Present Day

“One more chapter, please, please, please?” Abi begs from beside me, giving me her best doe-eyed stare as I insert the hard-plastic bookmark and slap the cover closed.

“It’s late, sweetie,” I tell her, brushing her long and mussed blonde hair behind her ear. “Can’t have you be all tired and grumpy tomorrow.”

The camping lantern fills the tent with a muted light, and below us, the air mattress gives a deep, plastic groan with every move from my fidgety children. From where he’s lying in the crook of my arm, Elliott puffs his cheeks out, imitating the swooshing sound effect I just made while reading a chapter from George’s Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl—a book that’s way beyond his comprehension level, and so the noises are a necessity to keep his attention.

“Are we fishing tomorrow?” asks Freya, who’s lying on my other side, distaste dripping from every syllable.

“Grandpa will be for sure. And you better hope he catches something, because we didn’t bring anything else to eat for dinner.”

Freya gapes at me. “Seriously?”

“Uh-huh.” I have no qualms about sticking to the fib. It won’t hurt her to wait until tomorrow to find out that she’ll be having hot dogs and s’mores.

“Ugh!” she whines and crosses her arms over her face, playing up her mental anguish.

“Mommy would read another chapter,” Abi says pertly while I tighten my hold on my wiggly worm of a toddler.

“No, she wouldn’t,” Freya pipes in, her arms falling away from her face.

“Well,” says Abi, eyes throwing daggers at her big sister, “Daddy will because he’s better than Mommy.”

I manage to cover up my snort-chuckle with a cough. While my oldest daughter tends to be guileless and direct, Abi is a different story. Underneath that sweet and easygoing exterior lurks a master manipulator who would put Machiavelli to shame. It makes me proud and terrified all at once.

“Daddy’s definitely not better than Mommy,” I say, because not talking shit about each other in front of the kids is one thing we’ve actually agreed on. “And I'm not reading any more tonight.”

While the girls groan with disappointment, Elliott’s had enough of being restrained, and he expresses it with a series of angry grunts and whimpers. Relenting, I let him go, and he sits up on the mattress, finds a sleeping bag zipper, and starts fiddling with it.

My hope that Elliott would be asleep by the time I finished reading—or at least close to it—dwindled fast. He’s still alert and chipper, and I’m clenching my teeth, visions of his missing pacifier dancing before my mind’s eye, taunting and teasing me.

God damn you, Paige.

I bend my elbows to push off so I can get up, but Freya stops me by throwing her arm over me and putting her head on my shoulder.

“Can we come live with you all the time, Daddy?” she asks, her voice pleading and pitiful.

“Yeah, can we?” Abi chimes in. “Please, please, please?”

My chest constricts, feeling for a second like it's going to cave in. Every so often, Freya asks me this or something like it. I've figured out that it tends to coincide with her butting heads with Paige, but that doesn't make it any less gut-wrenching.

“I'm sorry.” I stroke the top of her head—a head that was once so tiny it fit in the palm of my hand, and now it’s much bigger and full of thoughts and questions and complicated emotions. “You know I’m at work too much.”

“There’s before- and after-school programs.” Her voice becomes muffled as she buries her face against my T-shirt.

“Yeah, but then how would you get to your Girl Scout meetings? And Abi to her dance classes?” Pulling her closer and squeezing her bony body as hard as I dare, I add, “Besides, you’d miss Mommy.”

“No, we wouldn’t,” Freya spits out.

“Nuh-uh,” agrees Abi almost immediately, because her big sister is her hero and she always agrees with Freya…unless they’re bickering about something.

“Why can’t you just move back home?” Freya asks.

A thickness fills my throat, pressure swelling behind my eyes. I've answered that before as well. Never gets any easier, though.

It takes me several moments of swallowing and blinking before I manage to grind out my standard response. “Because your mom and I aren’t friends anymore, remember? So it’s just better if we don’t live together.”

The only indication I get from Freya that she heard me is the clenching of her fist against my side. But Abigail pushes up on her elbow and puts her little hand on my cheek.

“You just say sorry, Daddy.” She frowns at me like she can’t believe I don’t know this already. “Then you’ll be friends again.”

A smile tugs at my mouth. The solemn wisdom of a five-year-old.

“I wish it was that easy, sweetie,” I tell her, and I’m speaking the goddamned truth. Because if sorry was good enough for Paige, I wouldn’t be lying here all choked up with my kids clinging to me like they’re afraid I’ll disappear if they let go. Because for the past year, I’ve become a fucking novelty in their lives.

