Chapter Eighteen
Sitting in a coffee shop, I tore tiny pieces off an empty sugar packet and tried not to stare at the door. I hadn’t seen much of my kids recently—they’d been busy with their lives, and I’d been busy restarting mine. We kept in regular contact via e-mail and texts, but hadn’t had a lot of opportunity to actually see each other.
Now, I was waiting for my daughter to meet me for lunch, and I was nervous as fuck. More so than I’d been the day Becky and I had sat her and her brothers down to let them know we were separating. That day, I’d been pretty certain how things would go. There’d be some shock. Some questions. They’d probably need some time to process it, and maybe there’d be some anger or some tears. But they were resilient, always had been, and I knew they’d cope with this somehow. We’d all move on together—well, sort of—and we’d all be all right eventually.
And I’d been right. There’d been differing degrees of surprise. My eldest and youngest hugged us both before they left. My middle son didn’t, but that wasn’t unusual for him. In the days that followed, they’d approached us with questions. How long had this been going on? What happened next? Were we okay? It had certainly been a shock, and they were no more thrilled about it than I was, but they were adjusting. Yeah, we’d all be all right. Just as I’d guessed.
Today, as I ignored my untouched cup of coffee and kept mutilating the wrinkled sugar packet, I had no idea how things would play out.
I dropped the remains of the sugar packet beside my coffee and checked my phone. April was late, but that wasn’t unusual. I was just impatient today because I wanted to get this over with.
Maybe I should’ve asked all three kids to be here for this, but I didn’t have the courage for that quite yet. One at a time. And it was a no-brainer that I’d talk to her before her brothers because though I loved all my kids equally, I had very different relationships with them.
My youngest son Kurt and I had a much better relationship now than we had during his mid-teens. He’d been rebellious, as teenagers are, and there was a year or so in there where I was pretty sure he didn’t say two words to me or his mother that weren’t laced with “you fucking idiots” or “you’re making my life hell.” Somewhere around the beginning of his senior year, he’d leveled out, and by the time he graduated, the hormone-induced insanity seemed to have lifted, and the smiling young man was back.
When he was a kid, we’d hiked every trail in Western Washington. I’d carried him on my back until he could walk, and then there was no stopping him, and we kept up our regular hikes until he reached that phase where he wanted nothing to do with his asshole parents. This past summer, though, as we got him ready for college, we’d started again, and we’d promised to make a point of hiking whenever we could during the school year. We were even planning to go camping again come summer.
With Mark, my older son, I had a weird relationship these days. We weren’t hostile, but we weren’t all that close either. He’d been through some depression in his teenage years, and he was the most introverted of my three kids, so it was hard to crack through the walls he seemed to have put up around himself. I made a point of getting together with him as often as possible, texting him, e-mailing him, but he wasn’t one to initiate contact. He was a closed book if there ever was one. I was thankful he still saw his therapist regularly—at least that meant he was talking to someone.
I made a mental note to shoot him a text later today and see how he was doing. I had no idea how the divorce was affecting him—as per usual, he hadn’t shown many cards.
But this afternoon, I was meeting his sister, because of the three of them, I’d definitely been closest to her over the last few years. They say there comes a point when your kid becomes your friend, and April and I had absolutely reached that point. We talked frequently and candidly, and if I couldn’t tell her about this, then I couldn’t tell anyone.
It hadn’t always been that way. We’d had a rather turbulent relationship all through her teen years. She’d been the hardheaded troublemaker, the reason we’d made a handful of trips to the police station in the middle of the night, and the one whose taste in boyfriends had been the source of many, many shouting matches from the time she was about fifteen. Looking back, it was no wonder she was convinced we were going to lose our minds when she told us she was pregnant. We’d even threatened her about that very thing before.
“The way you’re going,” we’d told her time and again, “you’re going to wind up pregnant before you graduate. And how exactly are you going to take care of a baby? Because that will be up to you, not us.” I’d known it was coming sooner or later, and was both angry at her irresponsibility and frustrated at my helplessness to stop the inevitable.
Then came the moment three months before she turned seventeen when she’d looked at me with tear-filled eyes and said in a tiny voice, “Daddy, I’m pregnant.”
Instantly, I’d regretted ever threatening to leave her on her own if she found herself in this situation, and instead of shouting at her, I’d hugged her tight and promised her over and over that everything would be okay, and we’d help her any way she needed. It was the first time I’d seen her cry since she’d broken her arm when she was twelve.
The next year was hell for all of us. Stress and hormones were a vicious combination, and her pregnancy was a rough one. Her idiot boyfriend didn’t last through her second trimester before he walked out and signed away his rights. The night my granddaughter was born, there were more than a few moments when we weren’t sure she or April were going to make it, but thank God, they were both all right. Over the next year, Becky and I helped with the endless days and longer nights, and it was during that time that April and I really bonded for the first time. Even once she got back on her feet, finished school, and ultimately married the saint I called my son-in-law, we stayed close, and that hadn’t changed to this day.
Now it was my turn to confess something to her, and hope like hell she didn’t get angry. I wondered if what I felt now was what she’d felt that night seven years ago.
