Fool me twice, fuck you
present
I’m supposed to have my kids for a week during Christmas holiday according to the current custody arrangement—pick them up Christmas Eve and drop them off New Year’s Day.
After Miranda’s Thanksgiving stunt, I don’t trust her to not run off with them again.
Which is why it’s December twenty-first and I’ve just pulled up to the gate in front of her house.
Fool me once, shame on me.
Fool me twice, fuck you, Miranda.
I smile as I think the thought and dial my phone.
The housekeeper answers on the third ring, out of breath like she’s run to the phone. “Buckingham residence.”
“May I please speak to Kai?”
“Hold,” she replies and sets the phone down on a hard surface.
Kai picks up the phone seconds later. “Dad?”
Everything inside me is smiling, because not only is his voice in my ear, but I know the rest of him is inside the house in front of me. “Hey, buddy. Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure,” he sounds confused. This isn’t how our typical conversations go.
“I want you to hang up the phone and get Rory and Kira and walk out to the mailbox together. I sent you all a surprise, and I’m sure it arrived this morning.”
“Can we just talk for a few minutes first?” Kai asks, he sounds hurt I’m rushing to end this call.
“I promise we’ll talk in a few minutes. I’ll call back after you check the mail.”
“Okay,” he says still sounding disappointed. Gifts, material things, have never meant much to Kai.
“Talk to you soon. Love you.”
“Love you, Dad.”
What’s most likely a minute at most, feels like an hour, before the front door opens and I see my kids.
My kids.
I’m standing in front of my car, one hand wrapped tightly around the decorative iron bars on the gate and one wrapped tightly around the grip of my cane, both steadying me. I want to scream their names, but my throat is closing in on itself with overwhelming emotion. I knew I would be happy to see them. I had no idea it would be so overpowering. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. It doesn’t. It’s more, so much more. This is like witnessing their birth all over again. I’m in awe. They’ve grown so much over the past few months. And while I want to mourn the time I’ve lost with them, I can’t bring myself to it. My happiness won’t allow it. It only allows the present, everything else is irrelevant.
They haven’t noticed me yet. Kai and Rory are arguing, or more accurately Rory is arguing with Kai, and Kai is ignoring him watching the ground pass beneath his feet. Kira is trailing behind. She’s still in her pajamas even though it’s almost noon. She looks tired. Until she sees me waving at them and then all hell breaks loose. It’s probably the most noise that’s filled the air on this street since I was here last. “Daddy!” she screams.
Kai and Rory stop walking at the sound of her scream, and she races past them. Their delay to process what’s happening is only a second or two before they’re running across the lawn after her.
Kai reaches the gate first and enters a code into a keypad to open it. The gate retracts slowly, and they all three try to push through, unsuccessfully, at the same time. Within seconds, they’re all bundled together in my arms. Kira’s arms are wrapped around my right leg, Rory’s arms are waist height, and Kai’s are chest height. I almost forgot what this felt like.
When I look up, the housekeeper is walking toward us like she’s on a mission, but she’s smiling. “You full of surprises, Mr. McIntyre.”
I decide now is a good time to attempt a truce, so I smile in return. “Hi, Rosa.” This is the first time I’ve ever called her by name. I only know it because the kids say it so often.
“What you doing here?” she asks, but her tone isn’t confrontational like the last time we did this.
“I needed to see my kids.”
“They need to see you too,” she says quietly as if the admission is a betrayal of her employer that she refuses to contain, but doesn’t want anyone to hear.
Rosa ushers all of us inside with the practiced efficiency of someone who’s served others for years.
I call Miranda’s cell. She doesn’t answer, so I leave a message.
Rosa calls Miranda’s cell. She doesn’t answer, so Rosa leaves a message.
Rosa prepares lunch and feeds us while we wait out Miranda’s ire. She tells me it’s a traditional dish her mother taught her to make when she was a young girl in Mexico: potatoes, onions, and tomatoes, inside homemade flour tortillas. I’m shocked as I watch Kira eat it.
Rosa is firm with my kids, but there’s a gentleness that suggests she enjoys being with them. I can see it in her eyes when she watches them, and they don’t know it. She’s fond of them. She’s bonded with them. She’s protective of them. I’m guessing she’s old enough to be their grandmother. I’m glad my kids have her here.
Hours later, Loren arrives home and Miranda isn’t far behind. She releases the kids to me days early, at Loren’s prompting, and we pack their bags and leave on our very own Christmas adventure. I don’t know where we’re going yet, and I don’t care as long as we’re all together.