Which, admittedly, is my own fault. I made the choice to move into the city, taking the gamble that if I removed myself as much as possible, Paige would realize she didn’t actually want to be more or less a single mom. I was hoping she’d figure out it was better to have me around to help than not.

It was a calculated move, and it backfired big-time. Should’ve known my stubborn wife would take it as a challenge.

“Time to go to sleep,” I say briskly, giving myself a mental shake before extricating myself from all of the small limbs on the bed, pushing down to the end, and getting to my feet.

Turning back, I find Elliot crawling after me, and I manage to catch him just as he starts to tumble off the mattress.

“Hey! Where are you going?” I chide playfully, lifting him up so I can carry him around and back up to the head of the air bed.

“Nooooo!” he protests in his shrill, seconds-away-from-a-full-meltdown voice as I deposit him back on the mattress in between Freya and Abi, who are both glaring at us, never happy to share a bed with him, even when he’s not throwing a tantrum.

“Stay here with your sisters, okay, buddy?” In one hurried motion, I unzip his sleeping bag all the way and drape it over him, tucking in the sides. Because I don’t hate myself enough to try and actually wrestle him inside that thing right now.

“Binky,” he wails, his face reddening, and he starts shoving and kicking at the sleeping bag. “Binky!”

“He wants his binky,” Abi explains, because she’s helpful that way.

I have to close my eyes to keep them from rolling back into my head. Deep breath. I’m calm and in control—and not fantasizing about horrible things happening to my almost-ex-wife.

When I open my eyes again, my boy has pushed the sleeping bag away and found his way back to the end of the bed. Edging around the mattress, I scoop him up, ignoring his squirming and wailing protests.

So, two options. I can lie back down and force his little body to remain in the horizontal position until he falls asleep and then try to sneak away without waking him up.

Or I can be kind to myself. It takes me only a split second to choose the route that will allow me to crack open one of the bottles of Modelo from the six-pack my dad put in the trunk of his car.

“All right,” I say, hoisting Elliott higher up on my hip, “come on. Let’s say good night to your sisters.”

“Why does he get to stay up?” Freya grumbles as I bend down to kiss her forehead.

“He doesn’t.” I move over to give Abi her peck. “Love you. Go to sleep.”

After grabbing Elliott’s sleeping bag and flicking off the lantern, I exit the tent, pulling the zipper down with my free hand before carrying him over to where my dad sits in front of the flames in the fire ring, his dog lying by his feet.

“She picked a hell of a time to take the pacifier away from him,” I say as I settle down in the mesh camping chair, bracing myself for the little boy in my arms putting up a fight. But instead he sinks against me, his head tucked under my chin, and I wrap the sleeping bag around him.

“Doubt there’s ever a good time for that kind of thing.” My dad laces his hands behind his head, watching me with a neutral expression.

Acknowledging his statement with only a grunt, I nod at where the six-pack sits by his chair. “Hand me one of those, would you?”

Plucking out a bottle, he pops the cap with the opener. Holding it out to me, he says, “Asked Paige today about that divorce case you’re both working.”

“Yeah?” I accept the beer bottle with my left hand, eyeing the six-pack, which now contains five bottles, wondering if today is the day my dad stops being a teetotaler—and knowing it’s not going to happen. “What’d she say?”

“She’s not happy about it.”

Right. I probably shouldn’t have told him about the case, because I feel a lecture coming on. “She’s free to withdraw at any time.” With a shrug, I take a swig of beer, the rich and honey-like flavor washing pleasantly over my taste buds.

“Come on, now.” My dad’s weathered face looks grim in the muted light of the flickering flames. “Look, I get that you’re dealing with an important client and that you can’t bow out, but Paige being opposing counsel doesn’t mean you have a blank check to be a dick to her.”

I clench my jaw. “I like how you assume any trouble here is my doing.”

“No,” he responds with a roll of his eyes, “I’ve been around you two enough to know that the shit flies from both directions. But you have the upper hand here, Logan. You’re the one with an established career and a steady paycheck. She has a lot more to lose than you do.”

Pressing my lips together, I fix my gaze on the red-orange glow in the fire ring, the heat from it warming my face. “She’s the one pushing for me to give up the case. I told her there won’t be any problems. Not sure what else I’m supposed to do here.”

