Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
L iam
I stare blindly across the crowded café, willing Callie to walk through the doors, somehow knowing she won’t.
“I wouldn’t sweat it, Dad,” my son Cam says, sensing where my thoughts are. “Callie’s been a real pain in the butt for Mom lately, too, so it’s not just you.”
I nod, drop my gaze to the table, and fiddle with the napkin-wrapped silverware in front of me. “Yeah, but she lives with Mom, so…” I die off, not sure what else to add. It’s bad enough that Callie stopped coming to stay with me on weekends when she turned nineteen a few months ago. Now, she’s not even showing up for Wednesday dinners at the diner.
Of course, my divorced friends say I’m lucky she ever came at all, seeing that she was seventeen when her mom and I divorced.
“I told her she could bring Link,” I say.
“Seriously?” Cam asks. “Man, you really do want to see her, don’t you?”
I shake my head. “You’ll understand one day. When you have kids, you just…you want to spend time with them. You can’t imagine your life without them.”
I set my eyes on the loose, rowdy curls on his head. Since Cam grew his hair out, I’m reminded of his toddler years every time I look at him. “C’mon, Dad, c’mon,” he’d say, leading me to his latest discovery—the big grasshopper he saw in the yard, the cool sticker he put on Pug-Pug’s head while the smelly dog slept, or the way he could glide from one end of the slip and slide to the other beneath the sprinkler’s spray.
Cam wanted to stay with me after the divorce, and Gabrielle didn’t argue. I hated that it split up the kids, of course, but I could never have argued. I did, however, tell him he could stay at his mom’s as often as he wanted. Eventually, he started doing the half-and-half thing—one week at my place, the other at his mom’s. He said it was to spend more time with Callie since Mom was rarely home, but I hadn’t taken it personally. I had, however, missed him terribly when he was gone. I still do.
The waitress comes and asks if we’d like our regular. We both say yes, and the waitress snatches the neglected menus off the table. “Be right back with your drinks.” The monotone reply has me wondering if our routine is getting stale.
I lean back in the booth seat and stretch my arms to either side. “You still like this place?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah, Dad, it’s good.”
“Cuz we could go someplace else if you wanted.”
“Naw, it’s cool. I like it here. It’s got good vibes.”
I sigh and nod in agreement. “Yeah, it sure does.”
I’ve been bringing the kids here since they were little. Saturday mornings in spring and fall, we’d go fishing, then come straight to the diner for a big old brunch. Sometimes, Gabrielle would come. Well, that’s a stretch; one or two times Gabrielle came. Mostly, she just stayed home and got a head start on the house chores. Forget about tidiness; the place could barely look lived in. If someone happened into the kitchen or entry room, they’d think they stepped into an unoccupied Airbnb, not a lived in home.
I shiver, glad to be out. Glad to be free. I wasn’t the one to initiate the divorce, but I was the one determined to follow through once Gabrielle put it on the table. I didn’t deserve to be treated the way she treated me, and it wasn’t good for the kids to see that either.
Cam and I catch up on things like school, soccer, and the latest video game craze. Yet just before dinner is through, Cam drags his backpack onto his lap, unzips the front pouch, and pulls out a book.
My eyes go wide. "Are you kidding me?"
"Don't get pissed, Dad,” Cam says. “Parker brought it to practice yesterday and said Uncle Braxton and Uncle Beau thought it would be good for you."
I groan, irritated that my meddling brothers have now reached a new low. "Nice. They get my only son to do their bidding?"
Cam rolls his eyes. "They got it for you, Dad, it’s a gift. You should at least take it even if you don’t read it. It’s not a big deal.”
I roll my eyes. "Yeah, but it is a big deal to them. They’ll never let it drop. I'll be hearing about this until I'm married or dead.”
“Then why don’t you just read it? It looks good to me from what I read.”
Traitor. "Let me see this dumb thing…" I grumble as I reach across the table. I smear the annoying book over a goopy pool of syrup and flip open the front page to read the flap. Only I'm not actually reading it. I’m skimming over the irritating words with their self-righteous judgment and know-it-all tone.
"Why are you being so stubborn?" Cam asks, a combative expression on his face.
I shift in my seat because Cam’s not what I would call confrontational. Callie, yes. Gabrielle calls her a piranha, which I don’t think is accurate or fair, but Cam, he’s like a Golden Lab. Gently, playful, loyal.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
“I mean, I think it's time that you practice what you preach so much, Dad. You tell me to try new things all the time. You tell me to get out of my shell, and you urge me to look back on the stupid arguments I have with Callie to see what I can do better.
“So, I'm just trying to figure out why, when the people closest to you get you a gift, something that could make your life better, you refuse to take it. That’s weird, and it makes me think that you need it even more than I thought." He nods to the book in my hand.
I lift it up. "You think I need this? You think this is going to magically solve all my problems, Cam? Is that what you think? I know you're still a kid and everything, but that's pretty idealistic thinking, man."
Cam scoots off the bench and shoots to his feet, which reminds me that we drove separately. Is he leaving before we even get the check?
"You know what? Ever since the divorce, you're not how you used to be. You can't make being the victim of a crap marriage your entire personality.”
He zips the backpack closed and tugs it over one shoulder before glaring back at me. “You don’t think anything will solve your problem. I know you’re an adult and everything, but that’s pretty pathetic thinking, man.”
With that, Cam makes his way out of the diner.