No matter how much I tried to convince Paige, she was dead set on getting a hotel room. I pulled it out of her that she had quit her job, and it only served to make me upset.
The last thing she needed to be doing was spending money for a hotel after what my father did to her, but she insisted. She didn’t want to confuse Blithe by sleeping over with me, so I told her I would take the couch.
She got a hotel room anyway, and I just had to deal with it.
She was a massive help. She came over every morning and helped me with Blithe’s hair. She picked out the cutest outfits and put labels on which hair products to use for which times of the day. It was fucking confusing.
There was shit to put in her hair in the morning to help untangle it. Then there was shit to put in her hair at night so it wouldn’t tangle as badly when she slept.
Then, there were completely different products to wash her hair with, but I wasn’t supposed to wash her hair with shampoo every night. Some nights, I just washed it with conditioner, and some nights, I was only supposed to wet it down and comb through it with a wide-toothed comb.
Paige ended up having to make me a fucking flowchart just to remember all the different shit.
Then, there were the outfits. Paige came in and color-coordinated Blithe’s entire wardrobe. She put up a color palette on the damn wall so I could easily see what colors went well together and what colors didn’t.
Then, she organized Blithe’s clothing drawers by which colors went the best together. Shirts and pants and dresses and shit that all matched, no matter what I picked out, sat in the same drawer.
I was in awe of her and how she just came in and fucking organized my life with my daughter.
I’d gotten into the swing of things at work. I went in at after dropping Blithe off at preschool, and then I would pick her up at after leaving work. If I wanted overtime, I worked through lunch, and it gave me a little boost in my paycheck to do special things for my daughter.
And I loved doing those special things for her.
She was slowly opening up to me. I answered questions about her mother as best as I could, and when I broke the news to her that her mother had died, Paige gave me a book to read to her about it. In the book, death was portrayed as a next step in life. Whenever someone was done with their purpose here on earth, they fell into a deep sleep and woke up in the next stage of their life.
Paige told me to tie in the fact that Blithe was Marlie’s purpose, and now that raising her had been passed on to me, Marlie was free to progress in the second major journey of her life.
Blithe understood the concept perfectly, and I was able to address the death of her mother without any tears being shed.
Now, I was getting off work for the weekend and heading to pick up Blithe. I promised my daughter we would go to the playground before dinner, and I intended to keep my promise. I was just about to call Paige to see if she wanted to come along when my phone rang. I smiled when I saw it was her.
“Hey, Paige. I was just about to call you.”
“Really? What a coincidence. Do you and Blithe have plans for tonight?”
“We do. I promised her we would go to the park. Wanna come?”
“That sounds like fun,” she said. “But I have a surprise for you.”
“A surprise? For what?”
“For you,” she said, giggling.
“I know that. I mean, why the surprise? If anything, I owe you a surprise for everything you’ve done for me and Blithe this week.”
“Oh, that’s nothing. What park are you going to? I’ll meet you guys there with your surprise.”
I gave her directions to the park. Then I went to pick up my daughter. She came running up to me and slammed into my arms, her tiny little lips flooding my cheek with kisses. I smiled and picked her up in my arms, relishing in her warmth as she wrapped her arms around me.
“Are we still going to the park?” she asked.
“Of course. My word is my bond.”
I was curious about the surprise Paige had for me. As we headed to the park, I racked my brain with all the things it could possibly be. Maybe she had gotten me something to help with Blithe? Maybe she narrowed down other areas for us to live? Paige and I had several talks about where in Brookings I could move that would be safer without putting me too far away from work. Maybe she had already taken a look at some apartments?
As we pulled up into the parking lot, I saw Paige standing by her car, and I recognized the man beside her instantly.
Surprise.
My entire body locked up as memories flooded through me. Memories of drunken nights where my father would come stumbling into the house. Memories of mornings where my father would throw away my mother’s breakfast because it wasn’t good enough for him. Memories of times where my father would shove me so hard I’d knock my head against something.
