truck and ran to the front door.   Bo slowly climbed out of the truck, grabbing Matthew’s backpack from the back of the truck, following Matthew’s path to Nora’s front door. When Bo reached the open door, Nora all ready had Matthew wrapped in her arms. Bo smiled at the two of them, dropping the backpack onto the floor just inside the door and then crossing his arms, leaning back against the open door. Nora looked up when she saw Bo standing there. She released Matthew. “Did you two have a good time?”   Bo nodded. “Absolutely.”   Matthew nodded at his mother and then looked back at Bo with a slight smile. “Thanks for everything, Bo.”   “You’re welcome,” Bo answered him.   Nora pushed him towards the stairs. “You mister, upstairs and hit the showers.” She observed Bo’s two day growth on his face, the tussled hair and rumpled shirt and jeans, feeling a tug from somewhere deep within her heart. “I’m sure bathing was not a top priority this weekend.” She called after Matthew. “I’ll be up to tuck you into bed.”   Bo made a face at her. “Men don’t bathe when they go camping.”   Nora looked intently into his blue eyes. He looked tired, leaning against the door. “How was it really?” she asked him.   Bo looked up towards the second floor, hearing the shower. “It was okay.”   Nora smiled gratefully. “I got a hug and a kiss; without asking; that says something.”   Bo shrugged nonchantlantly. “I promised you your son.”   Nora was still smiling. “Yeah, you did.” She looked at him intently. “Did you find yours?”   Bo walked towards her tiredly, leaned in, kissed her softly on the cheek and then turned back to the door, without answering her question. “I gotta go. But I’ll call you soon.”   Nora softly touched where his stubble had rubbed against her cheek. “Bo?” He stopped and turned back towards her. “Are you okay? Are we going to talk?”   Bo looked briefly towards the stairs and then back to her. “I hope to be, someday.” He smiled again. “And I promise Nora, you and I will talk soon. I have some things I need to do first. Go put our son to bed.” And he was gone.   Nora went quickly to the door and watched him climb slowly into his truck. She waved through the window, not sure if he even saw her. She waited until she could no longer see his tail lights down the street. She locked the door and went up to see their son.   When Nora reached Matthew’s room, he was sitting on the edge of his bed, dressed in sweat pants and a tee shirt, his hair still soaked from his shower. Nora picked up his towel from off the floor and walked over to him, sitting beside him and rubbing the towel over his wet head. “Where are your PJs?”   “Bo sleeps in sweats,” Matthew stated.   Nora smiled, remembering that Bo didn’t always. She finished drying his hair. “Come on.” She tossed back the sheet on his bed. “Time for bed.” He climbed in and Nora pulled the sheet up over him, lying down beside him and cuddling him in her arms. Matthew fit perfectly in the crook in her arm. “So how was your weekend?”   “It was okay,” Matthew answered.   Same answer as his father, she thought to herself. “Just okay?” she asked him cautiously.   Matthew looked up at her. “Parts of it were great! I got to drive the boat by myself, we went swimming off some island, and I got to ride the Jet Ski.”   Nora was suddenly alarmed. “You were on the Jet Ski?”   “Bo was with me,” Matthew added quickly.   Nora nodded, annoyed. “Ummm,” she muttered, “I’ll have to talk with Bo about that.”   Matthew whined a bit. “Aww Mom, I was fine.”   Nora nodded. “And what about the parts that were, you know, just okay?”   Matthew shrugged. “The talking parts.”   Nora gently combed his hair around the base of his neck with her fingers just like she used to do to his father. “Can you tell me about the ‘talking parts’?”   Matthew answered her cautiously. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”   Nora tried to reassure him. “Try me.”   Matthew remembered what Bo had said to him; that it was better to talk to the people you love than to run away from them. He sighed and finally said out loud to his mother what he had been hiding from her the past few weeks. “I know about Bo.”   Nora felt herself getting tense. “What about him?”   Matthew looked at her and then turned from her. “I know that he is my real father.”   Nora was still combing his hair with her fingers. “But you knew that before this weekend, didn’t you?”   Matthew looked back at her quickly. “Did Bo tell you that I knew?” He heaved an angry sigh before she could answer. “I knew he couldn’t keep his promise.”   Nora shook her head and defended Bo. “No, Bo didn’t tell me you knew. I had all ready figured it out all by myself. I even tried to get Bo to tell me before you two left for the weekend, but he wouldn’t,” she tapped the top of his head gently, “because he promised you that he wouldn’t tell.”   Matthew wasn’t sure he believed her. “How did you figure it out then?”   Nora remembered her conversation with Bo in Angel Square. She was a better lawyer than he a witness. “There are just some things a woman knows about the people she loves.”   Matthew’s voice came almost in a whisper. “Then why didn’t you tell me first?”   Nora stroked his hair, thinking. “Because Sam had just died, and Bo and I didn’t want to hurt you any more.” Matthew argued back with her. “That’s what Bo said. But you still should have told me the truth.”   Nora held him a bit tighter, trying to calm him. “Okay, okay, maybe I should have. So who did tell you?”   Matthew said her name angrily. “Gabrielle.”   Nora rolled her eyes, almost getting angry at Bo for allowing that woman in his life. “What did she tell you?”   Matthew’s voice was still angry. “That Bo was my real father.”   Nora tried to calm him. “Why didn’t you tell me when you found out?”   Matthew had his lips pressed together. “Lots of reasons.” His voice soften. “Mostly, I didn’t want to hurt your feelings again.”   Nora pulled his face to look at her. “What do you mean, ‘again.’