My dad leans forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “She walked away from her career for your family. She still depends on you, and don’t think I don’t know just how easy it is for you to keep that the status quo. I’ve got a pretty good idea of how much an equity partner at a firm your size pulls in a year. So everything of Paige’s and the kids’ that you’re still paying for? It’s a drop in the bucket for you.”

Shooting him a bitter smile, I say, “Funny, here I thought you were proud of me. That’s why you put every extra penny you had into my college fund all those years, right? And you won’t even let me pay you back.”

“That’s not the point,” he says in that low, menacing tone that always gave me a stomach ache as a kid. “I don’t want your money, son. I wasn’t making an investment for myself. I was giving you options. I did the best I could, and I know I made mistakes. Every parent does. But I’m pretty goddamned sure I didn’t raise you to be a bully.”

His words sink like a rock into my stomach. Is he right? Am I bullying Paige?

No. She’s the one who told me to leave. She’s the one who’s trying to take my kids away. She’s not a victim; she’d never allow herself to be.

And still…

“I just want her back.” Letting the confession slip out feels like tearing a piece of flesh from my chest, leaving me exposed and in agony. This is what’s been churning at the back of my mind since my session with Sharon this morning.

After things having been shitty between Paige and me for what seemed like forever, moving out last summer actually felt like relief. But even as I’ve missed my kids and my old life, and even though I can’t get Paige out of my head and the idea of touching a woman who’s not her is about as appealing as eating dirt, I guess I’d convinced myself that I didn’t really want her back. That we’re better off apart than together.

I was lying to myself.

She's my wife. She and the kids are my family. I want her back. I want them all back so much that the wanting is like a feverish pain—a real, bone-deep, take-my-breath-away kind of pain.

My dad heaves a ten-ton sigh, his expression tight with worry and resignation. “How can I help?”

“I don’t know.” Putting my bottle in the cup holder, I run my hand down my face. “With Paige and me, there’s nothing. And you’re already helping a lot with the kids.”

“Well, what about you?”

“I’m okay.” I shrug, trying to reassure him.

“Even if that was true,” he says, falling back in his chair again, “which I sincerely fucking doubt, I'd like for you to be more than just okay.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I pick up my beer again. Staring pensively at the flames that are slowly shrinking to embers, I tighten my hold on Elliott. His warm little body is dead weight in my lap, and I can feel his inhalations and exhalations against my chest, can hear his shallow sleep-breathing.

Calling it the easiest route to bring him out here and let him fall asleep in my arms was another lie to myself. I need to hold him close just as much as he does. He was just a baby when Paige kicked me out, and he’s the one who’s been changing the most from day to day since.

When I talk to my girls, they tell me how they’ve been, what they’ve been doing, what they’re worried about, and what excites them. With Elliott, there’s just a void. Yeah, he knows who I am. He calls me Daddy. But does that even mean anything to him? He doesn’t remember me doing just about everything for him the first couple of weeks of his life, while Paige was recovering from his birth. Or how I was the one who carried and rocked him all night when he wasn’t feeling well after his four-month shots. To him, I might as well be a favorite uncle.

That’ll change as he grows, of course, but I’ll still be just an occasional presence in their lives when I want to and should be a constant.

Why would Paige think I’ll just roll over and allow her to take them away? My job demands a lot of my time and attention, true, and yeah, I haven’t always made my family the priority they should be, but I haven’t been absent that much. I’ve been there. I also carried a screaming and colicky Baby Freya for hours every night. I’ve been just as worried as Paige about Abi’s unexplained rashes. And I’m pretty sure I still have gray hairs from Elliott’s dramatic and frightening entrance into this world, what with the emergency C-section because the cord was wrapped around his neck.

I love these three tiny humans we made just as much as she does, god dammit.

How could anyone walk away from their kids?

And just like that, I know why this issue infuriates me so much.

And it hits me how to answer my dad’s question.

Looking at him again, I open my mouth to say it out loud, but the words get stuck in my throat, and I clamp my mouth back shut.

“What?” my old man says with a frown, because of course he noticed. Can’t slip anything past Mike McKinley.

“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head. I shouldn’t ask this of him. It’s wrong—selfish, inconsiderate—and I’m pretty sure I’ve already exceeded my quota when it comes to stuff like that. I’ve always known my dad will do pretty much anything for me, and I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve taken advantage of it in the past.

In the not-even-distant past.

