Chapter Twenty-Seven
Reed
Before Trinity came around, I used to take Angela on trips whenever I had my annual leave. We’d fly to fancy places and stay in even fancier hotels. Sometimes, when I had a full weekend off, I’d take her on mini vacations in our own city. She was always the one asking me to take her away. She’d find the places and email me the ideas, and I didn’t mind taking her because I knew that it would make her happy. And yet, looking back, I wasn’t sure that I had ever truly made her happy. Angela never got excited about things the way that Kennedy did. It was Friday, our last day in Florida, and ever since Monday, Kennedy had been enthusiastic. She and Trinity had enjoyed every single moment of Disney World, and I’d never seen anyone more appreciative than she was.
That morning she was fast asleep. It was a bit later than we had gotten up on the previous days, and I think she was just exhausted from all the running around. I turned to look at her. She looked beautiful when she was asleep, so peaceful. And her red hair looked even more vibrant against the white pillowcase. It was hard not to feel happy waking up to her pretty face. She must’ve felt me watching her because her eyes fluttered open.
“Are you watching me sleep?” she asked.
“I am.”
“That’s creepy.”
I chuckled. “I can’t help myself. You’re beautiful. I can’t believe I get to wake up to your pretty face every day.”
“Ah, that’s a nice thing for you to say. Nobody feels great in the morning, so I like these compliments. I can’t believe it’s our last day. It’s gone so fast.”
Just then Trinity came flying into the room and jumped into the bed with us. I burst out laughing.
“Morning, monkey,” I said.
“Monkey?”
“You’re like a monkey today, jumping and running like a wild thing.”
She giggled. “I like monkeys.”
“So, it’s our last day today,” I said to her.
“Aww. I wish we could stay forever,” she said and sighed dramatically.
“Actually, so do I,” I said. “So, how about for our last day we go and spend the day on the beach? We can take a picnic of snacks and drinks with us.”
“Yes!” Trinity screamed. “Can we go now?”
I chuckled. “Let’s get ourselves some breakfast, and then we can come back up and get all our stuff.”
At breakfast, one of the hotel staff overheard us talking about the beach and how we didn’t really have much to bring other than our own suits. The man offered to lend us a big umbrella, a large beach blanket, and a bag filled with refreshments.
“Are you serious?” I asked him. “That’s amazing.”
“It’s actually one of the services we offer here,” the man said. “Just come to the reception afterward and I’ll have it all ready for you.”
Kennedy sighed happily when he walked away. “Can we please live here?”
At the beach, we put down the blanket and put up the umbrella to sit under it. Kennedy looked beautiful in a dark green bikini. She was rubbing cream all over her body, making her pale skin look even whiter. When she caught me looking, she laughed.
“Trust me,” she said. “If I don’t put this on, I’ll burn like crazy. Unlike you. I bet you don’t even have to put cream on.”
“I do, but mostly because I’m not used to sitting in the sun like this. Thank goodness for this umbrella. Trin,” I said, “come here so I can put some sunscreen on you.”
I rubbed the lotion onto Trinity and laughed as she went running toward the ocean.
“Oh dear, I better go watch her,” I said.
I ran off to play with Trinity, but she had already made friends with two other kids her age. They were talking and laughing as if they had known each other for a long time. It had literally taken them two seconds to start interacting with one another. The two girls looked like sisters, and they seemed delighted to have Trinity join them.
“Can Trinity come and play with us? We’re building sandcastles,” they said.
“Well . . .”
“It’s fine,” a woman said beside me. “She can stay. I’m Hannah by the way.”
“Hi Hannah, I’m Reed. I’m sitting over there with the redhead in case you need me. Thanks so much!”
“No problem. Isn’t it amazing how quickly kids make friends?” she said.
I laughed. “I was thinking the same thing. Are you sure you don’t mind, though?”
“Of course not. I’ll be here for a while, anyway. We only just got here. It’s nice for them to have someone to play with. And my husband should be here any second too, so she’s definitely safe with us here.”
“Okay, well thank you. Trin, you be good, okay? We’re right over there if you need us.”
“Okay, Dad,” she said without even looking at me. I noticed that I’d become ‘Dad’ and not ‘Daddy’ in front of the two girls. I sighed, she was growing up in front of my eyes.