?” Matthew tried to turn away from her, but Nora held his chin, forcing him to look at her. “Matthew? Tell me what you mean.”   Matthew blurted out what he had been feeling for weeks. “He all ready hurt you once before and made you cry.”   Nora was having trouble following him. “Who did?”   Matthew sat up and pulled back from her. “Bo!!” Nora looked at him, stunned. She started to speak and Matthew interrupted her. “No mom, don’t pretend. I know he left,” He stuttered a bit. “Left us both. I know he made you cry. I was afraid that if I told you that I knew about Bo, I would make you cry again. I know I remind you of what Bo did. Just having me around must make you remember and I didn’t want to make you cry.”   Nora pulled him back to her, hugging him tight. “Matthew, honey. First of all, I love that you remind me of Bo. Having you with me is like having Bo with me because I still miss him very much.”   “Even though he left you?” Matthew asked surprised.   Nora nodded. "Yes, I still miss him, even though he left me. Matthew, there were a lot of things that happened back then to make Bo want to leave.” She paused, wondering how Matthew had gotten all of this information. “Bo had every right to leave.”   Matthew argued back. “But you asked him to stay, and he didn’t. He broke his promise and he just left! I’m still so mad at him for making you cry.”   Nora felt the pain she had buried deep down in her heart came rising right to the top. She was having trouble controlling it. But she had to for Matthew’s sake. “Matthew, honey, I want you to listen very carefully to mommy.” She paused, trying to collect her thoughts and separate them from her feelings. “When I was married to Bo, I told a lie. A really, really big lie. And when I finally had to tell Bo the truth, it just hurt him so much, that he needed to go away from mommy.”   Matthew nodded, his voice calmer. “I know, he told me.”   Nora held Matthew close. “What else did he tell you?” she asked.   Matthew remembered Bo’s exact words. “He told me about his other son dying. He told me about Sam helping you make a baby. He said he left because his heart hurt and it couldn’t feel love in his heart anymore.”   Nora couldn’t believe that Bo had shared so much with Matthew. No wonder Bo looked so tired when they got back. It must have overwhelmed him to relive their past all over again. Matthew’s simple statement about Bo’s heart hurting had Nora’s love for Bo bubbling right under the surface. She smiled sadly at Matthew. “And all of those things are true.”   Matthew looked at his mother. “But he also said he still loved you when he left. So he should have stayed; Married people who love each other stay married. Besides, you told him you were sorry, he should have forgiven you and stayed.”   Nora smiled at her son. This was the reasoning of a 6 year old, she thought. But she had to try and explain as she tried to hold back her own tears. “And I still loved Bo when he left. I think that Bo couldn’t forgive mommy right away because Bo was still hurt when I tried to say I was sorry. It’s hard to forgive someone who hurt you when it still hurts inside your heart.”   Matthew was trying to understand. “I don’t understand. He hurt you and made you cry. He left us. Shouldn’t you be mad at him?”   Nora held him tight. “It’s complicated, Matthew. Just know that I’m not angry with Bo. So you don’t need to be angry for me.”   Matthew returned her hug. “I don’t really want to be.”   Nora smiled at him. “Then don’t be. Bo’s a good guy and he really wants to be your father.” She adding, trying to get him to smile. “And if you play your cards right, you could probably con him into getting you that new computer game you’ve been wanting.”   Matthew gave her his first real smile in weeks; his father’s smile. “You think?”   Nora tapped his nose. “Sure. He’s a push over.” They were quiet for a few minutes, Nora still holding him tightly. “Matthew, I’m so sorry that you had to hear about Bo from Gabrielle.” She asked him cautiously. “Was that the day you disappeared?”   Matthew nodded in her arms. “Gabrielle said Bo was just pretending to like me because he left you. I was so mad, I just ran away.”   Nora clenched her teeth, wanting to kill Gabrielle at that moment. “Bo would never pretend to like you.”   Matthew snuggled up to her. “I know that now. He told me that he loves me.”   Nora nodded. “Yes, he does love you. We both do, very much.” Nora rested her cheek on his soft hair. “Matthew, you scared me very much when you ran away. Promise me, you will never do that again.” Matthew nodded. Nora continued softly. “Bo and I wanted to tell you together, so we could explain everything to you and answer all of your questions together.”   “Bo tried this weekend,” Matthew said. “He knew I was mad at him. I didn’t even want to listen to him. But then we made a deal.”   Nora was confused. “What kind of deal?”   Matthew spoke slowly. “That if I didn’t want him to be my father after this weekend, I could tell him to leave me and you alone.”   Nora sat up straight. “He said that?!”   Matthew nodded yes. “He said that after the weekend was over, if he couldn’t prove to me how much he wanted to be my father, I could tell him to leave again.”   Nora was alarmed. “And what did you tell him?” she asked him cautiously.   “I told him I would think about it,” Matthew answered her.   Nora was almost afraid to ask him. “What do you need to think about?”   When Matthew looked at her, all she could see was Bo’s face. “Is it okay with you if he is my father and if I love him? I really want to.”   Nora let out a soft sigh. “Of course you can love Bo. Why would you think it wouldn’t be okay with me?”   Matthew looked at her very seriously. “Well, I know he made you cry and you were my mom first.”   Nora pulled him close to her again, loving him more for wanting to protect her. God, he was just like his father. “Matthew, I will always be your mom. No matter who you love, I will always be your mom. And Bo will always be your father. We will do anything to make you happy.” To be continued …