“Daddy, can I go play?” Blithe asked.
“In a minute, sweetheart,” I said. “Right now, just stay there.”
I got out of my car, and my eyes locked onto my father. What the fuck was Paige thinking? I’d told her to drop this subject. I wasn’t talking to my father, I wasn’t reconnecting, and I sure as hell wasn’t allowing him to come into contact with my fucking daughter.
If Paige saw the anger in my eyes as I approached, she didn’t show it.
“Hey, Zach,” she said. “How was work?”
My eyes weren’t trained on her. They were trained on the man behind her.
“Zachary,” my father said.
Just hearing my name fall from his lips made my fists curl.
“Want me to take Blithe to play?” Paige asked.
“No,” I said.
“So, you want her to sit and listen to everything you want to tell your father?” she asked.
My eyes softened. Everything I wanted to tell him? She hadn’t brought him here to reconnect?
“No, I guess not,” I said.
Blithe practically launched herself at Paige as she got her out of the car. I saw my father’s eyes fall upon my daughter, and I wanted to rip his fucking eyeballs out. Realization crossed his face, and I was taken aback by what I saw.
There were tears in my father’s eyes.
“Remember what I told you,” Paige said to my father. “No more, and no less.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
My father watched Paige walk away with my daughter toward the playground before his head turned back toward me.
“Is that… is she yours?” he asked.
“What did Paige mean by that?” I asked.
My father drew in a deep breath before he spoke. “She told me to expect you to be upset. Paige told me that I was walking into a scenario that would probably end with me having no family. She told me to expect no more and no less of this situation than that.”
I felt myself relaxing as my eyes trailed off after Paige and Blithe.
“She’s beautiful,” my father said.
“She is.”
“How old is she?”
“Four,” I said.
“Is she a good kid?”
“From what I’ve seen of her, yes. I just found out about her a month ago.”
“A month ago?” he asked.
“Yep. Her mother died.”
“I’m sorry, Zachary.”
His words hit me like a brick wall, knocking the wind out of my lungs. Did my father just fucking apologize for something?
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“I wanted to see you,” he said.
“No, you didn’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have hired Paige to keep tabs on me. Why are you fucking here when you’re not wanted?”
My father winced at my words like I’d just struck him across the face. At least he knew how it felt now.
“I made some awful decisions in my life,” he said. “And I was hoping I could have a second chance to make the right ones.”
“And what awful decisions did you make?” I asked.
I watched him shuffle his feet and shove his hands into his pockets.
“I chose my business over my family,” he said. “I chose success over my own personal health. I made deals with people I had no business doing deals with, and I spiraled.”
“You spiraled?” I asked.
“I went bankrupt on three different occasions before I became successful. And during those bankruptcies, I drank. I drank to escape, and I drank to forget the terrible man I’d turned into. I promised your mother the world, and all I gave her was debt we couldn’t climb out of and an absent drunk who was making all the wrong decisions to try and do what was right.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” I said.
“When your mother left, I didn’t blame her. I didn’t even recognize my own face when I looked in the mirror. I can’t tell you how many times I thought about swallowing a bullet.”
“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?” I asked.
“No, I’d never ask that of you,” he said.
“Then what are you asking? Because I feel a question coming on, but all I’m getting is bullshit I don’t care about.”
I watched his eyes fall to his shoes before a sniffle crashed hard onto my ears.
“I’d like a chance at reconnecting with you,” he said.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well, it’s true,” he said.
“If you wanted to reconnect, then why didn’t you just reach out? Why hire Paige? Why all the secrets? You lied to her. You manipulated her and made me seem like a criminal in order to check up on me. Why string her along like that? Why put her career on the line? Why not just reach out yourself?”
“Because I was still doing things the wrong way,” he said.
“And you’ve just, what? Had this epiphany on what the right thing is?”
“You can call her ‘epiphany’ instead of ‘Paige.’ Sure.”