I can’t change this. I need you. Please don’t stop loving me.
Guilt twisted in my stomach. I still regretted ever making her feel that way. We’d only been trying to get her back on the straight and narrow, but the thought of my little girl ever being afraid I wouldn’t love her anymore or that I’d abandon her—even after all this time, I still felt like the worst father ever. Especially now that I was scared to death she was going to hate me for the confession I needed to make.
The coffee shop door opened, and what little appetite I’d had was gone.
Here we go.
From across the room, she smiled, and as she came closer, I stood.
It amazed me how much she was looking like her mother these days. Ever since she’d had the baby, her features had been just slightly rounder, and her pregnancy had left her straight hair in tight curls that had never relaxed. Just like Becky. Sometimes it was weird to realize my kid was a mother herself now.
When the hell did you grow up, and when did I get this old?
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “My car keys grew legs again.”
I chuckled. Yep, just like her mom.
We hugged briefly and then took our seats. She ordered coffee, and we made small talk, catching up on work and life in general.
“How’s Kayla doing?” I asked. “Is she liking school?”
“Oh God, yes.” She smiled. “Put her in a room full of other kids and construction paper, and it’s a wonder we ever get her out of there.”
Chuckling again, I said, “That sounds like her. Where is she today?”
“Nathan took her to a playdate, and then they’re going to the zoo, so they’ll probably both be sound asleep when I get home.”
I smiled. Nathan was the only father Kayla had ever known, and he was the father I’d aspired to be when I was raising my own kids. He was also exactly the kind of spouse I’d hoped every one of my kids eventually found. A day didn’t go by that I didn’t thank God for bringing that man into my little girl’s life.
April’s coffee came, and after she’d mixed in some sugar and taken a cautious sip, she met my gaze across the table. “So, how are you doing?” Her eyebrows pinched together. “After everything with Mom?”
I wrapped my hands around my own coffee cup just for something to hold onto. “I’m doing okay, actually. On the upswing, I think.”
She tilted her head. “But…?”
“But…” I hesitated. Well, this was why I’d asked her to meet me. Might as well cut to the chase and put it out there. “Listen, um…” I let go of the cup and folded and refolded my hands beside it. “I know the divorce hasn’t been easy for any of us. And I don’t want to add to that. But…” My mouth had gone dry and I was struggling to hold her gaze, so I broke eye contact and picked up my coffee. It was cold and nearly made me gag, but it was something to do besides try to stammer my way through this.
“Dad?” She tilted her head. “What’s going on?”
“Well, let’s put it this way.” I set the cup down. “I’m seeing someone.”
She sat straighter. “Already?”
I winced. “I know, it’s probably too soon, but—”
“No, I think it’s great.” She shrugged. “Mom’s been putting herself out there too, so…”
“Has she?”
April flinched. “Oh. Shit. I…probably wasn’t supposed to say anything. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m kind of glad to hear it, actually.” I didn’t need to tell her I’d already seen signs of another life around the family home. “How is your mother doing?”
“You haven’t talked to her?”
“I have, but it’s…” Exhaling hard, I thumbed my coffee cup. “It’s hard to talk about things like that. And I don’t want you going behind her back. Nothing like that. I just… Is she doing okay?”
April nodded. “I think she is.”
“Good. That’s good to hear.” Why did it hurt to be reminded I’d been replaced? Fucking hypocrite. I took another sip of ice-cold coffee. “Well. So, like I said, I’m seeing someone.” I took a deep breath and steeled myself. “I, um…”
“What?” She smiled cautiously. “You have a boyfriend or something?”
My stomach fell into my feet, and my breath hitched. “Um…”
The smile vanished. Her eyes widened. “Dad, I was joking.”
“Right. But…”
Her eyebrows climbed even higher. “You do, don’t you?”
I coughed into my fist. “Yeah. I…I do.”
My daughter blinked. “You’re serious.”
I nodded, my stomach threatening to turn inside out as I waited for the shock to wear off.
“Is this…” She chewed her lip. “So, I mean, are you gay? Or…”
I studied her. “Or what?”
“Or is this some kind of rebound, midlife-crisis thing?”
“Midlife—” I laughed, shaking my head. “No, no, it’s nothing like that. I…” I sobered and stared into my coffee cup, because I couldn’t hold her gaze anymore. “To tell you the truth, I’ve known for a long time that I had some interest in men. So after Mom and I split…” I forced myself to meet her eyes. “I guess I wanted to see if I really was into men, or if it was just curiosity.”
“Oh.” She thumbed the side of her coffee cup. “Wow. That definitely wasn’t what I was expecting.”
“Are you mad?” Jesus. Way to sound like an idiot kid instead of a parent talking to his kid.
“Mad?” April stared at me. “What? Why would I be? You’re a single man now.” She shrugged. “I’m just happy you’re moving on instead of dwelling on the divorce.”
I exhaled. I was doing plenty of dwelling on the divorce, but she didn’t need to know that. “We’ve just thrown a lot at you kids recently. I didn’t want to pile onto that, you know?”
