CARTER’S FLIGHT TO Tulsa was due to land about forty-five minutes after the team’s flight landed, so I took my bags to my car and then headed back inside to wait for him. I’d barely made it through security and reached his gate by the time he was skipping down the bridge, holding hands with a flight attendant with his Tow Mater backpack dangling from his free arm. The flight attendant was carrying his suitcase—which was, of course, a Lightning McQueen suitcase, because Mater and McQueen were best buddies, just like Carter and Snoopy.
“Dad!” he shouted. He ran straight into my arms, ignoring the flight attendant’s admonishment that she needed to check my paperwork first to verify that I was the adult legally allowed to pick him up.
I passed the papers over to her with one hand, the other wrapped tightly around my kid because he had a death grip on my neck and obviously had no intention of letting go. She chuckled and took the paperwork from me, giving it a quick once-over.
“Did you have a good flight?” I asked him.
The flight attendant winked at me and handed all the paperwork back with a knowing smile.
“The man next to me let me watch Monsters, Inc. on his iPad,” Carter said.
I took his suitcase from the flight attendant, re-situated Carter’s backpack over both of his shoulders so it wouldn’t fall off him, and grabbed hold of his hand to lead him out of the airport. “That was nice of him,” I said, but I thought to myself that my son’s seatmate was probably just trying to have a little peace and quiet on the flight. Carter could talk anyone’s ear off if he was in the right mood for it. “Did you say thank you?”
Just like that, my son stopped cold. “Oh no. I forgot.” Then he turned around, scanning the sea of faces. He climbed up on an empty chair for a better angle. “I don’t see him!”
“He probably went to baggage claim,” I said, holding out my hand again.
But Carter refused to be swayed. “We gotta go find him.”
I laughed to myself, but I said, “All right. Let’s go see if we can find him. We have to go past baggage claim to get to the car, anyway.” This time, when I reached for Carter’s hand, he took it.
We gathered up his things again and started the long walk to get out of the building. He made up a game as we went, designating where it was safe for me to step and where I might trigger an attack of the monsters from his movie, despite the fact that we were wide awake and the scary monsters were supposed to come out while you were sleeping.
“You need to use the bathroom?” I asked when we were almost at baggage claim, since I spotted a sign out of the corner of my eye. “Might be a while before we can get to another one.”
“I went pee on the plane,” he said, sounding like it was an absolute coup, the best thing he’d ever experienced.
“Got it,” I said, chuckling to myself. “Did you remember to wash your hands?”
“Duh,” he said, but he sounded guilty.
I made a mental note to make him use a wet wipe as soon as we got out to the car. And I’d be using one for myself, too.
We finally reached the baggage claim area. I checked the overhead signs to find where Carter’s flight would be receiving their bags, and then we headed for that carousel.
He craned his neck to see around the crowd of bodies, trying to catch sight of his seatmate. Before I could stop him, he’d climbed onto a chair again so he would have a better vantage point. “There he is,” he said, jumping down and taking off before I could stop him.
With his size, he was able to wind through the sea of bodies with ease, but it was a bit harder for me to make my way through the crowd. I kept my eyes fully trained on my kid, though, and by the time I caught up to him, he was already tugging on a man’s hand.
But when the man turned to him, annoyance creasing his brows, my heart stopped.
Because it was my father.
He was older, grayer, more wrinkled, but he looked every bit as mean. I’d seen that look he was giving my kid more times than I could count.
I shoved the last couple of bodies out of my way and lifted Carter into my arms. “We’ve got to go,” I ground out.
“I just wanna say thank you!” Carter complained.
“Not now,” I bit off.
“Not gonna say hello to your old man?”
“Dad!” Carter squirmed in my arms, trying to get free, but I only held on tighter. Almost so tight I would hurt him. I had to force myself to loosen my grip, because the only person I wanted to hurt in this situation was my father.
As calm as I could force myself to be, I said, “I don’t have anything to say to you. You’d better stay away from me. And you stay the fuck away from my kid, too. You got that? What the hell are you even doing here, anyway?”
“Got a call from a lawyer,” he said. “Wanted me to come down and testify about how you like to tell stories. How a couple of disciplinary spankings because you mouthed off at me and your mother got blown up into me supposedly beating you, so you’re probably telling these same stories now about some chick. Your teammate’s girlfriend, right? You sleeping with her? That what this is about? Wanted to screw some other man’s girl, so you felt the need to make him out to be the bad guy? We all know you’ve got a history of telling flat-out lies just so you can get attention.”
I don’t know how I mustered the necessary restraint, but I carried my squirming son and his suitcase out into the muggy Tulsa air without putting my fist through that bastard’s face.
“Dad?” Carter said once we were outside. He sounded scared.
Fuck, but that son of a bitch had made me scare my kid.
I set Carter down on his feet and dropped to my knees so I’d be closer to his level. “I’m sorry about that, buddy.”
“Is that man your father? Is he my grandfather?”
“He is,” I said slowly, because I was never going to lie to my son. Not if I could avoid it.
“Why did he say that? Why did he say you lied?”
I looked him in the eye, fighting a war in my own mind. How much should I tell him? He was just a kid. I wanted him to stay a kid, and not have to experience so many of the shittier aspects of the world we lived in. But Carter had seen what Hayes had done to Natalie, so he’d already been exposed to so many things I’d rather he never saw. I owed him the truth.
“You remember how Miss Natalie’s boyfriend hurt her?” I started.
He nodded.
“Well, my father used to hurt me the same way.”
“But he was your dad!” Carter said, outraged and shocked.
“I know it. But not all dads are good. Sometimes, people do really awful things to other people, to the same ones they should love the most.”
He sniffled, but he reached both arms around my neck and gave me an enormous bear hug. “I’m glad you’re my daddy,” he said, his voice muffled in my neck.
I picked him up, got to my feet, and carried his Lightning McQueen suitcase since the handle wasn’t anywhere near long enough for me to bother with the rollers. “I’m glad I’m your daddy, too,” I said.
But now I had one more thing to worry about. Because Hayes, the rat bastard, was trying to discredit me.