My eyes wandered over my father’s shoulder. I saw Paige walking up the stairs with Blithe before the two of them slid down the slide. There was a massive smile on Blithe’s face as Paige threw her head back in laughter. Then the two set out to do it again.
I watched them come down the slide again before I turned my gaze back to my father.
“I fucking adored you,” I said.
My father’s eyes hooked onto mine as my gaze began to water.
“I thought you were the salt of the fucking earth,” I said.
“Zach—”
“Just shut up, okay? Because I’ve got some shit I’d like to say.”
My father closed his mouth, and it gave me some time to gather my thoughts.
“I have good memories of you. Memories of us climbing trees and you teaching me how to swing a bat. I remember waiting up for you on the couch when you stayed at work late, and I knew it was you who carried me to my bed. I’d fall asleep on the couch, and I’d wake up in my bed. And I knew it was you because I’d reek of your cologne.”
“I had to lay it on heavy some days if I didn’t have time to shower,” he said.
“I also remember the first time you came home drunk. I was sleeping on the couch, waiting for you, and instead of you picking me up and taking me upstairs, you rolled me off the couch, told me to get up, and then you vomited onto the carpet.”
My father’s face crinkled up, the memory flooding back to him as tears welled in his eyes again.
“I remember the first time you hit Mom. She was actually jumping in front of me. I was trying to help clean up the table because you told me if I did, you’d watch a movie with me. And I moved as fast as I could, excited at the idea of just sitting with you and watching anything. You were home, and that’s all that fucking mattered. But then I dropped a cup. And it shattered. And you lunged for me.”
I clenched my jaw as a tear rushed down my father’s cheek.
“You tried to hit me because I broke a dish.”
“I’m so sorry, Zach,” he said breathlessly.
“You were a fucking coward. A moron, a coward, and a drunk.”
“Yes, I was,” he said. “But that’s the important thing. ‘Was’ is the important word because I’m not that man anymore.”
“And how the fuck am I supposed to trust that?” I asked. “I have a daughter now. A daughter I am hell bent on raising the right way. A daughter I’m hell bent on doing all the things with that you never did with me. You painted me the perfect portrait of what not to do in this situation. That was all you gave me.”
“Please, son. Please give me another chance.”
Did he just call me son?
“Please give me one more chance to get this right.”
“Give me one good reason,” I said.
Another tear streamed down my father’s cheek before he parted his lips to speak. “Because your daughter deserves a family that can support her.”
His words stopped me in my tracks. My daughter did deserve that. She deserved people that supported her, and with her mother gone and no other family, it was just her and me. But it could be her, myself, and her grandfather.
“I will watch you like a hawk,” I said.
“What?” he asked.
“I will clock every damn thing you do, and if I ever think for a moment that you’re slipping back to the man I knew, the man that pushed me around and made us run and killed my mom, I will end you.”
I watched so many emotions run over his face before he settled on shock. I couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of my mouth, either, but something inside of me was willing to give this a shot. Something I’d buried deep inside and tried to forget about was rising to the surface, and that part of me was excited to have my father back. Any part of my father I could get.
“So you’ll give me another chance?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” I said. “Apparently.”
A smile crossed his cheeks before he closed the distance between us and hugged me. At first, I wanted to push him away.
I wanted to spit in his face and call him every single name I’d called him for the past eighteen years. I wanted to punch him in his jaw and spit on his bleeding body for what he put Mom through. But the smallest part of me I’d allowed to take over threw my arms around his body and held him close.
“I’ve missed you so much, son.”
I felt my jaw trembling as I clapped my father’s back. “You wanna meet her?”
“What?”
“Blithe. My daughter. Would you like to meet your granddaughter?’
His face light up with joy. My eyes caught Paige’s. She was smiling at us as Blithe held her hand, a knowing grin plastered on her face. I wasn’t sure whether to be angry at her for going behind my back or kiss her for making this happen, but there was one thing I did want to try.
I would have to see how my father interacted with Blithe first.