“This isn’t really piling anything on anything,” she said. “You being gay…” She paused. “Gay? Or bi?”
I waved a hand. “At this point, I’m not even sure. Let’s go with bi.”
“Okay, so you being bi, it’s not exactly something for us to deal with. It’s part of who you are, not like you committed a crime or something.”
“So it doesn’t bother you?”
“Of course not.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. I really shouldn’t have. And surprise might not have been the word to describe it. More like profound, all-the-way-to-the-bone relief. Confirmation that who and what I was didn’t change things between us. The bond I had with April was hard-won, and few things scared me like the thought of losing that.
She absently tapped her fingers beside her coffee cup. “Can I be completely honest about something?”
I searched her eyes. “Please do.”
“The divorce wasn’t as much of a shock as you might think.”
Good thing I wasn’t taking a drink just then, or we both would’ve been wearing it. “What?” I sputtered. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m surprised you and Mom made it as long as you did.”
“You are?”
“Yeah.” She folded her arms on the table, the motion tense as if she didn’t know whether she was trying to look casual or defensive. “It’s hard to explain, but you guys always seemed like you were just kind of…there. Like you weren’t really into each other. I mean, when was the last time you and Mom went and did something when it wasn’t an anniversary or something?”
As I mentally ran through the last few years, I couldn’t argue with her. If we weren’t doing something with the kids, we were celebrating an anniversary, a birthday, Valentine’s Day…
There was never any “just because,” at least not in recent memory. And if I was honest with myself, I couldn’t remember the last time there was. Or if there ever was.
I exhaled. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know. I’ll admit it caught me by surprise, but, well, you know what they say—hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
Grimacing, my daughter nodded. “Tell me about it.”
We exchanged uneasy glances. I didn’t want to pick apart my defunct marriage with one of my kids, but I wasn’t sure where to take the conversation now.
She sipped her coffee. “So, do I get to meet this guy?”
I blinked. “You want to meet him?”
“Well, yeah.” She smiled. “He’s dating my dad. Don’t I get to, you know, approve him?”
I laughed, more relief rushing through me. “Let’s not rush these things. I don’t know if it’s serious or anything. I mean, the divorce isn’t even final yet. And he’s, uh, quite a bit younger than me.”
“Younger? How much younger?”
“Young enough that his son is the same age as Kayla.”
“Really?” She smirked. “Well, I assume he didn’t start quite as young as I did, right?”
“Not quite, no. For the record, he’s thirty-seven.”
“That’s not that young.” She waved a hand. “And even if you’re on the rebound and you just met, I am kind of curious about this guy.”
“We’ll see. I’m trying not to pin too much hope on this. I haven’t been single in years. He’s the first man I’ve ever dated. Anything could happen. Or not happen.”
“Still, you never know. Even if it’s a rebound thing, sometimes those work out.” She tapped her wedding ring. “If the right guy comes along, he comes along. Don’t pass him by just because you’re still on the rebound.”
I released a breath. “Well, we’ll see how it goes. We’re still getting to know each other and all, so…”
April smiled, wagging a finger at me. “Is this where I get to lecture you about taking it slow, and how some guys have ulterior motives and—”
I burst out laughing, and so did she. “Very funny.”
“Hey, I learned from the best.” Her humor faded a bit, and she rested her chin in her hand. “So, are you going to tell Mark and Kurt?”
That sobered me right up. “I’m…not sure yet. I had to psych myself up to tell you.”
“Really?” She arched an eyebrow. “Did you really think I’d be upset?”
“I don’t know what I thought. It’s been a weird thing to get my head around, and I guess I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to find out one of my parents was gay. Bi. Whatever.”
“That must’ve been tough for you. Being married one day, and rethinking everything the next.”
“You have no idea,” I said, barely whispering. “So, the boys…I don’t know. Not yet.”
“You should,” she prodded. “I think the more open you can be with them, just like with me, the better.”
“You’re probably right. But give me a little time.”
“Okay.” She smiled, and then glanced toward the front of the coffee shop. “Should we order some food? I’m starving.”
Now that she mentioned it, my appetite had come back, and suddenly I was aware of how little I’d eaten since last night when I’d asked her to meet me in the first place.
“Food sounds good.” I pulled out my wallet and stood. “Let me know what you’re having—it’s on me.”
“Are you sure?”
“I invited you, and you let me get this off my chest. Besides, I’m your dad. I’m buying. Don’t argue.”
She laughed, and didn’t argue. After she’d told me what she wanted, I went up to the counter to order for both of us. And as I stood there, I rolled some of the residual tension out of my shoulders.
So this had gone much better than I’d expected. My daughter knew I wasn’t straight, and she knew I was seeing someone, and she was okay with that. Completely okay with it. She even wanted to meet Sailo.
I smiled to myself. Maybe I wasn’t ready for April and Sailo to meet, but just knowing that option was on the table gave me a little taste of the peace that had eluded me since Becky and I had split. Life was going on. I was moving on.
And for the first time in a long time, I really believed that whatever the future held, I was going to be okay.