I left Trinity with the two girls and went to join Kennedy under the umbrella again.
“What was that about?” she asked.
“Trin has made some friends. They’re building sandcastles, and the mother said she doesn’t mind Trinity being here. Thankfully, we can see them from here. And it means I get a bit of alone time with you, which is always a good thing.”
Kennedy chuckled and looked around at the swarm of people on the beach. “Well, not exactly alone time.”
I smiled. “Hey, I take what I can get.”
“So, did you go to the beach much growing up?” Kennedy asked.
I thought back to my childhood. We had never been the beach-going kind of family. This was probably why I had been so looking forward to going today. It felt so unusual for me to be here, shirt off, feet in the sand. It wasn’t something that I had experienced many times in my life. I lay down on my stomach next to Kennedy.
“No, we weren’t really like that growing up. Maybe we went when my mother was still around, but I don’t really remember, to be honest. All I remember was my father wanting to ride his bike. He used to take us to the motorcycle club when we were little and tell us that one day we would all be a part of it. That was really all I remember as a kid—my father telling us about bikes and trying to teach us as much as he could about them. I wasn’t at all interested of course, but I pretended to be. I don’t think my father even noticed.”
“Ah yes, I remember you told me about the club. That was where you got the nickname, Moneymaker.”
I groaned. “Worst nickname ever.”
“Hey, there are worse things in life than making money. I think it’s a good nickname. So, not much of a beach-going family, I take it?”
“Not at all. And to be honest, I didn’t spend a lot of time with my family anyway. I mean, they were always there, but I always felt separate from them. I was always the black sheep around my brothers. You’ll understand when you meet them. They’re smooth talkers, popular guys. They would talk, and people would listen, and they could charm anyone with just a smile. Brady was a little different, he was a bit of a loner, but not in the same way as me. All I ever knew in life was how to be smart. While they were all going out on dates, or working hard, or doing manual work, I was sitting with my nose in a book.”
Kenney smiled. “There’s something incredibly sexy about that, you know.”
“If you really think that then I believe I have officially found the coolest girl in the world.”
“I do believe that. I sometimes think that the kids who have to go through a bit of a struggle in life grow up to be the best kind. Not that you want your kids to struggle of course, but it does make them appreciate life later on. That’s probably why you’re so amazing, and why Trinity will be even more so.”
I smiled. “That’s a nice way of looking at it. So, tell me about your life, Ken. I’ve been wanting to ask you this all week but didn’t want to do it in front of Trinity. She said you were an orphan?”
Kennedy turned to face me. The sun was shining on her face when she looked up, so she reached for her sunglasses and put them on.
“Oh, it’s not a big deal. I grew up without my parents. They died when I was very young, and I don’t remember them at all. I was moved from foster home to foster home.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. The thought of Kennedy as a little girl getting shipped between families broke my heart.
She shook her head. “Don’t be. It’s all I knew anyway. It was normal for me. And anyway, it wasn’t all that bad. Sometimes I got put with amazing families. I got to experience different family lives and different cultures. It was interesting.”
“You’re amazing; you know that?”
She laughed. “No, I’m not. I promise you; it’s all so normal to me. Sure, I wished I had a family, but there was nothing I could do about it. And I really did meet some amazing people along the way.”
“Are you still in touch with any of them?”
“A few. It’s easy now with email and Facebook. We don’t see each other as much as I’d like, but it’s okay.”
“Trinity is lucky to have you, you know.”
She grinned. “You know, Reed, you’re an amazing father. I know you doubt yourself, but you shouldn’t. I’ve been around a lot of families, and I’ve seen both sides of the coin. I’ve seen what’s like for kids to have good fathers and kids to have bad fathers. You’re one of the good guys. You shouldn’t beat yourself up over it.”
I sat up and looked over at Trinity, who was still playing with the girls. They’d created some sort of tower out of the wet sand, and I could see her talking confidently to everyone around her. She looked happy. I thought about what Angela had said to me about me not being a good father, and I wasn’t so sure that I believed her anymore. Trinity seemed like a happy child, and I’d done the best that I could with her. I lay back down and kissed Kennedy on the forehead.
“Thanks for saying that.”