“Just spit it out,” he says in an exasperated tone. “Jesus.”

I blow out a heavy breath, indecision tugging me to and fro. He’s a grown-up. Maybe it’s time he learned how to say no? That’s a paper-thin, piss-poor excuse, I know, but I need this. And maybe he does, too.

So I draw in a deep breath, clenching the beer bottle hard while I screw up my courage. And then I let the words tumble out. “I want you to find Mom.”

My dad’s face grows pale and frozen, his whole body going so still he could pass for a corpse. For what feels like an eternity, he just sits there like that—mute, arrested, and unblinking—while my heart starts to beat painfully against my ribs.

Yeah, I’ve definitely gone too far this time, asked too much. This isn’t something he’ll do, not even for me.

“Logan…” His voice sounds so tired. As he squeezes his eyes shut, pinches the bridge of his nose, and slowly shakes his head, I’m pretty sure I’d sacrifice a limb—or maybe just a finger or a toe—for an Undo button.

Fuck, I’m an asshole sometimes.

“So—” His voice cracks, so he clears his throat and sighs. At his feet, his dog also heaves a big, snuffling sigh. “Say I find her. Then what?”

I’m searching for the right words. Forget it won’t work, because he won’t. I should just roll with it and be honest. “Then I’ll have a choice.”

I’ll get to decide if I want to see her. To ask her the questions that I’ve spent the past twenty-eight years obsessing, agonizing, and making myself miserable over. Because apparently no matter how many times I tell myself that she left and never, not once, cared enough to contact me—and so I shouldn’t even want anything to do with her—it hasn’t worked.

My dad is rubbing his hand over his mouth, staring down at the ground, looking deep in thought. Not happy thoughts. His wife abandoned him, most likely for another man and a new life, and he’s never tried to find out where she went. And now I’m asking him to change that.

He’s spent his entire adult life tracking people down. If anyone can find her, it’s him.

The silence between us lingers, heavy and dark. The flames pop and crackle in the fire ring, spitting sparks in the air, and I turn my head skyward to watch the stars that are so much more brilliant and plentiful out here than in the city. I always hoped I could get Paige to enjoy this as much as I do, but that turned out to be a lost cause.

I never felt like I loved her despite her hatred of nature, though. That’s not how you truly love someone, despite their faults. Because without them, they’d be a different person altogether.

“You’d be on your own,” he says finally.

“I know,” I don’t hesitate to reply, because I do. He doesn’t ever want to see her again—and I don’t blame him, I guess.

There’s another loaded pause, and then I turn my gaze to him again just as he nods and grimly says, “All right.”

“Thank you,” I say quietly.

And I am grateful.

But I don’t feel good about it. What’s done is done, though, right?

“I gotta take a piss,” my dad announces, pushing up out of his chair. “Go put that boy to bed already.”

As he walks off with Baldwin lumbering after him, I somehow manage to scoot and shuffle up from my own chair with Elliott still in my arms. Treading carefully, I carry him back to the tent, digging my phone out of my pocket and using it as a flashlight.

Seconds later, I’ve successfully placed his chubby little body on the air mattress in between his sleeping sisters. With the weak light from my phone screen illuminating their three snuggled-up shapes, I stand there transfixed by a sudden sense of emotional vertigo.

How did I end up here? There they are, my kids. Sometimes their existence seems almost surreal. Three small human beings with minds of their own and their own personalities, all of them looking a bit like me and a bit like her.

I tend to think of my life as Before Paige and After Paige, and I’ve assumed the After part started the day I first met her and she and Bethany Wang were gossiping about me in the break room.

But the more I consider it, the more obvious it is that the After didn’t begin until months later. The Christmas party on that over-the-top yacht? Maybe.

More likely, though, it was New Year’s Eve that ended the Before era of my life. If that night hadn’t happened, I would’ve decided Paige was serious about not wanting anything to do with me, and that would’ve been the end of it. I’d be somewhere else right now, with someone else, and these three small humans wouldn’t exist.

And that is a hell of a sobering realization.

I’m not pleading guilty to Pop’s charge of bullying her right now, but I definitely did more or less bully her that night. Or at the very least, I manipulated her to get what I wanted.

Maybe that was an unfortunate start for us, an omen. Not that I regret it or think it was a mistake. But if I’m looking for a defining moment to illustrate how far I was willing to go to make her mine? That’d be it.

New Year’s Eve.

In the file room.